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Dysfunctional Systems Kickstarter Halted. Partial Refunds to be sent if you ask

Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
here are two parts to this post. The important stuff and the rest.

The Important Stuff

We are halting full-time development on the Dysfunctional Systems series. We will be offering partial refunds to backers who pledged over $5 and who ask for a refund. Backers in the $5 tier received the product they paid for, so they will not be refunded. If you would like a refund, let us know via Kickstarter. Please be considerate when asking for a refund as most of the money is gone so I will be using my personal funds to make up the difference. Please note that refunds may take some time to arrive, first of all because bulk refunds are difficult on Kickstarter, and secondly because once our current funds run out I will only be able to refund backers as I earn the money to do so.

The Rest

There's a lot to say about this decision, but the short version is just that we made too many mistakes. I'll write a post later analyzing these mistakes, but I don't think I should get into them in this post. For now I'll just answer some of the obvious questions that are sure to be on your mind.

Isn't episode 0 basically finished? Is that going to be released?

Yes, episode 0 is basically finished. It's part of the reason for this decision. To put it simply: it's average. It's not good and it's not bad: it's average. Playing through it makes me feel like releasing the game would only disappoint the people who expect more from us. Therefore, we will not be releasing it.

What's going to happen now?

We're not sure. We may still work on Dysfunctional Systems when we can, but we will definitely not be working on it full time. It's slightly more likely that we'll clean up the prologue to the point where it could be released, but we can't guarantee anything.

We're most likely going to start working on small projects on a volunteer basis. Things we can finish without relying on the support of any third party or requiring months of development time.

I just bought episode 1, can I get a refund?

It's unfortunate, but no. We cannot afford to give refunds to the people who bought episode 1. We have a large enough debt to pay off already.

I'm angry and I want to send you hate mail. Can I?

You can. Please note however that one or more real human beings will read your message and feel like crap.

In closing, we're sorry.

I don't mind failure. I personally believe that if you aren't doing something with a chance of failure then you're not doing anything worth doing. However, in this case what bothers me is that we let so many people who believed in us down. I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to all of you on behalf of myself, Dischan, and the team.

Thank you for your understanding, and we're sorry we couldn't fulfill our obligations to you.
Click to expand...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dischan/dysfunctional-systems
Pretty much sounds like Dev Time was a mess and resulted in a product no one was satisfied with. Pretty bummed since I actually backed this.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
I didn't back this and it didn't seem particularly compelling to me, but if they're just going to abandon ship and end the project... and people are getting only partial refunds... then they should just release Episode 0 to show people what the project was like. I don't really see the logic in not doing that. Not like it can make the situation worse really.

That makes this seem a bit shady

Edit: It seems they might clean it up to release it? A bit confused by the wording
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
Amir0x said:
I didn't back this and it didn't seem particularly compelling to me, but if they're just going to abandon ship and end the project... and people are getting only partial refunds... then they should just release Episode 0 to show people what the project was like. I don't really see the logic in not doing that. Not like it can make the situation worse really.

That makes this seem a bit shady

Edit: It seems they might clean it up to release it? A bit confused by the wording
Click to expand...

Yeah they might release it but I'm not holding out hope.
 
K

Kieli

Member
Not bad. Owned up to it. Acknowledged. Offers refunds from own funds.

Better than the piece of fucking shit that is the Clang group and their final update talking about shit that's NOT EVEN TANGENTIALLY related to their waste of Kickstarter funds.
 
C

calc84maniac

Member
This is really disappointing. I can respect them for not wanting to release something that turned out mediocre, though. I think I might ask for a refund, but also try to balance things out by supporting them if/when they do actually release things.
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
November 26th: Episode 0 out on December 16th!
December 16th: Episode 0 delayed, but should be out soon!
January 2nd: Game cancelled.

Someone's lying, methinks. I suspect there's been a bust-up behind the scenes.
 
C

chrominance

Member
Huh. I remember being slightly sad that I missed backing this, but I guess I dodged a bullet. Sucks to hear, though. It just sounds like the project never came together; I remember a lot of fuss in the early days about the art style changing because their original artist wasn't around, and then subsequently changing it a few more times to cater to fans of the first episode.
 
T

TheBaronOfNA

Banned
Unfurtunate reason to no realese it, even thought I feel is valid to an extent

Seems to have been a good first episode so is a shame. Hope they don't get hate becase of it.
 
Y

Yeshua

Member
Backed it (100$) and I'm quite disappointed, not angry, just disappointed. At the very least they let us know about it and offer a refund (not gonna ask for it), eagerly waiting for the mistakes analysis post.
 
