TUG has been in the news lately, but perhaps not for the best of reasons, after the game was given to backers of a failed Kickstarter campaign, Yogventures (much more on that here).
Well, things are getting worse for TUG developer Nerd Kingdom, after they had to lay off half of their team and the planned January release of the game has been pushed back. A post on Kickstarter explains that the loss of recent funding from an investor has forced the studio to make some cutbacks:
A round of funding, that was to come in, to sustain us clear through the end of this year (January) was held back by an investor. The deal that would have gone through would have lost us all control and ownership and we are not huge fans of being owned by investors like this. Sadly, we need to cut off a few limbs to be able to ensure this does not happen.
With this, we are now on a path to growth to fully support a small team with no outside investor support. And this means we have to cut our team in half... its the hardest thing we have ever had to do, but it's what we all collectively have agreed is the best move for us, and you, our community. We certainly have had people come and go from this project for many reasons, but this core group is all family... and its heartbreaking.
With these changes, it also means that we will be a few months late on delivering all our promises by January, as we stated we would with the kickstarter goals. I apologize for that on behalf of the team and I am holding myself accountable for NOT having done more diligence on our financial partners to know this was coming. Its a funny situation, whether you do well, or REALLY well, can make the difference of supportive or tyrannical investors. Another important note, to others out there who do raise funds for games and tech... never take money from people who don't understand games and tech.
The studio then tried to reassure fans that the cutbacks didn't mean that the game was going to go the same way as the ill-fated Yogventures!
In closing, please DO note, that this is not us going down... quite the opposite. Its us making the sacrifice needed, now, so that we DON'T go the path of other kickstarters before us. We are doing what it takes to press on, self sustain and do what we have been telling you all since we first started on this together, well over a year ago. This is what we have to do in order to stay independent and free to do what we want to do.
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