The Tragedy of Yogventures - A $500,000 Kickstarter Disaster

Developed by THE YOGSCAST, Yogventures was aimed at becoming the next Minecraft. But, due to mismanagement, financial troubles, and controversy, the game was never completed.
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On this channel, I like to cover games that have failed, games that have died, nostalgic stuff, and games that are awesome. In today's video, we talk about the tragedy of Yogventures and how it ended up being one of the biggest Kickstarter disasters of all time.
#Yogventures #VideoEssay #RoboKast

[@robokast]

Don't forget to check out Ekster Wallets for a super nice wallet and use code ROBO for extremely affordable prices! ekster.com?sca_ref=41330.3e3pOUuVga

[@evanbarrett409]

Hey when are you gonna play on your unturned server? I have been playing on it so much hoping to see you

[@RoundBaguette]

Robo means theft in Spanish

[@NajmulIslam-qn7dy]

Please make video for *IJI* Game

[@shaymorcormick8743]

Find it crazy that they were shooting for 250k and ended up pocketing that and more just for salary...sus

[@monkeymayEH]

No I don’t think I will

[@BlockFacts]

I bought this game in September 2013, *after* the Kickstarter finished. Downloading the game now brings you to a broken login screen. Basically, I paid full price for a main menu that plays copyright-free music.

[@theusernameicoodfind]

Hey at least you’re a dedicated fan supporting the yogscast LOL

[@flashter6101]

Rip

[@Z3R0NU11]

Money well spent

[@Marconius6]

As a game developer, the initial scope of what was promised seems insane to me... think about it, they basically promise they'd make Minecraft, but without the block system; AND they'd add a robust, user-friendly in-game modding system to that. And they wanted to do all this with six people in what, like a year?! It sounds like the director had no game dev experience prior to this, and I'm guessing he vastly underestimated how difficult this would be... or he was pressured from outside.

[@DaggerPrince]

when you put it like that... crazy to think they wanted to do this in a year lol. even from the screenshots i immediately saw this is gonna be a fail. game looks so horrible lol. im not one of those people who require every game to have "realistic" graphics, infact i hate these boring "realistic" graphics i rather a cool cartoony look with an art style instead of a lifeless "realism." BUT. this game sure looked horrible lol. like wow. looks like some 1990 stuff but done poorly.

[@DrLegitimate]

Yeah, I was going to basically post this. That feature list is lengthy, complex, and expensive. You probably would need another 2 zeros of budget to make that real with an experienced team. The reality is that a sub $1,000,000 budget is very close to 'nothing' when you start exploding scope.

[@Marconius6]

@@DrLegitimate That might actually be a bit TOO much of a budget. A game like this doesn't need that much asset creation, barely any voice acting, basically no level design, etc. A ton of money in big, more narrative games goes into that kind of non-technical stuff, that a sandbox game like this would be able to completely skip. But in exchange they have to put a lot more effort into the tech, UX design, playtesting, etc.

[@jacintfodor1296]

@@Marconius6 500 000 dollars can't cover dev salaries for a year,

[@user-wj6jh1cd5n]

@@DaggerPrince The denial at the end there doesn't hide the fact that you clearly care more for graphics than gameplay.

[@partariothegoth]

While Yogscast aren't necessarily the most at fault, they absolutely deserve the most criticism. Winterkewl admitted and explained their mistakes while Yogs couldn't even fulfill the physical rewards and had such an arrogant attitude about the failure, the whole "no obligation" thing to try and look better.

[@dannythepanny2007]

I hope the yogscast fails

[@hexogramd8430]

@@dannythepanny2007 they’ve been chugging for 10 years I don’t think they’re going to

[@dannythepanny2007]

@@hexogramd8430 i was kidding. Do you really think I want my childhood to die

[@cooltjh4]

@@dannythepanny2007 yes

[@dannythepanny2007]

@@cooltjh4 i was kidding, yogscast forever

[@alexdrums1545]

At least the developers were mature and transparent about their mistake.

[@robokast]

Agreed, mad respect for that.

[@PsyckoSama]

They were quite honest about stealing my money.

[@ivnwng]

@@robokastrespect my ar$e, stop the glazing.

[@ToxicMothBoi]

Honestly fuck the money The guy who put his life into this and still got a divorce and almost lost his job should have honestly gotten the rest of the money...

