He sat down with Activision all that time ago and revealed to them how the studio spent $2m more ”than what we had been paid,” so the studio put its own money into the project.
Dyack has now founded Precursor Games, which is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for Shadow of the Eternals. It’s getting little in the way of pledges so far, as it seeks $1.35m.
The whole project has been marred by criticism and great scepticism over Denis Dyack’s ability to deliver on his promises. Too Human and X-Men: Destiny were not well received and ultimately led to the demise of the development studio, but now he’s back with a new outfit and wants to crowd-source over $1 million? That’s a tough sell.
First of there’s an allegation that Dyack had used money from Activision to fund other projects beside what it was meant for, which was X-Men: Destiny. He was accused of sabotaging what could have been great by bleeding it financially, but Dyack insists the opposite occurred. It’s a story with ‘no credible sources’ that took on a life of its own.
”Halfway through the project, I sat down with the executives from Activision trying to make the project the best it could be, and we talked about how Silicon Knights had spent $2 million more than what we had been paid, because we realised that after Too Human was one of our worst Metacritic scoring games since our previous games, we wanted our next game to be as good as possible,” Dyack said. ”So Silicon Knights put its own money in.”
”The people at Activision were stunned by this. We went over the figures and numbers and allocations, and then when they realised it was true, what they said to me was, we really appreciate this Denis, but we don’t know if that’s a good business move,” he continued. ”We then got together to work out all the issues on the project, both Marvel and Activision, and Silicon Knights, and we did the best we could.”
Dyack offers his apologies to both fans of his studio and the X-Men universe.
”I will say this: we are really sorry how that game turned out. I would think that there were some mistakes made, but all I can tell you is we did nothing but put our best efforts into this project. Activision, Silicon Knights and Marvel, we all tried to make it work out, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen,” he said.
”I can only apologise. I’ve said some things out there that I shouldn’t have said in the press about this project and other projects. And I apologise for that. I’m sorry. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ve learnt my lesson so much that at Precursor I am not making business decisions like that, like putting more money into a project than what we’re getting paid.”
COO Shawn Jackson and CEO Paul Caporicci are at the helm of Precursor.
”Those mistakes will not happen again. I am focusing on the creative,” affirmed Dyack.
He created a video to respond in person to the Kotaku article that was published late last year, which alleged the funding on the project was diverted. This story is now haunting Precursor and is likely keeping a lot of people from trusting the enterprise. The Kickstarter has raised just a bit over $80k with 29 days left to reach $1.35m.
See below for Denis Dyack’s response to the Kotaku piece from 2012. Visit the Kickstarter here.
