Yogscast Explain Yogventure Cancellation

Yogscast has finally come forward to explain why their Kickstarter game Yogventures failed, and where the pledged money went, in an email sent to the backers.

It appears that $150,000 from the Kickstarter money was spent on everything but the game itself, from marketing to rewards for those that donated money.

However, the email seems to place most of the blame on their 3rd party developer, Winterkewl.

After the breakdown of Yogventures, Yogscast vowed to make it up to those that sunk money into the failed project, and have even secured access to other games to make up for the loss, but in the email they explain that they intend to do more.

Hi there,

I hope you have all received TUG keys - if there are problems redeeming these keys, please reply to this e-mail or contact [email protected]. If your e-mail address has changed, please let us know as we can update our records and ensure future rewards and games are delivered to you as smoothly as possible.

I wanted to address some of the misinformation in the media and elsewhere about how and why Winterkewl Games were unable to complete the game. The truth is that although Winterkewl worked really hard to deliver Yogventures, technical and personal issues meant they weren’t able to create the game we’d all envisioned at the start of the project.

We set up a contract with Winterkewl early on to allocate funds between the two parties. Winterkewl would deliver the game and Yogscast would receive a portion of the Kickstarter money. That $150,000 was spent directly fulfilling physical rewards for Kickstarter backers, packing and shipping the rewards, covering marketing expenses - including the booth at E3 2012 - and supporting the project over close to three years. In addition we have spent (and will continue to spend), considerably more than any money we received on rewards for the people that backed this project.

To address a specific point that has been raised about hiring a programmer: we did discuss this with Winterkewl in an effort to help them out, although wasn’t part of the agreement and would have been paid for directly by Yogscast. Multiple professional programmers were approached to work on Yogventures, however they all declined the position. Furthermore, the hiring of at least one programmer we courted was vetoed by Winterkewl. There were no further funds requested from Winterkewl.

As with most things to do with Yogventures, we bowed to Winterkewl’s expertise. Our focus was on making sure the final game would live up to expectations, but since Winterkewl were unable to complete the original game, our focus is now on delivering positive outcomes for you guys.

The first part of that promise was a copy of TUG, but there will be more games and rewards coming soon. We are really happy and grateful to Nerd Kingdom who are committed to providing a fantastic gameplay experience and working closely with us to deliver as many of the digital rewards as possible. The rest of the rewards will be communicated directly to you - not via the media - as we are able to announce them.

All the best,

Lewis

 

Yogventures was meant to be an adventure game that allowed to player to create their own worlds and adventures for everyone to play. It was cancelled in July 2014. Yogventures was one of the first games Greenlit on Steam.

The email has also been posted on the Yogscast subreddit here.