It’s been over a year since Clang — a motion-controlled swordfighting game from noted sci-fi author Neal Stephenson — reached its $ 500,000 Kickstarter goal. Unfortunately, Stephenson and his Subutai Corporation have just announced that, as of today, all development on Clang has been paused “while we get the financing situation sorted out.” For now, the team is focused on securing the next round of financing necessary to keep development going. While Subutai said that it “stretched the Kickstarter money farther than we expected to,” it’s back to the drawing board for now — though the company hopes to have an announcement on that front “soon.”
The Subutai Corporation blamed its difficulties getting financing on the state of the video game industry, specifically noting that two major publishers (THQ and LucasArts) had closed down recently. It also blamed some other industry trends, saying that game developers have to deal with risk-averse publishers more interested in “grinding out sequels and extensions to well-worn AAA franchises.” Making things even tougher is the fact that Clang will also require a new controller, something that makes the game “extra worrisome” to “game publisher[s] crouched in a fetal position under a blanket.”
Despite the challenges, Subutai said that Clang is not dead until its creative team moves on to other projects or it goes bankrupt. Right now, the team is working on the game as a “evenings and weekends” project, and the team supposedly is feeling better about the project now than it was when the clock to find financing was “ticking down.” For now, if you’re one of the 9,000+ backers of Clang, you’ll just need to be patient.
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