$120,000 Kickstarter project failed, no cash left to repay donors

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Erik Chevalier is in a sticky situation right now due to the failure of his Kickstarter project board game. He started a Kickstarter project to create a board game, asking for $35,000 from donors. His project is now failed but he spent all the money donated to him, so there’s literally nothing left to repay donors. What’s interesting here is that Chevalier asked for $35,000 and got over $120,000 instead, so how does a $35,000 project fail with more than almost four times the required funding?

It looks like Chevalier was over ambitious with his plans after he got a lot more than expected. It went to his head so he willingly threw away money and even used the funding to move back to Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Backers are furious because Chevalier used their money on moving instead of completing the project.

Here is what Chevalier had to say about the project:

The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled.

After much deliberation I’ve had to make this decision. I’ve informed Keith and Lee and neither at all happy with this situation. Every possible mistake was made, some due to my inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications. No matter the cause though these could all have been avoided by someone more experienced and I apparently was not that person.

From the beginning the intention was to launch a new board game company with the Kickstarted funds, with The Doom that Came to Atlantic City as only our first of hopefully many projects. Everyone involved agreed on this. Since then rifts have formed and every error compounded the growing frustration, causing only more issues. After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting software licenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return. We had to print at that point or never. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards for a variety of reasons.

Unfortunately I can’t give any type of schedule for the repayment as I left my job to do this project and must find work again. I’ll create a separate bank account to place anything beyond my basic costs of living.

Will donors reclaim their hard-earned cash? Maybe, maybe not. You see, Chevalier left his job to work on the project, so now he has to find a new job to repay donors. We’re guessing many donors are looking into a plan B just in-case Chevalier runs off to Mexico with a beautiful blond model.

Future Kickstarter donors, we ask that you take caution and beware, you could be scammed.

[via Gawker]

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