[@chandranapier2259]

I'm sorry but Yogscast literally just up and doomed their own project and screwed everyone over. I cant tell if it was just a lot of stupidity or straight malice. They failed on every end and they were the ones who did it. They made big money on their Minecraft/gaming channels and could have funded the project and found a head programmer but put forth zero effort for it.

[@VarenvelDarakus]

Not to say they wanted game who would cost at very least 2 millions , and they only paid Devs 250k ish?

[@VarenvelDarakus]

@Doot Doot i know devs who did and you know them from big sucesful games like terraria , and would be 6 devs not 1

[@thynErro]

Yogcast made themselves the villain with the no obligations comment. They deserve 100% of the criticism they got, and still do. At least the developer owned up to his failings, he deserves respect for that at least.

[@Thudge]

No way near as bad as Star Citizen. $300 million dollars and 10 years in development, still not finished.

[@ThePsychoRenegade]

Star Citizen isn't what they've promised but it is beyond playable at this point.

[@oelx0]

What they originally promised is squadron 42 which is admittedly still in development as for star citizen it seems like development on it in its current form started in 2016, 5 years is fairly normal for any mmo and they have promised a game bigger than basically any mmo. As for 300$ Million dollars it is important to keep in mind it wasn’t to an existing studio such as if rockstar had a $300m budget but rather to build up a studio and teams globally and build tech for an mmo and lastly make the game in that case that much money is admittedly far from being as excessive as it seems. Lastly it’s important to keep in mind the devs & execs etc have no choice but to complete the game because they have received money from investors for marketing purposes and I don’t see how they will pay the investors with an unfinished game. This is also not going in-depth on the fact that money doesn’t immediately result in a boost as people need to be hired and then become familiar with what they are working on, and completely ignoring that a lot of the tech completed and being worked on is quite complex or in the case of dynamic server meshing afaik never been done in a game before. Edit: Also keep mind I haven’t bought star citizen and will likely stay on the fence for a year or so and see how it goes, but I truely don’t see it as a scam.

[@bartorzech21]

@@oelx0 haha, theres so much wrong with this comment. I backed the game prior to 2016 for star citizen, not only squadron 42. I got both in the package. That's just wrong. They've lied so much im not surprised you are mistaken on this.

[@DeosPraetorian]

@@bartorzech21 I mean you can still play the game

[@bartorzech21]

@@DeosPraetorian you can play whatever their buggy release is. I've tried it like s week ago to see that new update and did some quests. Well, tried. Despite the starter ship being able to hold storage I could not store delivery packages, so that prevented me from doing delivery quests. My ship was unable to handle turrets, so that denied a big chunk of combat quests. Only thing I didnt try was the other shipment quest but st this point I was too tired of the game to continue. The other players reported constant bugs and honestly it seems like they only played to roleplay amongst and pretend it was a better game then it really was

[@galagax7678]

Palpatine to Anakin: Have you ever heard of The tragedy of Yogventures?

[@NecroBanana]

Yogcast is to blame. They're still in denial about it to this day, but it's their fault and they know it.

[@draco18s]

Yeah I saw this project go up on Kickstarter and knew it was going to be a massive failure from the get-go. These guys did not have the right personalities to make a crafting survival game: they were a comedy pair. There is no comedic value intrinsic to a survival adventure game, all the comedy comes from HOW you play (extrinsic value). Seeing who they hired, ouch. That was a mistake. Guy they hired started a company having come over from _big film_ and is expected to do something he's never done before on a budget one one-thousandth he's used to?

[@Googledeservestodie]

Know this: just because you can *play* games for views doesn't mean you should *produce* them. I feel bad for the development company that went bankrupt over it, even worse for the fans who paid.

[@SpatsirkSpart2.0]

Ironically the yogscast has released a few actually good games

[@OmairArif]

They've since created a publishing company (Yogscast Games), which has released 4 well recieved games so far (caveblazers, brunch club, drink more glurp, and landlord's super)

[@pervasivedoubt150]

@@OmairArif wait… Yogscast published Landlord’s Super… 🤯

[@CreativityCurve]

The pitch for this game kinda reminds me of what Project Spark wanted to be... yeah, remember that?

[@Bread_Bug]

My god, that man went through divorce all because of some overambitious youtubers that refused to take any accountability. That’s horrible

[@afrogedon]

I'm not excusing what happened with the project overall, but 500k is nothing in terms of game development and was never gonna be even near enough to fully develop the game

[@zeroeverhart2460]

They should of just made a yogventures mod for minecraft and had the donation for helping building the most advanced minecraft mod.

