I loved the idea of Human Resources from the moment I read about it: Humanity inflicts technological doom on itself, then makes things worse by invoking the Ancient Ones and ends up as nothing more than a generic resource used as fuel in the ensuing war. Alas, as good as the idea is, it wasn't quite good to separate enough people from their crowdfunding dollars.
The decision to pull the plug was announced today by John Comes, the design director at developer Uber Entertainment, which had a big hit on Kickstarter in 2012 with Planetary Annihilation. The Human Resources effort had brought in more than $384,000 from 9326 backers, which sounds impressive in a vacuum. The goal, however, was $1.4 million, and after nearly three weeks it clearly wasn't going to get there.
"Every Kickstarter prediction model is showing that we will come up woefully short of our goal," Comes wrote in an update. "Running a Kickstarter is a full time job for several people. As a small indie, we can’t continue spending time and money focusing on a project that won’t get funded."
Comes said Uber Entertainment is "profoundly grateful" to everyone who supported the project, and that after some "recovery time," the studio would figure out its next step. "One thing is for sure, Human Resources, as pitched in this Kickstarter, is over," he wrote. "But we adore the world of Human Resources and will endeavor to do what we can to bring it to life in some form."
There's at least some defiant bravado in there, but I hope Uber is able to follow through on it somehow; I'm not much of an RTS fan but this is too good an idea to let die. Comes also reminded everyone who backed the project, as we will repeat here in case the question comes up, that because it was not funded, no money will be taken, and no rewards will be delivered.
