YongYea I'm kind of interested in how this story pans out.

You maybe should look into Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord. Its been a little bit of a PR nightmare from the start for them.

How did you fail to notice the Falling Skies: The Game in that list you said in 25:30 ? It's at least a kind of same like strategy game that this would be. Not to say that you are the only one to skip it entirely, but it's noticeable point in everyone article made about Little Orbit. It wasn't mechanically amazing game, but it had a lot of good things. Cheers.

Won't be the first time, or the last. Jim Sterling promoted and funded Yoklaylee as well. Even gave a fairly optimistic onion of the play demo he got as a backer. Yet when the game came out it was rather disappointing and he sort of tried to sweep it under the rug with just a written review.

"Mejor que nada"

Silent Hills?

that game was nerver even finshed

We're all sons of the conmen now

It's okay, I got your reference

A DUD?!

He sounded like a common scammer throughout the promises.

I read once in a forum that Matsuno games tend to fall apart and the ones that make it are "a blessing from God". Most of his successful work is amazing, though.

You don't think he was smart for leaving a failing project?

@@juniorgalacto17 It just makes him a bigger douche.

@@feltpuppets9429 I thought that It was Akitoshi Kawazu's games that tend to fall apart and that the ones that make it are "gifts from God".

Phil Bolton ALWAYS hookers and blow.

What the *fuck* is a Sonic?!

@warystatue33 ...are you referencing fortnite in that comment?

@@TheFrugalVideoGamer A fast-food restaurant styled after those old-school drive-thru places.

Nah, referencing a Jontron vid - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i99-obaT0tScf30.html

bless Little Orbit for stepping up like heroes, might just get the game whenever it comes out.

I took a look over their website, and tbh, THIS game looks promising, but OTHER titles they have are.... welll, just kinda bad.

Having 1 to 5 updates monthly and all the art and stuff is nice. Though they bent the knee to the small minority of very vocal sjw whiners a little last year. If they don't waste too much time on appeasement most of the fans never asked for, the game still looks promising. Most importantly let's hope they keep the sjw whiners out of the writing room.

When he mentioned Little Orbit, it caught my eye, as I always thought Fallen Earth was a great game for it's time.

Is this thing coming to pc? If SJWs don't destroy it I would be willing to back these guys

Britanny Helms savage

😂😂

I was gonna make that joke but you got to it first lal

May as well be the unknown hell

YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHH!

With that light Asian accent, gives it the perfect touches.

GENIUS

Stonks?

Playdek logic! Not that they'd be the only one to pull that bullshit.

Only works once, though. And if it works more than once, odds are, you can count the amount of times it works before it stops working on one hand (even if you have to count in binary).

Credit where it's due, they seem to have faith in this game.

I've seen some of Matt Scott's video showcasing the game. It looks good so far.

Mastace “...Oh

Your profile pic says it all

Your liver has to practically be destroyed to be trashed enough to back Unsung Story.

This (among other games like MN9, though I didn't back that) is why I stopped trusting "spiritual successor" kickstarters. Bit of a shame how that trend turned out.

I've done the same thing, woke up one day to discover I backed a game called Battlechasers. So far backed 3 games in all; and they all seem to be progressing, but yeah I came within days of backing Unsung Story was just holding out for it to reach its Vita stretch goal. Thank goodness it never made it that far.

lassus I backed Divinity Original sin 2. Proud of it!

GrYm Locke I've backed games, but those are when they are in active development, not before they got off the ground like Kickstarter. That does mean I may miss out on higher risk investments, but I need results first. And if I do back that, I prefer having the developer builds so that I can playtest for bugs and exploits (At least the most glaring ones). I have caught a high-impact exploit or two in one game, something like an in-game unit duplication due to the game not cleaning out groups with null unit counts and instead uses the save file as load reference.

The only time he's lost his calm demeanor is when he said the star citizen micro transaction cost 27k I lost my shit laughing at that part

I'm here for the same reason!

i never got around to really hear story behind this game, its really sad. Glad i only backed up one game so far, not sure ill do more in the future when shit like this happens, but thank god creator of Castlevannia is great guy and gives tons of updates and talks to community

Alex Mercer gief link to that part plx

Browntable is a masterpiece

Limey Lassen This is a make or break it situation for little orbit though, they made a clear promise, they chose to enter the scene So now they need to be real with themselves, I really respect Mr Scott though, for that sure magnificent level of maturity

Not only that they got the IP rights and licensing too right? Hope Little Orbit can deliver and wish them luck.