[@irinashidou9524]

I was super disappointed when this turned into shit. Yogscast made up so much of my childhood

[@toohype8762]

Kickstarter games and scams name a more iconic duo 4Head

[@wm1pyro604]

I think the moral of the story is... youtubers should stay out of the game dev industry. Like other comments have said, just because you're a gaming channel, that doesn't make you qualified to mastermind and supervise a $500 000 game. From the outside it sounds like the Yogscast weren't really prepared for the amount of work it would take, and Winterkewl was passionate but took on too ambitious of a project. As crappy as the Early Access system can be, I think for small indie devs and the consumer it's a MUCH safer route than trying to raise thousands of dollars for a game that hasn't even started development yet.

[@LordChristoff]

God, does nobody do feasibility studies these days? More a case of, fuck it we'll make a game.

[@Nealrex101]

Reminds me a lot of Pbat's "Project Roxivia"

[@isla25]

I followed yogscast for years before this debacle, but have never watched them since. It was 100% their fault and they played the victim. Lowlifes

[@buttergolem8584]

I only buy Early Access games if I'm ok with it if the game stays how it is now. Luckily, most games I bought in EA evolved very well.

[@Ploobart]

You showed a pic of Turps at the beginning. Hes not apart of yogscast anymore

[@wolfpixl]

Lets hope hytale wouldnt end up the same fate

[@ianmitchell5979]

0:11 Cause' why would you expect an early access game to updates in development? Ridiculous. I know what you mean, since Yogsadventures is an example of early access not getting better. But early access games should be expected to get better! It shouldn't be normal for early access games to stay a mess. That's not what they should be for, and we shouldn't be comfortable with that. We shouldn't think early access games not getting better makes sense, but the other way around. Sadly, too many EA games die before they are even born. That's why I check if the game is getting frequent and good updates first, before buying.

[@White_Tiger93]

Physical rewards were one of the biggest scams

[@ComfiCharlie]

man i remember this

[@ulqinaku8471]

how can you fuck up this so bad?

[@tinysmardy]

next: the tragedy of little devil (scam) inside

[@DehOllie]

Didn't they also make a 2d sidescroller game?

[@theusernameicoodfind]

Yeah I saw a video recently from the yogscast talking about how they were trying out different games based on viewer reaction and I was just surprised they still had a lot of fans. Yeah this video just made me dislike yogscast all over again lol, they were some loveable personalities but not owing the backers anything? Yikes

[@bird__xyz9520]

In fairness the yogs are quite different now to back in the day. Im guessing the video you saw was to do with Tiny Teams where they basically spend a week spotlighting loads of games with small development teams.

[@finleyjennings6051]

Yeah the Yogscast is almost completely different to what it was. The tiny teams event has been a great success the two years they have run it as part of Yogscast games, their publishing company where they have successfully published 4 games so far.

[@hexogramd8430]

Lewis was inexperienced and young and naive dreamer with this project. Yet the yogscast is super different now, several of the members were either pedophiles or sexual abusers. The former ceo turps literally got caught doing shit with fans (making people uncomfortable) while he had a wife and kid. They all got outed new people replaced and the company brand IMO has really been restructured for the better,

[@Naloma]

Jesus I didn’t even know this game was a thing 😂

[@jarrodritter489]

LoL my sister husband worked on star forge 🤣

[@xy2447]

its sad how anyone can make a better game these days for free

[@nicholashunt5230]

You should talk about Hytale next.

[@BubbyTheHollow]

What about dream world?

[@Kid_Naps]

it was the reason for me to stop watching Yogscast

[@Kni0002]

Hopefully hytale won’t end up like this

[@bim8498]

Why don't devs just be real and say it'll take like 4 years

[@VarenvelDarakus]

Ash yes 4 years of work for 400k dollars for 5 people

[@bim8498]

@@VarenvelDarakus Yeah so 200k isn't enough

[@VarenvelDarakus]

@@bim8498 Sorry i remembered wrong , it was 350-420k in the end , i watched the video early morning then began to comment , still not near enough for 2-3milion dollar game , and this prize is lowballing , more realistic would be 5mil (i re-edited the original comment)

[@SpatsirkSpart2.0]

Oof totalbiscuit gameplay

[@outofline08]

First Time Being Early!

