There are already too many adaptations of games, movies, and TV series that are essentially nothing more than ‘ill-planned money grabs’ by burnt-out creators.
In 2009, the crowdfunding website
Kickstarter
(hereinafter referred to as KS) was established. Over the next 13 years, game developers large, small, and large fell in love with the clever way of raising money directly from audiences, bypassing traditional funding agencies and other intermediaries.
But the player’s money does not come from the wind. If the crowdfunding project cannot mobilize the most basic interest of players, or cannot generate any confidence in investors, it is impossible to achieve the goal.
Behind the glamorous success stories, there are always a large number of buried failure cases. According to the 2019 annual report released by the British game intelligence agency ICO Partner, a total of 1,428 video game-related projects solicited crowdfunding on KS that year, of which only 380 projects raised enough money.
For every 1 game crowdfunding success, there are 3 game crowdfunding failures
Just a few days ago, there was another failed project in the KS database that announced the suspension of crowdfunding.
This project was initiated by a studio in the United States called Village Fox Media. They intend to create an officially licensed derivative game based on the simulated horror work “Mysterious Meat Pit”. The crowdfunding goal was set at $300,000, but only $12,000 was collected 10 days after the project started.
In the end, the original author of “Mysterious Meat Pit” personally stopped the whole project. At the same time, a merciless statement from him, especially the following sentence, brought more attention to this project with only 232 people willing to contribute:
“With this experience, I can firmly say that as long as I live, there won’t be any video game adaptations of The Mysterious Meat Pit.”
1
In 1973, in the wilderness of western Texas, a group of oil workers accidentally discovered a huge pothole embedded in the ground. The pothole is made of a texture similar to biological muscle, so it is called “Mystery Meat Pit” by the workers.
Flesh Pit).
Three years later, the meat pit was taken over by the conglomerate Anodyne and opened as a tourist attraction. Since then, it has been upgraded to a national park in the United States, namely “Mysterious Meat Pit National Park”.
“Mystery Meat Pit National Park”
The United States officially named this meat pit “Permian Basin Superlife”, and its actual size and depth cannot be determined. In order to find out how deep the meat pit is, the United States did not hesitate to cooperate with the Soviet Union, its old enemy during the Cold War, in terms of technology and personnel. The expedition was forced to suspend after being attacked by unknown creatures.
In the shallow layer of the meat pit open to the public, there are also many strange creatures with strange shapes that may attack humans. However, Anodyne blamed all missing persons in the park on failure to carefully read the safety manuals they issued.
The cover of the guidebook that reminds you to guard against wild animals in the park
Even though the inside and outside of Roukeng are full of unknowns, the accident rate in Roukeng Park is not high. Humans have also benefited a lot from the study of meat pits. For example, meat pits secrete a fluid similar to amniotic fluid, which has various therapeutic and health benefits, and may also have a little aphrodisiac effect. Anodyne made this liquid into medicine, launched Coca-Cola and Whirlwind ice cream with corresponding flavors, and even opened a bathhouse in the meat pit for tourists to enjoy wholeheartedly, as if they were soaking in hot springs.
“Amniotic Fluid Hot Spring” promotional poster
But human beings have never considered the feelings of the meat pit. On July 4th, 2007, this meat pit, or super life form, awoke.
Similar to the instinctive reaction of the human digestive tract, the meat pit began to convulse, secreting a large amount of corrosive liquid, squeezing, digesting, and swallowing all the “foreign objects” inside, including buildings supported by steel bars, as well as those inside the building. living people. Not only that, the entire meat pit moved, and many witnesses witnessed its limbs sticking out of the ground.
News coverage the day after the disaster
Thanks to some kind of confidential emergency measures prepared in advance, the meat pit resumed its deep sleep. In this tragic accident, more than 750 people died, 3000 were injured, the national park was completely closed, and Anodyne also declared bankruptcy. Since then, the U.S. government has closed off the surrounding area and closely monitored the meat pit until today.
2
The above content is purely fictitious. This point must be repeatedly emphasized, because there are indeed many American netizens who are unsuspecting of the content on social media and mistakenly regard a non-existent meat pit as a fact that the government is trying to cover up.
