Kickstarter disappointments and disasters are usually not unusual within the realm of videogames–and typically, even when a marketing campaign is profitable and a recreation is launched, there’ll nonetheless be points with fulfilling backer guarantees like bodily goodies and stretch targets. One such marketing campaign experiencing these woes is Chained Echoes, a 16-bit model RPG that has obtained excellent reviews and a typically optimistic participant reception. By all metrics, this recreation would simply go down as a Kickstarter success story–if it wasn’t for backers who bought a bodily copy of the sport not getting what they purchased after years of delay.
Creator Matthias Linda partnered with German limited-edition publisher First Press Games to create bodily copies of Chained Echoes for for PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Swap. Whereas sure tiers of the Kickstarter have been promised bodily goodies like an artbook associated to the game–which Linda despatched out himself–the editions by First Press have been their very own factor that backers might buy as an add-on to their pledge. Non-backers might additionally purchase straight from the First Press Video games retailer. As of the time of writing, the order page for Chained Echoes on First Press Games’s website is still live, with most merchandise listed as “preorder” and editions costing anyplace from $50 USD for a fundamental PC/PS4/Swap version to $354 USD for an enormous collectors’ version field.
Regardless of preorders having gone stay in November of 2022, nonetheless, all however the fundamental PlayStation 4 version of the sport have but to be shipped to backers and patrons, with complaints abound and little clarification for the prolonged delay. Patrons have turn out to be extremely frustrated–and so has Linda, who as we speak introduced that he is planning to file a lawsuit against First Press Games and will be offering refunds to backers who bought the physical version.
“It’s been a bit over 2 years for the reason that bodily copies have been imagined to be launched by First Press Video games and to date in 2026 nothing has arrived besides the common PlayStation 4 version,” writes Linda within the Kickstarter replace. “Due to that I needed to decide: I’m terminating my enterprise relationship with FPG and I’m getting ready a lawsuit.”
Whereas Linda cannot disclose many particulars of the deliberate lawsuit but, he’s providing both a substitute bodily version (made by a special yet-to-be-determined writer) or a refund. Nevertheless, the supply is proscribed to those that backed throughout the marketing campaign for additional authorized reasons–those who bought the sport from First Press with out being an authentic backer will nonetheless want to seek out another means to recoup their funds. A timeline for refunds and replacements has not but been supplied.
Linda’s pledge to assist backers has been typically well-received, even when it is in its early levels. A minimum of it seems to be like this specific Kickstarter fiasco would possibly finally have a considerably okay ending.