Chronicles of Elyria Developer Soulbound Studios Shutters Following Its Settlers of Elyria Event

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Chronicles of Elyria Developer Soulbound Studios Shutters Following Its Settlers of Elyria Event

In a forum post, Soulbound Studios CEO Jeromy "Caspian" W posted a recap of its State of Elyria post, talking about the latest alpha release, Settlers of Elyria - and dropped a bombshell: Soulbound Studios is shuttering.

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Portz

Who's next?

Scot

Well I must admit I thought they would get something out, but the mismanagement like suddenly deciding to make a voxel version of the game cost them dearly.

My wider concern is how this looks for CF MMO's, its currently 1.5 to 0 in terms of releases if you count AO as a 1 and SotA as a 0.5.

BrotherMaynard

And as usual, he focused on blaming others - 'people were not giving us enough money', without looking at himself.

True, but there was a reason for that. People were giving you lots of money at the beginning. After years of not showing anything meaningful and bullshitting the community, this is the result.

Also, I would expect them to refund at the very least those pledges that have been made relatively recently (e.g. the SoE event), when the studio already had a reasonably good understanding of their terminal situation. Otherwise, taking backers' money with full knowledge that you will shut down in a couple of days or weeks is not only despicable, but also worth investigation.

kitarad

There should be a suit to ask him to give an account of where all the money went. Records to show expenditure and an audit. This should be a priority as this is definitely a scam.

Blackboa

Camelot Unchained is next IMO

Ridrith

And nothing of value was lost.

Kyleran

Portz said:

Who's next?

Pantheon is the even money bet.

Vonatar

What a scam. I mean, how can you promise something with a budget of X, receive X and then say I couldn't deliver because X wasn't enough? That's 100% your fault for being unable to cost and manage a project to completion. This should be a warning to everyone out there who gets sucked in to hype and crowdfunds a game.

fascism

is this the one where they released some shitty video of a dragon hovering and it was literally just Ark on low settings edit- never mind thats trials of ascension

Lark3m

BrotherMaynard said:

And as usual, he focused on blaming others - 'people were not giving us enough money', without looking at himself.

True, but there was a reason for that. People were giving you lots of money at the beginning. After years of not showing anything meaningful and bullshitting the community, this is the result.

Also, I would expect them to refund at the very least those pledges that have been made relatively recently (e.g. the SoE event), when the studio already had a reasonably good understanding of their terminal situation. Otherwise, taking backers' money with full knowledge that you will shut down in a couple of days or weeks is not only despicable, but also worth investigation.

No chance, that money is all gone.

Iselin

Lark3m said:

BrotherMaynard said:

And as usual, he focused on blaming others - 'people were not giving us enough money', without looking at himself.

True, but there was a reason for that. People were giving you lots of money at the beginning. After years of not showing anything meaningful and bullshitting the community, this is the result.

Also, I would expect them to refund at the very least those pledges that have been made relatively recently (e.g. the SoE event), when the studio already had a reasonably good understanding of their terminal situation. Otherwise, taking backers' money with full knowledge that you will shut down in a couple of days or weeks is not only despicable, but also worth investigation.

No chance, that money is all gone.

By "gone" i'm sure you mean carefully separated into the exposed pile (balance $0) and the multiple legally excluded and protected piles (balance $?)

GamePlay4U

Took long enough

Aeander

I never thought that this game had any potential to be good. Even if it did ever get released.

Ungood

Robokapp said:

I guess Amazon's mmo is the next one?  w/e they call it?

Given that New World is already in a playable state, I highly doubt that.

Sovrath

Kyleran said:

Portz said:

Who's next?

Pantheon is the even money bet.

Actually the safer bet. I think with the extra money that Camelot Unchained's developers received for their second game they could stay open longer.

Ungood

Vonatar said:

What a scam. I mean, how can you promise something with a budget of X, receive X and then say I couldn't deliver because X wasn't enough? That's 100% your fault for being unable to cost and manage a project to completion. This should be a warning to everyone out there who gets sucked in to hype and crowdfunds a game.

There is a warning, at least on the KS site. KS makes it clear that just because the funding goal was met does not mean the creator will succeed.

