Kickstarter troll ruins game’s funding by withdrawing huge pledge

Chris Morris
(Credit: 2Awesome Studios)
(Credit: 2Awesome Studios)

A Kickstarter project falling short of its goal is pretty typical these days, but it’s hard not to feel empathy for the poor developers behind Dimension Drive.

Is the game any good? We don't know - and, in fact, may never know. Instead, the game’s lasting legacy may well be the story of a last minute funding salvation which turned out to be a cruel trick.

The crowdfunding effort was the dream of 2Awesome Studios, a tiny Dutch independent game development studio. Dimension Drive was set to be their first game.

So like many burgeoning developers, they turned to Kickstarter to help finance it. And while they did fairly well in the fundraising, gathering some €23,000, they were still €7,000 short as the campaign neared its end.

Enter a white knight by the name of Jonathan, who pledged €7,000 in the waning hours of the drive to effectively save the game. The 2Awesome Studios offices (and Twitter feed) were jubilent..for just over 2.5 hours. Then reality kicked in the door.

Jonathan, the developers learned, was a troll. The pledge that had saved their game was a fraudulent one. This information came just 31 minutes before the campaign was set to end.

Sadly, the company failed make up that financial blow before the campaign ended. Since it technically hadn't hit the funding goal, they won’t see a single penny.

What’s fascinating – and worrying – is how exactly it happened. Kickstarter has specific wording in its Terms of Use to prevent this kind of trolling:

During the last 24 hours of the campaign, you can’t decrease or cancel your pledge without contacting customer support first — if that action would drop the project below its funding goal. Once the project has been funded, you can only cancel or change your pledge by making special arrangements directly with the creator.

So what happened? As it turns out, Jonathan the troll didn’t actually pull his pledge. Instead, it was caught by Kickstarter’s automated fraud prevention system, which removed it at the last minute. That’s technically legal, and technically terrible luck.

As for Jonathan, Kickstarter says his account has been suspended, but that seems like even less than a slap on the wrist given the anguish he caused.

If there's a silver lining to the story, it's that the legitimate backers say they're now even more firmly supportive of the game and that they'll happily back it again. A few even promise they’ll pay more. In the meantime, 2Awesome is talking with Kickstarter about possible ways to keep the dream alive.

"We are completely overwhelmed with all the support we are getting from you," the developers wrote on their Kickstarter page. "We are trying to understand with the kickstarter [sic] guys what exactly happened with the fraudulent pledge. As soon as we have some news, we will come back to you."

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