The Forking Path’s Kickstarter Project Has Met It’s Doom
July 28, 2013 by brennon
The Forking Path's The Doom That Came To Atlantic City Kickstarter that was successfully funded back in May has had to sadly terminate and end the project...
From the statement...
"From the beginning the intention was to launch a new board game company with the Kickstarted funds, with The Doom that Came to Atlantic City as only our first of hopefully many projects. Everyone involved agreed on this. Since then rifts have formed and every error compounded the growing frustration, causing only more issues. After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting software licenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return. We had to print at that point or never. Unfortunately that wasn't in the cards for a variety of reasons."
It seems like everything came to a head with this project and a number of issues just made it impossible to continue it. This does also raise some questions as to the kind of funds people are dealing with and the experience of the people putting these ideas forwards.
It's never nice to see someone fail, especially with a project like this that we'd all be interested in and there is a full post-mortem in the works apparently so I'll keep an eye out for that for you.
Did you pledge for this?
Alas, I think it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. For all the great ideas that appear on ks, it’s important to remember that a lot of the project creators have little or no business experience.
Unfortunately, this will also harm other smaller companies in their ks endeavours.
That’s not the case here. Erik not only has previous business experience, he has previous of stiffing investors of their money. It seems as if he took this money from the KS, which was way over what was needed, and lived off it for a year instead of making the game. All the while stringing the backers along with promises that it was just about to head off to the printers when in fact very little had actually been done.
Saw this via Frothers Unite on Facebook:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/kickstarter-creator-used-all-his-funds-then-cancelled-lovecraft-themed-game-project/47331.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kickstarter-creator-used-all-his-funds-then-cancelled-lovecraft-themed-game-project
Was wondering what the game was. Now I know.
Seems that funds were used to set up the business and move location
They were definitely used to move. No sign of any business.
TotalBisquit made a great video about Kickstarter, i strongly suggest you to watch it in order to get what kickstarter really is. http://youtu.be/9GhlLVSuX4g From my part i’m only gonna add to what is being said in that video that i always try to pledge on companies that already have some reputation and like their product or have a clear complete example of the final product and need the money to get it done into production. Also, the most important thing : Never pledge on a project that doesn’t have a complete prototype with the core mechanics in it, NEVER! That’s… Read more »
I backed this. Erik’s statement says he’ll refund us but I’m not filled with confidence.
That project had “copyright infringement” all over it…
The game-board, most of the pictures… No way the low amount they were asking was going to cover all the expenses, PLUS that.
It also didn’t appear to be that original (there are other existing and proably better, visually and otherwise, games about Mythos… no shortage of that around !).
I stayed well away.
I have to agree with you.
To me, just looking at that kickstarter had me instantly thinking “RIPOFF!” in every sense of the word.
I stick to “reputable” when I kickstart… Reasonably established companies, people who have already released stuff, who have more than just concept art, or who are already somewhat famous.
Its gets really interesting when you find out that this con-artist also setup a video production company that produced some crappy short movies as well.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1010868/doom-is-doomed/page/3
Somewhere in the thread you will find a description of the mechanics but is was supposed to be: the homes and hotels are pre-established on the board, the players go around the board gaining powers to destroy the homes & hotels, gain more powers to destroy other players and later be able gain the power to destroy the board.