F

flippeh

Member
Well that's a true shame. I loved Juniper's Knot, so I was kind of looking forward to seeing where this project went :(
 
H

Heart of Black

Member
I think in the end they should essentially just give over what they have to backers at appropriate levels. As a kickstarter creator, that is what I would do.
 
K

Kalor

Member
That's a shame its been halted as the first episode was really good. I hope they end up releasing what they have at some point as I'm still interested to see what they do with the story.
 
A

AtomskEater

Member
That sucks. I enjoyed the first one and was looking forward to a continuation, although I didn't back the KS.

Delusibeta said:
November 26th: Episode 0 out on December 16th!
December 16th: Episode 0 delayed, but should be out soon!
January 2nd: Game cancelled.

Someone's lying, methinks. I suspect there's been a bust-up behind the scenes.
Click to expand...

They claim it's nearly done but "too boring" to be released. They probably delayed it to try to spruce it up some, to no avail?

Then again I want them to release what they have anyway. Nothing to lose if they aren't going forward with the series anyway.
 
G

gngf123

Member
What a shame. The first episode, while not perfect, showed a lot of potential. I liked it.

I had a bad feeling about this ever since a few people left a couple of years ago.

EDIT:

Also, I agree. Episode 0 should be released anyway.
 
J

jackdoe

Member
Took a quick look at their Kickstarter page to see what this project was and found this little nugget:

All projects and companies face challenges. Most notably for us, we recently lost our art director, who helped create "Juniper's Knot" and "Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos". We have already found a new artist to take over his position (who has created most of the assets on this page), however this does speak to the fact that nothing is certain when undertaking a project.

I do not treat the idea of accepting backers money lightly. It is not "free" money as some believe, but money that comes at the cost of trust and reputation. I cannot guarantee the quality of the final products in the worst case scenario, but I can guarantee that I will devote my entire efforts to their completion. When I first started Dischan, all I had was myself and the wish to make something, determination got Dischan from here to there, and it will get episodes 2 and 3 from here to done.

- Jeremy Miller
Director of Dischan Media
Click to expand...
What happened to that guarantee of completion no matter the quality?
 
Y

Yeshua

Member
Heart of Black said:
I think in the end they should essentially just give over what they have to backers at appropriate levels. As a kickstarter creator, that is what I would do.
Click to expand...

At the very least they should release episode 0 when they post their mistake analysis so that we can see by ourself how it went wrong imo.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
I'm not quite sure I get why they aren't just going to release episode 0. Sure, it might suck, but it's better giving backers something over nothing.

It's weird considering the timeline though, not long back they said they were close to releasing it, and now they changed their mind? Seems like a rather drastic change of opinion in such a short time frame.
 
Lactose_Intolerant

Lactose_Intolerant

Member
Paid themselves too much money, took longer than expected.

Edit: saw that they lost their art director. Maybe they didn't pay enough. Not like they got a ton of money to start with.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
Yeah, the full version of their reasons here -

In the post announcing the halting of full-time development on the Dysfunctional Systems series I mentioned that I would write another post detailing what exactly went wrong. This is that post. In no particular order, I'm going to list and analyze the mistakes that were made during development.

Lack of Process
Before the Kickstater, Dischan operated as a group of volunteers and there was very little process. We each had our jobs and we did them at our own pace. I thought we could continue working this way, but it proved not to be the case. Work was completed very slowly and while that would have previously been fine, now it was causing us to lose money.

A few months ago I realized something had to be done, and so I began breaking down the work and creating schedules which I got the team to commit to. Things starting moving a lot more quickly after that, but it caused another problem, which I'll discuss next.

Lack of Quality Control
The problem was that the team started rushing. Mistakes were ignored for the sake of meeting deadlines. The result is that episode 0 neared completion, but still did not qualify as "good". We needed to strike a balance between speed and quality, but we didn't have the time to do it.

We also didn't have any kind of process to guarantee quality. People completed their assigned work and then a box was ticked. We should have implemented a peer review system to ensure that work met our standards before considering it "done". When you're working on your own, it's easy to miss mistakes, after all.

Feature Creep
Our original budget and planning was based on episode 1, but this turned out to be a bad idea, since what we were trying to create ended up being significantly more complex than episode 1. We had a more complicated codex, a travel system, an interactables system, and an overall larger scope. Altogether things ended up requiring more time than we thought. We should have tightened the scope and made the sequels less ambitious.

Overpayment
I really value the work people do and I wanted to properly compensate them for it, especially after having had people work as volunteers for so long. However, I should have been more shrewd and practical. I paid people too much, or at least incorrectly. Dischan employees were paid a salary when they should have been paid hourly. An hourly wage would have ensured that money was only spent when work was completed.

Sixty thousand dollars seems like a lot of money, but it disappears quickly if you try to pay four/five people decently over nine months.