Just imagine the reputation they'd get for turning this train wreck around.

Even if it's not that great or what people wished for if they can make at least half of the backers to like it then it's already a victory for them.

etherraichu You should trademark that.

Cold blooded

But Unsung Story already fits so well lol... It's a story that will probably never be sung. Kinda makes you wonder if Playdek planned that from the start, with a name like that.

defenem73 lol

I was wondering, cheers for the update.

This pleases me

Huuuge props to them for salvaging this disaster.

They're still doing those updates now.

Copium smell gud.

Cosmo_Plays I’m actually amazed that the Kickstarter is still getting updates even in February 2019.

And an update a month through 2018 until this February. Very dedicated for a dev that has been sacrificing a lot to develop a disastrous project.

Mighty No. 9 is small potatoes compared to this.

ChiefMedicPururu Acknowledge the meme :(

TheBlackCloakedMan this game looked like crap from the beginning. playdek isn't even well renowned and they had bad ideas from the beginning

THEY PLAYED US LIKE A DAMN FIDDLE!!

Well now we know what Keiji meant by "it's better than nothing"

I didn’t know that interesting.

@@Bloodylaser Yeah, Rare was getting trashed on for making just kids games so you know how they responded? Conkers: Bad Fur Day. One of the best games I ever played as a child.

tbf dayz is pretty finished at this point

People gave up on Dayz cause everybody started hacking the devs didn't do anything about it and the mods were starting to spawn more popular games than dayz

@@justawarlord Ahahahaha! Get out of here!

That methodology towards game's just isn't healthy for Indie Game's, There's been many good game's that have come from Kickstarter's and early access. Without these method's we would see way to many generic AAA game's. People just need to research who their investing in and take that leap if they have faith in them, not everything works out that's why it's a gamble.

Is that the Adventure Time MOBA? that game was good except it needed a little balancing.

Those games were PUBLISHED by Little Orbit. Still, the Shaq Fu remake was released eventually, baffingly enough.

Lol this comment was one year ago 😂

@@Sobergamer61 Well, they were starting from scratch. I'm not trying to protect them, as they could easily just turn their back and leave this abandoned.

Oh damm it's Ashe

Larry Bundy Jr You truly are everywhere bro!

I love your work (fingers crossed on Shenmue)!

Shenmue won't be a disgrace like this is. Yu Suzuki wouldn't let it happen. He looked really saddened when he announced the push back because he doesn't want to let us down. He put his own personal belongings up for grabs. We should have faith in him.

Larry Bundy Jr I don't like how bloodstain has gone quiet

Hello you!

Cinnabutt Nah looks way to promising

Any news from Little Orbit so far?

ablationer the last update was roughly 20 days ago

I'm sure their walking simulator will actually come out. I doubt it will be a good game, but it will be nice as hell to look at.

lol i have high hopes for it, at least its gorgeous yeah

Got another update?

@@redjoker9114 it is reported that it will be releasing this year in December but, because of the virus it might be delayed till next year.

@@Wedge_Khan Wouldn't surprise me if it was delayed. As I write this, Little Orbit's latest update says their working with closed backer groups while preparing for a Chapter 1 Alpha.

Rukia Shimazu Drugs and hooker's, duh. In truth they probably spent most of it on payroll so for six months the staff lived like Kings.

WE'LL MAKE OUR OWN TACTICS, WITH BLACKJACK AND HOOKERS... Except without the blackjack... or game.

Rukia Shimazu obviously, it was paid to the people working on it for a year.

The furnace, to re-enact the 3rd day of Firestarter from PAYDAY 2.

Rukia Shimazu money for games goes to living expenses for the people working on it. If the people aren't up to the task, you can dump millions and get nothing worth it. $600k sounds like a lot but it's not. That's $600k to split between probably 10-12 people, maybe more, for a year. That's like $50k salaries. So a decent wage, but nothing fancy. Although with their number of layoffs, it was probably like 18. Way too many people living off of that $600k.

