I don't know what's going on with this anymore! Gaaaahhhggahhhh. I want more of this kinda game. But I dunno what's happening. Or why funding is needed if they have funding. Or who has issues or not. Or what It'll lead to. I just want everything to work out in general favor. gahg.

@jerseyscum: Yep because people convicted of possessing child porn deserve the death penalty. That makes a lot of sense.

Holy crap! The game studio is literally 15 min from my house.

PC and Wii U? I mean I get that Eternal Darkness as a GCN game, but...why???

I hope its safe to say here that no way am I funding a company that employs Dyack, as when ever I say anything negative about Dennis on other sites I get flamed to hell and people defend him

I put $20 in, I really doubt they will hit their goal, but if they do, it'll be interesting.

It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. Will they get their funding after that whole debacle?

At this point who would be dumb enough to put money into this and expect to get a good game?

Yah, and this company LOVES children.

Yep, which is probably why they spent E3 and SDCC showing the game off to potential co-financiers. AMD bit.

I want to see the game but have zero trust in them and would never give them money to make it.

When Dyack and co. were doing their podcast apology tour, I couldn't help but feel as if I was having an alcoholic parent pleading for forgiveness whilst simultaneously hiding a glass of cognac behind his back. I CAN HEAR THE ICE DENNIS!!

On the other hand, I don't like the dog pile this has become. It feels as though even games press are pushing against Precursor which is kinda weird to me. Kick in or don't but can we give some benefit of the doubt?

I feel like there should have been a mention of how Precursor Games was letting their community do a lot of the work on the game for them according to an episode of Weekend Confirmed a while back. Which sounded super shady to me also.

I'm assuming that's still happening now, even though it's being kickstarted again. This whole thing is just an insane mess.

There are other, apparently, other funding measures Precursor Games has access to that it’s not currently discussing.

Everytime I read this it looks wrong but nobody else has pointed it out so far so I can't tell if it's just me

Allow me to explain: the internet.

Old Solid Snake is technically in MGS4.

If I recall the Epic lawsuit went so bad that Epic gets access to SK's computers at any time to check for stolen code.

It's like that old neologism, "don't take any wooden Dyacks".

That's the expression.

It's shit like this that makes me LOVE reading behind the curtain video game drama. Great article Patrick.

I'm an odd one, but the crazier this story gets the more I want this game to succeed. Give hope to all those completely stressed out devs working on their own crazy project that their saga may have a happy ending.

Yo guys I just want to play some video games! I'm going to contribute to this cause I'm a sucker for horror and tonally dark stories. Plus I'm humbled with the way these guys are bending over backwards to try and make money for this - if they were funding a scam there would be far more efficient ways to do it.

This is far more acceptable than the previous fake Kickstarter on their website, which essentially let them keep any money they wanted even if they didn't reach their goal. I still don't think I'd trust them with my money, but at least this way you can be sure they'll have a reasonable amount of money if they get funded.

But this entire saga really doesn't give me any reason for confidence. The huge changes in money from before and after are the weirdest thing, but this thing has just been mishandled from start to finish. You need some business and management sense to get a game of any size produced.

I am still losing my mind at the story of SK/Precursor, especially having that curveball thrown in of one founding member being arrested for possessing child pornography. What the hell is going on with this thing?

@patrickklepek: You've got this a bit out of order. Precursor started taking money on their own site first (May 6, it seems - here's the Polygon article about it) and only got on Kickstarter later (May 13), after people questioned the legitimacy of the whole thing. The original wording of their not-kickstarter-but-still-crowdfunding thing said that they got to keep the money whether or not they made the goal. After getting a bunch of shit for this, they changed the wording and eventually started their Kickstarter campaign.

In other words, it's even a tiny bit crazier than you already thought it was.

I feel that for the most part, the "gaming press at large" manage to do a pretty good job of dismissing and shitting all over video game kickstarters. It's viewed as kicking scheckles towards creepy thieves or something.

Heartbreaking for the people doing the work who need it funded to have jobs. These businessmen at the top of this and the previous company are so sleazy. This one deserves the scrutiny if only to get word out that the demons haven't been totally flushed out of this company.

This is nuts. And I love it.

I don't really care who's making it or if they are likeable, Eternal Darkness was brilliant so I'm more than happy to put $20 in the pot for a (semi) sequel.

What a god damn cluster-fuck.

I can say the allegations from that original Kotaku article match up with what friends I have in that region have said (many of whom have worked with SK in some regard).

i think this may be well-earned karma coming dyack's way, but it still sounds rough and i still feel a bit sorry for him and his company. hoping this finally becomes successful and dyack learns some humility on the way.

@kagato:

are you sure about that....?

I think its more about them penning you in for E3 access as one of their guests. It can be hard for a layman to get an E3 pass.

David Hayter's involved? Count me in.

You got one thing back wards. They started asking for money on their website they masked as a kickstarter page first- when asked they said they couldn't use kickstarter (was proven wrong, then later kickstarter made Canada officially supported). When that was failing they then created an actual kickstarter.

I will never support the development of this game. If they want to make it they will have to do so traditionally and prove they can make a game worth paying for. They have a lot of nerve asking for money again- they are hoping people will forget. Shamefully, people may. It's unfortunate what people will throw their money at sometimes but I wont judge. Just express how people should be cautious.

I won't back it, but I would potentially buy the game when it comes out.

@divergence: What? About AMD? Sure am ^_^

While I agree with the idea that there isn't enough history to prove that this is worth funding, and I won't be contributing, let's not assume that the traditional method of funding assures some high water mark of quality. After all, plenty of terrible games have been made with publisher money over the last 30 years.

This looks a bit fishy, I'll think "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" fits well here.

So Denis Dyack (the man that tried to sue Epic but lost and whose terrible management skill eventually drove Silicon Knights into the ground) started another company and is now trying to kickstart a new game...

Lemme get this straight... You couldn't build an X-Men game for multiple millions of Activision dollars, but you think regular people should trust you with their money?? Fuck off...

I believe in second chances and I hope this gets funded! ...Just not with my money.

@hs_alpha_wolf: I wasn't making that assumption nor implying it.

Pissing the night away?

@5figh said:

Is it the double 'other's at the beginning of it? It messed me up at first.

Man, every time they start this back up and say, "No no, this time we've really got it!", it looks less attractive.

So it was gonna be $1.35 million to fund one episode, and now it's gonna be $750K to fund the whole game, because they've got other money they're not talking about? No thanks. This team hasn't earned enough trust to keep going forward without transparency.

I get that Eternal Darkness was a great game, and I love crowdfunding, but the number of red flags on this guy is just off the charts.

If Nintendo do not want to publish them, I guess there's a good reason.

it's amazing to me how they were so staunch about this being an episodic game for months (and defending the benefits of this type of development) only to abandon that. So where before they were going to make the "pilot" 1-2 hour episode for 1.5 million, now they are going to make an 8-10 hour game on 750K? The math still doesn't make sense to me. They are going to need much more than that and if they don't get it from Kickstarter, where? Up front they said repeatedly they have no other sources of funding. Unless that has changed, this just seems doomed a second time. I'll say this, even if they make their fundraising goal, what kind of product do backers expect to receive (if at all) on such a paltry budget? Is David Hayder volunteering his voice talents out of the goodness of his heart?

Credit patrickklepek

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