[@WarLasso]

With 7M subscribers, and back in 2012, when YT was much more profitable, the Yogcast guys would earn half a million in what, a few months at most? They could've EASILY properly funded this game and a AAA one for that matter. Instead they chose to scam people, because they were thieves and people are stupid. BTW, those 10k backs are as legit as the 300$, 500$, 1000$ payments on Humble Bundle: the devs themselves increasing the average (in this case, the Yogcast guys raising the hype). In the past, we customers paid to play (most of the time) finished and polished games. Now we pay to fund the development of a project that may or may not be finished and to work as QA testers.

[@Horace01]

yogscams

[@Nobody-ve6dh]

It's your fault

[@Tclans]

Years later... We got Valheim. Fin.

[@jaraxu_]

i dont think it was a scam but i do think both partys were too ambitious and unexperianced and thats why it failed

[@vurified]

Yogventures! Also known as the 3rd biggest scam of all time, right behind NFT's/Metaverse and Cryptocurrency taking the #1 cake.

[@hei7846]

I believe the most to blame people were the Yogscast. The developer got his life ruined working on the game. Yet the Yogscast members abandoned it, they could have easily funded it too

[@tobubiify]

Crazy how they could escape from the blame easily, fucking hell

[@plebisMaximus]

Even from the start, they knew this was an ambitious project, hiring a brand new team with 0 experience and relatively shit funding (400k isn't big for a game of this scope) was stupid.

[@papasscooperiaworker3649]

Is the developer ok? I hope he's ok

[@Timmymantwo]

@@papasscooperiaworker3649 Chris Vale is fine, he has a good job and has done well

[@glowerworm]

Love your pfp! Florence is a remarkable game

[@GlowNinjaZ]

Seems like the main reason it failed was lack of enough funding for the idea they had in mind. Same issue with a lot of project. You don't realize how big it is until it's too late and you need 10 times more money to finish it. 5k with 6 developers with all the costs is basically 1 year to develop the game and it sounds like the project was more of a 3-4 years thing

[@TheSkidify]

I wouldn't say lack of funding was the problem here. They had 300k+ amount of funding. That's MORE than enough to make a fully fledged game. The main problem was the classic "I'm going to give you the world with limitless possibilities" blunder most indie devs(Especially in experienced one like the company here) make. They weren't realistic with their visions, and jumped straight into the deep end without testing the waters first. Ofcourse this lies solely on the Lead developer/management for being unrealistic with their goals.

[@ryanmcadam737]

@@TheSkidify Whether the budget is enough is dependent on the scope of the game. Jason Schrier’s book goes into the misconception of budgets but your average AAA studio has a burn rate per month of $10,000 per developer. Not saying that this team would have a similar burn rate by any means but some of what they promised was very ambitious (especially for the time the game was being developed) so that budget is relatively small once you get into it.

[@NinjapowerMS]

Hollow knight had like a budget of 50+ grand iirc with three guys on the team. It wasn't this bad actually turned out to be the best if not one of the best metroidvania games in recent years. Seems like their scope was way too ambitious and in retrospective a mobile game probably would have been for the best

[@alalmalal]

@@NinjapowerMS hollow knight was 2d and not a sandbox

[@amazingkool]

@Alal Malal Yes, but it's a masterclass of one. This speaks directly to the point: you need a reasonable scope to start with. Big ass perfect infinite sandbox game with every feature and the kitchen sink thrown in is going to have budget troubles no matter what. Start with what you can handle, and refine it with time and iteration. That's a small piece of the puzzle to how to end up with a masterclass instead of, well, nothing in the yogventure case.

[@hyperventalated]

I will say, their concept art is beautiful though. Whoever they got to do the concepts for it is a wonderful artist. I especially like the salamander guys

[@kenabisan4731]

In the video he showed some costs, about 35k was paid for a dreamworks animator.

[@LunarBulletDev]

The sheer ambition, man. A game isnt just programming and art, it is leading, planning and executing, hell, even profesional indies fail, the Yogscast team didnt even have any game dev experience I believe, yet alone try to make a game to rival king minecraft itself. If anything, either they shouldve planned for a smaller, even singleplayer experience which was achievable, OR slowly build the game like minecraft did, the first versions of minecraft were extremelly basic BUT working, slowly building what it is today, instead for this game, they already had fully working 3d models with animations without solid gameplay, big mistake to focus on final pieces when your prototype doesnt even work correctly.

[@grzegorzha.]

