Head of the Yogscast finally speaks about Yogventures and the missing cash.
The gaming world has been afire recently with talk of the failed Kickstarter Yogventures, a project supported and featuring popular Youtubers ‘The Yogscast’. More information on the scandal can be found here. Internet pitchforks were pointed squarely at The Yogscast as backers wondered what had happened to the mystery $150,000 that had been given to the popular Youtube group to be used for physical rewards and the hiring of a main programmer.
After a few days of silence, head of The Yogscast Lewis Brindley has finally come forward and posted a copy of an email sent to Yogventures backers on Reddit. This post/email explains Brindley’s side of the story and conflicts with numerous points made by Winterkewl in their previous Kickstarter update. Brindley makes sure to state that Winterkewl worked very hard on the completion of Yogventures and blames ‘technical and personal issues’ for the failure of the small studio. He goes on to state that the missing $150,000 was given to The Yogscast entirely for the fulfillment of physical rewards for the backers; including packing and shipping. This sum also covered ‘marketing expenses’ including a booth at E3 2012. He also claims that The Yogscast has spent money from the compnay’s own pocket in efforts to support Winterkewl and rewards for backers.
Furthermore Brindley asserts that there was never a formal agreement that meant The Yogscast were in charge of hiring a lead programmer. Allegedly this ‘wasn’t part of the agreement’ but The Yogscast offered their assistance anyway. They apparently approached several programmers who were uninterested before having ‘at least’ one programmer vetoed by Winterkewl themselves.
Unsurpisingly the Yogscast has come out of this situation in a far more positive light than they had previously. As usual with Kickstarter, transparency is key and that is what The Yogscast have eventually delivered. Undoubtedly backers will be wondering when they can expect these physical rewards. Brindley promises that they will ‘communicated directly’ to the backer ‘as we are able to announce them’, perhaps a more concrete date would have been preferable but a glimmer of hope is better than nothing.
The Yogscast will undoubtedly be taking steps to ensure that this whole debacle is behind them. Overall it seems that they have come out of this potentially career ruining situation rather well. At least on the information available it seems like they have struggled to please their fans when faced with obstinate and inexperienced developers. Hopefully this whole issue can be resolved and, ideally, never happen again.
