yogscast
Latest
Yogventures dev breaks down costs of a Kickstarter failure
Developer Winterkewl Games has issued a financial breakdown of its failed Yogventures project, offering insight into how nearly $600,000 in backer pledges was spent without a finished product to show for it. After wrapping up its Kickstarter project in 2012, Winterkewl weathered a series of setbacks and costly mistakes before calling it quits on the project earlier this month. In one notable gaffe, the project's concept artist departed after two weeks of work, pocketing Winterkewl's lump-sum payment of $35,000 before taking on a job at LucasArts. While the artist's LucasArts contract prevented them from working on Yogventures and other outside projects, Winterkewl's own contract did not ensure artist exclusivity, nor did it provide a way to recoup its money for failure to render expected services. Winterkewl additionally claims that it gave the Yogscast team $150,000 to create physical Kickstarter rewards and to help hire an additional programmer who never surfaced. "Since the money was all spent either directly on development of the game or paid to the Yogscast to handle physical rewards and 'licensing fees' I'm afraid Winterkewl Games has a negative balance at this point," Winterkewl's lead developer Kris Vale stated in his final project update. "We don't have any of the money left and as such can't really offer refunds." Yogscast members announced last week that project backers will receive Steam keys for Nerd Kingdom's in-progress RPG TUG in lieu of refunds. [Image: Winterkewl Games]
Nerd Kingdom on Yogventures!'s implosion and the future of TUG
Yesterday, Massively reported on the impending bankruptcy filing and cancellation of Kickstarted Winterkewl/Yogscast game Yogventures! and the alleged transfer of its assets over to TUG, a sandbox game by Nerd Kingdom that we've written about since its reveal last year. Journalists and gamers have suggested that in spite its claims to the contrary, Yogscast itself might be liable for refunds, as would any beneficiary of assets entangled in a future bankruptcy filing. We spoke to TUG's Peter "Ino" Salinas to shed light on the situation and its implications for TUG. Massively: Yogscast has distanced itself from Winterkewl, the studio making Yogventures!, but statements made by Winterkewl seem to suggest that Yogscast is simply transferring its support for Winterkewl's game to your pre-existing game, TUG, causing Yogventures to go bankrupt and disavowing any obligation to underwrite the spent half million in Kickstarter funds. Is that your understanding of the situation? Can you clarify it for our readers? Nerd Kingdom's Peter Salinas: There are a lot of details to the discussions that Yogs and Winterkewl had before we started to develop our friendship with the Yogscast. We were also honestly wary of the situation ourselves at first, having been aware of Yogventures! around the time we did our own Kickstarter campaign. The reality of the situation was this: A young and ambitious developer overscoped a project... this would not be the first time that happened; it's just a total bummer that it had to happen with a massive community involved. And during that time, the Yogscast group, knowing little enough about development, agreed to let them use their likeness in their own project. Yogs knew that Yogscast itself was not equipped to manage the project, so they let Winterkewl use their brand and a community to build on. Sadly in that process, all the milestones that were set by Winterkewl, which would have allowed the Yogscast to promote the project, never were hit. How can you promote or make an experience with nothing to share? Even we had our own time to put in before we were able to demonstrate anything reasonable.
Yogscast's TUG partnership comes alongside a cancelled game
If you're a fan of Yogscast and TUG, you're probably happy to learn that Yogscast is going to be working closely with Nerd Kingdom to promote the game. Of course, you might not be such a fan if you were originally a backer of Yogventures!, the Yogscast-inspired game that very recently announced it was cancelled despite reaching double its Kickstarter goal in 2012. All of the Yogventures! assets and code are being transferred over as well, allowing TUG to reap the benefits of what had been done on the cancelled game. According to the Yogscast crew, the partnership with TUG and the distribution of serial codes are meant as an effort to make things right, although the official communication makes it clear that they are not on the hook for the game's cancellation (which might be legally debatable). Many of the Yogventures! backers are still very unhappy with the situation, though, as TUG is not the game they backed in the first place. Time will tell how this shakes out in the long run, as very few Kickstarter backers are likely to be fully mollified by receiving a copy of a game they never wanted.
