Unknown Realm: A Bit More Help
If you weren’t a backer of Unknown Realm: The Siege Perilous — Stirring Dragon Games’ new RPG for the Commodore 64 platform, which was successfully Kickstarted a couple of years ago — then you probably wondered in passing what the big deal was that led to this public Kickstarter update being published recently…especially since the post that preceded it is only visible to those who backed the project.
Hopefully, Bruce and Laura will forgive me for making a couple paragraphs public, but this is important to frame further discussion:
In 2019, we packed up Stirring Dragon Games and left the state of California and moved to a more affordable place– something we probably should have done a long time ago. We relocated to the state of Idaho, and our family is slowly adjusting to a different climate and culture. We had to make a difficult decision back in April when we learned our landlords were selling our house, to either shelf the game and look for jobs so we could afford to stay in the Bay Area close to friends and family, or move to a cheaper location in order to give Unknown Realm and SDG a fighting chance to succeed. So we packed up our kids and our Commodore 64s, said goodbye to our family and friends, and moved North in search of better odds for our fledgling indie studio.
Obviously, this change — and other matters that have impacted the family since 2017 — imposed a certain financial toll, and has set back development of Unknown Realm somewhat. Thus, the penultimate post put out a call to action for backers of the game:
Here’s how you can help us get the digital version of Unknown Realm out in 2020: If each of our backers will go to our website, click the blue donate button, and pledge a $5-$10 recurring monthly donation to support SDG, not only can we spend all our time focused on the game instead of trying to find other revenue streams to keep the lights on; in exchange for your ongoing support, we will provide you with behind-the-scenes video updates each month. We think video updates will be a fun way to share more of what we are doing on the game and hopefully be a faster update format for us than typing up 7+ page updates and bickering over what to take out or leave in. 😉
Which brings us, then, to the clarifications in the most recent update posted to the Unknown Realms Kickstarter page:
We will continue posting updates on Kickstarter for all backers. Our plan is to try to work with a model similar to Patreon – we’ll post updates as usual on Kickstarter for all backers as we have been doing, and recurring supporters will get access to behind-the-scenes video updates as an added perk. We’ve had backers contact us about setting up a Patreon for over a year so they could give a little extra support, but we didn’t want to hassle with yet another platform (or the 12% fees on Patreon), and we already had donations set up on our website for Paypal, so that’s what we’re doing.
We have not canceled the C64 version. Our original plan when this campaign was launched was to release all versions concurrently, with physical items shipping out before we released the digital PC version. We worked according to that plan through most of 2017 before realizing that it wasn’t going to be feasible. In our November 2017 update, we told our backers we were going to focus on releasing the PC digital version first, followed by the physical versions (including C64). That plan remains unchanged. This is the more conventional way things are done these days. We had hoped to do it differently, and we’re still disappointed that we can’t give you the whole experience the way we originally envisioned it, which was more comparable to the old-school experience. If we had the means, we would still do it that way. Currently, we are still working towards the PC digital release first, followed by all other versions and physical rewards.
So, if you’d like to help Stirring Dragon Games finish up Unknown Realm this year and ship out at least the digital version thereof, click on over to the studio’s website and avail yourself of the blue PayPal donation button thereat.
…I would recommend reading recent comments on the Kickstarter page, and perhaps doing a bit more research, before dipping into your reserve of hard earned cash.
I totally agree. This project seems like a big vaporware to me. I lost 169$ in this project.
I backed the proejct at $129 USD. Money is a bit tight for me at the moment, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to chip in now (if anything), but I don’t count the initial pledge a loss in the same way that I feel e.g. my Star Citizen pledge may have been. And, too, I feel no particular regret about backing Unknown Realm even though it has yet to deliver, whereas I feel a significant bit of regret for having backed Shroud of the Avatar to the level that I did, even though that game — and its associated rewards — has technically been delivered.
But then, I can sympathize with what Stirring Dragon and his family have had to go through these last couple years, and the ways in which those sorts of things can upend…literally everything. So I suppose I’m willing to extend a measure of leniency and patience with this project that I might not be willing to offer in other cases. I do actually have confidence in Stirring Dragon to be able to deliver Unknown Realm, despite recent setbacks.
@WtF Dragon : I totally agree that life is not always easy and thus impact projects. But in this specific case, the behavior of Stirring Dragon regarding requests about game status since 3 years is totally unrespectful to the community of backers. Nobody asked to deliver the game more quickly. But the real Question is : will there really be a game to deliver ? How the money pledged by backers has been used to until now? They don’t answer those simple questions. It’s quite fair to doubt of their honnesty 3 years without a single proof of the game existence.
Can’t say as I’ve seen Stirring Dragon be disrespectful toward anyone, personally.
