Happy (belated) Halloween!
I go into this in more detail here, but the SparkNotes of that long-post is that these devs were well and truly fucked. It's never been said in any official capacity, but it doesn't take too much intuition to assume that that was the outcome. They wanted to make one of their dream projects on UE4 but were lacking in budget and talent. A big-name company like Atari swoops in and gives them the opportunity to learn more of the ropes, hone their craft, and get paid for it! Woohoo! They then proceed to pay each of the developers they have working under their belt, not by the pound, but in pounds. Development fees add up, and when the money dries up, you can't have your hands tied for much longer. One glorified pre-alpha and twenty-six Steam reviews later, I can see what these developers were going for—but I can't buy their game. Unceremoniously and without much reason, Haunted House: Cryptic Graves was Alan Smithee'd from existence. Its store page might still be up, but that's about it, really. Perhaps a cautionary tale about vetting your business partners a little more before accepting any deal offered to you; Dreampainters is fucking lucky to still be around after this, and I'm not mincing words there.
I pity them, but I don't hate the artist forced to show their hand out of necessity.
I go into this in more detail here, but the SparkNotes of that long-post is that these devs were well and truly fucked. It's never been said in any official capacity, but it doesn't take too much intuition to assume that that was the outcome. They wanted to make one of their dream projects on UE4 but were lacking in budget and talent. A big-name company like Atari swoops in and gives them the opportunity to learn more of the ropes, hone their craft, and get paid for it! Woohoo! They then proceed to pay each of the developers they have working under their belt, not by the pound, but in pounds. Development fees add up, and when the money dries up, you can't have your hands tied for much longer. One glorified pre-alpha and twenty-six Steam reviews later, I can see what these developers were going for—but I can't buy their game. Unceremoniously and without much reason, Haunted House: Cryptic Graves was Alan Smithee'd from existence. Its store page might still be up, but that's about it, really. Perhaps a cautionary tale about vetting your business partners a little more before accepting any deal offered to you; Dreampainters is fucking lucky to still be around after this, and I'm not mincing words there.
I pity them, but I don't hate the artist forced to show their hand out of necessity.