ReRoll, an open world survival RPG from ex-Ubisoft devs, had a lofty pitch: They were going to map the entire planet with drones to generate its world. Sound too good to be true? It was! The project has been cancelled.
“We had high hopes to secure the necessary funds to achieve our final goal,” the developers said to fans on reddit. “Unfortunately, the money raised with the campaign plus our personal investments were not enough to develop the game on our own. We invested everything in building up the necessary elements to pitch the project to potential partners.”
ReRoll didn’t raise money through Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or other notable services; instead, the developers took direct funding via their website. It’s not clear how much ReRoll managed to acquire from folks back in 2014.
In any case, it wasn’t enough.
The developer’s statement explains how they tried to secure funding in a variety of ways, claiming they were close on a number of deals, but nothing came together. The most recent rejection “was our last hope to secure the necessary funding to pursue the development and complete the game”.
Backers, who paid as much as $US300 ($402) for beta access, aren’t receiving refunds but will get access to their other game, a shooter called Bios.
Some fans are taking the news OK.
“This sucks it really does,” said Moist_Potato on reddit. “I’ve been waiting years for block 1 [an early version of the game]. I guess the dream is over :'( As for all you crying for a refund, know this, it will never happen. You pretty much donated to the games development, you should go back and read the sale item notes. I myself had bought the highest level pack costing nearly $300 way back when and I’m fine with that, because I was part of something that could have been.”
ReRoll is the latest in a never-ending series of lessons about crowdfunding: You’re making an investment, not a purchase. If a project seems too ambitious, make sure the people behind it have pulled off similar feats in the past. Is there a playable prototype? Have they done crowdfunding before? Otherwise, know your money is little more than a lottery ticket.
Comments
5 responses to “Game That Promised To Map The World With Drones Has Been Cancelled”
You’re not making an investment either and this is a misconception that people need to stop making. An investment implies that you are going to share in any profit, or that the thing you invest in today will appreciate so you can sell at a higher price later. Fig is the only platform I know of that allows you to make an actual investment and see a return, everything else is throwing money into someone’s coin cup and them saying “I promise I’ll pay you back when I make it big”.
Investment also means:
Technically, its a more like an donation in an JRPG.
You pay x gold to a beggar, and you have no idea what you’ll receive…(unless you had a walkthrough)
To be honest who actually expected this to work out? I mean if they had said “we plan to map 1/10th of the world using drones” I still would have expected it to fail miserably. Seriously the money needed would have been millions, tens of millions. Bit of a shifty cash grab imo.
How exactly does a accurate world map make a survival game more interesting considering most survival games place us in the middle of nowhere?? You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference or even care whether a particular rock was actually there in the middle of the himalayas…the novelty would wear off within 30 mins of gameplay and you’d just be left with a survival game.
Of course you could use one of the cities, but you’d have to make it post apocalyptic which makes the high res mapping a waste of time….just working of a street map would be sufficient.