{"id":65334,"date":"2026-04-16T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=65334"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:11:20","slug":"japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Update (2026\/4\/16 at 17:00 JST):<\/strong> Ubgoe has since addressed the issue in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ubgoe_com\/status\/2044669113268937046?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement on X<\/a>. The platform says its servers went down, causing the site to become unavailable and emails to not be delivered. The company is currently working on restoring operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Original article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The website of&nbsp;Japanese&nbsp;crowdfunding platform&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ubgoe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ubgoe<\/a>&nbsp;has been inaccessible since the evening of April 15,&nbsp;causing widespread concern among both project organizers and backers,&nbsp;as reported&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.itmedia.co.jp\/news\/articles\/2604\/16\/news072.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ITmedia.<\/a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the past month,&nbsp;Ubgoe&nbsp;has been under fire&nbsp;in Japan&nbsp;due to&nbsp;allegations made by game creator Jiro Ishii and Skeleton Crew Studio,&nbsp;who&nbsp;had used the&nbsp;platform&nbsp;to crowdfund the&nbsp;visual novel game Shibuya Scramble Stories&nbsp;(a spiritual successor to 428: Shibuya Scramble).&nbsp;A few months after the campaign successfully ended, raising about $340 thousand USD, Ishii reported that&nbsp;his side would be taking legal action against&nbsp;Ubgoe&nbsp;as it&nbsp;had failed to transfer over half&nbsp;of the raised money, missing multiple deadlines under the pretense of a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunded-340k-game-still-missing-half-its-funds-as-platform-claims-it-accidentally-sent-the-money-elsewhere\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mistaken&nbsp;bank transfer to another client.<\/a>\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u30af\u30e9\u30a6\u30c9\u30d5\u30a1\u30f3\u30c7\u30a3\u30f3\u30b0\u30b5\u30a4\u30c8\u300c\u3046\u3076\u3054\u3048\u300d\u304b\u3089\u306e2700\u4e07\u5186\u4ee5\u4e0a\u306e\u5165\u91d1\u9045\u5ef6\u306b\u95a2\u3059\u308b\u3054\u5831\u544a\u3068\u3001\u79c1\u305f\u3061\u306e\u6c7a\u610f\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\u2026<\/p>&mdash; Shibuya Scramble Stories (@shibuya_adv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shibuya_adv\/status\/2037726384706007222?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 28, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While&nbsp;Ubgoe&nbsp;still appeared to be running as usual amidst these reports, as of yesterday, the site has become inaccessible. Since then,&nbsp;numerous&nbsp;project owners&nbsp;who used the platform&nbsp;(like&nbsp;voice synth developers&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kotoe_project\/status\/2044541100720066591?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kotoe Tange<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HoshikageLapis\/status\/2044609817424380033?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hoshikage Lapis<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hanayono_menora\/status\/2044623382575300724?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">VTuber Hanayono&nbsp;Menora<\/a>) have issued emergency announcements to their backers, but from the looks of it, they don\u2019t seem to have received any information about what\u2019s happening to the site either, simply apologizing for the trouble and promising to deliver on promised rewards regardless of&nbsp;Ubgoe\u2019s&nbsp;state.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ubgoe&nbsp;was launched back in February 2021,&nbsp;boasting the&nbsp;perk&nbsp;of zero listing fees. By having backers pay a service fee&nbsp;instead, the platform was completely free to use for project creators. While it has hosted&nbsp;numerous&nbsp;successful&nbsp;projects&nbsp;to date,&nbsp;Ubgoe&nbsp;seems to have run into some management&nbsp;issues&nbsp;as of late, at the expense of creators. While Ishii Jiro\u2019s case is the most prominent&nbsp;one,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/conta_conta_ura\/status\/2042928928638296327\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">other&nbsp;project&nbsp;owners<\/a>&nbsp;have also made&nbsp;statements&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;unpaid or delayed transfers from the platform.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, according to Ishii\u2019s lawyer,&nbsp;Ubgoe\u2019s&nbsp;terms and conditions state that with every pledge, contracts are formed directly between the backer and the project owner, which means that&nbsp;project owners&nbsp;are responsible to fulfill all obligations regardless of whether they have&nbsp;actually received&nbsp;the money or not. This could&nbsp;possibly leave&nbsp;some&nbsp;creators in a difficult position.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time of writing,&nbsp;Ubgoe&nbsp;remains&nbsp;unavailable, while the platform&#8217;s latest social media update dates to December last year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":65336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-65334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated) - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated) - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-16T05:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-16T08:11:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated) - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated) - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2026-04-16T05:04:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-04-16T08:11:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amber V","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amber V","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/"},"author":{"name":"Amber V","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9"},"headline":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated)","datePublished":"2026-04-16T05:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-04-16T08:11:20+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/"},"wordCount":528,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/","name":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated) - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg","datePublished":"2026-04-16T05:04:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-04-16T08:11:20+00:00","description":"After leaving the developers of Shibuya Scramble Stories with half of their raised funds missing, Ubgoe has mysteriously become unavailable.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260416-437779-header.jpg","width":1600,"height":900},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-crowdfunding-platform-that-allegedly-ran-off-with-more-than-half-of-ishii-jiros-340k-game-budget-suddenly-becomes-inaccessible\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u30db\u30fc\u30e0","item":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Japanese crowdfunding platform that allegedly ran off with more than half of Jiro Ishii\u2019s\u00a0$340k\u00a0game budget suddenly becomes inaccessible\u00a0(Updated)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","name":"AUTOMATON WEST","description":"AUTOMATON is a website that covers the Japanese gaming world. We bring you the news on video games from Osaka and Tokyo.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization","name":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","width":374,"height":190,"caption":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/AUTOMATON_ENG","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCabvYnvuUUbbGUrxkaFRgSA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9","name":"Amber V","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","caption":"Amber V"},"description":"Editor-in-Chief since October 2023. She grew up playing Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein with her dad, and is now enamored with obscure Japanese video games and internet culture. Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65334"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65368,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65334\/revisions\/65368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}