The crowdfunding revolution has been incredible to watch. We’ve seen canceled television shows resurrected on the big screen and the small screen, the Oculus Rift, the first hugely successful smartwatch and dozens of high-profile video games, board games, card games and any other type of game you could imagine.
We’ve also seen the dangers of pledging money to an idea rather than to a finished product.
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There are thousands of projects that have succeeded, but it’s always important to remind ourselves of the risks that we take when we participate in crowdfunding. One recent Kickstarter highlighted by GameSpot is going to help us do exactly that.
On June 6th, 2013, a dinosaur-filled survival game called The Stomping Land was successfully funded on Kickstarter for more than 5 times its original goal of $20,000. Alex Fundora, creator of the game, was planning to release the completed game in May 2014.
Instead, Fundora published an unfinished version of The Stomping Land on Steam in May, wrote one final update on the project’s Kickstarter page, and has been silent ever since.
In January, The Stomping Land’s in-game model designer, Vlad Konstantino, took to the game’s forums to let the fans know that he hadn’t heard back from Fundora in over a month. Fundora apparently still owed him money for his work as well, so Konstantino threatened to leave and to take his work with him if Fundora didn’t respond soon.
It’s been about a month since that message and PC Gamer reports that Konstantino is now working on another project. In the meantime, Kickstarter users who pledged to the campaign have begun asking for their money back. All Kickstarter can offer is an apology.
There’s still been no word from Fundora.
