Momentum can make or break a crowdfunding campaign. That’s why most successful developers say that running and promoting their campaigns was pretty much a full time job. So what happens if, through no fault of the developer, a campaign is abruptly suspended? After a rough week, Shadow Knight Studios have their campaign for The Lighthouse back up. Will it be enough to get the game back on track?
In a backer only update, Shadow Knight gave a quick overview of the situation after the campaign resumed. “As you may or may not know, we’ve been getting a lot of attention for The Lighthouse game and a certain big business felt compelled to go after the little guys (mostly girls).”
Assets used in The Lighthouse
The trouble came from assets the team had bought from the Unreal digital marketplace. As noted in our previous article, the team was upfront with backers about having used store bought assets. Unfortunately, they happened to use an environment that had previously been purchased by Lynda.com for one of their courses.
Looking Into The Allegations
Apparently, someone over at Lynda.com thought The Lighthouse had stolen their assets. Kickstarter put the campaign on hold while investigating Lynda.com’s claim. What seems like a simple misunderstanding quickly became a nightmare for Shadow Knight Studios as their campaign languished.
Lynda.com Unreal Essential Training.
The creator behind the environment used in The Lighthouse, Everett Gunther made a blog post specifically stating that Shadow Knight had full rights to use the assets they’d purchased from him in a commercial product. Gunther explained that the same assets were also sold to Lynda.com to distribute “strictly for educational use.”
Eventually, Kickstarter acknowledged that The Lighthouse had permission to use the assets and reinstated their campaign. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been as easy to recover the support of the backer community.
“Well, facts are facts, and justice is on our side. We can continue to operate the way we have all along without worrying. We do feel, however, that even though we have prevailed, our image has been slightly tarnished, as momentum has dropped and we lost backers. We’re not going to lie, this process has derailed our progress on the game, our demo, and morale at the studio,” Shadow Knight wrote in their update.
Despite the troubling setbacks, Shadow Knight reassured backers that they are still dedicated to finishing The Lighthouse. “Make no mistake, we’re never going to stop and we will release The Lighthouse when it’s done, rain or shine.”
https://youtu.be/Nke5ijjD0LI
Now we’ll just have to wait and see if the Kickstarter campaign can recover in time.
