Friday the 13th is a game about death. For one of the developers, it almost meant the end.
Developing video games is certainly not an easy field to work in. With tight deadlines, plenty of overtime, and the personal aspiration to deliver a perfect product, there are certainly more comfortable professions.
However, hearing that development can sometimes lead to the brink of death is something you don’t hear often.
As reported by PCGamesN, this was exactly the case with the slasher game Friday the 13th: The Game. The game was heavily supported by a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. However, the development team had not hired anyone to keep the community updated about Kickstarter – a community manager was therefore needed.
Developer Randy Greenback, who at the time had only a few programming tasks to complete, was quickly assigned as the spokesperson for the Kickstarter campaign.
But no one on the team could foresee how much effort it would require. Greenback described the time as if he had “had three full-time jobs at the same time”. Most days he had to work up to 18 hours, answering every single email. All the stress led to his body not being able to handle it forever, ultimately resulting in pneumonia.
One of the employees, Randy Hobbs, said, “He almost died. This is no joke. We underestimated how much work Kickstarter is and what it takes to keep the community updated.”
Fortunately, no one ended up dying during the development of the game. However, there are still issues with the Kickstarter campaign – long after the game’s release. Some backers still have not received a version of the game.
