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Neal Stephenson's sword-fighting game Clang officially shelved
Historical sword-fighting game Clang has officially been axed, developer Subutai Corporation announced yesterday. The game earned $526,125 on Kickstarter in July 2012 and according to creator and sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson, the developer did eventually deliver on a prototype of the game as promised. "The prototype was technically innovative, but it wasn't very fun to play," Stephenson wrote in an update on Clang's Kickstarter page, admitting he "probably focused too much on historical accuracy and not enough on making it sufficiently fun to attract additional investment." Development paused last year to attract additional investors, which Stephenson said was part of the initial plan for the game. While Clang was slated to be playable with a mouse and keyboard, the game was expected to support peripherals like Sixense's Razer Hydra motion controller and Kickstarter success STEM system.
Neal Stephenson's crowdfunded game finally canceled
After a year of development and another year on life support, Clang -- the sword-fighting game from science fiction writer Neal Stephenson and Subutai games -- is finally dead. Thing started off well enough after it topped its $500,000 crowdfunding goal on Kickstarter and an early beta was released to Steam. But a year later the Kickstarter cash ran out and Stephenson, reduced to working part-time on the project, said that the prototype "wasn't very fun to play." With no more cash to improve it, Clang has now been terminated, though Kickstarter investors can receive a refund on request. Stephenson accepted part of the blame in the final update post, adding that the story of the failure could fill a book. In fact, he did write a short book about it, which may eventually get published -- we imagine that would be far more interesting than the game itself. [Image credit: Subutai Corp.]
Ubisoft on Wii: A good place to put our money
The good folks at Infendo have posted an interview with Ubisoft president, Laurent Detoc, taken from the June 2006 issue of Fast Money. In it, Mr. Detoc justifies Ubisoft's decision to give Nintendo a Wii exclusive in the form of first-person shoot 'n slash, Red Steel. Detoc points out that this year, "we'll be the only publisher besides Nintendo that'll have an exclusive title--Red Steel, a first-person shooter game--released for the new Wii console when it debuts [in November]. People think this is crazy. Nobody is paying attention to Nintendo. Everyone has been obsessed with the Xbox 360 and Sony's [upcoming] PlayStation 3."He praises the system's unique controller and its ability to create new ways of playing games, and indicates that being first out of the gate will give them a major advantage. "It seemed like a good place to put our money. For my competition, it's too late to have a game out for the Wii by Christmas. They can't do it. But we did it. We will be there. Maybe Wii will fail, and I'll look like an idiot. But if it succeeds, then we will have a new brand on our hands that could be worth up to $100 million"We think that Mr. Detoc might be making a mistake by directly connecting the success of Red Steel to the success of the Wii. After all, the game's E3 showing, for lack of a better expression, just didn't cut mustard. Pass the Metroid Prime 3, please.[Note: According to Infendo, all instances of "Revolution" have been changed to "Wii". What a relief.]
