Gas Powered Games unplugged its Kickstarter campaign for ‘WIldman‘ this afternoon with four days left and more than $500,000 to raise.
We’ve been reporting for the past month about how CEO Chris Taylor had to let go of nearly his entire staff in January due to poor funding on Kickstarter. But then a week later, Taylor told us that he was optimistic about the campaign with 16 days left and funding at $384,021.
But GPG decided to axe the campaign today. Here’s the latest update posted on the Kickstarter page:
Greetings Kickstarters.
We have some news today. We are canceling the Wildman Kickstarter.
At this point, it makes sense for us to focus our attention on other ways to keep Gas Powered Games running. Unfortunately, we are unable to share any specifics in public. When we have news to share, we will be posting it on our site. If you want status updates, or if you want to continue discussing Wildman and/or this Kickstarter, please consider migrating over to forums.gaspowered.com.
We are profoundly grateful to those of you who backed this project and Gas Powered Games. Your passion and hard work put us in a position to write this exciting new chapter in the history of GPG.
In the latest video, Taylor says he’s been working in background to find other ways to keep GPG running. He says he can’t share anything right now, “but if all goes well — which I think it will — I will be able to give you guys some great news in the weeks ahead.”
Here’s some reflection from Taylor when we reached out a few weeks ago.
GW: What have you learned so far from this experience?
CT: ”I have learned a lot about the Kickstarter process, and dare I say, it’s hard to learn it by listening to others, you kind of have to live it, and learn first hand. I think the biggest mistake made was not getting feedback on the pitch video before we launched. The video didn’t do enough to explain the game concept, and because it’s a new approach, the video was more important than ever.”
GW: What’s going to happen with Gas Powered Games?
CT: ”I don’t know for sure, but I can say there’s tremendous optimism that we’ll figure it out… I think that optimism comes from the fact that we sort of figured out this past two weeks what we did wrong. We’ve regrouped and are now focused on winning. The enthusiasm for Project Mercury alone has been a game changer for us, and combining that with WIldman, has really helped us turn the corner on this campaign.”
Previously on GeekWire: Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor: Ed Fries on the future of the games business: It’s like a ‘slow motion train wreck’
