Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
I need Kotaku to dig deep and get the real dirt on this. On the surface, it sounds a bit hinky to me on all fronts.
It's not hard to dig deep. However, its quite close to Detective GAF so I'm not going to do it. Maybe we can get Eric to explain more on what happened. Regardless, there's nothing else that can be said or done. It's very obvious and straight-forward.
You have Eric, who has no formal education. He's been learning programming on his own and has been making games since 2003. He wants to start a company in 2014 to focus on his dream to become a game developer. His high school friends, Tyler and Devon, decide to join his dream because they have formal business education (and wants a business under their resume). In May 2014, they launch the Kickstarter project. His other friend Corey helps with the Kickstarter campaign. Eric is doing all the programming and creating youtube videos and maintaining twitter and all aspects of the creative process, while his friends promise to handle the finances. Somewhere in December 2014, they decide to hire Corey as a full-time to assist in coding and delegating the contract employees. Somewhere down the time, these guys start selling alpha/beta keys on their website to acquire more funds. Some months ago, they burn all the money on hooker and booze without keeping proper track of finances. Eric gets pissed off at negative bank account, and leaves the company. The rest continue their full-time jobs and leave Eric hanging. He has access to the Youtube page while he has no access to the rest, so he posts on Youtube what's happening and clearing his name out to not ruin his reputation.
Eric has everything to lose. The rest don't. It's quite simple. They're threatening to sue him if he proceeds with the project that he doesn't own anymore. Eric will just continue doing his own thing now, and probably won't trust any other business partners from here on forward.
TL;DR: Never do business with friends.