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]
