Yogscast - a group of talented Youtubers out of Reading (at least originally) have been the focus of a lot of negative news lately. First the launched a programme in which they would promote indie titles via their Youtube channel (7 million subscribers strong) for a cut of the sales. But perhaps the biggest negative news came out of the cancellation of Yogventures! a voxel-based sandbox title based on popular Youtubers that was funded via Kickstarter in May 2012.
Two years on and out of money the developers Winterkewl Games LLC were bankrupt and Yogscast declared themselves not responsible for what had happened (and seeing as Winterkewl launched the Kickstarter, technically they're not). Looking at a break down of costs and anecdotes from Kris Vale (project leader) it is clear that the project was mismanaged and perhaps even more blatantly clear that it was misrepresented from the start. When a project like this is being presented by a company that clearly takes in millions in revenue you'd expect the development to be full-time. Apparently at the height of development it was six people working alongside their daytime jobs on this. Half a million dollars may not be a lot once physical rewards and fees have been paid, but paying an artist $35,000 for two weeks of work, is simply awful use of backer money.
So no wonder then that it raised a flag with Yogscast and apparently things went downhill from there. But instead of using their resources and following to right the ship and make sure the project got back on track - Yogscast were happy to let it ride out and at the end of the day they claimed no "responsibility" and they only "helped Winterkewl Games" try to realise a dream. Apparently that dream was to make a voxel-based sandbox games with Yogscast people in it.
What Yogventures! boils down to is nothing unusual. It was a cheap licensed game where development took a wrong turn. Normally the half-assed project would have made it out to cover some of the costs, but in this case thanks to it being a Kickstarter the large company that must be considered a joint partner can simply raise their hands and leave their most likely die-hard fans out of cash. The physical rewards have been catered to, and there will be some compensation in the shape of another game TUG that is to be sent out to backers. Now we're only left wondering how much the developers of TUG are out of pocket for the privilege of filling in for Yogventures! Or are we being too cynical?
Naturally, this fiasco also casts a shadow over Kickstarter. This is a high-profile failure that had the backing of what seemed like a stabile enough organisation, yet in the end the game never made it out.