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Yogventures gives Landmark keys as additional consolation gifts
Supporters of Yogventures have another consolation gift to go in take the edge off of the loss of their dream game: a key for Landmark. Massively readers might remember that Yogventures was a Kickstarter campaign that over-funded, was mismanaged, and then imploded, taking over almost $570,000 from 13,000 backers with it. Owner Yogcast then partnered itself with TUG, providing free TUG Steam keys for those backers and transferring all Yogventures assets to Nerd Kingdom. It looks as though Landmark has some sort of alliance with Yogcast, as the official site encourages gamers to play with the Yogcast crew. Further compensation for Yogventures backers may be forthcoming.
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.
