Studio Camelia is shutting down (no refund for kickstarter backers)

TintoConCasera said:
Lol what. Isn't that a scam? How did they get away with it?
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From the kickstarter post.


As you know, backing a Kickstarter project comes with risks: the very idea of the platform is to give creators a boost so they can bring their projects to life. It does not guarantee the final commercialization of the project, and therefore there is always a risk it won't come to fruition.

Neither the studio nor Kickstarter is able to refund your contribution to the project, and we are truly sorry for that.
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LMAO at those names, I just can't...

-"Pygolambida" (Firefly in Greek)
-"Skoros" (Moth in Greek)
-"Melissa" (Bee in...you guessed it, Greek)

...and then you have "Kriket" which obviously has to do fuck and all with Greek - since, apparently, their Greek vocab must have self-destructed by that point out of sheer cringe.
 
I don't think most Kickstarters have ever refunded people, so that's not unexpected.

It's a shame they weren't more open about the risks of even a successful campaign though.
 
The cover art was beautiful at least. It promises exploration and adventure on the sparkling high seas and in tropical locations. It basically looks like a One Piece game in the best way. Look at the settlements, you can see smoke coming from every isle. You can even see the Grand Line running thru it and a boundless endless ocean beyond. Beautiful clear blue skies. Somebody loved this artwork.
Disappointed Gordon Ramsay GIF by BBC
Take Out The Trash GIF by GIPHY News
 
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Never do KS unless you got some money to burn. Ya maybe it's only $20 or $50 for a KS board game or video game, but why risk it.

It's really no different than going to a flea market, giving a vendor $50 and asking him for something he doesnt have yet. And if he asks you if he can keep the $50 even if he cant get your product, you say Ya.

Sounds like a retarded business deal to me.
 
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That's the risk you take when supporting a Kickstarter.
It's never a bad time to remind everyone that on kickstarter you aren't investing in a product or even pre ordering one
You are basically giving a group of strangers free money on a pinky promise that they'll deliver some product in the future


Zacfoldor said:
The cover art was beautiful at least. It promises exploration and adventure on the sparkling high seas and in tropical locations. It basically looks like a One Piece game, in the best way. Look at the settlements, you can see smoke coming from every isle. You can even see the Grand Line running thru it and a boundless endless ocean beyond. Beautiful clear blue skies. Somebody loved this artwork.
Disappointed Gordon Ramsay GIF by BBC
Take Out The Trash GIF by GIPHY News
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The in game art looked more like a mobile game..
But yeah the concept art was quite nice.
 
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I mean, I get it, right? Theranos didn't give any money back to it's investors, even though it's product(s) never actually worked or were finished. But you should still have something to show for a full year's work. Show us something for crying out loud. Like you had all the character designs and backgrounds finished, you had a composer working on it, you had a vertical slice, you had a world map. If the game is defunct, at least drop a unfinished look at some extended footage on YouTube so we can see what you did for the last 13 months. For crying out loud.

I just looked at their Steam store page. Literally no updates since May 2024 when they gleefully announced they were "Fully funded!!". Complete radio silence for over a year, and now out of the blue it's just canceled? Did anyone ever work on it after the $280,000 in seeder funds? You should feel morally obligated to provide some kind of explanation, for transparency's sake. Who were the leaders at that studio? I'd like to know what happened.

I get that game cancellations happen, but there's no reason they can't show us what they did to account for the last 13 months of supposed development.
 
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I don't get it.
Usually, all kickstarters come with "tiers" that promise rewards.
If you backed a tier which made mention of the game being included on that tier, then this is a contract between you and the author which, if broken, should mean refunding.

TOS & website policies cannot do what they want by just saying "hey you give money for goodwill, all promises is goodwill".
 
I talked to these guys maybe a year ago. They seemed chill enough and I don't think this was a scam - just poor management and planning. Indie devs are often really, really bad at handling the business side of making games.
 
kinda insane when you realize they raised close to a third of a million dollars, I backed at the early bird tier so I'm 'only' out $20

not surprised this happened given they've been pretty quiet on the update front, just that it happened this soon
 
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Rivdoric said:
TOS & website policies cannot do what they want by just saying "hey you give money for goodwill, all promises is goodwill".
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yet that is exactly what kickstarter does.

The tiers also say stuff like "ships oct 2017" yet my SS remake didn't deliver til 2023 lol

Also, personal advice: don't kickstart shit, esp video games. Every single one I've done has been YEARS late and usually mediocre.
 