Has anything happened since you made this comment?

@@pkernoob786 I am curious also.

@@adgato75 Check their kickstarter page, not a lot of happy people, seems the updates have been very bare bones. Possibly yet another company that took the money and ran.

@@Suisfonia Thanks

@@adgato75 No problem! I was curious as well and did a bit of searching, after I got screwed on Star Citizen and Phoenix Point (or at least, I felt screwed anyway), I've become rather weary of kickstarter projects.

That's saying something.

*osana isn’t ready yet*

*EvaXephon

YandereDev: 1. A single man, no active team. 2. Nearly self funded, doesn't have thousands from kickstarter to work with. 3. Working on a complex game concept with little previous game experience. 4. Still put out more than Playdek.

And then Love Letter comes along..

Let's hope Little Orbit can un fuck what's already been fucked. Fingers crossed.

Belody Epic Little Orbit published a lot of mediocre to okay licensed games based on Adventure Time and Monster High.

Well they're starting from scratch, that's the closest to unfucking something you can get.

Double Helix also made licensed shovelware, but when they got to make the new Killer Instinct game they did, from what I hear, an excellent job.

This Mathew guy truly has balls of steel. You couldn't pay me to inherit a project like this... but I'm really rooting for him, and Little Orbit. Not even sure if I'd ever end up playing it either way, but if they do manage to salvage this mess, it'd make one _hell_ of a conclusion to this crazy story.

i hope they actually do good cause all they did was just make cartoon based videogames and theyre really restricted on what they can put in the game

+billyhatcher643 Most of those, they just published.

Why'd they ask for $600K then?

They must be delusional, or more likely they had already secured funds from private investors and planned to make a publishing deal from the very start.

Beck got out of it with MGB, tho.

You feel it too don't you?

Well there are 7 circles. Mn9 must be around the 3rd or 4th.

"WE NEED TO GO DEEPER"

We're going into Azathoth's brain, ladies and gentlemen.

True, projects like this are a shame to Kickstarter and to the gaming community

Yep. On Kickstarter you invest and take all the risk, and if you're lucky, you get the reward of having preordered a video game. I'll pass.

+mjc0961 It's helpful for people who love genres the game industry has largely forgotten about, and I'd argue the reward is having pre-ordered a game that otherwise likely wouldn't exist.

It's a wacky system. Even grossly overfunded things like the Dark Souls Board game, which came out as an incredible product, has and is still an incredibly turbulent ongoing story. Steamforged seems like they're having a lot of trouble keeping up with demand- from both backers who are STILL waiting for their copies, and people like me who bought it at retail and are eagerly anticipating the expansions. They've gone dark periodically just trying to ship the units, despite being an established company.

Everytime I wonder why do people ask "where did the money went" like they underestimate how much is spent paying people that work on the game.

And Half-Genie hero. And Freedom Planet. And Shovel Knight.

@Onanii-chan and wasteland 2

And Undertale

Archontasius last I heard, they are preparing for a gamescom presentation so I guess we will find out.

The difference is, Yu Suzuki was actually a game development manager in the past when he made the previous Shenmue games, he wasn't just a businessperson, producer, or lower-level developer. Shenmue was literally his baby, writer-director-produce-creative director, he fought like hell for Sega to fund it, he knocked on their door for 10 years to fund it and only did Kickstarter as a last resort. That doesn't mean it'll be good and it is fair to get worried about how good he is handling money, and other project aspects that Sega may have handled in the past. The other thing is the development is almost entirely Japanese, where it seems Playdek and MN9's staff tried to be western with a big-name Japanese figurehead to entice backers.

Yeah Im grateful that Kojima just fucking tricked us with MGS4 and V. Kojima is other kind of Conman but still one of them.

Ugh, the "Hi we're Sony, a giant corporation who owns the top selling platform of this console generation. Fund this game for us." Kickstarter. Fuck that shit.

Libe Jenkins What's wrong with MGS4?