In May 2019, designer, illustrator and writer Trevor Roberts (Trevor Roberts) showed a travel poster of “Mysterious Meat Pit National Park” on Reddit, as well as a preliminary conception of this world view.
Over the next three years, Roberts spent the next three years refining the worldview and also started an independent website archive to document “an archive of information pertaining to the now-closed Mysterious Meat Pit National Park.”
From park advertisements, recruitment notices, guidebooks, warning signs, to “historical fact” photos, internal documentaries, private letters from relevant people, third-party news reports, and finally an official accident report in 2007, and A video recording the public Emergency Alert (EAS) issued by the government on television on the night of the accident. These “files” were produced by Roberts alone.
“Texas declares state of emergency”
In March 2022, a Facebook post intentionally intercepted a small part of the artwork to falsify the rumor that the “Meat Pit” actually existed. The rumor quickly went viral on Facebook and TikTok, eventually prompting a fact-checker called Snopes to refute it.
“The meat pit is real!!”
In an interview with Snopes, Roberts said it was not his intention to convince people that the park existed. He does intend to imitate the style that real-life national park promotional materials should have, but the absurdity of the most basic concept of “meat pit” is enough to make people see that this is just an art project. “It’s a huge compliment that someone takes my art as fact, as long as it doesn’t cause any real discomfort or anxiety.”
“Mysterious Meat Pit” is very similar to Zoo Strange Talk, or an SCP project, or a simulated horror work such as “Local 58”. These works will not or try their best to avoid the direct description of the horror itself, but start from the perspective of a third party related to the event, and use indirect methods to lure the audience into spontaneous thinking about some unknown horror.
But “Mysterious Meat Pit” also has characteristics that are different from other simulated horror works. Roberts’ narrative method is more fragmented, with more perspectives, and uses multiple media such as text, pictures, audio, and video at the same time, so it has the magic power to mistake fiction for reality.
Screenshot of the official website of the archives established by Roberts
Of course, this fragmented narrative technique is easily reminiscent of video games. Many games will design a collection of hidden collectibles or documents to supplement the world view and story details. It is inevitable that fans will repeatedly make such suggestions to Roberts: Why not make a derivative horror game of “Mysterious Meat Pit”?
Similar thoughts even became the first reaction of some netizens when they saw “Mysterious Meat Pit”
As of November 2022, several “Mysterious Meat Pit” related commentary videos on Youtube have reached a million-level view, and Roberts’ subsequent “Mysterious Meat Pit” sub-forum on Reddit has also attracted 23,000 loyal followers. Followers. As for passers-by and netizens who learned about this project from rumors, it is even impossible to estimate its specific scale.
Making an officially licensed horror game around a world so popular with horror fans shouldn’t be a bad idea.
3
On November 18, Roberts officially announced the cooperation with the Village Fox studio to produce an official game of “Mysterious Meat Pit” based on the PC platform. Players will play the staff of Meat Pit National Park and visit the scene to help the park recover from the 2007 accident.
On the same day, Village Fox launched a crowdfunding campaign on the KS website that is expected to last for 30 days. They promised in the promotional text of the crowdfunding that after the original crowdfunding goal of 300,000 US dollars is collected, they will make a complete game with an estimated 8-10 hours of experience. The funds beyond the goal will be used to deepen the game and supplement the details of the game. If they can raise 500,000 US dollars, they will be able to expand the game to 15-18 hours.
Concept drawing of the building on the KS page
Crowdfunding activities on KS generally provide shareholders with certain exclusive benefits and practical benefits, and the crowdfunding of “Mysterious Meat Pit” is no exception. Village Fox has designed a full 10 crowdfunding stalls. The lowest tier of $15 only guarantees that your name will appear in the list of producers. A higher tier of $35 guarantees you will receive a digital copy of the game, and most fans who participated in the crowdfunding have chosen this tier.
The highest level requires a subscription of 10,000 US dollars, allowing fans to act as “assistant producers”, customize objects in the game, and tailor their own or other people’s image as an NPC character in the game. Until the end of crowdfunding, no one cares about this position.
On November 28, one-third of the crowdfunding deadline had passed, and a total of 232 people subscribed for $12,622, less than 5% of the crowdfunding goal. In fact, in the last three days, some players have voluntarily withdrawn their investment, resulting in negative growth in crowdfunding amount.