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Kickstarter needs stricter rules and harsh punishments. Because from the look of it, it just look like a loophole for scammers to promise things and ran away with money without repercurtions.
 
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These and early access titles should be banned from existence. Smaller developers can ask for backers but they shouldn't be able to spend a nickel of it till the product is released. Having backers allows them to get a small or larger business loan with the backers money as collateral. If the game releases the kick starter funds are released and applied to the loan payoff. If not and the company wants to abandon the project the funds from the backers are refunded.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Never do KS unless you got some money to burn. Ya maybe it's only $20 or $50 for a KS board game or video game, but why risk it.

It's really no different than going to a flea market, giving a vendor $50 and asking him for something he doesnt have yet. And if he asks you if he can keep the $50 even if he cant get your product, you say Ya.

Sounds like a retarded business deal to me.
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Solid advice. I backed a ton of Kickstarters back in the day and got lucky in that most of them delivered, but it mostly wasn't worth it form a quality perspective.

Just checked: 114 baked projects. I'd guess north of 95% delivered.
 
Dorfdad said:
Smaller developers can ask for backers but they shouldn't be able to spend a nickel of it till the product is released. Having backers allows them to get a small or larger business loan with the backers money as collateral. If the game releases the kick starter funds are released and applied to the loan payoff. If not and the company wants to abandon the project the funds from the backers are refunded.
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Then how would it be collateral...
 
calico said:
Then how would it be collateral...
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Magic and stuff. lol I mean not for the bank but for the developer knowing we have to finish this because we need that money to pay off the loan.

If not we're in the hook. The way it's done now they can just millk money endlessly and never deliver a product. Star citizen
 
So they took 300K and traveled the world to shows trying to sell the game to publishers?

I'm thinking their pitches might have gone something like Spud's job interview from Trainspotting

se-pinta-ceja-afeitada-para-entrevista-www.laguiadelvaron-1.gif
 
Fbh said:
That's the risk you take when supporting a Kickstarter.
It's never a bad time to remind everyone that on kickstarter you aren't investing in a product or even pre ordering one
You are basically giving a group of strangers free money on a pinky promise that they'll deliver some product in the future
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's a charity where your donation later can give you perks like the game for free and before anyone else. Kickstarter can be more open about this if they want to.
 
I never support kickstarters and don't plan to ever no matter how promising or good it looks.

And there's only one early access games that I bought on Steam like Nuclear Nightmare which is still very fun and fully playable with enough features to function like a full game already
 
Paperboy said:
Yeah, it's a charity where your donation later can give you perks like the game for free and before anyone else. Kickstarter can be more open about this if they want to.
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Pretty much. And to be fair, while there are scammers on there, I do think a good chunk of the failed cases are also well intentioned people that just had no idea what they were doing.
And yeah Kickstarter could be way better about communicating what they actually are. While they have a visible sign that says "rewards aren't guaranteed" I think they could do more to specify that once you've been charged your money is gone no matter what happens with the project.
 
Reading this thread it seems most folks misunderstand how Kickstarter works. It's never a guarantee. You put down your cash hoping to support a project you would like to see come to fruition.

Sometimes you get Owlcat or Obsidian and some cool RPGs out of it. Sometimes you get Star Citizen or this one.

You should almost never go into kickstarter expecting that product would launch 100%.

There are some exceptions line Ayn or Anker ran some Kickstarters mostly to gauge interest and get initial funding. Don't think any failed.
 
I never funded anything. I buy the finished product if i like it.
I understand the idea of seeing cool projects become a reality but when you put your money into it, the devs are passing the risk to you.

Back then i thought Shenmue 3's case was weird because Sony partially funded the game when they could have funded it completely. An example of testing waters and try to avoid risk.
 
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That's the risk of kickstarter unfortunately. If you're treating it as a pre-order you have not understood the concept properly.

Ofc, the risk is higher if you're giving money to people with no track record and no established reputation to protect.
 
The feeling when you didn't know about this game or their Kickstarter.
Party Dancing GIF by Florida Georgia Line


Sucks for those that funded though. I think I still have a few games that aren't yet cancelled that I backed a few years ago. Maybe I just missed the cancellation email.
 
maybe, just maybe, usually they took bigger scope more than they can chew. and the money doesn't cover it. they are looking for other investor, but it's late, burnt money is faster than they could hold.
 
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