The developer behind the partially community-funded PC game Alzara: Radiant Echoes has announced it’s shutting down and the game won’t be released after the team raised more than $300,000 to make it.
Studio Camelia, which successfully raised €294,428 ($339,000 USD) from more than 5,000 people to fund the game via Kickstarter, made the announcement in a statement.
“We can only imagine your disappointment upon reading this,” the studio said.
Studio Camelia will not refund money to people who contributed to the Kickstarter. “Neither the studio nor Kickstarter is able to refund your contribution to the project, and we are truly sorry for that,” it said, adding that Kickstarter campaigns are inherently risky and are advertised as such.
Kickstarter says people who pledge funds to a project should know beforehand that, “Kickstarter is not a store and we do not issue refunds. When you back a project, you’re supporting a creator’s right to try to make something new–and agreeing to go along for the ride.”
What happened?
The team wrote in a statement that it wanted to build a JRPG with a “fresh perspective,” and one that was influenced by games like Final Fantasy X and Golden Sun. The company was funded in part by the Kickstarter campaign, along with money from staffers’ own personal savings, along with “business angels, banks, and institutions.” The game was also accepted into Microsoft’s Developer Acceleration Program.
However, all of this only covered half of what Studio Camelia said it needed to produce Alzara. So it decided to run a Kickstarter campaign to demonstrate to potential investors that Alzara had legs. The team then sought funding from an “industry partner,” but it was ultimately unable to secure one.
“Investors are now operating in a market where taking risks is discouraged, and they can afford to wait before committing to a project in order to reduce risk,” the statement said.
Studio Camelia attended Tokyo Game Show, DICE, and other industry events to meet with partners about raising funding, but “none of them resulted in a contract.”
“We spared no effort and tried to hold on as long as we could,” the developer said. “This is part of the harsh reality of the industry. We are creatives, but we need funding to keep creating. Sometimes, even having a promising game concept with proven market interest and a strong team is not enough. Many say that every released game is a miracle, and that couldn’t be more true.”
Alzara is now “on an indefinite pause” as the studio undergoes the liquidation process that requires “various legal procedures” that will run for “some time.”
“There is a slim chance that a third party might one day step in and offer to take over the project. If that happens, the game would inevitably take a different direction than what was presented during the campaign, but hopefully for the better!” the studio said.
Pre-production demo footage
While Alzara may never be released, Studio Camelia released pre-production demo footage of the game, showing it in its non-finished state. The studio said it cannot release the demo itself due to copyright reasons and issues pertaining to the liquidation process.
Plenty of games enter development and are never released. The creative process, after all, is a fickle business. Blizzard, for example, says it cancels about half of the games it begins development on. Warner Bros., meanwhile, is reported to have spent $100 million on a new Wonder Woman game before cancelling it.
