Red Ash Kickstarter Fails

This is one of those “unsurprising” bits of news that, while everyone could see coming, still warrants an article or two to just make it official.

Things were all sunshine and rainbows for Megaman and Mighty No. 9 creator Keiji Inafune: his last kickstarter when beautifully, his gameplay previews for Mighty No. 9 looked great, and he was the talk of the indie town.

But that kind of success can get to a person’s head, I suppose, because not long ago, things started to go south for Mr. Inafune in a serious way. First, he decided to change Mighty No. 9’s art style from the kind shown off on the original Kickstarter, which raised a few eyebrows. Then, the latest gameplay footage was revealed, and it proved to be… underwhelming, with many people claiming it didn’t look too different from earlier footage. And he decided, for some reason, amidst all that controversy was the perfect time to announce yet another Kickstarter Project, Red Ash: another spiritual successor, but to Mega Man Legends this time.

Oh, and a matching anime to go with it, for some reason.

People were suspicious of the Red Ash Kickstarter from the get-go, since Mighty No. Nine hasn’t even been released yet, and it was common practice for indie devs to use the profit of their first game to fund the second—something Mr. Inafune seemed genuinely disinterested in attempting. Money came, although never at the pace Mighty No. Nine inspired… and it wasn’t until a few days ago, when they were still short a few thousand, that Comcept revealed that, hey—they already had a publisher, Fuze, for Red Ash, it was going to be made anyway, and all this money would go to stretch goals!

People were unenthusiastic, to say the least.

Well, given the fact the Kickstarter was rather lackluster to begin with, it should hardly surprise anyone that Inafune’s Red Ash failed to reach its 800,000 USD goal. Specifically, it was 280k short, sitting at around 520,000 when the cash was tallied up. Red Ash will still be made, of course—but apparently it will be missing that sweet, sweet stretch-goal bonus content. Unsurprisingly, Comcept is taking the loss in stride.
 

“I would like to thank our backers for supporting us through this campaign! And of course FUZE for their cooperation!”

The question we’re left with now, of course, is how we interpret this particular chunk of news. Do we assume Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune was just ignorant of how this is supposed to work? Was he arrogant? Or just downright greedy for extra consumer funds? We may never know… but we will find out soon enough if Red Ash was worth the 800,000 they asked for.

Oh, and the Anime Kickstarter succeeded. So. That’s neat.