Another Crowdfunded Game Cancelled

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ReROLL, the crowdfunded open-world multiplayer survival game being developed by ex-Ubisoft Montreal employees, has been cancelled. Backers that shelled out between $20 and $275 are being given a copy of a $15 game in Steam’s Early Access program as compensation. No refunds are being offered at this time.

This is why we are officially announcing that the development of ReROLL is over. We want all of you to know that we gave our best shot and like you, we are extremely disappointed that ReROLL will not become a reality. It sucks. All of this sucks. We know many of you will be disappointed and even pissed. We understand that. We should have been better at communicating our progress. Not to give excuses, but we were caught in the process with potential partners that wished we stayed silent on our progress.
 
Ouch. Never heard of it. I feel there is a torn joint joke somewhere here. I would imagine this might help convince people to not invest in vaporware. After Battlefront fiasco, I won't even preorder something I KNOW is coming out.
 
This should be illegal. At least the ex-Ubisoft Montreal team has something productive to put on their resumes, bridging their lack of employment, for their new potential partners.
 
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You can't call this an "Investment" in a company. You are not buying stock, there is no collateral offered except a promise to deliver.
So with crowd funding you are simply GIFTING what ever amount you give for them to do whatever they want. IF they don't deliver or deliver a crap product you have no reason to complain. You have no guarantee of anything and you have to be OK with that. Hope they are OK with their copy of a buggy, incomplete game.
 
Suckers are born every minute. I feel zero compassion for someone giving money in advance for something you may or may not see. Are you an investor? Do you have a signed contract? No? Then might as well play lotto.
 
Basically, every one of these projects is a gamble by those who fund it. There are no guarantees that you'll ever see what you're paying for. If you don't know that going in, then you're a fool and not deserving of any sympathy.
 
People call me a douche for trying to motivate others to stop with this pre-order nonsense, as its the root of the current culture of problems we are facing with unfinished games and crappy launches... but the only thing worse than a pre-order is to crowd-fund a game.

Don't tell the Star Citizen guys though, or they will shit a brick.
 
Ya know, here's the thing: in their video they say their goal is to scan the entire planet a square kilometer at a time using small drones to make a game. There are 510 million square kilometers on the planet. I am not surprised this failed. How is someone supposed to scan all 510 million square kilometers in the budget of a game. It's almost as if someone really just wants to scan the planet with a drone as a hobby and then also tries to make games to make money.

Sorry bros who contributed to this. I am not surprised that this failed.
 
All of the risks of investing, none of the potential rewards. I can see why things like this are so popular!
 
Imagine if crowd sourcing existed 40 years ago, a couple of goofballs in their garage askjngnfor money so they can build a "personal computer" 20 gets you a picture of the computer, 50 gets you a picture with the computer 500 gets a thank you that pops up on the boot... for the first 10 produced. and no one would have ever made any money except maybe the people who get their cut off the crowd source project because with no investors to hold a legal obligation that they get their computer built they would have blown all their crowd sourced money buying weed and paying the rent and Apple never would have been.
 
Ducman69 said:
People call me a douche for trying to motivate others to stop with this pre-order nonsense, as its the root of the current culture of problems we are facing with unfinished games and crappy launches... but the only thing worse than a pre-order is to crowd-fund a game.

Don't tell the Star Citizen guys though, or they will shit a brick.
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I actually disagree... crowd funding isn't as bad as pre-orders. With crowd funding you should know you are basically donating to support a project you like. It should be an avenue for smaller, riskier projects that more traditional companies would not invest in.

Pre-orders on the other hand is trying to get money locked-in when the game is 50-60-70% done (in what ever shape the game is in).
 
Hehe you can take the employee out of Ubisoft, but you can't take the Ubisoft out of the employee. Always making promises they can't keep :p
 
ruffbytes said:
Ya know, here's the thing: in their video they say their goal is to scan the entire planet a square kilometer at a time using small drones to make a game. There are 510 million square kilometers on the planet. I am not surprised this failed. How is someone supposed to scan all 510 million square kilometers in the budget of a game. It's almost as if someone really just wants to scan the planet with a drone as a hobby and then also tries to make games to make money.

Sorry bros who contributed to this. I am not surprised that this failed.
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It's actually worse than that. Even if they only scanned the land areas, that's still 150 million square kilometers or so. Assuming they got the cost to scan each square kilometer down to $1(which wouldn't happen since it couldn't even cover the cost of someone traveling to most places just to do it), that's still $150,000,000 that wouldn't have even gone toward actual game development. They would have been better off marketing themselves as a "scan the Earth with drones" project since it would have made more sense(although still unrealistic).
 
