In the wake of employee layoffs, Gas Powered Games ponders whether to stop its Kickstarter.
“Today we laid off a substantial number of the team,” says Gas Powered Games’ Chris Taylor, as he outlines what has happened to his company’s Wildman project. Fans of the project are asked to get in contact, and let him know whether they think the Kickstarter campaign is still viable.
On Friday, Chris Taylor revealed to Joystiq that roughly 40 employees were impacted by the layoffs. The Kickstarter’s the problem, Taylor admits in his video. If it fails, it would take the company with it. Taylor was faced with the option of taking the risk, and potentially dropping his employees without severance or any other benefits at the end of the campaign; or he could let them go now, while he still had some cash in his pocket to cover their departure costs.
“In this economy,” says Taylor, “[to] gamble with the people here, who are the most talented, and loyal people … to play a card game with their livelihoods is not smart.” Taylor opted for the layoff strategy, to give his people a kind of safety net, rather than – potentially – dump them without one.
Taylor asks fans of the Wildman project to get in touch, and let him know whether they think the Kickstarter is worth continuing. Theoretically, if it manages to raise the $1.1 million ask – and at time of writing it has over $250K and 25 days to go – Taylor could pull his company back from the brink, re-hire everyone, and get on with making Wildman. So far, many of the comments on the Kickstarter page are in favor of continuing.
Source: Kickstarter
