Layoff And Dismissal: Human Resources Cancelled

After studying key performance indicators, applying performance improvement procedures, and following a robust phase of knowledge implementation, developer Uber Entertainment has decided going forward to suspend work on the Human Resources Kickstarter.

That means that it's cancelled. The strategy game was shooting for $1,400,000 with which to pit Cthulhu-esque old ones against Skynet-esque robots, but after a little over two weeks it had become clear that it wasn't going to hit its target.

This glossary of human resource terminology is useful.

Uber explained their decision in a Kickstarter update.

Every Kickstarter prediction model is showing that we will come up woefully short of our goal. Running a Kickstarter is a full time job for several people. As a small indie, we can’t continue spending time and money focusing on a project that won’t get funded. We simply don’t have the human resources. #seewhatididthere

#idoseewhatyoudidthere

An earlier post, also made yesterday, shows some of the graphs which back up the decision. Despite a recent increase in pledges, the project was still pulling in less than half the daily amount required to ever reach its funding goal.

This was Uber Entertainment's second trip to the Kickstarter well, with the first being the RTS Planetary Annihilation. That game cleared its $900,000 target easily, riding a rocket-propelled globe with a mantle of crowdfunding optimism and a magnetic core of nostalgia for Total Annihilaiton. A couple of years later, times have changed: people are more cynical of crowdfunding campaigns; people have always been less likely to fund new ideas than spiritual successors; and players and reviewers weren't altogether happy with what the team delivered with Planetary Annihilation.

Whether any of those things are responsible, or whether the idea simply didn't grab people, is hard to tell. The original pitch video, which contained a concept render of the game, is still viewable over on Adam's preview and interview with its developers. If reading about it makes it sounds interesting to you - and it did to me - then there's still some small sliver of hope, as the Kickstarter goodbye post mentions that the team will try to find other ways to make Human Resources a reality. But if I had to guess, I'd say this was the end of the line.