Ducman69 said:
People call me a douche for trying to motivate others to stop with this pre-order nonsense, as its the root of the current culture of problems we are facing with unfinished games and crappy launches... but the only thing worse than a pre-order is to crowd-fund a game.

Don't tell the Star Citizen guys though, or they will shit a brick.
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I fail to see your reasoning. Primarily and most notably, game killing bugs on the gold master and day one patches have been around since before crowd funding. Once things went always hooked up to steam or the various console networks, that shit showed up and was here to stay.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
You can't call this an "Investment" in a company. You are not buying stock, there is no collateral offered except a promise to deliver.
So with crowd funding you are simply GIFTING what ever amount you give for them to do whatever they want. IF they don't deliver or deliver a crap product you have no reason to complain. You have no guarantee of anything and you have to be OK with that. Hope they are OK with their copy of a buggy, incomplete game.
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You hit the nail on the head. I've never understood why people contribute to these things. It's all of the risk of investing with none of the potential reward. Even when a good game comes out of it, it's still an absurd model. Imagine if someone had bankrolled Jobs and Wozniak back in the day and, instead of stock, all they got was an Apple computer.
 
dandirk said:
I actually disagree... crowd funding isn't as bad as pre-orders. With crowd funding you should know you are basically donating to support a project you like. It should be an avenue for smaller, riskier projects that more traditional companies would not invest in.

Pre-orders on the other hand is trying to get money locked-in when the game is 50-60-70% done (in what ever shape the game is in).
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Shouldn't there be potential for reward that's proportional to the risk? A fair model would be to give the investors a stake in the project, not just a copy of the product if it happens to pan out.
 
Merc1138 said:
It's actually worse than that. Even if they only scanned the land areas, that's still 150 million square kilometers or so. Assuming they got the cost to scan each square kilometer down to $1(which wouldn't happen since it couldn't even cover the cost of someone traveling to most places just to do it), that's still $150,000,000 that wouldn't have even gone toward actual game development. They would have been better off marketing themselves as a "scan the Earth with drones" project since it would have made more sense(although still unrealistic).
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Why couldn't they have just used the Google Maps data (Google Earth) for their landscape data?

It is already there. Google has an SDK to be able to use it for whatever you like.

And to top it off, Google updates there stuff every once in a while.

How would the drone scanning have improved on this at all?

Oh, and don't forget how much space all that landscape data would have taken up. With Google Earth, you can just leave it stored on Google's servers and just pull down a chunk when changing areas... maybe even cache a certain amount on the users' machines.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
You can't call this an "Investment" in a company. You are not buying stock, there is no collateral offered except a promise to deliver.
So with crowd funding you are simply GIFTING what ever amount you give for them to do whatever they want.
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If it was considered GIFTING, the receiver would be taxed, correct?
 
raz-0 said:
I fail to see your reasoning. Primarily and most notably, game killing bugs on the gold master and day one patches have been around since before crowd funding. Once things went always hooked up to steam or the various console networks, that shit showed up and was here to stay.
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Because with pre-orders and even WORSE crowd-funding, the consumer is no longer buying a game. They are buying a promise.

When you buy promises instead of actual games, that is how you end up with cash grab disappointments.
 
Crowd funding, like pre-ordering needs to be done with careful thought and logical reasoning. Not emotionally jumping at ideas that sound cool in concept. The moment someone says they're going to "scan the planet" RUN THE FUCK AWAY!. If something sounds too good to be true IT IS!
 
Etherton said:
Watchdogs, The Division & Aliens: Colonial Marines come to mind...
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A:CM is a classic example of people thinking emotionally and not rationally. The game had warning signs from the get go. Not the least of which was Randy Pitchford himself.
 
You know... using the word donation while expecting a end product is typically a sale, or a pre-order. A real donation doesn't expect anything in return.
Another word for telling people something, selling it and it not being what you originally described is fraud.
 
As ludicrous as "SCAN THE PLANT" is "open-world multiplayer survival game" should be the first sign that the game was never going to be finished. There must be 50 of these type of games on steam and none of them are complete and most are abandoned.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
You know... using the word donation while expecting a end product is typically a sale, or a pre-order. A real donation doesn't expect anything in return.
Another word for telling people something, selling it and it not being what you originally described is fraud.
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Amen, and that whole motto "giving is better than receiving" is a flat out LIE!

BJs for example, I recommend against the motto!
 
