Darkness is back… kinda…
Didn’t I call it? I called it. Once again, the “spiritual successor” of the cult classic Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is back, and shinied up for a second shot at Kickstarter.
The original funding campaign was a mess of stickiness for Precursor Games. With a goal of $1.5 million split between Paypal funding and Kickstarter, fans were at a loss as to whether the company was trying to double-dip or just give investors more options. The Paypal campaign was killed early on to focus entirely on the Kickstarter campaign, but even then the enthusiasm was lukewarm at best.
Denis Dyack, founder of Silicon Knights and current Chief Creative Officer at Precursor games, may have something to do with it. The gaming community still holds him chiefly to blame for Silicon Knights’ headlong descent from celebrated studio to industry laughingstock.
The original Kickstarter was shut down just 12 days shy of the funding deadline, having made about 19% of the original $1.5 million goal.
But that was hardly the end of it.
They promised they’d be back.. and now they are. Again.
This time, they’ve shaved down the budget from $1.5 million to a mere $750k. With this much more reasonable goal and with 28 days to go, the new Kickstarter has managed to fund about $126k. This is about $2 less than what the last Kickstarter achieved after most of its funding time had lapsed. Not a bad start.
Still, from a look at the two Kickstarters, nothing significant seems to have changed. Some new pictures, some more endorsements. But for the things that matter, namely the game, there have been no new additions and none of the expected subtractions that should go along with as steep a drop as from $1.5 mil to $750k.
Shouldn’t there be?
For me, that begs the question… So, were getting less for more last time around, or more for less now? That certainly smacks of knowing what you’re doing. From where I stand, you’re still at the market stand hawking me the same carrot, and I’m not buying.
The sad thing is this looks like it really could be quite a cool game. The original Eternal Darkness broke boundaries and honestly stood toe-to-toe against Resident Evil and Silent Hill sequels. Fans have been seeking a sequel for years for good reason.
But I’m not much interested in supporting something that Precursor keeps desperately throwing back in our faces promising more and yet offering the same exact thing.
Besides… shouldn’t there rules against this kind of thing?
This constant rearranging of Kickstarter campaigns simply to suit themselves has gone on from the very beginning. To go from $1.5 million, then to subtracting the original Paypal amount from the $1.5, to cancelling it, to launching a new campaign with a zero on the end…
Maybe it doesn’t violate Kickstarter’s Terms of Service, but it definitely feels like Precursor’s pixying out of the spirit of the system. And that doesn’t leave a pleasant taste in my mouth.
I’m not one to wish the worst on people, but I wouldn’t be sorry to see this Kickstarter fail right alongside the last.
Stop trying to make Shadow of the Eternals happen.
‘Course, now that I’ve said it.. it’s probably going to happen, isn’t it?