Wow, that guy basically lost his life for that game and then they just fired him. And the fact they could've funded it, but chose to disappoint all their fans instead...

[@DaggerPrince]

thats how all these kid-friendly grown men youtubers doing a funny voice be like in reality.

[@NeoAya]

>yogscast kid-friendly

[@More_Row]

@@NeoAya back then. Yeah we know you are young.

[@CAMSLAYER13]

Eh, still pretty debatable

[@monkeyfeed908]

im not sure they could have funded it. ur looking at another 500K atleast for a game that may or may not pan out. Its honestly debatable if it could be finished at all and even if it was finished it would be like 2016 by then and a game like that in 2016? idk if it would have sold enough to make back its money. steam used to take 40% so at 30$ a copy they essentially would have had to sell about 60K copies of the game to even make their money back. Or at 60$ per game 30K copies which is even less likely

[@Kalianos88]

Ah yes, the kickstarter that I backed $100 for a shirt that has burn marks on it and smelled like burning plastic. I became *VERY* choosy and more careful after it flopped.

[@awogbob]

Sounds like there is a huge story about the lead dev. He wanted it so bad and worked himself to failure. That's fascinating. Usually kickstarters go bad because of deceptive mal practice. This seemed like he wanted it bad but it didn't work

[@diegov1743]

I hate to sound negative, but all my instincts points towards Hytale being a disappointment/failure as well.

[@sneugler]

Although I’m optimistic, I definitely get that feeling as well. It just kinda seems like one of those games where the devs have a far higher goal than possible

[@mr9293]

@@sneugler Me too sadly. R.I.P Hytale. You will be missed

[@robokast]

The good thing about Hytale is that the developers already have a lot of cash on hand. With proper funding it is much less likely to fail.

[@mr9293]

@@robokast I am very glad to hear that!😁

[@RhelrahneTheIdiot]

@@sneugler Good thing about them is they actually seem to have some credible evidence that they're going to succeed or have the talent to do so, that and you've got the benefit of having the largest and likely most profitable server on Minecraft working on it.

[@MythicalRedFox]

Seems to me like the Yogscast wanted a vanity-project self-insert Minecraft RPG, convinced their fans to give them half a million dollars for it, and then ruined a developer's life trying to make it come to fruition, while they walked away scot-free. Tragic indeed.

[@billfred9411]

It's a shitshow all around. That developer admitted to his inexperience and blew all the money way faster than he should have. Both sides could be blamed for biting off more than they can chew but if anything, the developer screwed over the yogscast by not being able to deliver the product. Honestly at this point throwing blame at anyone is kind of pointless because no one did anything with ill intent.

[@Joe-dy7bb]

I never see Hiveswap come up whenever people talk about flop kickstarters. It raised 2mil and just barely made it out of development hell.

[@everythingeverything6505]

lol no they didnt it is still in and will forever be if you want to go down the rabbit hole look up sarah z's video on homestuck and then the followup of her getting lawyered by hussie

[@Duplicitousthoughtformentity]

@@everythingeverything6505 Hussie’s fall from grace looked an awful lot like Sweet Bro falling down the stairs.

[@superchroma]

@@everythingeverything6505 I did this and the video is too long and her mannerisms felt forced and distracting. I hopped off the Homestuck train early and I honestly don't feel like doing a deep dive for an hour. Is there a 15 or so minute video on the topic that is delivered by someone in a straightforward way?

[@Gabe413]

@@everythingeverything6505 but it came out? and a act 2 was also released. so how is it in development hell?

[@Gabe413]

@@superchroma she talks like that because of her background as a debater i think. feels like a looong lecture

[@KlausWulfenbach]

No Kickstarter is guaranteed even if they get the money, but there are so many good Indie games that started on Kickstarter and then people seem to forget that fact. Shovel Knight, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and A Hat In Time are just a few that I've backed personally. And yes, I backed Yogventures as well. I completely understand why people get burned once by a project going that badly and then swear to never back another project again. But there are so many fantastic successes that in my eyes they more than make up for the disasters. You just need to bear in mind that even if the reward tiers promise a product, any one Kickstarter can always go catastrophically wrong and you might not get that money back.

[@DaggerPrince]

thanks for backing shovel knight dhawg.

[@terriblyterrified8742]

people like to focus on the negatives

[@cinnastag]

Unfortunately, those people are right. For every diamond you find, there's a mountain of shit. That's why people don't trust Kickstarter.

[@sylonogwailou]

@@terriblyterrified8742 People like to avoid being suckers.

