Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore Development Ceases

Despite the fact that it’s only been nine days since the backer portal launched, Guido Henkel and his team working on Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore have thrown in the towel and ceased development on the now-episodic RPG. Word is:

Despite the fact that we are within reach of the $50,000 mark we had outlined to get started on the development of Chapter 1, the notion behind this has always been to see if we can rally enough support outside of Kickstarter to generate a steady flow of backers who could help us raise the necessary funds over time. This attempt was not a Kickstarter-like campaign, and it was never so much about reaching the actual amount of $50,000 in a fixed amount of time, as it was to see how support shaped up and whether the project had the ability to generate a sustainable flow of income that would guarantee its safety.

As our data show, the continuous stream of backing is simply not strong enough to support the development. While we had fairly good initial momentum and a number of high-prized backers that brought the amount to a good level very quickly, for a project to sustain itself over the long term, we were mostly looking at how many low-tiered backers would join us. It shows us the general level of interest and visibility, as well as the potential to get these backers to increase their pledges over time as they see more of the game and get more excited about it. They are the lifeblood of an ongoing project and this level of backers has been low and very unsteady, telling us that very quickly we would eat up the $50,000 we raised as base funding, without any hope of replenishing the funds at the level that is required in order to guarantee and to pay for the actual development. This puts the entire project in serious jeopardy from the very beginning, turning it into a huge and dangerous gamble!

In addition, there have been several changes going on behind the scenes that also affect our ability to develop and complete the project within a reasonable amount of time even under the best of circumstances, and without proper and steady funding there is simply no way for us to remedy that situation. Therefore, we have to acknowledge the fact that we are simply in no position at this time to create (Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore.)

We might have been able to cobble together *something* but it would not have been what we had set out to do and what we had promised. If Chapter 1 would have a reduced feature set it would have been a disappointment for fans. As opposed to adding momentum, it would have turned people away from the project and would have given us a bad reputation. It would, essentially, have turned us into frauds, which is absolutely unacceptable, of course.

It is therefore in everyone’s best interest to terminate the project before any real damage is done. We will refund all your pledges over the next few days. Please keep in mind that this is a manual process that is actually rather tedious, and with over 1,000 pledges and the holidays, this may take a few days to complete, so please bear with us.