Justin Sumner The thing is, Hyper Light Drifter, Darkest Dungeon, Undertale, FTL, and 2064 at least, weren't branded as being spritual sucessors to popular games made by the people behind the success of those popular games. Hell, Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight *were*, to an extent, spiritual sucessors to popular games, but they weren't built on the promise of an old team who probably won't make good on their promise. The problem is not Kickstarter itself, it's the way these disasters have used (some would say capitalized on) the platform - drawing people in with only the promise of nostalgia, and not following it up with talent or clear communication. Undertale at least had a playable demo on the Kickstarter page that was a good representation of the final game, years before it actually came out. Likewise, you shouldn't have high expectations for a game because "it's a Kickstarter game", you should have high expectations if it's a good looking game.

But Pillar of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Divinity Original Sin and Shadowrun Returns were high profile returns to from old developers. I think there's a definite pattern is when the come to the kickstarter with a very clear and very attainable goal, and are making something that we know they can make, because we all knew Inexile and Obsidian could, beyond the shadow of a doubt, deliver. So maybe the lesson is to trust established developers.

Justin Sumner Yeah, I think the lesson is to trust a team, not an individual (who probably isn't even heading development!), and, as with anything and not just Kickstarter, don't get swept up in marketing and hype.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare was another Kickstarter campaign, but it was based on a Gmod mod by some guys made for shits and giggles. Suddenly, it became popular, and they decided to make an actual game from it.

I think the key to figure out if you're being tricked is if high profile Japanese dev names are attached to a project that is not being developed by a Japanese dev team. I don't think there have been ANY high profile successes, and a lot of high profile failures - Mighty No. 9, Unsung Story, Project Phoenix...... Bloodstained may be the first to break this pattern, but it does have a japanese dev studio attached so it's unclear if it qualifies for this pattern.

Game developers have been working for peanuts since the 80's. Not that's a good thing but, a good game can surely be developed with 660k.

You assume that the 660k is all they had to work with. It's like you wanna buy a car for 50k but you only have 40k in your account. So you borrow 10k. That's often the case. What we were looking at is probably more in the reaches of 1.5-2m.

Then limit your budget to 660k. Simple. Good games have been developed for way less money before.

"Game developers have been working for peanuts since the 80's" Yeah and they were also making 8 bit games I'm pretty sure making a 3D model and putting it into a game engine today costs more than a full game back then...

You can buy a 3D model of almost anything for ~$1.50. Also programming a game back then was much more harder than nowadays.

I don't blame them, judging by the gameplay preview shown by Playdek, the work they had done was atrocious looking and simple.

A thought popped into my mind when watching this, that maybe what Playdek has shown (all of it, up until now) was made within the first 6-12 months, and they just stretched it out over the few and far between updates, to seem like they were still working on it. Because I wouldn't put it past them, with how the whole situation has turned out.

Little Orbit is at least an actual legitimate games company. I especially love how their CEO thought Playdek's game was so shit he completely threw away everything Playdek had made, restarting the entire development.

Little Orbit probably didn't pay more than $100 for the legal rights to the game. "Token amount" generally means a very small amount of money just to establish the consideration necessary for a legal transfer of the property. For a contract to be valid both parties must gain something of value.

Besides, although the majority of Little Orbit's games range from bad to mediocre (of course there's a reason for that), if you take a hard look, you'll find decent games in their portfolio. I think they are capable of delivering a good game similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. Unlike Playdek, at least we know Little Orbit knows how to manage projects and make games. They can do local and internet multiplayer too, last I've checked. I hope they prove their worth and, in case it happens, become acclaimed developers afterwards.

SpikeJet2736 cool, i enjoy these types of videos

SpikeJet2736 Or Idubbbz who does the same thing or brendanielreads Honestly I'm happy that this is becoming a thing more exposure to how often these things are just money grabs

you guys have to understand, thats the norm, that happens all the time with developers, even nintendo had alot of big non releases, remember project giant robot? or project hammer? diference is, we dont pay for them, but thats the risk we assume when we "invest" in a Kickstarter project.

I misread your comment at first and thought you were calling Retsupurae failures. Then again, they did start incredibly strong, have 6 solid years of consistently above average content, then for the last two years the quality has dropped substantially to the point that they are now being criticized for becoming the very thing they've been berating.

12ealDeal Turns out being a father is hard.

