KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Uber Entertainment, the developer behind Kickstarter and Steam Early Access title, Planetary Annihilation, has canceled its upcoming Kickstarter campaign for what was going to be its next RTS game, Human Resources. The cancellation came after it was made apparent that the game was not going to meet its $1.4 million funding goal.
Human Resources did manage to generate almost $400,000 before its cancellation, garnering 9326 backers in total. However, the developer just couldn't repeat the success it had with Planetary Annihilation. In an update on the game's Kickstarter page, Uber Entertainment's John Comes said: “The time has come to shut down the Kickstarter for Human Resources.”
“Every Kickstarter prediction model is showing that we will come up woefully short of our goal. Running a Kickstarter is a full time job for several people. As a small indie, we can't continue spending time and money focusing on a project that won't get funded. We simply don't have the human resources. #seewhatididthere”
However, not all hope for the game is lost, Uber Entertainment still wants to bring Human Resources to life “in some form” at some point:
“Who knows what the future holds for Human Resources? One thing is for sure, Human Resources, as pitched in this Kickstarter, is over. But we adore the world of Human Resources and will endeavour to do what we can to bring it to life in some form.”
The Kickstarter for Human Resources was launched just a couple of weeks after Planetary Annihilation came out of Early Access on Steam. Many buyers and backers still felt like the game needed some work in the form of post-release updates. However, the Human Resources Kickstarter gave off the impression that Uber was completely done with the game, despite Planetary Annihilation's remaining flaws.
Others claimed that $1.4 million was too much to ask for from a crowd funding campaign, others were put off by the lack of information on the game's initial reveal. However, crowd funded games are also currently in decline.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Perhaps if Uber Entertainment had sat on the Human Resources idea for a bit longer after Planetary Annihilation's final release, more people would have been willing to back it. That said, $1.4 million did seem like an overly ambitious goal to reach. What do you guys think of this? Should Uber have been so quick to move on from Planetary Annihilation after it came out of Early Access?
My impression of the whole thing was that Planetary Annihilation’s whole development process was a bit odd, with the developer frequently ignoring the fans (and even being fairly natsy towards dissenters), and having a really odd pricing structure. On the whole, the devs put people off, and made very poor choices (especially in areas of user contact). Then, they seemed to just dump Planetary Annihilation, and start shouting “we need more money, for something else now!”
It was also probably a bad idea to put so much in Human Resources’ Kickstarter info about how it would be developed using Planetary Annihilation’s engine – they gave the very distict impression that they were saying “Now that you suckers have paid for us to develop the engine, we can do what we *really* wanted to do in the first place, once you pay for it.” They could have said that having developed the engine gave them a stable platform to start with, or made development quicker or easier – but they didn’t (after all, none of those things would help them ask for so much money).
All in all, they made themselves look shady, unpleasant, and failed to justify the huge cost for Human Resources. It is not a surprise that it wasn’t getting funded – in fact, I’d say it is a surprise that it got as much as it did (though, the concept did look good, *much* better that Planetary Annihilation!)
i am hardly surprised after the flop of annihilation and still i cant get all the features to function like galactic war which cause my computer to crash every time, they did this far too soon after planetary even though that game still needs much more work. developers need to learn to finish a title fully before you start a new one.
I bought planetary anihillation… it is crap and this comes from someone who loves TA, and supcom.
Even supcom 2 is better than PA. How on earth did they think people were going to fall for it again?
Honestly I’m surprised that so many people don’t like Planetary Annihilation, I don’t see what’s not to like about the game. I’ve been itching for new RTS games to come out, and PA really scratched that itch well. It’s a lot of fun, fast paced, and I enjoy watching my streams of tanks flow out of teleporters. People call it a flop, but why? What’s wrong with it? I do hope to see HR come out at some point as well.
How was PA a flop? It was an awesome breakthrough in RTS sizing.
How? Please explain what is so bad about PA. I really enjoy the game, and don’t see the problem so many people have with it.
I wish I could and believe me when I say I tried hard to like it. Did you play supcom ? Does PA feel anything like that to you? It doesn’t to me.
They changed the art style, the mechanics seem half cooked, the unit types went down ridiculously, etc.
I gives me the overall vibe of a non-finished product.
I think getting fully financed ahead of production is starting to show that it can sometimes be detrimental. I think they get complacent with their pockets already full.
I didn’t want PA to feel like Supcom though. I would play Supcom for that. The art style, and subsequent style of the game is comic/cartoony. Look at the trailer and listen to the announcer. The unit types are fine, though some are just useless unless you are in a specific scenario, like the naval units. I didn’t get that unfinished vibe though.
I do agree, being fully financed in 30 days with no guarantee to finish anything is a bad thing for the industry. There needs to be more checks in place.