Police Warfare Team Cancels Kickstarter Campaign

WMDogma

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Police Warfare Team Cancels Kickstarter Campaign


Funding for cops and robbers-style FPS ends abruptly.

Kickstarter-backed game projects have become a common trend in game development, but sadly such projects don't always have happy endings. Case in point, Elastic Games, the team behind the ambitious first person shooter February [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/policewarfare/police-warfare/posts], has mysteriously cancelled its Kickstarter campaign with almost no explanation.

Police Warfare pitched the concept of a multiplayer shooter where players arm up as either a member of the Los Angeles SWAT team or one of their heavily armed criminal counterparts, engaged in fast-paced firefights during bank heists and the like. Elastic Games itself is composed of industry vets behind well-known titles like Killzone 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV, giving Police Warfare some serious credentials behind its creation.

Other than a short note thanking fans for the response to the game and promising more details in the future, no other information has been provided regarding the decision to close down Police Warfare. At the time of cancellation, Elastic Games had raised $25,025 of its $325,000 goal, with 784 people having donated to the game. However, in previous interview with Eurogamer, lead designer James Wearing stated that the project did have "additional financing besides the Kickstarter," so all hope may not be lost for those eager to recreate their favorite scenes from Heat or Inside Man.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-23-police-warfare-kickstarter-cancelled]

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Yal

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Dec 22, 2010
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Penny Arcade called these guys out [http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-ugly-side-of-kickstarter-why-the-risks-in-backing-gaming-campaigns-are-] last week, quoting an expert saying $325k was completely unrealistic for an FPS and the project was doomed. I imagine that had something to do with it.
 

Fr]anc[is

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May 13, 2010
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My personal conspiracy theory is that Activision snatched it up. The title even sounds like a Modern Warfare clone.
 

JuliusMagnus

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It's also possible they just used it for publicity so they could sway the suits to give them more traditional financing.

Regarding the success of Kickstarter games it's probably too early to tell.

But we get an early look in the kitchen and might see failures. In the restaurant you usually only get what passes the chef's scrutiny and the failures stay in the kitchen.

Let's drop the analogy.

Traditionally funded games also fail much more often than you think. Most of the time though they get axed before any publicity has been done at all and most people won't ever know that particular game was 'a thing'.

For Kickstarter it's seems there are 3 types of failure:

1. They just pulled the plug. Technically the Kickstarter didn't fail, they just dropped out which could mean they either found other ways to fund or thought they weren't gonna hit the goal and didn't want to wait for failure.

2. Didn't reach their funding goals, which could be called a fail. For the creator it's definately a fail. But for the backers it's not since there wasn't even a transaction.

3. Finally there are those Kickstarters who did reach the funding goal but didn't end up producing a game. To some backers it would also mean a failure if they didn't like the game they ended up getting, but that's obviously subjective.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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I'd imagine politics had a lot to do with it, with the guys running the project lacking the backbone. I'd think they relied on that additional funding and it got pulled.

See, LA is the perfect place to set a game like this specifically because of the way things like CRASH units and various special task forces have been deployed in the past to deal with the insane crime problem. The problem of course being that a lot of that crime comes from California being the stronghold of modern liberalism, with a lot of people opposing hardcore police actions. So basically you see a cycle where some aspects of the goverment get permission to unleash special task forces with a free hand from the normal laws to deal with problem areas (the kind of thing that inspires movies), they go in and start busting some heads, until the gangs and such on the receiving end get smart and cry to the general liberal public that it's discriminatory.

This kind of vicious cycle means that a game dealing with stuff like that probably hits far too close to home. It's sort of like the problems "Police Quest" got back in the day when former Chief Daryl Gates was involved in it. Decorated police officer, but an incredibly contreversial figure. Of course the industry had more guts back then so they kind of stuck with him as their "face".


Truthfully I'd like to see more games dealing with these kind of issues, political correctness aside. Especially if they involve certain kinds of police/security/human control procedures to sort of demonstrate how things go down.

In most states for example shooting a fleeting felon (or one suspected of a felony) is perfectly acceptable in most cases for reasons that should be obvious.

When you take someone down and make them lay on the floor to control a situation it's common practice to stand over them and aim a gun at the back of the head so they won't flee while other officers control the situation. Even if the guy happens to be cuffed.