Call me crazy, but I do occasionally participate in crowd funding. I've had some wins and a few losses. I usually back Brian Fargo games - his company (inXile) has a good track record and I want to support their efforts. Not too mention, I usually get a quality game for $20-$25. Short list of games I remember supporting: Great Gianna Sisters (I owed them from pirating this on the C64 when I was a kid), Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Shards of the Avatar (something like that - this one was from Richard Garriot, I don't really care for it but have liked other games from the past).
If I lose out, I'm ok as I made a decision to support the developer. It's not for everyone. I should wait for the game to come out and buy it a few years later when the price drops and bugs are fixed, but you have to live on the edge sometimes.
 
Ducman69 said:
Because with pre-orders and even WORSE crowd-funding, the consumer is no longer buying a game. They are buying a promise.

When you buy promises instead of actual games, that is how you end up with cash grab disappointments.
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Crowd-funding is like a pre-order that they don't have to refund if the game is cancelled.
 
cyclone3d said:
Why couldn't they have just used the Google Maps data (Google Earth) for their landscape data?

It is already there. Google has an SDK to be able to use it for whatever you like.

And to top it off, Google updates there stuff every once in a while.

How would the drone scanning have improved on this at all?

Oh, and don't forget how much space all that landscape data would have taken up. With Google Earth, you can just leave it stored on Google's servers and just pull down a chunk when changing areas... maybe even cache a certain amount on the users' machines.
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Because that gives you landscape imagery that might be good enough for a flight sim, not necessarily an environment to play on the ground in(google has some 3d data, but it's pretty poor to be honest if you were to compare it to a game environment). I can only assume the drones would have been used to get 3d scans. Of course that doesn't mean you'll be able to enter structures and such without a lot of work, and then of course there's the resource issue(you'd never be able to download it all).

But yes, it's just one of many red flags in this project that any reasonable person would have immediately questioned.

In slightly related news, I was curious about star citizens funding status earlier and looked, saw they made another half million dollars the other day and figured they must have sold another concept art ship... sure enough they repainted a different ship concept drawing yellow and sold it for $35.
 
Kelby said:
If it was considered GIFTING, the receiver would be taxed, correct?
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They are taxed on income gained through Kickstarter. Just like any other income. They talked about it in the Broken Age developer videos.
 
I back things on Kickstarter every now and then, but I know what I am getting in to. I only back the project for the price of the game, and I only back projects helmed by proven development teams. So far, while every game has been delivered late, I have gotten everything that I have backed, and I have been pretty happy with what I have got. Shadowrun Returns, Wasteland 2, and Grim Dawn just to name a few.
 
This is unfortunate, but treating it as worse because of crowdfunding is unrealistic. Crowdfunding is somewhere between a pre-order and an investment - you have to accept the very minor chance that a title will fail after qualifying for funding, but in return you get a game that may never have been made otherwise, lower prices, and often some sort of in-game benefit. To date, crowdfunding has a good plan for dealing with projects that fail "out of the gate"; if it doesn't meet funding goals most of the time the backers will be refunded/not charged (and if it is otherwise, it will be listed). High profile failures are great for bloggers, but little else. In time, I expect that most crowdfunded game companies will start purchasing insurance meant to return at least some of their investment to backers should the company go under. It would actually be a really nice way to reward certain groups (ie early) backers - "Back before the end of our first campaign and you'll guarantee to have your pledge returned if the company folds etc".

Overall, there are far more crowdfunding successes than failures, even if we stay limited to the gaming world. Star Citizen and Shroud of the Avatar have been making progress and offer full-time alpha testing by now. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained have intermittent playable alphas etc.. These are of course, major MMO titles, but there are less ambitious scope titles that are still impresssive and successful. Broken Age was crowdfunded and offered a completed game. The developers of Mega(Rock)man and Castlevania Symphony of the Night both crowdfunded spiritual successors and they are making great progress. Hell, a favorite of mine "Consortium" has not just crowdfunded "Consortium: The Tower" successfully, but it was on Fig.co which meant you could actually invest as well (ie with a real money return on your investment)! Battle Chasers: Night War, Children of the Zodiark and tons of other crowdfunded titles are passing milestones through development successfully. There will always be some failures as in any industry, but overwhelmingly crowdfunding has meant taking chances on games that would never make it past the strict control of a draconian publisher.
 
Dunno how many heartbreaks it'll take for you guys to realize backing something on hope alone is a dumb dumb dumb idea
 
Xaeos said:
This is unfortunate, but treating it as worse because of crowdfunding is unrealistic. Crowdfunding is somewhere between a pre-order and an investment - you have to accept the very minor chance that a title will fail after qualifying for funding, but in return you get a game that may never have been made otherwise, lower prices, and often some sort of in-game benefit. To date, crowdfunding has a good plan for dealing with projects that fail "out of the gate"; if it doesn't meet funding goals most of the time the backers will be refunded/not charged (and if it is otherwise, it will be listed). High profile failures are great for bloggers, but little else. In time, I expect that most crowdfunded game companies will start purchasing insurance meant to return at least some of their investment to backers should the company go under. It would actually be a really nice way to reward certain groups (ie early) backers - "Back before the end of our first campaign and you'll guarantee to have your pledge returned if the company folds etc".