[@mjfromjersey]

Didn’t cuphead originally come from Kickstarter too or am I remembering wrong?

[@sean748]

Eyyyy Hurtworld! I was one of the 3 programmers that worked on that game. Nice to hear people still remember it, even in this case as something that disappointed them in how it turned out. We were a team of 3-7 with almost zero gamedev experience going in, just trying to make something cool. We never did a Kickstarter - it was always money for something you could download and play. It didn't end up being Rust 2 or a phenomenon, but shit, I'm still proud of its little life as a community and a game. We worked hard on it, it was hugely ambitious and honestly I didn't think we'd ever get as far as we did with the funds/experience/time we had.

[@Zach-bt2ky]

Hey sean buddy, no one asked

[@TheExiagundam]

500k is nowhere near enough for a game that ambitious. It was doomed from the beginning.

[@vineheart01]

hell 500k probably isnt even enough for a 2D platformer these days with more scope than Mario Bros.

[@etodemerzel2627]

@@vineheart01 Especially if developers are US/UK-based.

[@gregpenismith8884]

Heaven forbid they put up some of their OWN money. This was an outright scam from the start.

[@deankaraniya7422]

@@vineheart01 You are very wrong. See: Hollow Knight.

[@djdonkeyface5451]

I've loved Yogscast ever since I was really little, was so sad about this when it happened.

[@EnderMorningstar]

At Power Wash Simulator is actually good. I actually watch Smi7y playthrough of the game. Pretty satisfying.

[@Eluvix]

How?! Is it just power washing or is there more too it

[@EnderMorningstar]

@@Eluvix You can twist the nozzle to spray in a different way.

[@Eluvix]

@@EnderMorningstar truly innovative

[@thelastlightz2606]

Its meh I only like it for smi7y and not the game

[@DreddLypso]

@@Eluvix my friend is addicted to ot to the point of playing every dang day lmao. It's no joke apparently.

[@LikaLaruku]

First Kickstarter that ever got my attention. I still like the promo animation where Simon is stockpiling Jaffa Cakes. I was given the impression that only 2 people working on the game. Still wanna play that second beta.

[@katepriest346]

So wait, the backers didn't get a refund??

[@-alon3inhell792]

I’m pretty sure if a Kickstarter flops,you don’t get your money back. I could be wrong tho.

[@ElectricalSwift]

@@-alon3inhell792 if it gets fully funded you don't, no.

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

Depends on the case, normally if they don't deliver anything Kickstarter gives a refund ( but it takes a while and I think it is a recent policy). But in any case they can just release some garbage and you can't refund it.

[@RavenBlack74]

Don't forget that at the time Yogscast said they had no money to repay backers 4 of the members bought new homes.

[@Cris_Blu]

Wait a second, not to say Yogscast don’t have any blame to take here but like company employees buying personal homes with personal salary is not fucking indicative of how much money the company has to spend to repay backers. Unless you’re suggesting that the payment of people unrelated to the incident be cut.

[@Cris_Blu]

@@Oujouj426 sure but we can agree that it probably wasn’t “we can’t pay you” *gives large large bonuses to in house employees* and honestly I think assuming is kinda fucked because it places some blame on the company through employees just trying live their lives

[@iain9757]

Which 4?

[@azeria1]

Yogventures sounds like a seedy investment firm

[@vineheart01]

as with 90% of the kickstarter video games, someone gets a wild idea and thinks "Kickstarter will fund it!" and they very quickly realize that its not easy to make games, and especially not easy to make nonlinear games and even more especially not easy to make 3D nonlinear games. Kickstarter is good for boardgame stuff since usually people are playing with paper and cardboard to figure things out before they even do kickstarter, and thus all they need the funding for is the fancy artwork and production/distribution.

[@camelChase20]

It makes me think about how many games have never seen the light. They get stuck in mid-development hell or just exist as an idea in the mind of a developer. These scopeless development adventures are really unfortunate, but definitely a good lesson.

[@nodatesape9124]

Is this related to the stuff that happened between TotalBiscuit and Yogs? I remember TB absolutely murdering them in a video about lack of transparency... but maybe that was a thinly veiled product promotion... RIP TB. A guiding light in the dark times.

[@fatherWolt]

It always makes me happy seeing people talk about Starforge and they ALWAYS use the clip from STAR_'s video on it lmao. I had forgotten he even made a video about the game it had been so long until I saw a video a month or so ago mention the game and use clips from his video, and now this one too lol.