Yogscast's Kickstarter-funded Yogventures canceled
Winterkewl Games has halted development of its crowdfunded open-world sandbox game Yogventures, announcing that it will "probably need to go out of business and possibly file for bankruptcy" after failing to deliver a product to backers. Announced in 2012, Yogventures featured characters from Yogscast, a YouTube channel that rose to prominence with a series of popular Minecraft-themed videos. Though the project earned more than $560,000 in backer pledges, developer updates ceased in August of last year, leading many supporters to question development progress and seek refunds. Speaking to Eurogamer, Yogscast revealed that it will send Steam codes for Nerd Kingdom's in-progress RPG TUG to Yogventures backers as compensation. "[W]e have organized for Nerd Kingdom to have the source code, assets and designs of Yogventures to ensure we're making best use of Winterkewl's work," Yogscast's statement reads. "For the Yogventures Kickstarter backers the physical rewards should already have been received and we're happy for people to contact us at yogventures@yogscast.com if any are missing so we can look into it for them." "Although we're under no obligation to do anything, instead we're going to do our best to make this right, and make you really glad you backed the project!" Yogscast co-founder Lewis Brindley said in an e-mail to Yogsventure backers.
New Awesomenauts character voiced by Simon from The Yogscast
Ronimo Games recently announced a new character for Awesomenauts, Skolldir the "terribly overweight space viking." Skolldir is voiced by Simon from The Yogscast gaming channel. Check out the announcement trailer and gallery for this large, melee-heavy character after the break.
The Daily Quest: Long live the Queen
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Be warned, if you don't like loud noises or are currently somewhere that loud noise is unacceptable, the first 4 minutes and 55 seconds of the latest Yogscast (above) is not for you. However, the rest? Gold. The launch of the brand new Magecraft.org has been making waves around the blogs, so all of you Mages out there should give their forums a look! NoStockUI takes a look at eight addons aimed at professions. Episode 47 of the Twisted Nether Blogcast is up for download, this time around it features the author behind Honor's Code! And Two Rogues has a guide to gearing up for PvP as a freshly 80 Rogue. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
WoW Moviewatch: How To: Flame Leviathan
How To: Flame Leviathan showed up in today's WoW Moviewatch via a roundabout method. The video has been posted on The Daily Quest, but it was just also featured over at Swiftmend. With that level of exposure, we wanted to make sure to give the video its due right on Moviewatch. It's a video from those awesome Yogscast guys, and it shows you how to fight Flame Leviathan. (Kind of.)About a minute and a half into the movie is where you'll find the funny, though. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why, but your intrepid WoW.com reporters found Xephos and Honeydew's work in this video hilarious. There's just something unmistakeably hilarious a cruising-around rap song being played while dancing on top of Flame Leviathan.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch
The Daily Quest: Ghost ridin'
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. The YOGSCast has done it again. Another flawless Ulduar strategy. You can either watch it embedded above, or over on their YouTube page. You might want to watch it in HD, it's worth it. Big Bear Butt talks about his guild and how they approach casual raiding. You could learn a thing or two from him, perhaps! We're a day late on linking this one, but Frost is the New Black was right there Sunday morning to honor the Mothers of Azeroth. Slice and Dice answers some of their most frequently asked Rogue questions! Click here to submit a link to TDQ
The Daily Quest: Go cheetah, get banana
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.The blogs are still aflame with Ulduar excitement, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I'll be heading back in there myself tonight, and these guys probably will be, too! The Yogscast has released their latest video, a nearly flawless strategy for Freya, which you can watch above. This Yogscast is second only to their How To: M'uru. Spicytuna takes a look at Razorscale from a Frost Mage's point of view. Honor's Code knocked down Ignis and the Iron Council, now they're looking forward to what's next! Less QQ, More PewPew continues their Ulduar video series, this time with Kologarn. Startin' a Ruckus is trying out a brand new Holy build in Ulduar and has some thoughts on the matter. Fel Fire has cleared through Mimiron on Ulduar10, but Ulduar25 hasn't been quite as smooth. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
