The Flying Hamster II Kickstarter project was cancelled
But It looks like the game is happening anyway.

Flying Hamster II was a metroidvania style game with cute graphics and the ability to morph your little hamster ball into some other animals or something.
It seems really neat.

Flying Hamster II is happening, thanks to @FDG_Games! Follow them and look at their cool games http://fdg-entertainment.com


Anyway, What do you feel about cancelled kickstarter pages, that have been picked up by outside companies?
I'm excited about Ray's The Dead, I backed them too and they said they got funding else where, but they've been quiet since the release of the PS4.

I was surprised, I expected that they would reach their goal easily, instead the funding was going really badly.
It looks like an interesting game, so I'm happy they'll make it anyway.

I feel it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Successful Kickstart is no guarantee of a good product, and a failed Kickstart may simply show that a particular campaign got lost in the white noise of a bajillion other campaigns asking for money. Or that they have a great idea but the campaign didn't explain it / present it very well.

However, it is somewhat significant that the game was subsequently picked up by a publisher. Kickstart is wishful thinking by prospective fans, whereas a publishing deal means a business has good reason to expect a profitable release and / or that it likes what it sees in that developer.

I sometimes get the feeling that Kickstarter is used as a mean to get publicity and attract a publisher - feels quite disingenuous and makes me wary.
There may also be cases where devs keep or enter talks with pubs during their campaign, especially when it isn't doing so well - that's quite positive as it shows that the devs want to see the project to the end.

OTOH, successful Kickstarters do not guarantee a good end product; more importantly they're basically a free ticket for devs in terms of direction & content, and time-schedules with no risks taken, while backers feel entitled to have a say, and thus can lead to disappointments and even arguments.

Either way, if the project has potential but fails on Kickstarter, good for the devs to get picked up by a publisher as it means that the game will still be released, even with some compromises (hopefully not many/ significant ones).

While I like the fact that things like KS are a thing now that can enable games to be made that may have not existed before, I am extremely wary of throwing money at these projects that really are just promises. I did back a handful of projects in the beginning of the big KS rush, but I haven't done so since. So far it looks like some of them turned out alright (or going to) like FTL and Wasteland 2, while others fell short to me, i.e. Broken Age and Shadowrun Returns.

Now I rather wait and see the end result than spending money on games that may turn out only so-so or worse. I don't earn enough to have the luxury to support what may be only lofty ideas, although there are plenty of people out there that apparently do. Let them do the funding. If a gem or two get created that way that's great, but, yeah, I won't hold my breath for what are just early concepts at times.