Yogventures blows a cool half mil

[Sarudak]

You guys remember Yogventures right? That kickstarter game from yogcast that was gonna blow minecraft out of the water in every way! And they raised over 500k to do it from the good people of the world.

Now if you remember we were all strongly of the opinion that this was going to turn out great.

But it would appear that not everything went according to plan.

So $567,000 later there's no game. The studio that was working on the project went bankrupt and dissolved. And yogcast seems to be (somewhat suspiciously) sitting on 150k for "physical rewards" (like t-shirts about a game that never came out?) and are trying to fob the refund crowd back off on the development company. Not sure what's going to come out of this legally (since they're obligated to deliver or refund) or what effect it will have on future kickstarter projects but I'm sure it'll be interesting to see.

[Gilberreke]

Wow. That's just... wow.

I expected this to happen, but still. Wow.

[FlowerChild]

Well...that's a surprise :P

[Sarudak]

Well...that's a surprise :P

I know! I'm just as shocked as you are!

[Gilberreke]

It's just infuriating when I imagine I could do with that kind of money really.

[FlowerChild]

It's just infuriating when I imagine I could do with that kind of money really.

Yeah, that's an awful lot of hookers and blow right there :)

[Gilberreke]

Yeah, that's an awful lot of hookers and blow right there :)

Or one really, really expensive hooker

[FlowerChild]

Or one really, really expensive hooker

I'm intrigued. Have a link?

[Gilberreke]

I'm intrigued. Have a link?

You could try one of these: http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-e ... e-escorts/

That would get rid of the funds quickly enough

[FlowerChild]

You could try one of these: http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-e ... e-escorts/

That would get rid of the funds quickly enough

Yikes. That really throws the hooker to blow ratio right off :)

[DerAlex]

Yeah... but no...

I didn't expect to ever defend the yogscast, here or on any other place, given that I'm about twice as old than their target audience (even thou I like sips... sue me :)), BUT, in bulletpoints, no particular order, and propably hard to understand and/or full of errors, since english is not my first language and I'm kinda drunk.... anyway:

-Winterkewl games blew this one. For example, they paid 35k to a programmer or designer or whatever. That guy got a better job after 2 weeks and just left, and winterkewl realized that their contracts do not forbit such behaviour (!!!). The company that wanted to write the game was really incompetently managed.

-Many of the backers, including 2 or 3 of the top tier 10k backers, never paid, so winterkewl got about 400k after Kickstarter took their share

-Winterkewl iniciated the whole thing, THEY approached the yogscast about the game

-Once the yogscast realized that they gave their "good" name (good in the sense that they could make a lot of money by developing a halfway decend game) to a project that is failing spectaculary, demanded the 150k that where left of the budged from winterkewl to 1) make sure at least the physical rewards are delivered as promised and propably 2) compensate themselve, since this was basically a licensed game where no money ever flow from the licensee to the licensor, and they are, as far as reputations go, the ones that will suffer from this fiasco, because who gives a fuck about winterkewl

-according to reddit and official updates on the kickstarter (I am and never was a backer, I expected yogventures to crash and burn just like every other sane person), every backer gets the promised physical reward AS WELL AS a key for the unreleased game TUG by Nerd Kingdom (which I did back on KS), given that almost 15k ppl DID back yogventures, I don't think it's unfair to assume that AT LEAST 100k of the yogscast money went to Nerd Kingdom for those keys, or at least a marketing deal of some sorts "valued" around that amount.

-one thing to remember, this started back when yogscast was basically a 2 man operation out of their bedroom, and not the multi-million monstosity it is today.

I really really DON'T think they (yogscast) profited in any way from this, and legally they are NOT obligated to deliver and refund, that would, if anything, be winterkewl, or whats left of it

If EA fucks up FIFA 2015, it's EAs fault, not FIFAs.

And thus DerAlex was eternally known as a yogscast-apologist...

[Gilberreke]

No one anywhere in this thread claimed it was The Yogscast fault that the game bombed. That's entirely on those Winterkewl guys. As far as I can tell, The Yogscast saw the train heading for the wall after only a few weeks and tried to salvage the situation by exerting control over the reserve funds.

We ARE saying however that The Yogscast were friggin' morons to attach their name to this train-wreck in the first place. Or just morons (/assholes -Flower) period. Whatever you fancy.

[FlowerChild]

Or just morons period.

Can I also insert "assholes" before that period? :)

[Sarudak]

Can I also insert "assholes" before that period? :)

Well... You are an admin... ;)

[FlowerChild]

Well... You are an admin... ;)

Lol...fair point :)

[Sarudak]

I'm not sure I entirely buy the it's not yogcast's fault line. After all FIFA would never have the pull to demand that EA give them any of their operating budget because EA is screwing things up. It seems clear to me that yogcast was far more involved than just lending their name to the game.