Overhiring
I hired a designer and I should not have. That's not to say he wasn't extremely talented and a good worker, it's just that we didn't have enough work for him and in the end his work wasn't as crucial to the end product as writing, art, and implementation. I should have hired him on a contract basis.

Overpromising
We promised 2 full games and a third smaller game in the Kickstarter. That's a lot, and it's an obligation that puts a lot of pressure on you. The stress of that weight made it difficult to focus. We should have only promised a single episode, which we would have been able to handle much better.

Loss of Motivation
It pains me to admit this, but to some degree I lost my passion for Dysfunctional Systems. I wasn't the only one either. This was a massive problem, not just because it made it difficult to work, but also because it caused a drop in quality of work.

I think the root of the problem was the overpromising in the Kickstarter. When something you love doing becomes an obligation, it begins causing stress instead of joy. I failed to realize this would happen.

In Conclusion
The Dysfunctional Systems Kickstarter taught us some amazingly valuable lessons that we might not have otherwise learned, but it came at a high price. If we had learned these lessons before launching the Kickstarter campaign, I'm sure it would have turned out better. It's very unfortunate that we lacked the experience and foresight required to avoid these problems.
Click to expand...

The typical issues, really.
 
W

wrowa

Member
I don't quite understand how they can justify not releasing that Episode 0 if it's already finished. If you can only offer a "partial refund" to your customers, you shouldn't be so picky about the quality of the product. Let the backers decide whether or not the product is good, bad or average.

But just saying "It's finished, but t's not good enough for us, so we won't release it and we'll only partially refund some people's money" sounds like a dishonest dick move.
 
O

OmegaX

Member
Lactose_Intolerant said:
Paid themselves too much money, took longer than expected.

Edit: saw that they lost their art director. Maybe they didn't pay enough. Not like they got a ton of money to start with.
Click to expand...
That artist was lucky he/she was being payed at all. The female characters look sort of ok, but look at the teacher from episode one (scruffy older guy with a beard). It's as if his face is looking one way, and his eyes/nose are looking the opposite direction. That "artist" has no clue about basic human anatomy. Also, any picture when the characters are not with their hands in their pockets or hips looks unnatural. As if the limbs belonged to a different person.
Too bad about this KS. They should release episode 0 as it is anyway. The first episode had weird writing at times but the premise was interesting, and it had some good moments.
Also, paying a fixed monthly salary to people that are working on their spare time was really dumb.
 
A

ArtistDude88

Member
Bummer. I quite liked the first part.

Though, losing Doomfest and gaining rtil as the artist was kind of, "eeeeeh" for me. I like rtil's stuff, but I enjoyed Doom's style much more.
 
W

Wickerbasket

Member
Not releasing anything at all seems really suspicious.

It sounds more like they didn't have a working product due to all the problems they listed.
 
K

Krakn3Dfx

Member
I know I'm probably in the minority, but I feel like offering refunds on Kickstarter projects that go belly up sets a bad precedent. I've backed probably a dozen KS campaigns since the service started, the worst by far being this thing called the Equiso, which was supposed to be this revolutionary Android TV stick, but ended up being a piece of shit with a kind of nifty remote control that I ended up using on my PS3 instead.

I never once asked for a refund, even tho I wasn't at all happy with the final product, because for every project on KS that doesn't go right, there are a lot that turn out great. I'm still thrilled and in awe that we got another Wasteland after all these years, and I think the Pebble Watch is pretty awesome. The new Carmageddon is still questionable, but I'm glad I put money behind it and I'm hopeful it comes out as an enjoyable title.

KS is a gamble, it's playing the market for a product that may or may not make it to fruition, and even if it does it may not be what you wanted out of that product. When I back a project, it's because I trust the people working on it to do their best, maybe that ends up with me getting something in return, maybe it ends up with nothing, which is disappointing, but that's what KS is.

On a larger scale (much larger actually), I've invested 7 times in a company that goes out, scouts for natural gas reserves, and then drills hoping to tap into them. If they find something, I get a check every month based on my initial investment for as long as the gas is pumping. If they find nothing, I'm out what I invested in the project. Out of the 7 I've put money into, I've gotten a return on 3, with the other 4 failing to produce. I lost roughly $8k on those 4, and it will take me a couple of years still on the other 3 to recoup the cost from those. I kind of look at Kickstarter that same way, for every project I've put money into that has gone bad, I have several that I got something good or even great out of to make up for it.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I do think their mea culpa is significantly more honest than most failures and should be commended.