[@josephmahar8809]

Glad this is still being talked about

[@VikingHalmere]

thing is, it isn't. Just some KZbinr leeching off of an almost decade old 'scandal' that everyone has forgotten about and grown from since

[@finleyjennings6051]

@@VikingHalmere yeah it's just a meme that gets brought up every now and then.

[@emberleering]

I backed yogventures back in the day. There were other things you also got from this, the big one(only other?) other than TUG was something for Everquest Next. Which also was a sandbox-y game, which also failed.

[@NimsoStudios]

Really wish I was 10 years older. Working at Ubisoft myself and in communication with so many super high skilled game developers beyond that I would have loved to get something like this going. The moment you said "this would be their first game" I immediately knew what the rest of the video would be. If you've never made a game or even a demo then you have no chance of handling a project like this, especially a project for someone else. The only project they should have completed as a first game team is a game of their own creation, not as a contractor. Additionally Yogs should really have hired a game developer, not someone aspiring yet to be a game developer, the project was beyond ambitious for any newcomer. A lot of the functionality on that list can be done relatively easily now, and the scale of their ambition would easily be realised with appropriate funding, it wouldn't even have to be as much funding as this. Wrong project, Wrong team, Wrong time. Really saddening, glad they got back more recently getting some games built under their brand.

[@sherbet1446]

Wow...I remember when they first uploaded that yogventures teaser video geez that was SO long ago. I wasnt a big Minecraft fan but I LOVED the Israfel series they made.

[@graypetcoyle]

Israfel, just another thing never finished

[@Evanz111]

Damn, I have to admit I contributed towards StarForge. It was my only ever Kickstarter, I never fell for it again. But then now we have amazing successes like Tales of Elyria and I’m questioning myself again…

[@CAMSLAYER13]

Well it is a gamble. However looking at what they start with can speak volumes about whether they'll do anything.

[@sanguinespirit2397]

Well rimworld was a kickstarter and now it's one of the most popular and beloved games on steam, for good reason too

[@Noxedwin]

I'm sorry? _Tales of Elyria_ is your go-to example for "amazing successes"?

[@stephenward2743]

Ahh kickstarter and disaster, a word pairing seemingly as common as salt and pepper or bow and arrow lol

[@TamamoF0X]

Man, havent watched RoboKast since he was an Unturned + DarkRP Tuber.

[@ryuno2097]

I thought the game got completed and was a utter mess ala Cube World. Didn't realize it was actually cancelled. Seeing as Yogscast still has the source code and assets of the game. I don't see why they can't get a studio to continue developing the game. I feel sorry for Kris Vale, his life was ruined but I see he's able to get a stable job again. I hope he's doing fine now.

[@CAMSLAYER13]

Cube world never got finished

[@ScibbieGames]

@@CAMSLAYER13 I believe it did, he threw away everything people liked and it was a massive disappointment.

[@CAMSLAYER13]

@@ScibbieGames They released it on steam (like 8 years since the last update might I add) and overhauled the main gameplay loop and made some promises to keep working on it. There was very little additional content and as you said it was worse than it was for most people. whether you could say it was finished is debatable, its certainly not going to get any more updates.

[@rugtub3744]

Its Sips's fault. All that money went to buying tax haven island.

[@IvoryKnight22]

I never really heard about Yogscast beyond a humblebundle event, this just annoys me and im really disappointed with the guys/company

[@VikingHalmere]

maybe the developer shouldn't have overpromised and underdelivered

[@finleyjennings6051]

That humble bundle event is part of the massive charity drive they do every year over December, it's good stuff. (Though not with humble any more).

[@modernretro5383]

Honestly, $500k is a ton of money for an individual, but it really isn't much in terms of game development. You make it sound like this game had some sort of mind-blowing budget.

[@DurzoBlunts]

Only one out of the group that was actually sincere and funny was Sips. I believe he is even playing Escape From Tarkov in some of his livestreams. Always was more mature than the rest. IMHO I think the Yogscast (specifically lewis and simon) were the immature ones and came out on top winning. They still have their name and are still mesmerizing kids with their series, families are still with them all. I feel bad for Kris and all he lost in this.