EDIT: Plus taking 150k (out of 500) from the studio and then claiming that the studio is responsible for delivery or refunds is shady at best. Add to that that apparently the studio isn't allowed to release/open source what they have due to some kind of contractual obligations to yogcast (that's what I got from the last update on the kickstarter page) solidifies my view even more.

[Gilberreke]

I'm not sure I entirely buy the it's not yogcast's fault line. After all FIFA would never have the pull to demand that EA give them any of their operating budget because EA is screwing things up. It seems clear to me that yogcast was far more involved than just lending their name to the game.

Does it really matter though? Bunch of incompetent egotists scammed bunch of egotist assholes into endorsing them scam a bunch of incompetent assholes out of their money. They really did dig a diggy diggy hole this time. We're all very happy to see it happen :D

[DerAlex]

No one anywhere in this thread claimed it was The Yogscast fault that the game bombed.

No, but it kinda sorta got assumed that they profited from it, or are obligated to compensate:

...yogcast seems to be (somewhat suspiciously) sitting on 150k for "physical rewards" (like t-shirts about a game that never came out?) and are trying to fob the refund crowd back off on the development company. Not sure what's going to come out of this legally (since they're obligated to deliver or refund)...

-------------------

We ARE saying however that The Yogscast were friggin' morons to attach their name to this train-wreck in the first place. Or just morons period. Whatever you fancy.

can't argue with that ;)


-------------------

FIFA would never have the pull to demand that EA give them any of their operating budget because EA is screwing things up.

no, but FIFA would be smart enough to demand to be paid, regardless of the quality of the game, and propably up front, licensing fees and whatnot.

It seems clear to me that yogcast was far more involved than just lending their name to the game.

I can't comment on that, I'm more or less just repeating stuff from reddit I read a week ago, anyway.

In closing, I want to remind everybody about Hanlon's Razor:

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon’s_Razor

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

[destineternel]

Yogscast has given Yogventures backers a Steam key for Nerd Kingdom's TUG, an open-world sandbox which it is now partnering with instead.

source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014- ... ct-failure

What a mess, another reason why I really avoid hype about early access stuff. Honestly early access and the hype/drama has really ruined gaming for me.

[Stormweaver]

Ah, I heard about this. My surprised reaction to hearing about it was almost enough to make me blink. almost.

While it may not directly be thier fault, it was still a very hyped project, with thier name on it, that they encouraged thier fans to fund. And the majority of funders will likely be happy with thier signed keychain or w/e the physical rewards will be, because thier fans make no sense. Oh well.

Maybe they'll make the money back with thier new marketning thingy; taking a cut of a game's first month(?) profit in exchange for vids seems a bit off, but a suppose a million eyes on a product is worth it.

[FlowerChild]

While it may not directly be thier fault, it was still a very hyped project,

Heck, one of them even said "in your face Notch!" or something similar towards the end of their promo video. They very obviously were portraying themselves as being directly involved in the game's design and development.

Given the dodgy money trail aspect to boot, I think it's very much appropriate for them to be called to account for what's happened. Ultimately it was their involvement and endorsement that caused all those poor saps to throw money at a game that was obviously destined to go nowhere.

Plus, it's vastly amusing that they be called on their bullshit, which is a bonus.

EDIT: Here, watch the kickstarter video and determine for yourselves how complicit they are:

[Stormweaver]

"We wasted all our money on jaffa cakes!"
"This looks cool! give us money to make it!"
"We won't spend it on jaffa cakes! *wink*"

Ugh, blatant foreshadowing.

[FlowerChild]

Ugh, blatant foreshadowing.

Lol, yup. It's even more comical in retrospect how they basically foretold exactly what was going to wind up happening, yet I suspect even they thought they were joking at the time :P

This whole thing is rather hysterical like how the article focuses on 35K that disappeared due to an artist splitting as if that's somehow to blame when it's not even 10% of their total funding, while the Yogs then split with 150K or close to a third of it, and that's supposed to be viewed as somehow normal.

Anyways, just glad to sit back and laugh. Definitely a popcorn kinda moment :)

[DerAlex]

The thing is, I can kinda understand the yogscast in demanding the remaining 150k at that point in time, with them watching the project crash and burn and that. That may or propably may not be entirely or even remotely legal, but thats not the point. From a purely human perspective, I get that. What I don't get is that winterkewl gave it to them...

[Dreambolt]

Wow, just wow. I remember is when that trailer first came out and found myself thoroughly unimpressed. It really sucks for the backer though, but every kickstarter comes with that risk. I got lucky with Kingdom Death kickstarter, but I could have been burnt like anyone else.