Jack Houston and the Necronauts is an adventure title from the same guy who, in his spare time, is working on that cool Han Solo adventure game. It had been up on Kickstarter, but after meeting its funding goal, it was time to get to work.
Until something happened. Something that should serve as a warning to anyone hanging their hopes on the service.
The way the service works is that when somebody pledges money, it doesn’t actually come out of their accounts. That doesn’t happen until the developer pulls the plug and goes to “cash in”. While in the majority of cases the money comes through, there are plenty of reasons for it not to come through, ranging from dummy pledges to bouncing cheques.
When Stacy Davidson, Jack Houston’s developer, went to “cash in” recently, he found that one of the all-important $US10,000 pledges hadn’t come through. Which dropped him back under his target goal. Whoops.
He’s now setting up private payments to cover the gap, but if the drama reminds us of one thing, it’s this: Kickstarter might sound great because it removes the need for publishers, and all the interference they can exert on a game.
But the flip side of a publisher is that publishing video games is what they do.
When Kickstarter Fails: Jack Houston Has A Problem [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
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