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Kickstarter troll ruins indie dev’s campaign at the last moment
Kickstarter has been a great way for indie developers to fund their games without having to sell their soul to one of the larger publishers, but the platform is not without its flaws.
Netherlands-based 2Awesome Studio saw the dark underside of crowdfunding Wednesday when a fraudulent backer pledged thousands of dollars to the dev’s campaign for Dimension Drive, only for that money to disappear moments before the campaign ended.
A backer the dev referred to as “Jonathan” pledged €7000 (just under $8,000 USD), bringing the campaign just shy of its €30,000 goal. The developers tweeted a thank you to the backer, saying, “Who is Jonathan, Jonathan is our hero! We love you and we want to meet you in person! THANK YOU.”
Dimension Drive earned the remaining money needed to fully fund the game, but only minutes before the campaign was set to end, Kickstarter banned the user who made the massive contribution, citing fraudulent activity. The €7000 disappeared instantly, and 2Awesome’s campaign ended in failure.
“We are speechless, demoralized…you name it”
“We really do not know what happened, it seemed to be a troll,” Dimension Drive lead programmer Alejandro Santiago told Gamasutra. “What we do know for sure is that someone made a fraudulent pledge in our campaign that got removed by the Kickstarter guys 31 minutes before the end.”
Santiago added: “It has been an exhausting month for us. Right now we are speechless, demoralized…you name it.”
While 2Awesome’s Kickstarter campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, the developer has received an outpouring of support from the Kickstarter community and elsewhere.
“Really sorry to hear about the fraudulent pledge,” one user wrote. “I echo the other statements here about redoubling your marketing efforts and trying another campaign. I’ll definitely back it again!”
The developers have said that they are looking for a solution, but with the Kickstarter campaign over, they will essentially have to start over again. But with the greater exposure and goodwill from the community, it seems possible that 2Awesome’s next campaign may have a better chance to succeed, whether or not it gets a suspiciously large contribution at the end.
Image credit: 2Awesome Studio
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