So, tonight it was announced that the Human Resources Kickstarter was pulled due to a lack of funding (two weeks before completion).

Now before I get people calling me a Grintch (I am, Bah Humbug!), there is a reason for how I feel about this… It’s called Planetary Annihilation!

funded – 247%
pledged – $2,229,344 (of $900,000 goal)
backers – 44,162
Funded – Sep 14 2012

Planetary Annihilation, the successor of Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation, was a massive draw on Kickstarter, as you can see above…

But THEN, they released it on STEAM, for… wait for it… £40 ($60) on Early Access, After making $2,229,344 on Kickstarter.  Hell, it was £20 for Kickstarter backers, so they actually paid for the game TWICE!

All this and two years down the line, PA is STILL not complete, its only just gotten its offline mode and the game is atrocious

“Today, we busted out a new Kickstarter for a new strategy game called Human Resources. Built on the same engine that you helped us create for Planetary Annihilation, Human Resources expands on the scale and destruction you’ve come to love in exciting and different ways. We realize that some of you might take this news as concerning, so we wanted to come out and say this: work on Planetary Annihilation will not stop if Human Resources funds; both games will have a team dedicated to these separate projects”

So, Human Resources was a second team?

Ok, lets quickly look at the now cancelled Kickstarter for it

Now, I admit, the game looks cool (actually, its looks like the Planetary Annihilation we wanted and mainly thats because it uses the game engine made for it)

But there are two reasons Human Resources failed.   GREED and GREED

The loyal fans that would have backed this in a heartbeat didn’t, because of the unfinished game Planetary Annihilation.

The fans with more money than sense though, even most of them saw through the kickstarter rewards this time:

They start off fairly reasonably (ok, I backed it too)

Then it ramps up

Then it starts to get a little crazy…

$125 pledge to get a tshirt and soundtrack?   Oh and team colours…

The mini figures and USB stick look fun, but that’s a LOT of money

Ok, this is getting silly now…

Umm…   No!

Ok, this is getting stupid

I’ve heard a lot of Indie devs talking about the demise of Kickstarter, even on our own Indie Game Show on a Sunday.   And Uber Entertainment prove why this is happening.   They aren’t being realistic!

They made $2.2mil just from the KICKSTARTER for Planetary Annihilation.  Thats MORE than enough to release a game of the quality PA should have been.  But this is hurting the smaller developers more than anything, as backers are starting to lose faith in Kickstarter and what its actually for.  Helping small companies bring us good new games and getting going.  Its not just Uber Entertainment, 22Cans did the same with Godus last year and there are many others.

So while I am a little disappointed that another potentially good RTS has died, I am laying the blame squarely on the developers this time.