Told you!
Backers left in cold as devs quit Kickstarter project
Choice quotes:
As well as numerous bugs, development for online play took three times longer than estimated, requiring adjustments to programming for all level in the game.
And:
One backer who contributed $250 however, whilst still supporting the game, said the stumbling blocks to the title’s development should have been discussed earlier, and was concerned over whether some elements of the game matched the initial description.
One down, more to go.
Move along.
As a related point: according to my analysis of the 300-odd succesful Kickstarter video game projects for 2009 to 2011, only 1 in 3 actually delivered their promised title.
http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/kickstander-quantifying-hope-and-measuring-dreams/
I do think Haunts will be released though – it will have received enough attention that volunteers are likely to plug the gap. For me, the interesting thing about Haunts is that:
1) the studio promised to be open and transparent and completely failed to do so when things got tough;
2) there was still a substantial finance gap between the Kickstarter money and the development budget; and
3) that the lead designer didn’t even consider that the title wouldn’t be ready the the time he knew his programmers would have to leave.
Which are all amateur mistakes, but a Kickstarter means they publicly involve Other People’s Money.