Wargamer reached out to Geekify to ask for more detail on refund plans. Head of project John Taylor says the project's incurred costs already include "Kickstarter and platform fees, marketing, advertising, licensing fees and royalties, development and staffing costs, asset development, proofing and editing, taxes, and a plethora of other things".
However, "Funds were specifically earmarked for physical production, and the hope is to return what can be returned, though working through the logistics of that will take some time". Taylor says that assets had been designed for production and manufacturing, but these processes hadn't started.
Regarding backer compensation, Taylor says "we're evaluating what the best path forward is". "We want to do what we tenably can to make it up to the backers, who are ultimately the ones who suffer most from the dissolution of the partnership, and seeing what we can do from our side."
UPDATE, ~6:20pm NST: Geekify has posted a rather lengthy update post on the Kickstarter. It's too long for us to reproduce in full here, so we encourage you to read it in entirety for full context, but we'll share some key points here:
- Geekify admits responsibility for circumventing the agreed-upon review process by releasing the Beta document without express TNT approval.
- Geekify alleges the termination was not well-communicated to them, and TNT ignored efforts at communication the last few weeks.
- Geekify says the project was far more developed than the Beta document showed, with over 1,000 pages written. They blame persistent review delays and lack of support from TNT for slowing development.
- Geekify "are not in a position to refund the entire project" having spent much on "game and asset development, paid out to royalties, and for project overhead," but want to "make things right, in whatever way we tenably can."
TNT has shared a follow-up announcement to last month's message about Geekify's upcoming Neopets TTRPG. Neopets has "made the decision to terminate our license agreement with Geekify, effective immediately."
The announcement also includes a few further details.
Will the Geekify TTRPG still be developed?
The announcement is clear that the license termination means they will "cease this specific project," but TNT is "continuing to explore alternative options to bring a high quality TTRPG gaming experience to the fan base...in the future."
What will happen to backers of the Kickstarter?
The announcement is less clear on this point, saying simply "general inquiries, backers with outstanding pledges and customer support needs should continue to go to Geekify Inc through their customer service channels."
UPDATE, 1:04am NST: The owner of Geekify has posted an update in the #general channel of the project's Discord server, which is now locked from new messages.
Hey guys, we're temporarily muting the server, as it's currently 2am and people are piling onto the Discord. Neopets has absolutely blindsided us with this announcement after being unresponsive and taking seemingly no active interest in communicating about the project, offering guidance, or clarification at all.
We're assessing next steps, as this leaves everything in the worst possible state for moving forward. We will post an update on the Kickstarter soon.
Avatar
TNT will be "stepping in to ensure every backer receives their exclusive in-game avatar" that had been promised to all backer tiers, but that the distribution method has not been finalized and will be shared later.
The disastrous experience and bad word of mouth likely soured many from buying the succeeding calendars, which were of a better quality. Aside from the 2021 and 2022 calendars having "dusty" chocolate bloom.
