Since last month, Japanese game creator Jiro Ishii and Skeleton Crew Studio have been facing serious complications with their massively successful crowd campaign for the upcoming visual novel Shibuya Scramble Stories, the spiritual successor to Spike Chunsoft’s cult classic 428: Shibuya Scramble.
After the crowdfunding platform Ubgoe failed to pay out the full amount of the raised 55 million yen (about $340k USD), under the explanation that they had mistakenly transferred the assets to another client, the developers were left with less than a half of their money and a mountain of obligations they have to fulfill towards their backers. To make the situation more complicated, Ubgoe servers unexpectedly went down on April 15, causing many creators and users to express their worry over the state of the platform, as its owners scramble to get the site back online (the website is still down at the time of writing).
Amidst the turmoil, the Shibuya Scramble Stories official X account released a new statement for their fans and backers, shedding light on the current status of the project, and confirming that the development has not been halted in any way.
In the announcement, the developers reassured backers that the issue regarding the unpaid amount has not escalated to court action, and that it’s being handled in accordance with legal procedures.
As mentioned earlier, due to the website’s terms of service stating that with every pledge, contracts are formed directly between the backer and the project owner, the team behind Shibuya Scramble Stories must fulfill all obligations towards the backers regardless of whether they had received the full amount of money or not. Taking this and the platform’s current unavailability into consideration, the developers confirmed that the rewards are being sent out smoothly, and that all backers have been notified about it individually via a newly established newsletter.
Furthermore, the developers explained that a second round of crowdfunding will be announced soon, and that they are currently in discussions with multiple parties on how to best realize the new campaign.
Lastly, the team explained that development has not been interrupted in any way, and that “Both director Jiro Ishii and all the staff members absolutely promise to deliver the best possible version of Shibya Scramble Stories.” While much of the details regarding the title will still be kept under the wraps due to the devs not wanting to spoil the experience just yet, the main cast of the game will be revealed on April 28, during the Shibuya Sakura Stage 4F 404 Not Found event.
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