Red Ash Kickstarter Fails… and Succeeds! But Mostly Fails

In case you hadn’t heard, miracles don’t always happen. In this case, the miracle that was needed to close almost half the distance between the funds raised by Comcept on Kickstarter for Red Ash and what they received were not pledged by the time the final grains of sand in the campaign’s hourglass fell to the bottom.

But while 6,550 backers pledged $519,999 of the $800,000 goal, the fact that they didn’t reach their bare minimum means that the company will receive none of the money. As such, that also means that — at this time — none of the additional content they sought to add should be expected in the final release of the game, which is now happening by way of FUZE Entertainment, nor will anyone who backed the campaign be eligible to receive any rewards.

The effort wasn’t a total wash, however; while Red Ash: The Indelible Legend did not reach its goal, Red Ash -Magicada- — aka “the anime” — did. According to Kickstarter, “1,869 backers pledged $162,882 to help bring this project to life,” exceeding the original $150,000 goal set forth, even if not by too very much.

Even though Studio 4C reached their minimum, however, they aren’t settling for that. A second fundraiser is being planned for Japanese fans who might not have been able to contribute to the Kickstarter.

As for the game, the writing was pretty much on the wall for its campaign for some time now. The folks at Comcept have thanked those who took part and noted that “The team is disappointed that we won’t be able to make those a reality for our backers, especially any rewards that would have involved the community in the actual creation of the game.”

This project has only just now started, and we have a long road ahead of us with the development of the game. We will be focusing on development going forward, but we still want to show thanks to the backers who supported us throughout the campaign in some form! We have some ideas, and once we have something to share we will be in touch!

In the closing days and hours of the Red Ash campaigns, a number of video game websites, YouTube personalities, and the like gave their thoughts on where everything went wrong. Do note that pretty much all of the following should be viewed with “Not Safe For Work” precautions in mind.

From my fellow north-of-the-border folks LoadingReadyRun is the latest episode of their satiric video game news show, Checkpoint, which additionally looks at the crummy conditions involved in working at Konami, the deal with Ouya and Razer, Final Fantasy VII‘s remake, and more.

For the Red Ash portion specifically, you can skip to 6:06 or just click here.

Next up, the folks at GameXplain have put together a panel including SomeCallMeJohnny, Gareth from “Find The Computer Room,” and Ted from “BrainScratchComms” to discuss whether or not Inafune has lost his touch.

Then there is the one and only Jim Sterling’s Jimquisition, which notes that “An exercise in terrible management and shoddy communication, the hot mess that is Red Ash and Comcept’s marketing strategy stands as an example of exactly how big names need to NOT approach the crowdfunding world.”

Be sure to give it a minute — the first part isn’t what you think. Bad timing, vagueness, the $90 tier for physical copies, the late stretch goals which “made people feel like they were funding a demo rather than a full game” — Sterling addresses many of the most common complaints about Inafune’s latest attempt to go directly to the fans.

Let’s face it: overall, this is not really a very positive story to follow a series of events that themselves weren’t particularly positive to begin with. With that in mind, here’s something from Really Freakin’ Clever that’s more a bit of mock-negativity to serve as something of a lighthearted palate cleanser:

Thanks to GeminiSparkSP for tipping me off to some of these!

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.