Shroud of the Avatar - Running out of Cash?

[HiddenX]

CGM reports that Portalarium will start another crowdfunding campaign for Shroud of the Avatar:

Shroud Of The Avatar Developer Announces Crowdfunding Campaign

Portalarium announced an equity crowdfunding campaign to help alleviate their transition into publishing.

Shroud Of The Avatar, Portalarium’s latest game release which is set to come out in a few months, comes on the heels of the company’s decision to move forward with their transition from being a games developers to a publishing company.

Portalarium is an Austin-based games company. Their title Shroud of the Avatar is their first major project. The new game promises to mix the nuances of a strong, single-player narrative-driven story with the sandbox of massively multiplayer or MMOPRG games together in their upcoming, flagship title.

“We are forever grateful to our backers under our current funding campaign who have helped us reach levels of support that we never dreamed of having; that support has helped us develop Shroud of the Avatar to where it is today,” says Richard Garriott de Cayeux CEO of Portalarium. “And with a commercial launch now in sight, it’s time to focus more on marketing and user acquisition as we scale up our player base and the service. It’s also a chance for our supporters to invest in our company as we take this next critical step with equity crowdfunding.”

[...]

Thanks Rune_74!

More information.

 

[turian]

played the free trial.
was not impressed.
crude gamedesign paired with strange development decisions.
the graphic is ok.
therefore i would never invest in such thing and can not reccomend anyone puting money in any new projects.

 

[TheMadGamer]

Knowing only what is mentioned here in this posting, this sounds bad. When Garriott says "invest" does that mean that investors will see some kind of monetary return?

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

This proposal has more red flags than a North Korean missile parade.

 

[NewDArt]

Well, I already regret backing it the first time, so….

 

[Darkheart]

It's said every morning a stupid person gets out of bed... By now everybody should be awake...

 

[rjshae]

Another victim of the housing bubble…

 

[Lucky Day]

Another victim of the housing bubble…

That's freaking hilarious!

 

[redman5427]

They couldn't make it from all that furniture and extras they sold? How about all those land plots they were sticking suckers for?
This is a greedy developer who would probably make EA blush

 

[Saxon1974]

Pathetic. Still no single player aspect at all right,?

 

[Dez]

"It’s also a chance for our supporters to invest in our company as we take this next critical step with equity crowdfunding.”

Sounds like a solid investment plan for those pension savings...

 

[Pongo]

I'm sad to see Tracy Hickman is somehow involved in this.
Someone sign him up to do a Dragonlance game instead please...

 

[rune_74]

I'm sad to see Tracy Hickman is somehow involved in this.
Someone sign him up to do a Dragonlance game instead please…

Tracy wrote a book and then disappeared....he's a snakey one too.

If anyone has any money invested in this at all I suggest bailing now.

 

[mbpopolano24]

And yet I am sure many people will give them money...

 

[Stingray]

The article linked in this newspost doesn't include many details, there are some other articles that have more:

http://kotaku.com/richard-garriott-reassures-shroud-of-the-avatar-backers-1795774769
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...d_of_the_Avatar_dev_seeks_more_investment.php

They are getting their information from the disclosure documents that are required for the seedinvest.com campaign.

TLDR is that these guys have already spent $18M developing this game (as of the end of 2016) and only have $528K cash on-hand (as of May 17th), and are burning through $230K every month.

This has to be the worst $18M game ever.

 

[rune_74]

This is by far my most disappointing product I backed. Hell, I could call it my most disappointing gaming event in the last ten years at least as it took a beloved series and creator and crapped all over them.

The amount of effort they went to tarnish me after I asked a lot of these questions two years ago was astounding. I was a huge supporter that finally saw the light, faith in a person can only go so far...

I won't lie, this was a long time coming and I'm finally going to be able to put this behind me soon.

 

[Saxon1974]

I actually wonder if a class action lawsuits is possible. Many people haven't received their physical stuff and I doubt they will.

 

[pibbur who]

What's that smell?

I don't regret backing it, I pledged based on what I (thought I) knew (and hoped) back then. I wouldn't have pledged today. So I won't pledge today. Or tomorrow. Next week. When Grimoire is released.

pibbur who (un)fortunately has wasted more money on other games (bought, never played, never to be played). And who once again wants to listen to the Floyd's pig song.

PS. What's an equity crowdfunding campaign? DS.

 

[mesmeris]

If you buy a virtual hat, a developer will dance a jig. What a deal!

 

[Stingray]

PS. What's an equity crowdfunding campaign? DS.

Investing rather than just pre-ordering. You get "equity" in the project, meaning an ownership interest.