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Despite successful Kickstarter, ‘Woolfe – The Red Hood Diaries’ devs file for bankruptcy
A successful crowdfunding campaign may be a dream for many independent game developers, but a sackful of cash can’t solve everything, and now one developer has been forced to shut down after its crowdfunded game failed to live up to fan expectations.
Belgian indie game developer Grin Gamestudio successfully crowdfunded its cinematic side-scrolling platformer Woolfe – The Red Hood Diaries in September 2014 and released it to Steam in March, but now the studio has announced that it will be closing its doors and can no longer continue development on the game.
“It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed,” Grin founder Wim Wouters wrote in an update to the game’s Kickstarter campaign. “The team is now dismantled and we have requested bankruptcy unable to pay outstanding bills.”
“I guess our public silence the last few months already said a lot. It is not out of disrespect that our communication dropped to almost zero… it is out of shame,” Wouters continued. “It is truly devastating to read the negative comments we received by some press and players. With Woolfe being the most passion driven thing we have ever created, it feels horrible to live with the feeling we let you down.”
Grin has had trouble living up to its Kickstarter promises in regards to backer benefits. The studio has yet to ship the physical goods it promised to donors, and even digital goods like artbook PDFs have yet to find their way to many backers.
“The crazy thing is, that we have most of the rewards ready for postage,” Wouters said. “All the backer stickers and letters of enlistment just need a stamp. All the poster sets printed, signed and ready. The artbook is ready to be printed, the soundtrack is ready for distribution, the DVD case is ready for production. But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases.”
The studio had originally planned to release a Volume 2 chapter for the game this year, but with its current financial situation, that will no longer be possible.
Image via GRIN Gamestudio | Kickstarter
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