Developer abandons crowdfunded MMO and disappears

Independent MMO project TitanReach has gone from one disaster to another since its launch 2 years ago. Now, it seems, the project is finally over. A YouTuber who knows what’s going on with the project claims that the main developer embezzled investor funds to play with cryptocurrencies and buy a Tesla.

TitanReach was a “Runescape-like” MMO that ultimately failed to reach its original Kickstarter goal of $430,000. Ultimately, the $200,000 Square Root received through crowdfunding was not enough to sustain the project, and then in last year’s summer on Discord the lead developer, announced the end of game development.

False promises

The next month, Unravel checked back in on Discord to announce that the game had been fully funded by an anonymous investor and that development would resume. KiraTV, an independent reviewer on YouTube who had previously reported extensively on TitanReach and corresponded with the developers, claimed to have spoken with this investor in a video posted around this time.

Although there was this surprising windfall for the game, TitanReach’s development was halted again just last week. Unravel announced on Discord that the funding was exhausted and talked a lot and long about NFTs they wanted to integrate into the game.

The surprise ending, combined with the unexpected revelation of blockchain plans, a controversial topic in itself, led to displeasure among fans. Suddenly, the developers were in the spotlight and faced plenty of criticism, including threats of doxxing. The game’s website and Discord have been closed by SquareRoot. Social media accounts have also all disappeared in the meantime.

YouTuber KiraTV, best known for MMOs, posted a video claiming that TitanReach’s investor withdrew after Unravel misappropriated funds for a failed $150,000 cryptocurrency investment and bought a Tesla for his personal use, with screenshots of Discord conversations as evidence.

Developer goes into hiding

KiraTV also claims that TitanReach’s mystery investor is allegedly South African cryptocurrency entrepreneur Andre Cronje, alleging that Unravel tried to bribe him into not investigating further the reason for Cronje’s withdrawal of his funding.

Meanwhile, Unravel has disbanded and other former members of Square Root have not commented. It’s a strange tale of Internet fraud that weaves together several timely themes: crowdfunding, cryptocurrency, and the increasingly close relationships between developers and the influencers of their games. This story shows (once again) that we should be careful when crowdfunding a game from an unproven developer, especially one as ambitious and expensive as an MMO.