Wildman Kickstarter canceled, developer looking to keep studio running

With four days left and almost $600,000 to go in it's $1.1 million Kickstarter drive for Wildman, Gas Powered Games has canceled the campaign, with company CEO Chris Taylor saying he is looking at other things to keep the company going.

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With four days left and almost $600,000 to go in it's $1.1 million Kickstarter drive for Wildman, Gas Powered Games has canceled the campaign, with company CEO Chris Taylor saying he is looking at other things to keep the company going.

"I've been working in the background to find other ways to keep Gas Powered Game running," Taylor said in the latest video update that announced the crowdfunding cancellation. "If it wasn't for all of the hard work and the passion and the support [on Kickstarter] that I've seen this last month, I would not be in a position to be looking at some of the opportunities that we've got today."

We've reached out to Taylor for more details on what the cancellation will mean for the developers he hired back to continue the project. We'll update once we have more.

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 11, 2013 2:00 PM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Wildman Kickstarter canceled, developer looking to keep studio running.

    With four days left and almost $600,000 to go in it's $1.1 million Kickstarter drive for Wildman, Gas Powered Games has canceled the campaign, with company CEO Chris Taylor saying he is looking at other things to keep the company going.

    • reply
      February 11, 2013 2:10 PM

      Pity. Ill buy it it whatever form you get it done Chris. To bad the kickstarter didn't pan out.

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      February 11, 2013 2:13 PM

      I think they made the pitch sound way too dire.

      If the company is that close to folding and it relies on a Kickstarter, who's to say that the company can actually *finish* the game?

      It sounded too pathetic.

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        February 11, 2013 5:20 PM

        Mostly agree with you. Plus, I think the genre just doesn't hold as much promise as it once did.

        Now, if he wants to do a Kickstarer to nab the X-Wing and/or Tie Fighter license and put his creative muscle behind that... sign me up!

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          February 11, 2013 6:27 PM

          How the heck can GPG get X-Wing / TIe Fighter license when they have no money to start with? Those things don't come cheap if at all. Plus, Chris Taylor isn't know for making space sims, or were you confused him with Chris Roberts?

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        February 11, 2013 5:45 PM

        [deleted]

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      February 11, 2013 5:33 PM

      Really a sad development. It reflects poorly on us as gamers that a great studio, with a fairly famous designer, can't get a cool concept like this Kickstarter while a million bone-headed, one-trick pony indies can hit their marks. Pathetic.

      At least Chris Robert's space-fight sim made its goals, that's something to give us all hope at least.

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        February 11, 2013 6:41 PM

        I'd place more blame on big publishers ripping out contracts from under GPG; that's ultimately what led to their lack of funding.

        http://www.shacknews.com/article/77509/gas-powered-games-had-several-games-canned-last-minute

        "There's multiple games that we got almost to the finish line on," studio head Chris Taylor said. "We got a phone call from the publisher and they said, 'We're terminating.' And we're like, 'Yeah but we're only a month away from beta!' And they're like, 'Yeah we're still terminating.'"

        Something similar happened to Double Fine with a potential Brutal Legend sequel: http://www.shacknews.com/article/64752/double-fine-making-four-small

        "[Brütal Legend 2] was kind of a done deal so we were working designing that and then we got some bad news," said Schafer. "We got a phone call from the publisher and it was like 'Actually we're not going to do the sequel' and I was like 'Oh. That's interesting.' So that was not what I expected. Apparently when they said it's a done deal they meant there's no deal and we're done."

        After that, Double Fine diversified, ultimately releasing Costume Quest and Stacking, which were published by THQ, and then moving onto Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster, and a bunch of smaller projects. I'm guessing that Double Fine had more time and money at the point EA ripped out Brutal Legend 2 from under them, as opposed to how sudden Gas Powered lost their projects.

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      February 11, 2013 6:35 PM

      The video makes it sound like he's got money lined up elsewhere, and it just waiting for the deal to go through before saying anything about it.

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