The MMORPG “The Wagadu Chronicles” was supposed to be created in Berlin and Ghana and become an “Afrofantasy” MMORPG. It raised €160,000 via Kickstarter, and the Berlin-Brandenburg media board’s regional funding provided €175,000. But the online role-playing game had virtually no players on Steam and is now closing before release. The promises made via Kickstarter cannot be kept.
This is what the studio says: On May 8th, the Twin Drums studio admitted via Kickstarter that there were no longer as frequent updates in 2024 as in previous years. In recent months they have struggled to stay afloat financially. But despite our best efforts, we are now at the end.
When the project was started, the world was a different place, writes founder Allan Cudicio somewhat contritely: Nobody had heard of Covid-19, inflation was not yet a problem and games were easier to finance.
Despite all the difficulties, the team grew and came so close to the goal – but now it’s over. You wish you had more time.
This is what the early access trailer looked like:
The Wagadu Chronicles – Early Access Trailer
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Studio can’t keep Kickstarter promises
When does it end? The game went into early access in December 2023 and the servers will be closed on May 18th.
The promised books can only be delivered as PDFs; they would not exist as printed books that people have paid for. The developers are sorry about that.
19 backers had bought the €750 package, with access to special islands and signed books on the D&D setting (770 pages), a guide to Afrofantasy roleplay (30 pages) and an art book (24 pages).
What kind of MMORPG was this supposed to be? “The Wagadu Chronicles” was supposed to be an emphatically black MMORPG and rely heavily on role-playing elements like pen and paper. It was all about interactions between players.
The game also wanted to provide detailed lore and relied on features such as a free class system or a player-controlled economy.
In an article in the Tagesspiegel about the MMORPG, the corporate culture is also highlighted:
Part of the team works in Berlin-Neukölln, another part in Accra, Ghana, and two freelancers from Nigeria are also employed.
What was it really like?? The MMORPG had no effect at all in Early Access on Steam. At its peak, there were 36 simultaneous players, which was at the start of early access in December 2023. Since January 2024, a maximum of 8 players have been online at the same time, but most of the time only one or none at all.
The game had 26 positive reviews and 14 negative ones. That amounts to 60% positive reviews on Steam.
Crowdfunding and MMORPGs don’t mix
That’s what lies behind it: The developers are certainly right that the basic conditions for the development of video games have deteriorated significantly in recent years – this is shown by waves of layoffs and studio closures left and right. But given the numbers it’s achieved on Steam, it’s questionable whether The Wagadu Chronicles would have survived even under the best of circumstances.
It shows once again that Kickstarter is a bad fit for the extremely financially complex “MMORPG” genre. The developers’ ambitions are often very high and you would actually need double-digit millions to finance a development over many years.
The Wagadu Chronicles is now one of many Kickstarter MMORPGs that failed. MMORPGs with funding in the millions have also been hit hard.
4 crowdfunding MMORPGs that really flopped
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In the history of the MMORPG “The Wagadu Chronicles” it could only really make headlines once, that was in August 2022. There was a conflict over an artist who worked on the MMORPG. She was accused of exploiting Africans. The developer of a black MMORPG from Germany is treated with hostility because she is white