Overall, there are far more crowdfunding successes than failures, even if we stay limited to the gaming world. Star Citizen and Shroud of the Avatar have been making progress and offer full-time alpha testing by now. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained have intermittent playable alphas etc.. These are of course, major MMO titles, but there are less ambitious scope titles that are still impresssive and successful. Broken Age was crowdfunded and offered a completed game. The developers of Mega(Rock)man and Castlevania Symphony of the Night both crowdfunded spiritual successors and they are making great progress. Hell, a favorite of mine "Consortium" has not just crowdfunded "Consortium: The Tower" successfully, but it was on Fig.co which meant you could actually invest as well (ie with a real money return on your investment)! Battle Chasers: Night War, Children of the Zodiark and tons of other crowdfunded titles are passing milestones through development successfully. There will always be some failures as in any industry, but overwhelmingly crowdfunding has meant taking chances on games that would never make it past the strict control of a draconian publisher.
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First, crowdfunding is neither a pre-order or investment. In either a pre-order or investment scenario you are entitled to either receive the product or have a legal means of attempting to regain part of your investment(we're talking about a business here, not a commodity/stock/bond investment).

Also, you seriously claiming Star Citizen to be a success? It still isn't a game. They kept adding stretch goals to generate more hype, and when that started to get ridiculous even for them they went for selling concept art, a convention to generate hype(income), and so on. Star Citizen is the biggest crowd funding example so far that people are waiting on to implode. Assuming it does become successful eventually(and shoving a couple halfassed disjointed modules out the door is not a success), that will only happen once they have a game out the door. Hell, they even opted out of their own promised auditing after consistently failing to meet milestones.
 
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Merc1138 said:
Also, you seriously claim Star Citizen to be a success? It still isn't a game.
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Not to mention that it isn't necessary, its just such an easy "free money/ no risk" route to go. Star Citizen still would have been made as a venture capitalist funded enterprise, or picked up by a major publisher, if they could show investors that they could produce a good game in a reasonable amount of time, and are a reasonable risk to take. You're also far more accountable to such investors, and can't just screw off and delay and delay and delay while asking for more and more money and living the life without being accountable to anyone with real power to shut you down if you're abusing the trust or simply shouldn't be trusted at any point in development.

There are also such a huge variety of games released, that its quite tedious to get hyped and excited about a game that won't even be released for several years after they are paid.

It also bugs me that they take advantage of the "whaling" practice the Chinese made popular in mobile gaming, to where they look for these rare whales to farm that will plop down $1K+ just for a video game. Check the forums and its sad that what shouldn't cost more than $60 people have spent $6,000 on.

In fact, I recall reading an article not too long ago about how 200 imaginary space ships sold for a quarter of a million dollars.

Sad.
 
Ducman69 said:
Not to mention that it isn't necessary, its just such an easy "free money/ no risk" route to go. Star Citizen still would have been made as a venture capitalist funded enterprise, or picked up by a major publisher, if they could show investors that they could produce a good game in a reasonable amount of time, and are a reasonable risk to take. You're also far more accountable to such investors, and can't just screw off and delay and delay and delay while asking for more and more money and living the life without being accountable to anyone with real power to shut you down if you're abusing the trust or simply shouldn't be trusted at any point in development.

There are also such a huge variety of games released, that its quite tedious to get hyped and excited about a game that won't even be released for several years after they are paid.

It also bugs me that they take advantage of the "whaling" practice the Chinese made popular in mobile gaming, to where they look for these rare whales to farm that will plop down $1K+ just for a video game. Check the forums and its sad that what shouldn't cost more than $60 people have spent $6,000 on.

In fact, I recall reading an article not too long ago about how 200 imaginary space ships sold for a quarter of a million dollars.

Sad.
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The funny thing about SC is, I want a big AAA space game. The problem is that if SC bombs, it'll likely serve as nothing but an example to the industry to avoid the genre even if the genre had nothing to do with the failure.

Hell, even if the game does come out at this point, I don't want a freakin' pay to win game. The fans will claim that it's not p2w even though people have thrown thousands at it to get better ships before they're even modeled and textured for use in-game. It's not as if I have something against microtransactions by default either(there are lots of cosmetic options that could be sold which wouldn't affect balance), but this isn't even in the realm of microtransactions anymore.
 
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