Long story short, KS make it clear you need to check the competency of the people you invest your money into. Not everyone with a good idea knows what they are doing. 

EponyxDamor

Oof. Can't say I didn't see this coming, however, it really does seem awfully scammy to spend several years in "development" (collect several million dollars) and then release the first playable version of the game (which is essentially an asset flip) juuuuuust before closing.

Seriously? Where did those millions of dollars go? Because you can't convince me a reasonable studio with a similar budget would only develop what was shown.

I'd be pissed if I had spent any money on this steaming pile, much less having spent it during the latest "donation" drive.

botrytis

kitarad said:

There should be a suit to ask him to give an account of where all the money went. Records to show expenditure and an audit. This should be a priority as this is definitely a scam.

If it was crowd funded - sorry based on the EULA's for CF, that is all they have to do. They don't have to say where the money went. That is why CF is a bad idea for gamings.

bcbully

This shit has to be stopped these people have to be sued

Ungood

EponyxDamor said:

Oof. Can't say I didn't see this coming, however, it really does seem awfully scammy to spend several years in "development" (collect several million dollars) and then release the first playable version of the game (which is essentially an asset flip) juuuuuust before closing.

Seriously? Where did those millions of dollars go? Because you can't convince me a reasonable studio with a similar budget would only develop what was shown.

I'd be pissed if I had spent any money on this steaming pile, much less having spent it during the latest "donation" drive.

Well lets see. The first Crowdfunding happened in 2016,  so that's 4 years. The claim I hear people make is that they raised 8 million total.

Looking up Soulbound Studios, They are listed as having anywhere between 11 - 50 employes. 

Game Developers makes anywhere between 60 - 120K. Lets average that to 80K a year.

So.. mid run would be 25 employees, making 80K a year, and That's roughly, 2 million a year in payroll alone, and that's with the CEO making a very modest paycheck, of an average developer.

That also does not include things like Office Space, Computers, Software, Electricity, Etc

So yah, it's very viable they simply spent the money on what would be normal operating costs.

Slapshot1188

Sadly, when the "armchair developers" know more than those collecting $8M to roleplay one, this is the result.   

It's not all on Caspien though.   While he shares the largest portion of blame, those who felt compelled to fight and argue with the "Harbingers" also share it.  Especially those who made no investment at all and argued what they had to know was a stupid position, just because they didn't like the Harbinger.

If that was you, look in the mirror.  You share culpability here by trying to enable this train to run off the bridge when there was still a chance to get it back on the tracks.  You share the blame for $8M lost.  You share the blame for people losing their jobs amid a global pandemic. Many of those people have families.

Have a good long look in that mirror and maybe, just maybe learn from this next time.  Swallow your pride and understand that what you did was reprehensible.

EponyxDamor

So yah, it's very viable they simply spent the money on what would be normal operating costs.

If after 4 years and $8,000,000 all they had to show was an asset flip from the UE4 store, then I guess everyone was right when they said that SBS was just roleplaying a development studio.

Neojac

This is very sad, that was allot of money to be used. We are just 3 developers working on indie MMO Arcfall available on Steam for free. With the budget we are working on I can just image what we could have accomplished with just one tenth of that amount of money. Saddens me when companies gets given a opportunity with so much money and can not at least get a playable version to the players, good or bad. I have seen this happen so many times and its a little frustrating when I see small indie companies like ours basically self fund out of our pockets and get further than some companies that receive so much. I hope more small indie companies start looking at rather releasing a pre-alpha version earlier in development so if a player backs it they at least are able to play something for their money instead of backing a game that might not ever see any type of release. Players keep your money and back games you can at least play right away, even if the game has allot of bugs currently. At least you can see progress and help mold the game while you are playing it.

goozmania

Vonatar said:

What a scam. I mean, how can you promise something with a budget of X, receive X and then say I couldn't deliver because X wasn't enough? That's 100% your fault for being unable to cost and manage a project to completion. This should be a warning to everyone out there who gets sucked in to hype and crowdfunds a game.

People with no experience in business thinking they don't need to spend money on accountants or financial analysts... This will always be the result.

Sal1

I'd like to hear from someone that played the game. Was the Settlers event and the game overall any good?