Concrete explanation to why the cancellation?

[Livy]

A tad too ambiguous in that news post.

[zero254]

I guess the cruise money ran out so they had to sell the game. Worst let down ever after delaying things for multiple years.

[Kriz]

There is no real confirmation by the developers (If I am not mistaken), but there are many factors about the reason behind the cancellation. The game didn't have advertisement, Shanty's DLC end up being free, Epic Games gave the game for free in 1 week, and least peak of players. All this probably didn't reach out the developer's expectations so they decided to kill their game.

Even though the game has his failures, it was alive among the brony community and it had its tournament in EVO 2021. But I guess for the developers that is not enough.

[zero254]

Originally posted by Kriz:

There is no real confirmation by the developers (If I am not mistaken), but there are many factors about the reason behind the cancellation. The game didn't have advertisement, Shanty's DLC end up being free, Epic Games gave the game for free in 1 week, and least peak of players. All this probably didn't reach out the developer's expectations so they decided to kill their game.

Even though the game has his failures, it was alive among the brony community and it had its tournament in EVO 2021. But I guess for the developers that is not enough.

Not to be that guy but evo 2021 was basically a near miss for most games considering it was canned in person and there wasn't nearly as much going on for it. A real shame because this game needed that.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

If they could openly say more, they would've. But I think it's fairly obvious that they just don't have the money for it.

[Chrysalis]

I bet it was Modus, they seem to have a lot of dead games in their library, many of them nitch like override2

[zero254]

Originally posted by Missingno.:

If they could openly say more, they would've. But I think it's fairly obvious that they just don't have the money for it.

And where is your source for that

[1.2M | Missingno.]

I'm reading between the lines.

[Sagebrush]

They did end up in quite the quandary if you think about it. World going to hell and costs rising, fated Evo debut ruined, merch prospects ruined by worldwide shipping/travel restrictions (Velvet statues stuck in overseas storage for a good while), can't turn around and charge for story chapters since those were backed as part of the game, in-game cosmetics not viable (aside from palettes)... it must have been a nightmare to try and monetize due to a perfect storm of events and existing obligations.

Whether you're inclined to like the devs or not, It would be incredibly stupid to call what's happened a scam, like some have done. They did accomplish a great deal, including porting the game to Linux (which is up-to-date, I might add, so not languishing on the backburner.) It's just the backing budget comes from a different world (rip).

Not trying to whiteknight here (there are certainly valid criticisms to be made), but consider Stronghoof and/or Texas may have originated as storymode bosses that they just had to push out as dlc as things broke down (the dlcs may have been a planned post-chapter 2 + 3 surprise).. There could be a really sad story here, and maybe we'll get it someday.

[Dogman15]

I would have been willing to pay for more story mode content if they had logically laid out the evidence for why they couldn't keep to the original promise of it being free.

[Sagebrush]

I (not a backer) probably would have, too, but it'd likely have caused an uproar, and who knows, might have been legally actionable.

[Dogman15]

Darned if you do, darned if you don't. An unfortunate no-win situation.

Originally posted by Sagebrush:

I (not a backer) probably would have, too,

I wish I had backed the project back when it was actively crowdfunding on Indiegogo, but I didn't really hear about it until the funding period was over.

[Sagebrush]

I think I saw it back in the day when the first animatics debuted, but assumed nothing would come of it. Later stumbled on a video Woolie did of it in 2019 or so and was quite surprised to see how far it'd come. Anyway, probably drifting too off-topic.

Take it easy, Dogman; good to see Daring Do's still out there, squinting away.

[Digital Dinosaur]

A more general factor likely contributing to this is a possible overall slowdown of indie game sales. There's been a massive explosion in indie development for almost ten years at this point. There are A LOT of small games flooding every PC, every online store, every game console. It's becoming harder to stand out even with good marketing.

This year a number of indies that had strong initial sales have dangerously tapered off even with sales. A number of games that had strong early access debuts and have enjoyed successful ongoing development have died out as players become crowded with content and lose interest.

It may be very difficult for indie projects like fighting games to get traction going forward. A FG has particular challenges; designing and testing characters is very complex and can take a small team years. Launching in EA with a handful of characters may not sustain interest long enough.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

I'd also add that multiplayer games in particular have it extra rough right now. It's become the default expectation that every game has to have a long roadmap for years of updates, if you don't make big lofty promises then no one will even pick up the game to begin with, gets declared dead on arrival. But as revenue naturally declines over time, it's hard to sustain endless development. Every game wants to be able to go on for years and years and years, but in a market this crowded they can't all succeed.

I've seen games much bigger than TFH get their plugs pulled a lot faster. Hell, it's becoming an alarmingly common trend in the industry now.

I really do think TFH was lucky to last as long as it did, considering how niche of an audience it tried to target.

[zero254]

Originally posted by Missingno.:

I'm reading between the lines.

>just trust me bro
ok

Originally posted by Dogman15:

I would have been willing to pay for more story mode content if they had logically laid out the evidence for why they couldn't keep to the original promise of it being free.

I guess epic games, humble and modus just wasn't enough money for them over these years. Maybe they should have went for a 4th sponsor.