Crowdfunding gone bad? The alarming T&Cs behind Shadow of the Eternals

New studio Precursor chose not to fund its ‘spiritual successor’ to Eternal Darkness via Kickstarter, and perhaps now we know why.

As investigated by Polygon, the project is asking for ‘donations’. If it were being run on Kickstarter then Precursor would only be able to collect the money upon successfully hitting their target funding goal. It was also be obligated to use the cash to fund the game’s development.

This, however, is not the case with Shadows of the Eternals.

The T&Cs state that all donations given to the studio are "strictly donations and are not consideration for any services or product". Worse still a donation cannot be cancelled or returned once it has been completed, whether or not Precursor Games completes the game or fulfils the specified reward”.

The short version: If you’ve paid money toward the game it has already been cashed in and Precursor is under no obligation whatsoever to spend it on developing Shadow of the Eternals.

The official reason for not using Kickstarter is that the service is only open to US or UK businesses, and Precursor is based in Canada. And admittedly, an FAQ on the studio’s site does claim that should it not raise enough money to fund the project it will issue refunds to all who have pledged.

There’s more reason to worry, however. Precursor’s management is suggesting there’s no link between the seemingly doomed Silicon Knights and Precursor beyond the fact that many developers who once worked at the former – including Denis Dyack – now work at the latter.

But evidence suggests otherwise. Indeed, it has been implicated that Precursor is simply a vehicle through which Silicon Knights can escape its debt, although these claims have been very firmly denied.