During say a major bust when you have people being put down and covered like that, and one of the guys guesses "well the police are distracted, I'll run" and the police fire, those bullets tend to go into the back of the suspect, or the back of the head at pretty close range, part of the reason you control situations like that is so the people on the receiving end can't get away even if you are distracted for a second by a chaotic situation.

Of course your average person doesn't understand this, having never been trained to do it (I was, but I never carried a gun in such a capacity or had to put it to much use). So when some left wing reporter goes off about some dude being shot "execution style" in the back of the head with his hands cuffed behind his back, he really has no idea what the hell he is talking about. What's more people are too stupid to ever pay much attention to the procedures and why police officers are cleared in situations like that.

LA tends to be a big offender in situations like this, sometimes you have valid questions, but most of the time the situation that there is an outcry over, especially if the police aren't being held immediatly accountable (or walk away from it), there are good reasons for it. What some people see as a "race crime" or "police brutality" is simply the police doing their job and controlling a situation for their own safety. If some cop has you in a control situation like that and is covering you with a gun, running away amounts to one stupid felon or felony suspect, not a tradgedy. 99% of the time these guys deserve a Darwin award, not public symnpathy. Even if innocent, running away in a situation like that, even if it's not your gun/drugs/prostitution operation, or whatever the hell the issue is, is just plain stupid since right there if your suspected of a high enough felony that guy pointing the gun at you has the right to pull the trigger to prevent your escape. He might not want to, but he can. Of course it DOES vary from state to state in the specific details, but that's generally how it works. A police officer in such situations not having to have convicted the person they shot "beyond a reasonable doubt" but simply to be able to prove they had a reasonable cause to detain the person and suspect them of a Felony (which can go in classes, with the class of felony warrenting this varying from state to state... ie in most places video piracy might be a felony but a cop can't shoot someone in the back for being apprehended in a pirate shop, but drugs, murder, and other similar crimes... well that's differant moving well up the class list).
 

Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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WMDogma said:
Other than a short note thanking fans for the response to the game and promising more details in the future, no other information has been provided regarding the decision to close down Police Warfare.
This almost makes it seem as though the game is being cancelled. It's not, just the kickstarter funding is.

P.S. Thanks
 

Valagetti

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Aug 20, 2010
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WHAT!?!? A cops and robbers game and this is the first time I've ever heard about it.
Given that multiplayer game where you rob banks with clown masks, christ I can't even remember what it is called, is it that forgetful?
A cops and robbers game is really what the FPS side of gaming really needs. I'd imagine It'll be like Raindow six, but with cops and robbers.
Though the game is called police WARFARE, reminds me of another FPS...
 

triggrhappy94

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Apr 24, 2010
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"Police Warfare" probably wasn't the best title. Not a bad concept, but I've played too many mid-to-low range FPS's that weren't great.
 

Kapol

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May 2, 2010
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draythefingerless said:
NOOOOO! i wanted a FPS that took realistic shooter seriously. i miss games like SWAT n rainbow six(THE FIRST ONES)
Well, Takedown is supposed to be like that. It's already been funded, but it's one that I was very iffy on. They weren't getting funds to make the full game. That would have been WAY too expensive and they barely made their goal as it is. The money went towards producing an alpha of the game and showing interest in the game to backers. That way they could go to someone, show the game and the number of people, and get full funding. But... something tells me with them barely making it that they might not get that funding.

Fr said:
anc[is]My personal conspiracy theory is that Activision snatched it up. The title even sounds like a Modern Warfare clone.
It was actually originally meant to be a CoD game. Seriously. It was supposed to be Call Of Duty: Police Warfare. Which sounds incredibly stupid to me. Police Warfare alone works a bit better though.

OT: I'd considered backing Police Warfare. Kinda glad it was pulled to be honest. Rather not put money into something if they don't trust it enough to get to the end. I've 'backed' The Dead Linger right now, but... I might cancel it. The only other game the company has made was Detour, which isn't very good or even close to the type of game TDL is supposed to be. Not to mention their goal was $6,000 (I think) to make an alpha then go Minecraft and sell it then. Not sure I trust it to be honest. Also backed Sira as well. Though the price I went in with that is low enough I'm not worried about it.