There are times when developers turn to crowdfunding to ask help from fans when making a game. While there have been a fair share of successful titles coming from this method (“Shovel Knight,” “Divinity: Original Sin” and “Broken Age”), there have also been plenty of shady businessmen and developers who have abused the trust of fans and have even made off with all of the crowdfunded money. These immoral acts have pretty much destroyed their business name and have lost the trust of the gaming community in general.
With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the worst crowdfunded games in gaming history.
Mighty No. 9
This project sounded like a dream come true to “Mega Man” fans who have so desperately wanted a new installment. “Might No. 9” was allegedly supposed to be the spiritual successor to the “Mega Man” series as co-designer Keiji Inafune was spearheading the project himself. The project managed to amass around $4 million due to the hype surrounding it. Unfortunately, due to extremely bad marketing and horrible game design, “Mighty No. 9” bombed hard with fans ultimately going against Inafune. Just recently, fans finally got their physical version of the game with the instruction manual being too big for the box, as per Polygon.
Unsung Story
Another major failure clinging on nostalgia, “Unsung Story” was marketed as another “spiritual successor” for “Final Fantasy Tactics.” Former Square Enix director Yasumi Matsuno was originally helping with the project, hence why so many fans placed their trust in this tactical RPG game.
Unfortunately, due to bad communication with fans and lack of updates, the game slowly began losing popularity. Whenever the developers would send out a new update, the game looked like a hot mess with terrible graphics and game design. Kotaku reports that the developer, Playdek, recently bailed on the project and gave it to another company.
The worst thing here is that the new developers, Little Orbit, did not receive any of the $660,126 worth of crowdfunding and it’s unsure what Playdek has done with the money.
Shadow of the Eternals
The horror game “Eternal Darkness” on the Nintendo Gamecube was an incredible success because of its unique gameplay. When the developers planned on making a sequel called "Shadow of the Eternals," it should have been an easy pass in crowdfunding.
Sadly, the game failed to gather enough funds in Kickstarter not once, but thrice. The reason behind its failures stems from its shady developers and how one of them was even arrested and charged with “adult child imagery.” It goes to show that you better have a clean reputation before you even think about asking for money from people on the internet.
