Cryptocurrency and Kickstarter are perhaps two things that should not go together, given the known volatility of the crypto market and the fact that Kickstarter funds come from optimistic backers who are counting on promises being kept. An example of what can go wrong when the two are mixed is Untamed Isles, an online monster-hunting RPG developed by Phat Loot Studios that got its start on the crowdfunding site.
Untamed Isles is one of the video game success stories of Kickstarter. An indie development and publishing studio founded in 2020 raises over $580,000 USD through crowdfunding in 2021, and expectations are high that the company’s play-to-earn vision will come to fruition. The studio grew to over 70 people and the game was set to release on October 6. Then Phat Loot published a statement on August 12 titled “Untamed Isles Goes Into Hiatus.” However, there’s no indication of how long this hiatus might last.
What this means for the game’s Kickstarter backers is that, essentially, all of the money is gone and they will not be getting refunds. According to Phat Loot CEO Joshua Grant, who answered questions during a livestream after the hiatus statement released, the company doesn’t even have enough to keep the lights on, let alone return money to backers. The problem, ultimately, can be attributed to the ongoing crypto market crash that began this year.
While $580,000 sounds like a lot of money, and might have been had the studio remained small, hiring over 70 people meant that wages totaled approximately $100,000 a week. So the Kickstarter funding was gone very quickly and the rest came from crypto investors. According to Phat Loot’s online statement, the company “leaned into the crypto market and expanded rapidly.” So when the crash came, the financial situation got so bad that the CEO and his business partner began spending personal money to stay afloat and stopped taking a salary.
Currently, Grant seems optimistic that development of Untamed Isles will resume when the “crypto situation is resolved.” Given the uncertainty of the crypto market, that could realistically mean never. Despite the controversy about cryptocurrency and NFTs in gaming, the situation is an unfortunate one. The Untamed Isles team has been trimmed down from 70 to a small skeleton crew. The game, which looked like it was in the hands of a talented group of developers, is now in limbo. And of course there are over 3,000 backers who invested money into a dead-ended project.
Untamed Isles was a Pokemon-esque MMORPG where players were monster hunters on a mission to tame a variety of creatures. The indie game promised open-world islands to explore, fishing, bug catching, and other professions to round out the experience, and there would also have been turn-based combat, dungeons, and proximity voice chat.
Untamed Isles is currently no longer in development.
Sources: Untamed Isles, Twitch, Eurogamer