These certainly aren’t illegitimate questions, though I’ll note that this would hardly be the first project I can think of which hasn’t necessarily met backer expectations in terms of giving robust status reports on progress. For that matter, I can think of some Ultima fan projects that operate on a similar model; ages of quiet, punctuated by occasional and surprising news.
Now, of course, with fan projects, there isn’t usually money involved, and I get that this does change the equation. That said, as I and others have argued in the past, a crowdfunding donation should really just be thought of as that: a donation, rather than an investment. And the things we as donors are entitled to are different – and generally less – than what investors would be entitled to, in terms of what information or demonstrations we can demand from those we donate to. Not that progress updates aren’t nice to have; they are. But it’s difficult to argue just how much we are owed such updates.
They are disrespectful towards the whole community. The money involved is a donation to help bring a project idea to life. After 3 years without evidence of existence of the “idea”, they owe the backers to be honnest at least about what they used the money for.
When you get involved with Kickstarter and its rules, we cannot speak of a “fan” project anymore without rules and obligations. That’s why I disagree with you. However, it’s my opinion and I totally understand that you could share another vision of the current situation.
Again, I’ve not seen examples of this disrespect for myself; I’ve only ever had good and enjoyable interactions with Bruce and Laura.
You do raise a point about Kickstarter’s rules, which do put certain requirements on creators. But equally, as we found out with Shroud recently, even Kickstarter’s rules aren’t particularly robust, and creators have a lot of wiggle room. Which is why certain SotA backers are getting a virtual library placeable instead of a signed physical book.
Somehow, I expect Stirring Dragon won’t let us down in that way.
I agree with the whole conversation but must add that in the nearly three years since backing there has been literally ZERO evidence of new game progress outside of music. No screens, no details, no videos, no demos. Nothing.
What was their original plan for the money? Seems like most of it was supposed to fund living expenses while they quit their jobs to work on the game. They just forgot to actually do any work. Must be nice to live off the back of other people’s money. I’m gonna ask my boss if I can keep taking a salary but not do any work. And then when that isn’t enough, I’ll ask them to chip in a bit more.
That’s…probably harsher than it needed to be, and probably not quite what transpired. If I had to guess. Which I don’t. But I’m gonna.
3 years, $126k in money gone, no proof of any work done and no explanation. According to the ultima reddit, anyone who has been asking questions on reddit or discord gets banned. How can you come to any other conclusion that they are fraudsters who straight up stole the money?
You said in your article that “other matters have affected the family since 2017.” What are they and why haven’t they told their backers about them?
Because people aren’t obligated to share every detail of their personal lives or health status with the broader world, I suppose. The fact that you or I donated money to this project doesn’t entitle us to deeply personal, intimate knowledge about the lives of the developers thereof. I do have some additional knowledge here, but it’s not mine to share.
Well, there seems to be some confidence on Stirring Dragon’s part that the game can be released this year, which would suggest that work has been done even if we haven’t seen examples of it.
I’ll also note that $126K is not a lot to live on. Which, yes, was the original plan as I understand it: the crowdfunding was supposed to basically be Stirring Dragon’s income while he worked on the game. And that’s all well and good, though I’ll note that I make about as much in a year and it’s just enough for my family to get by with a modest level of comfort. Living on that sum for three years would be a significant challenge…and that’s not even taking into account the obscene cost of living in California, which is where Stirring Dragon was situated at the time of the crowdfunding campaign. $126K might be a manageable sum to live off of for a couple of years in some states; in California, living on that money for even a year would leave one flirting with the poverty line.
Is it possible that there’s fraud here, and that Stirring Dragon has pulled a fast one? Sure; it’s a hypothesis which fits the facts that you have available to you. It’s not a hypothesis I entertain, personally, given what I know…but again, that’s a bit more personal, and not really mine to share.
In the question of whether or not Stirring Dragon are fraudsters, I take a third option: Like many indie developers, they’re just two very weird, eccentric people who are behaving in weird, eccentric ways.
I think I’d have to land here with you. People like to throw out the word “scam” every time money is lost, but I find it more realistic that people headed into these projects with good intentions, and are probably just really bad with things like money, time management, and even game design. Honestly, the entire endeavor sounds unrealistic to me. I mean, even if they can successfully produce this game, I can’t imagine it being a huge seller. Yeah, there are success stories like Minecraft or even Stardew Valley, but those are few and far between. And what next? They take another 3+ years producing another 8 bit game full time? It’d make a fine hobby, but I don’t see it as all that viable for a studio.
Eccentric is probably a good word for it all, but yeah, another source of income is going to be needed here.
Of course, one would not recommend that you give your hard-earned money to strange & eccentric people.