[dropcap size=big]S[/dropcap]pectre is a VR horror game that was funded on Kickstarter for about $18k in the Spring of 2014.  In the endless sea of horror games on Kickstarter Spectre stood out more than most because it advertised multiplayer action; which means that instead of stuff jumping out at you, you can jump out at others.  Unfortunately Spectre and its developer Proscenium is standing out in a different way; a glaring indifference towards the Kickstarter backers that helped bring the game to life.

spectre5During the 30 day Spectre Kickstarter campaign there were 15 backer updates and daily engagement from the team in the comments section.  Once the campaign ended on April 1st 2014 the updates and comments slowed significantly.  The first developer comment after the campaign finished?  An invitation to check out the dead and unresponsive IndieGogo campaign.   The next comment from Proscenium was over 3 months later, which left a number of backer complaints up in the air.

From a formal update standpoint things have been no better.  After posting updates on Kickstarter every 30 – 60 days things were dead between October 2014 and last week.  That’s ten months without a formal update.  During that same period of time the Spectre Early Access page had three updates.  That’s not a lot, but it’s got to sting backers to see that most recent Kickstarter update is mostly a copy and paste of the Early Access update, which came a full week before the one on Kickstarter.

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Adding insult to injury is the fact that Kickstarter backers had to pledge $14.00 for a copy of the game, a game that launched at $11.99 when it hit Steam Early Access just 7 months after the campaign closed.  The cherry on top of that mess being that backers were expected to wait for the full version to be released before they got their copies.  When this issue was raised with the developers they offered no apology or additional reward; but at least they sent backers at the appropriate pledge level the game early.

The interaction that best sums up Proscenium’s indifference towards backers is their response to a question Chris Jones posted in April 2015.  Chris states:

I’ve heard nothing from the team regarding my pledge. I have received no paintings as promised at my pledge level. What’s going on?

Proscenium’s response to Chris’ question regarding a reward with a July 2014 delivery date?

Hey Chris,

First, we’d like to thank you again for supporting Spectre on Kickstarter. We apologize for the recent lack of updates. We have been quietly working on the back end to address various stability issues some players are experiencing while playing the Early Access version of Spectre on Steam. We are actually very close to pushing a major update, which will resolve these issues. Once we finish this update, we will again be able to focus on implementing new features, including backer rewards. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you!

That’s a lot of typing just to tell someone that gave you at least $345 “Eventually.”

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I’m not saying that Proscenium needs to update Spectre backers every month, but posting something every few months is not that difficult, even if it’s to just give people a heads up that things are still moving along.  The Spectre Early Access page getting all the attention while backers are left twiddling their thumbs for overdue rewards and answers to basic questions just shows that the team at Proscenium have moved on from the people that had the most faith in them.

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Greg Micek

Greg Micek has been writing on and off about games since the late nineties, always with a focus on indie games. He started DIYGames.com in 2000, which was one of the earliest gaming sites to focus exclusively on indie games.

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