https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rapscalliongames/the-miskatonic/description

I am SO disgusted with the creator of this game!

Looking at the Kickstarter page, it looks to be a horror adventure, with lots of humour.

It was promoted as:


"The Miskatonic will be available on PC, via the Steam service or via a DRM free download directly from us, and released for Mac and Linux at a later date! We'll be looking into other distribution services too!"


You can see this near bottom of the page, right above 'The Team' section. I, like many others, supported it BECAUSE DRM-free download is being offered. I wouldn't have given any money if it was steam-only, since I don't support steam.

The game was released on 6 July on steam.
It's now 29 August. DRM-free links\codes have never been provided, despite asking about them!
Rapscallion, who created the game, doesn't have the decency to respond on the Kickstarter comments, and he completely ignores any PMs asking for DRM-free link.

This is a disgusting way to treat people who supported him and gave him money!

I know it probably won't get you what you want, but try contacting kickstarter if it's really that blatant?

EDIT: I've sent them a message enquiring about the DRM-free version (asking how I can buy it since I'm not a backer).

https://twitter.com/jackcayless

Have you tried contacting him through Twitter? Looks like that's where he spends his time. And scrolling through, it seems like he is busy and almost over his head just trying to get trading cards etc. going. He's spending time with Steam dev support. He comes across like a slightly mad sleep-deprived guy at the end of his rope.

So, maybe he hasn't even looked at the Kickstarter page since his last update?

And you might want to rethink your own communication strategy. I mean, your comments on Kickstarter don't even start out polite. You go right from impatient to indignant to ranting and I-want-to-speak-to-your-supervisor levels of heat.

I realize that you have been promised something and he is very late and he is not communicating. All true. But what I'm suggesting is you examine the effectiveness of your communication style. Not so effective this far, huh?

Try pinging him on Twitter. Asking politely about the DRM-free link. Etc.

Let us know how it goes.

EDIT: Also, it released on July 20

I agree. First try email or Twitter, staying polite. If that doesn't help and they actually refuse to give a release date for the DRM-free version, contact Kickstarter. The promise of DRM-free is there and not delivering it would be a broken promise.

My PMs to him started out polite, but he just ignored that.
So I asked him in the Comments - he ignored that as well.
So yes, I started to get frustrated.
And even if he didn't see the comments, he got notifications about his PMs.
He shouldn't be concentrating on steam trading cards at the expense of his other backers. He should concentrate on the game first, and THEN the extra fluff.

But I don't use twitter - I'll give that a try next.


EDIT: Bit I do think that since the game was funded through Kickstarter, not twitter, then communication should be through Kickstarter.

Well sure, but looking at the evidence, it seems like this guy just hasn't logged into Kickstarter since shortly after July 6 when he started sending keys.

The game didn't even launch on Steam until July 20. He spent all of July (judging by his Twitter feed) trying to figure out how to launch a game and how to get paid and how to handle being a dev with a game on Steam. And that's not trivial for a one-man team.

Just reach out to him through Twitter.

Ignoring half your supporters just to cater for the other half, is not acceptable.
Why even submit the game to Kickstarter, if he's just going to ignore Kickstarter supporters?

But I made a twitter account regardless, and messaged him again.


EDIT: Posting a simple 'Hey guys, sorry for the delay, but I'm still working on the DRM-free codes' on Kickstarter wouldn't kill him.

Could be worse, I backed Keen Dreams being opensourced years ago and still haven't gotten my copy. It's been available for sale on Steam for quite a while now, but since Steam won't let people leave reviews on games they haven't bought there, there's no way of registering my unhappiness about the scam.

OTOH, since it's open sourced, I can get the source portion of the game and go on a sea adventure for the assets.

Personally, thanks to KS' complete unwillingness to do anything about scams, I don't back projects there any longer unless I personally know the person or have already been doing business with them, which pretty much renders the point of the site moot.