It was bound to happen sooner or later – an overwhelmingly successful Kickstarter campaign gets funded, the creator spends all of the money then cancels the project, leaving investors high and dry. That’s exactly what happened with a board game called “The Doom that Came to Atlantic City” that managed to raise $122,874 last June – more than three times its original goal.
Erik Chevalier penned a message on the game’s Kickstarter page announcing the bad news – the project is over and the game has been canceled. It is here that he claims every possible mistake was made, some due to his inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications.
Chevalier goes on to point out that after paying to form the company, paying for miniature game pieces, moving back to Portland, getting software license and hiring artists, the money simply dried up.
Chevalier says it was never his intention to swindle money from donors and he never gave up on the project (until now). He allegedly tried to pitch the idea to investors and begged banks for loans to no avail. Ultimately, however, it was his decision to shutter the project and as you can imagine, his two partners weren’t very happy.
Chevalier vows to eventually refund everyone fully, starting first with those that pre-ordered after the Kickstarter campaign through their website then moving down the backer list (seems a bit backwards, but I digress). As such, there’s no timeline for repayment as Chevalier quit his job to work on the game but I imagine it will take quite some time to repay over $120k.
