As some of you already know, Jeromy "Caspian" Walsh, founder and CEO of Soulbound Studios LLC recently closed shop with nothing to show after 5 years and 8 millions+ in crowdfunding, blaming pretty much everyone but himself: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/news/34919/State-of-Elyria-Into-the-Abyss

This happened mere DAYS after that "pre-alpha experience" was launched. It was really close to something a junior could have slapped together using (mostly free) store assets in UE4. Plus a bunch of security issues.

Jeromy says they ran out of money, yet in the 6 months prior to closure, they grossed in 1.6+ million USD, including over $66,000 USD in March 2020 alone. They were also still marketing and pushing their latest website promo for virtual lands and nobility titles in the weeks and days before closing abruptly.

It's litterally a slap in the face of all the backers, and most probably of all employees who were blindsided, after so long and so much effort. Moreover, it's also another painful hit for all indie developers who bring novel, daring ideas to the gaming market, and to the crowdfunding sources that support them.

Filing a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General

If you WON'T STAND for these kind of shenanighans, there are means to get our voices heard through the Washington State Attorney General, whom has already successfully prosecuted one such crowdfunding scam.

Whether or not you were a backer of Chronicles of Elyria, as the AG explained during a Facebook Live with Rep. Derek Kilmer yesterday, you can file a complaint to their office in order to further our chances that this will be fully investigated; it takes literally 5 minutes, and it could help shed some light on what happened and hopefully lessen the risks that these type of situations repeat.

To file a complaint with the Washington Attorney General: https://www.atg.wa.gov/file-complaint and use the following address:

Soulbound Studios
11811 NE 1st St Ste B202
Bellevue, WA 98005-3033
(425) 295-2530
contact@SoulboundStudios.com

YOU CAN PLACE A COMPLAINT EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE UNITED STATES!

To do so, use your consulate address and phone number and note in the description your country and address for them to reference. If you have questions on how to do this, please poke us on Discord.

For more info, help, or a place to vent visit the official CoE Class Action Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PaVjjmM

Thank you for your time. Together we can make a difference.

8 million dollars? It's a combination of Runescape, and skyrim style game… which in theory sounds good. But 8 million for that? Wonder how much they took to compensate themselves.

However star citizen best con job in history, 288 million for 5 to 6 years of development. The entire approach is a con job, begging for money, for an idealistic game that never arrives or under performs. Its become a get rich quick path for the disreputable.

bruh I could deliver for a fraction of that inside of 2-3 years max.

Curious to see all they built. I just left a game company that blew through money like crazy as well. Focus on the wrong things in the wrong priorities. Worked on a game where you are a shark. Day one they focused on how the shark will move on land. Money goes quick.

Just to clarify something, guys: nothing was delivered. They allegedly had “a lot done” and “pretty advanced gameplay”, but that's all hearsay and now Jeromy closed doors of Soulbound Studios with vague blame and promise of possible future endeavours.

dpadam450 said:
Worked on a game where you are a shark. Day one they focused on how the shark will move on land.

That's hilarious! Seriously hilarious!

@Tom Sloper Yup, and it was on a 10 month dev cycle. The 9th month they then tried to cram in all combative AI along with 8 boss battles and 3 epic boss battles. Priorities. But it is coming out soon.

Can I have a mere 10k of that 8mil to found my tiny indie project? No? Okay.

Who wants to bet he finds more suckers, millions more in funds, and never completes the new game? After this time, they should be able to retire to an island… that they own… when no work is released, very sceptical, they should have handed the project over to other people.

It's an odd concept to me, give people money to make a game, that they then charge you for. Honestly i don't believe in the crowd source system. The latest robbery, star citizen, axanar, it's a long history of abuse with no results. They already took in money, why have results?

@launcher111 you're right: there are certainly things that need to be refined and adjusted because the crowdfunding model of overhyping games while under delivering has been way too prevalent in the industry over the last decade.

That being said, taking someone's money before making a game is regularly called “investing” and is nothing novel or specific to crowdfunding. In the case of crowdfunding, it just displaces risk onto a larger group of “investors” theoretically more willing or able to bear that risk.

In terms of Jeromy though, I doubt he ever finds a way to redeem himself, as he doesn't seem to see how the blame rests on him, and because of that, he'll always find a litteral army of ex-backers who feel flouted by him and will stand in his way to try and prevent any future such endeavour to happen again.