For anyone who has backed the Hand-Drawn Game Guides project on Kickstarter, you will probably have received notice already that the project has been cancelled. Philip Summers, the creator of these guides issued a statement shortly after the cancellation of the project to address why it shut down.
As with any ambitious project that uses another company’s highly protected IP without proper permission, it comes under scrutiny and can face legal action. It is a shame that it happens as most often it is fans sharing their appreciation for an IP in rather talented ways but it is understandable from a business standpoint that if someone is using their IP for profit (no matter how marginal), then the company has the right to protect their IP, usually with a cease and desist but sometimes further legal action can be taken and it gets rather messy.
As regards to Philip’s statement due to the project cancellation, you can read the full statement below.
It has come to an end
Hi everyone! Welp, you just got your cancelation notice. Yup, it’s real. It’s done. I made a short post on Twitter that I’ll share here.
It was always a risk.
Tonight I pulled the plug on the Hand-Drawn Game Guides Kickstarter. Yes, for exactly the reason you think it’s for. I had hoped that I could successfully navigate any legal trouble, but alas I wasn’t able to do so.
Is this thing done for good? I don’t know that yet. I’ll be finding out in the coming days.
What I do know is that this last month was awesome. You all came together in ways that I didn’t think were possible. It was a hell of a ride and no matter what happens I’ll always be grateful for it. I always knew this whole thing was a big risk, but I looked at how other similar books navigated these sorts of issues and I tried my best to learn from them.
Of course I’m disappointed, but I completely understand why this happened. It’s okay. I’m not mad. I mean the timing is totally awful and it would have helped if this happened say three weeks ago but here we are! Hah!
I won’t speak any more on the subject as I don’t want to muddy the waters, but hopefully there is something I can share soon.
Thank you all so much for the support! You’re all the best.
Source: Project update N°12 (email via Kickstarter)
