Yesterday it was announced that the Kickstarter campaign for the MMORPG: RAW, was to be canceled, effective immediately. No, this wasn’t a legal issue, nor one made by the developers themselves, it was a decision credited to Kickstarter themselves.

According to Dustin Bailey of PCGamesN, Kickstarter states: “Our rules and guidelines ask that creators seek to raise the amount of money needed to bring a project to completion and fulfill all rewards,” told Kickstarter to PcGamesN. They went on to state, “This creator stated in an update that they would need to raise additional funds outside of Kickstarter to complete the game. We require projects to be honest and clearly presented, and this project failed to meet that standard.”

Bailey then stated that this could be referencing the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), that demonstrates how a game of this size can not be made on a budget of seventy thousand Euro. However, these same questions of scope are supplanted by the claim, “but nobody said that this money is all that we have. We have other sources of funding too.” Obviously suggesting that while they were asking for the seventy thousand Euro, Killerwhale Games have outside investment from somewhere else. A source that has yet to be named, may I add.

Meanwhile, on the game’s official Discord channel, Killerwhale holds steadfast that they were given “no warning” of the suspension. They also hold true that they were sent an email that mirrors the one fans received. For the most part, it is Kickstarter stating their guidelines for projects, and how RAW may have broken those rules in their campaign. On this, Killerwhale states, “We are very disappointed, but not broken,” going further to suggest other forms of funding. “IndieGoGo can become one of those solutions. the Second solution is to make it through our website.”

In the latest update to the Kickstarter, a member of the team over at Killerwhale states the team has been working on the game for over two years. They also describe a budget of almost ten thousand Euro that Killerwhale has already put into the project to get it to where it is today. As the title of the update states, it is mostly about the information on what would have been (or still is) covered in an upcoming gameplay video. We don’t know whether this is still to come.

However, the question has to be presented at some point. If the goal of the team is met, the pledged amount is nearly triple of original goal, along with external funding, why did Kickstarter decide to suspend the campaign? Presently the campaign is suspended at nearly one-hundred and fifty-four pounds, or one-hundred and seventy-two euro (roughly $192,727). It is no triple-A Goliath of a budget, though it does meet the goal set by the team. It is an ambitious project, but there have been plenty of those on Kickstarter, it is no secret that Shenmue 3 has external funding and will not meet goals they set out to accomplish.

So the question must be asked, at what point did Kickstarter decide this was the case to arbitrate on? Is this the case for Kickstarter to decide on budgets of individual projects? Has Kickstarter seen what Ubisoft and HitRecord are facing with Watch Dogs: Legion or are they deciding to stamp out that sort of work ahead of time? We do not know, and Kickstarter has not made a public comment via Twitter or Facebook. The only comment has been made to PCGamesN.

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