During the Kickstarter campaign of the MMORPG RAW, doubts arose about whether it was a real game and not a scam. Now Kickstarter has prematurely ended the crowdfunding campaign. The development team feels unfairly treated.
What is RAW? At the end of June, the Kickstarter campaign for the MMORPG RAW, which was supposed to play like an online GTA, started.
- You were supposed to explore an area of 400 km²
- Together with other players, you could build and manage a city
- You would have had to earn your living in various ways, such as a gas station owner, car dealer, city planner, food vendor, police officer, etc. You want to earn a living and make something of yourself
- Up to 200 players should be able to interact on each server
Was RAW just a scam?
Why did doubts arise? The small development team wanted to raise 70,000 euros through the crowdfunding campaign. This alone raised doubts about whether such an ambitious project could be realized with such a small amount.
Moreover, there was no imprint on the website, the studio was not registered as an official company, and images and assets from Turbosquid were used in the pictures and video, which are explicitly not allowed for “virtual worlds”.
When all this became public, the developers showed anger. In general, their responses to questions from the community appeared quite brusque and unfriendly.
What has happened now? Yesterday, on July 16, the Kickstarter campaign was suddenly ended prematurely. And that was only about 24 hours before it would officially have come to an end. Up until that point, 171,700 euros had been raised from supporters. The crowdfunding would have been very successful.
Why was the campaign ended? Kickstarter initially did not provide a specific reason but only examples of why this could happen. This occurs, for example, when important company information is missing or false claims have been made.
However, Kickstarter later provided some details on the reasons. Killerwhale Games explained that the 70,000 euros were not enough to develop the game and that additional funds needed to be raised. This, however, apparently violates Kickstarter’s rules, which is why the campaign was ended prematurely.
Developers are disappointed
How are the developers reacting? Killerwhale Games is disappointed and has released a statement via Discord. According to this, the team was not informed by Kickstarter that the campaign had been ended. They also did not attempt to contact the developers beforehand to clarify the situation.
Killerwhale Games had no idea at the time the statement was made why the campaign was ended. The team suspects that many players complained to Kickstarter because they felt that RAW was a scam. However, according to the developers, this is not the case.
And they want to prove this. A gameplay video of the MMORPG is set to be released in a few days.
How are the players reacting? The community is somewhat divided regarding the situation. Some, such as on Reddit, believe that it was the only right decision by Kickstarter, as the entire project looked like a scam. Others were looking forward to the game and find it unfair that a crowdfunding campaign can be stopped simply due to speculation.
What will happen to RAW now? Killerwhale Games does not want to give up. They might switch to the Indiegogo platform to start a new crowdfunding campaign. RAW will definitely continue to be developed.
