Of Kings and Men
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#62
What happened with Of Kings And Men? - Last Oasis general discussion
chadzTheDonkey [developer] 28 Jan @ 3:34pm
"There is a lot of frustration around OKAM's clusterduck (our previous project). This is quite understandable.
Here is what happened:
We gave all rights away to a company that promised us to fund our development. They promised us that we can get the rights back if we work hard enough. We were working for practically no wage, we made barely enough money to live and eat. We worked on average 80 to 120 hours per week. This is not an exaggeration, I mean that literally. The release date was not up for discussion. It had to be met, period.
After we slaved ourselves away for the release, we wanted to improve things. Hire new people, improve work situation, get control of the steam page and fix its wrong information, etc.
We were met with ignorance and ridicule. They were happy with the arrangement, and they knew we couldn't leave because we would ruin our reputation. We were the public face, they were not.
We've had enough of broken promises and it was clear that we're just being exploited. We left, and we had to leave absolutely everything behind and start from scratch - money, rights, etc.
Do I regret? Yes, I regret not leaving the project before release. I regret not accepting sooner that we were being exploited. And, more importantly, I regret being naive, picking the wrong partners. I certainly do not regret leaving OKAM.
I was told that all this is considered "business secrets" and I'm not allowed to share it under a threat of a lawsuit. I often wonder how many other young naive developers are in a similar situation, scared into shutting up.
Now, I'm no stranger to cynicism in the internet, so believe what you think is true. But what sounds more plausible:
- a young indie team working 5 years on a scam that nets them public hate and zero money?
or
- a young indie team being desperate about finishing their game, picking the wrong partners and getting exploited?
There's a reason we didn't change our name. We're still Donkey Crew, we have been for 8 years, that's us. They took our game away, I'm not letting them take our name away too. For the record, we have nothing to do with them any more, we're proud of what Last Oasis is, and we will restore our name."