Wouldn't go that far lol

Truth be told, if anyone was going to give a refund it would've had to have been Playdek (lol). Given that Little Orbit got none of the original funds, they shouldn't be held accountable for refunds at all - especially given that Kickstarter is based around the fact that you're taking a risk and that you may be just throwing good money away. The fact that Little Orbit is spending their own funds to see this game through to completion is, indeed, more than anyone could've hoped for.

Get outta here Bunta.

What is his story?

Vox3l-Gl1tch 😂😂

I hope you get a satisfactory Unsung Story for your money.

Vunter dont know if youre a troll or you havent ever had human communication of any form in your life

Ya! Fuck Nelson!

just report the haters, no need to talk with them. They are hateful people who get all the joy in their life in insulting others. They are rather sad beings

Norman omg do you watch hwymg

Cyprys For GBA haha

Although it's a funny and very original joke, most games on PS2 looked much better than this mess.

It looks like a game for mobile with microtransactions everywhere

I would buy it on ps2 it would be cool

Dreamcast

K. Charrette Lol, yeah no shit.

K. Charrette these people are spending more time making excuses than making the actual damn games. Lmao

GODDAMMIT

Some Guy Paragon They played us like a damn FIDDLE!

stride99 DAMMIT MILLER YOU STOLE MY LINE! NANOMACHINES!

They bit off more than they could chew. Thank god they've gone back to making shitty card games for iPhones.

FlippedSided I seen one. This thread should have been blown the fuck out with it though.

it's better than nothing.

Sometimes no game is better than a shitty game

And it'll make the bad guys cry, well, you know the rest.

Zacmanman there are plenty bigshots from kickstarter that have that budget and maybe even less and did it 5000000 times better

Rouhsif Benschop 2D games. All of them.

Right, they wanna make a new game like Final Fantasy Tactics (which may have have cost anywhere from 500k to a few million back in 97) with only 660k. I'd feel bad for anyone who backed this project out of nostalgia alone.

The backers aren't giving money to pay for the employees. Lol... Those are donations to the company not backers of a game. The 660,000 should be dedicated to the game development.

How do you think games are developed? The employees program full time and they gotta eat and pay the bills.

Honestly I got Mighty Gunvolt playable on my 3DS way before I knew of this Mighty No. 9 thing. To me Beck originate on Gunvolt and not Mighty No. 9.

and you're totally right. unfortunately, after what happened with MN9, people got such a sour taste in their mouths the taste its still there even a year after, so its kinda hard to take that off with another game.

all the kickstarter money went there apparently

The fuck? MGB wasn't made with any Kickstarter money.

i meant all of the mn9 kickstarter money went there apparently, thats why mn9 is so half assed and shit meanwhile gunvolt is such an awesome game, but thats just my shitty guess i guess

He's written some great article over the years, arguably Kotaku's best editor.

Seems like he's just covering his own ass at this point tbh

Weiss Schnee His track record is pretty questionable. deepfreeze.it/journo.php?j=jason_schreier

Sounds familiar... *Looks up name Oh yeah! He was the guy that bitched incessantly about the character designs in Dragon's Crown! Yup, swell guy he is, indeed.

Ugh. Forgot about that...

Bruce Wayne If this game does get finished and Little Orbit actually makes it good, it will be the greatest Development Hell story ever.

It will be also one hell of a PR jump and a possibility to rise from small name to big name publisher of this sells well. This is probably what they are speculating on. Their big shot to take their company to the next level.

And yet, there are amateur doujin circles that create games for hobby and later sell them.

thousandyoung Simple, 2D games. Majority of the work of which is either art or writing.

lewis clark True

Ronald Cooper indies are generally created by one people on their basement for years and years, or with a 5 or 10 guy studio without good pay, some of them even sell all of their possessions like houses cars etc, just to complete the game. Playdek is a full kind of big developer, with another kind of people. In the game industry it's generally 10k per person per month, that's in a medium size team. Those 660k where probably gone by the year, o even less.

So good games made on a shoestring budget don't exist...?

Sagiri an investment has the ability to give you profit. giving money to Kickstarter is not an investment unless you have the chance to make a financial gain from it

I actually considered talking about that in my original comment. The financial gain comes from getting a copy of the /thing/, as well as any of other random crap you might get based on your tier. Is that worthwhile? Is that adequate compensation for the risk involved? Hell no.