[@SpacerZVEVO]

Yogventures is the reason I stopped watching / loathe the Yogscast today. Straight up doomed their project; ignored the outrage; forced everything under the rug

[@Danilovshkovski]

But I love the Yogscast

[@annlatc]

The devs claimed responsibility but Yogscast let it happen in the first place. Yogscast should have used their success to co-fund and get someone experienced to advise them before agreeing to do the kickstarter. They shouldn't have worked with a developer with no previous releases, working in an expensive city paying contractor fees to build a team. A game could have been made with that amount of money but they spent it on the wrong team

[@ClassicShocker]

Damn I feel bad for the developer, dudes life was basically ruined because of this game.

[@HansRulezGl]

I'll never forgive the Yogscast for what they have done to poor Fitzthistlewits

[@SeemsLogical]

I only knew about Yogscast because William Strife was a part of it at one point. Their reputation was tarnished in my eyes when Will went public about his time with and ultimately departure from Yogscast. I never knew about Yogventures until this video but I am not surprised that it failed miserably. Yogscast is incompetent with a lot of their ventures in general, so this just goes on the top of the pile of all their previous failings.

[@finleyjennings6051]

Why did will leave anyway, I never looked into it but gathered that it was just a misunderstanding of what the Yogscast was meant to do for will.

[@SeemsLogical]

@@finleyjennings6051 He had a video explaining in his own words but found a wiki of his profile. This is what the Yogscast wrote about his departure: "On February 15, 2017 Mark Hulmes confirmed on Reddit, that Will had left The Yogscast due to a fallout with their current network, contracts on Twitch, and a lack of communication on both ends. It was also stated by Turps on Reddit that Strife was not represented by the other Yogscast members for a while and did not feel he was a part of the group."

[@dblundz]

Honestly i dont understand most backers. You can't make the "Ultimate best game in the universe" on like 200k with 4 people making it who never made a game before. Just eat up empty words and throw money at whatever

[@Masterho310]

Jeez you know it's bad when the main programmer puts out a message saying "don't punish me guys I've been punished enough. My wife divorced me"

[@OLIV3R_YT]

It's almost like implementing a good Minecraft clone isn't that easy after all...

[@shyrory]

The game looks like a complete disaster, but I hope the game development scene context at the time is taken into consideration too. In 2012, Unity, Unreal Engine and 'free' alternatives were definitely not at a point where a 5 year old could make it. That's certainly the case today because the game just looks like a monkey drag and dropped cheap Unity assets into a third person demo in UE4, but in 2012, game engines were pretty shit and most studios were using their own proprietary engines.

[@Weeklong_Seagull]

Yogscast really went down hill. All they do is play Gmod now. It's been like 4 years of gmod

[@Alizudo]

Not just that, 4 years of Modded Trouble in Terrorist Town. They don't play any other form of Gmod.

[@Danilovshkovski]

@@Alizudo You guys just watch youtube. They play mostly on twitch now and released 5 new good games from the past 2 years

[@Alizudo]

@@Danilovshkovski Thanks, but I don't have 17 hours to waste listening to people talk about nothing for 10 hours, play a game for 2, and then go back to talking about nothing for 5 hours again. Twitch fucking sucks. It's an awful format.

[@Danilovshkovski]

@@Alizudo My point was that they play different games other than gmod ttt

[@lucasdecarvalhoandrademaza3133]

10 grand to meet a bunch of youtubers ... wtf

[@hatchmaster_5745]

Obviously if it was malicious I don't want to defend that, but I have a theory that it was Lewis' idea, and he's always a starry eyed dreamer that decides to do random ambitious nonsense he has no buisness doing.

[@iain9757]

I agree

[@thatundeadlegacy2985]

Entirely yogs fault.

[@greenhowie]

There's this simple roguelite platformer I like called Caveblazers - was one hell of a mixed feeling to find it was made by the same people. It's actually a really fun and complete game, for contrast.

[@OmairArif]

Ya, Yogscast has since created a publishing studio for indie games. They've released 4 games so far and all of them have been well received.

[@lowfn]

Dude literally lost his wife because of Yogventures Jesus Christ

[@okidokidraws]

After a lot of the allegations against em I only keep up with Kim and Zoey now the rest are pretty meh

[@JacobKinsley]

Kim is amazing like not in a simpy way just that the yogscast don't deserve her because of how much planning she puts into her videos. Like when she brought a friend onto a stream to do some crafting

[@iain9757]

I don’t even think they are part of the Yogscast anymore

[@finleyjennings6051]

@@iain9757 they both are. Zoey frequently appears on the main channel and Kim does high rollers