That being said, I do not think this was a wise project to back. $49,000 CAD for 4 people for one year of work for 2 games is simply not a sensible or accurate budgeting. Right off the bat I would have guessed that the deadline would be blown and that the project would at best be a hobby project, because those salaries in the absence of external funding would not sustain anything resembling full-time or ongoing development.

I'd also add that since the first episode lost money (a fact that I believe they documented in their KS), I would have been pretty hesitant to begin with about the wisdom of releasing the games as an ongoing series. Exploring this logic further may have predicted the conundrum the company now finds itself in--especially the "lost passion" part.

My general sense is that the lower the level of funding goes, the more likely a project is to fail to be completed. The biggest thing I'd suggest is to ballpark the number of employees you think would take to make the game they're proposing, ballpark the amount of time you think would make the game they're proposing. If the deadline seems too aggressive, it certainly is. If the number of employees * the deadline * what you think is the minimum salary required to make a game full-time instead of exploring other employment is way higher than the amount of money they're asking for, that's another warning flag.

Krakn3Dfx said:
I know I'm probably in the minority, but I feel like offering refunds on Kickstarter projects that go belly up sets a bad precedent. I've backed probably a dozen KS campaigns since the service started, the worst by far being this thing called the Equiso, which was supposed to be this revolutionary Android TV stick, but ended up being a piece of shit with a kind of nifty remote control that I ended up using on my PS3 instead.

I never once asked for a refund, even tho I wasn't at all happy with the final product, because for every project on KS that doesn't go right, there are a lot that turn out great.
Click to expand...

I agree people shouldn't ask for a refund because they're not happy with the final product. But people aren't talking about asking for refunds for products they don't like, they're talking about asking for refunds for products that they don't get at all. You mention the Equiso--do you think you'd say "oh well" if they had posted an update saying "LOL we spent your money and couldn't make anything tough shit git better at investing scrub"? Probably not, right?
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
Refunds could take several years.

It's taking a long time to receive my refund. Why?
We can only send refunds when we have the money to do so. It's a lot of money, so it could take several years to refund everyone. I'm sorry about this, but there isn't much I can do about it.
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
If you would like a refund, let us know via Kickstarter. Please be considerate when asking for a refund as most of the money is gone so I will be using my personal funds to make up the difference
Click to expand...
And the backing pledges weren't from personal funds? Fuck off.
 
C

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
Bboy AJ said:
And the backing pledges weren't from personal funds? Fuck off.
Click to expand...

There is no reason for that. The money used from the kickstarter is gone, the product failed. In order to make do on their promise of making sure people get their money back if they wish, they need to earn money through traditional avenues. On top of living expenses and all else, that could take a considerable amount of time depending on if it is all hinging on one person in the project team.
 
C

Conan-san

Member
Well this is depressing.

I'll get my £10 (30$can * 0.70 / exchange rate) back so by the time all is said and done it's what of my pledge that would have been the other games but between the two I'd rather the games.

Any other good Western LN's that aren't katawa shoujo or that princess gettin' snuffed game?
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
I'm guessing everyone here got the update email? 0 is now complete and work on 2 is continuing. Unless I missed something this totally came out of left field.

Hello,
We spent some time rewriting episode 0 of Dysfunctional Systems and finished what needed to be done, with a few necessary omissions.
It will become available on Steam as soon as it's approved (we're aiming for July 24th) and all backers will receive a Steam key regardless of whether or not they received a refund. You should receive your key within the next few days.
Also, I'm pleased to announce that development on episode 2 has restarted, with the art director from episode 1 returning. Please note that the story of episode 2 will be completely different from what was described in the Kickstarter.
Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy episode 0. A trailer for the episode is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obH-pRI8bQM
 
S

Stopdoor

Member
Man reading the outrage in this thread after a decent explanation (and now release, so it wasn't a dishonest "scam" like some accused) is tiring, even specifically when he goes out of his way to remind hate mail is read by a real person.

Like I get that yeah, projects are accountable, but the outrage energy is on another level than I could muster. I guess I don't buy in to Kickstarter at a high enough level.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Stopdoor said:
Man reading the outrage in this thread after a decent explanation (and now release, so it wasn't a dishonest "scam" like some accused) is tiring, even specifically when he goes out of his way to remind hate mail is read by a real person.

Like I get that yeah, projects are accountable, but the outrage energy is on another level than I could muster. I guess I don't buy in to Kickstarter at a high enough level.
Click to expand...

Having just reread this thread, there wasn't even much outrage.
 
Y

Yeshua

Member
Jawmuncher said:
I'm guessing everyone here got the update email? 0 is now complete and work on 2 is continuing. Unless I missed something this totally came out of left field.
Click to expand...

Yup, read that this morning before going to work, I was over the moon. Surprised they are giving Episode 0 to refunded backer.
 
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