Picture source KS crowdfunding tracking website Kicktraq
On this day, in the statement at the beginning of this article, Robert announced the suspension of crowdfunding and the return of all crowdfunding funds, and said that this decision was a combination of “fan feedback, failed marketing pushes, internal disputes and some deep introspection.” Made after.
How did fans respond? Judging from a post on Reddit reporting the suspension of crowdfunding, because it was not advertised through official social media or video platform accounts in advance, a large number of fans did not even know that this crowdfunding, or a plan to make an official The planning of derivative games once existed.
Those who knew about the existence of the project had more or less expected that the project would not have a happy ending.
First of all, Village Fox did not give any introduction and display related to the game itself, but only released some conceptual drawings that fit the original setting, and a certain employee, not the original author, talked to the camera without any real content. A 3-minute video broadcast of a segment of a console game.
who are you
After the start of crowdfunding, the studio did not provide any updates to the promotional materials on the KS page, and it seems that the development work of the game has not yet been written off. Fans lack the most basic understanding of the general gameplay of the game, and their willingness to invest and sense of security will undoubtedly drop sharply.
Secondly, Village Fox Media, which initiated crowdfunding, is not itself a full-time game studio. Its official website describes that they are good at making 3D modeling, videography, and visual effects for large-scale events such as concerts. related things.
Village Fox has never made a full game either. They have provided 3D modeling and design support for several little-known independent games, but this is not enough to dispel players’ doubts about their level and ability to make games.
Screenshot of Village Fox’s official website
Details of Roberts’ “internal dispute” with Village Fox were not available. However, after the suspension of crowdfunding, Roberts accepted an interview with foreign media Kotaku and revealed a small amount of information. He has no complaints about the studio’s developers, other than that the project is “a little too ambitious.” “Most people don’t fully realize what a daunting task it is to make a normal video game.”
Whether it is a crowdfunding goal of $300,000 or a horror game of about 8 hours, it seems that Roberts is beyond the scope of his ability as a personal artist. Roberts also made a “profound introspection”: “For a moment, I clearly see the disaster this project will cause for all developers. I think I did the right thing.”
4
Perhaps because he felt that the previous statement on the official website that “the game adaptation of “Mysterious Meat Pit” is not allowed” was a bit extreme, Roberts finally deleted the statement.
But he still pointed out in the interview that there are already too many adaptations of games, movies, and TV series on the market, and their essence is nothing more than “poorly planned fund grabs” by “exhausted creators”. This is definitely not what he wants.
Studio employee Gavin Richardson, who was featured in the video on the crowdfunding page, also delivered a statement to Kotaku. He said he didn’t think Roberts’ statement “was directed at us, or at least I hope not.” While expressing regret, he also highly agrees with Roberts’ ideas: “If you do something just to make money and get clicks, then you lose the meaning of creation.”
Whatever conflicts Roberts and Village Fox had had, they ended up killing an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign and screwing up an officially licensed adaptation. Because they failed so quickly, none of the fans were actually harmed. It is difficult to say whether such a case has reference significance for industry peers.
However, the possibility of playing the game adapted from “Mysterious Meat Pit” still exists now and in the future. On Roblox, a popular sandbox game in the United States, there are at least two mods related to “Mysterious Meat Pit”. For the landscape, there is no need to pay for the ticket.
game screenshot
There is also an authorized board game that is still under development and is expected to be launched early next year. It is called “Mystery of the Meat Pit Mystery”, which is a role-playing game that uses six-sided dice to drive and is similar to running a team. This board game is not made by Village
Fox Creation, according to Gavin, set the crowdfunding campaign for the video game this year, also to avoid interfering with the marketing of the board game.
At present, there are only very few records of “Mystery of the Mysterious Meat Pit” on the Internet
“Mysterious Meat Pit” is still a work with unlimited development potential. An innocuous small failure, on the contrary, increased its popularity, and also gave the author Roberts more self-knowledge, and was able to make more reasonable plans for its future development direction.
Perhaps the day the details of the 2007 disaster become known, the idea of a Mysterious Meat Pit game will attract outside funding without even raising a dime from fans.
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