It''s more like a donation... A donation in which you might get something in return.

kiomon amen hehehe

kiomon hello fellow gamer! are you playing Skyrim (tm) Special Edition Game of the Year Remastered it's only $99.99! -Not Todd Howard

kiomon fuck skyrim.

The Lord of Dankness nice opinion there

The Lord of Dankness seem like someone didnt visit cloud district very oftem

They take 5 per cent of it. When you make a plan you take that into account.

AsciiGDL "The regular woman Mary story"

You can still do an abortion and give the woman some counseling and therapy.

Naoki Yoshida: hold my beer

TheNeroKennedy Most kickstarters fall apart due to business incompetence, not greed or theft. Those big companies have businessmen focusing on capital returns, handle deadlines, requirements, etc. People who use kickstarter tend to have no business management experience and almost always underestimate the actual costs and efforts involved. They tend to have loosely defined deadlines and restrictions because they're setting their own pace. It's not easy to enforce your own deadlines when you think you have time (and money)- anyone who has written a paper for a class the night before it's due is familiar with this! I can't attest for what happened with Unsung Heroes but it looks like they screwed themselves early on and desperately tried to find a way to make a poor business plan work out... which just doesn't happen. Of course, they might've embezzled the money and bounced. Unless they get audited there's no way to really tell.

Nobody404 Yeah, often you get these accusations of "running with the money", and allegations that they actually didn't put any of it towards the project. I guess that might even be a comforting thought in a way, thinking that there's still some actual purpose to it, and you were actually wronged. But the sad truth is, if you don't know how to handle the money, you can pour LITERALLY endless amounts of it away into deadend projects and have NOTHING to show for it in the end. Game development is expensive, and if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to underestimate your budget requirements AND still waste that budget. The sad truth is, most of the companies that end up not delivering aren't stealing money. They're wasting it and ending up with ultimately nothing. Instead of some nefarious scheme, there's just incompetence and flat, anticlimactic nothing. It's really easy to make big promises, make nice speeches and flash some fancy concept art or a big name. It's not as easy to actually deliver on that.

Actually it doesn't guarantee anything. Games are still getting cancelled left and right. Think prey 2 (I'm still mad about it), starwars whatever its name uncharted edition...

For the very short time that I've worked in the gaming industry I can tell you they have made NOTHING so far. Zilch. Nada. Indie game devs, when there's even a small bit work done, they can't WAIT to show it to their fans. All I see in the updates are fucking walls of text. *BARF*

Or the game gets chopped in development and literally dies on a shelf.

Yacht Club Games actually ran out of money when making Shovel Knight but they eventually finished it and it was great in the great but that's more luck and giving a shit. Inafune and Matsuno didn't. At least Ninja Theory made Hellblade on their own and the guy behind Dust: An Elysian Tail has talent and determination.

Kenny McKinnon I understand where you're coming from but they're are good kickstarter games like shovel knight and shantae: half genie hero

therock238360 also FTL,which is equal to or surpassed shovel knight when it comes to kickstarter sucess

I forgot about shovel knight because it was out before I knew about its kickstarter, that's a great game. And didn't know about Shantae being kickstarted at all! Thought it was the previous games Doug well enough. Both good games!

it's a gamble, not a guarentee either in succuss or failure, you're looking at around 30% odds the kickstarted game'll knock it outtha the park (shovel knight, pillars or eternity, shadowrun hong kong) usually if the people behind it have a history in game development, another 30% of the time you'll get something good/mediocre (yooka laylee and such, usually ones that get a console release) and then you get the 40% which is the shitshows, most never get finished and if they do you get mighty number 9 results

If youre incompetent and lazy, then even 50million is not enough to make a playable game...

What we're learning from kickstarter is that that some devs have eyes bigger than their wallets, and that not all publishers are bad. For all the shit we give publishers, sometimes people need to be told "Okay, that's a good idea, but we're overbudget." or "That's a nice idea but we only got this much to work with."

People make better games will less money and resources so this is a bad excuse.

With blunders involving EA, Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, Valve, Stadia, and other major game companies and consoles dominating the news, it would be nice of Yong to follow up on this game.