Dear ReROLL supporters,
We have to start by saying thanks for all the support you have showed us since the announcement of ReROLL. When we launched the campaign back in 2014, you participated by accepting the terms to help us raise funds to develop the game ReROLL.
This showed great faith and confidence in us. We sincerely thank you for that.
Things started great and we were hyped by the agreement we signed with the city of Montreal and we started prototyping our 1st environment. We had high hopes to secure the necessary funds to achieve our final goal.
Unfortunately, the money raised with the campaign plus our personal investments were not enough to develop the game on our own. We invested everything in building up the necessary elements to pitch the project to potential partners.
We embarked on the quest to find investors and publishers to secure ReROLL's funding. To secure meetings with top executives at the different events (GDC & E3) we were assisted by an agent that allowed us to meet and pitch to basically everyone in the business. Publishers and investors were excited about the concept.
Unfortunately, for many of them, we realized that we were either too expensive for some and not enough ambitious for others (we believed that we were crazy ambitious already!). We did secure a few publishers that wished to pursue the discussion. For months and months we worked on the different pitches. Working with our agent, we specifically adapted our pitches to each potential publisher.
Making sure that each pitches were tailor made for our eventual partner.
Each time we got the chance to pitch and present ReROLL, we are on a mission.
We were focused and determined to find solutions to make it happen. We were getting great response and feedback. Talks were really well advanced with 2 very different publishers. One wanted to invest way more money that we initially budgeted and wanted to make ReROLL a AAA game. The other was very interested but was not willing to invest the amount we planned. To fit within a smaller budget, we needed to adapt and make hard decisions (cutting features and important gameplay elements). Even if the potential deals we greatly different and had huge impacts on the game. We were thrilled and excited about the possibility of the project moving forward. Please note, that we cannot name these publishers.
I’m sure you guessed we signed Non-Disclosure Agreements. (NDA)
After months of discussions, back and forth on every topics imaginable, both stopped the procedures for very different reasons. One decided to invest and focus on their own properties. The other, after a difficult fiscal year, decided to focus on smaller budget games. We were crushed. Even if all was done properly and within respect. It was a hard blow.
During that same time, we were meeting with venture funds and investors. Again, pitching ReROLL was awesome. But this time, the crowd was very different. Most of them liked it. But we were not able to get real traction out of those meetings.
We also applied to all the different Canadian Funding Programs we could. The most interesting is
the Canadian Media Fund. The application process is not necessarily complex but it is very time consuming and of course we need to respect their guidelines. You can submit your project twice a year and all project are graded. Only the best rated receive partial funding. We were rejected on multiples occasions.
We still believe that we would find the right partner.
We decided to take a different route and pitched to entertainment partners to secure a linear
ReROLL project, that would have in the end funded the game. After months and weeks of discussion, we had a verbal agreement, we just needed to get this down on paper and have the lawyers finalized the deal.
In the last few years, we faced many rejections, many after long and intensive negotiations. We really believed that this one was the one.
But it wasn’t. We never received a contract. The deal was pulled off the table. Still today we don’t really know why. This one really hurt.
Recently, unfortunately we were faced with another negative response.
After being so close on multiple occasions, today, we have to face the fact that this rejection was our last hope to secure the necessary funding to pursue the development and complete the game.
This is why we are officially announcing that the development of ReROLL is over.
We want all of you to know that we gave our best shot and like you, we are extremely disappointed that ReROLL will not become a reality. It sucks. All of this sucks.
We know many of you will be disappointed and even pissed. We understand that. We should have been better at communicating our progress.
Not to give excuses, but we were caught in the process with potential partners that wished we stayed silent on our progress.
We know that gifting you copies of BIOS (our other game) is not what you initially wanted, but it's the best we can do.
You will receive a separate email from
support@pixyul.com with a BIOS Steam key. You can play it or gift it.
Again, we want to thank you for trying with us to create ReROLL
Sincerelly yours, the PIXYUL team.
21/06/2016, 11h41
