03 | March | 2024 | The Ancient Gaming Noob

I have generally kept my mouth shut about Camelot Unchained since I got most of my money back just four years ago… I had gone in with a bigger pledge than I generally do on these campaigns based on the misguided belief that Mark Jacobs would know how to size this sort of thing… because I didn’t want to become “that guy” who is constantly complaining about some title they won’t ever play. If I want those types I can find them over on Reddit.

Camelot Unchained: Delivering nothing since 2013

So I have not mentioned the game, save for inclusion in my annual predictions where it never fails to earn me a few easy points every year by failing to ship bascially anything.

But there were always going to be a few eventualities that would garner a post from me. Some major event, like actually giving access to backers, announcing yet another title, or shutting down shop would make it worth the effort, noting a milestone and the distance from the actual promised date and all that as a warning to those who might consider backing an MMO on Kickstarter.

You should not back MMOs on Kickstarter, in case that was not clear. That is my opinion on the topic.

Yesterday there was a bit of a news update. As the headline indicates, Mark Jacobs, through a press release covered by a number of sites (some linked below, because interviews don’t go his way these days), has said that there will be some sort of early access for Camelot Unchained in 2025, though given more than a decade of missed targets and excuses, I find that hard to give to give that statement any weight. I will predict right now that it won’t happen in 2025 and, if it does ship, even in some limited early access mode, I will post about it and note that I was wrong. I do not expect to be wrong.

Anyway, the fact that Mark is making another ship date claim or that their second game, Final Stand: Ragnarok has been up on Steam for early access since October 2021… where it has six reviews and so little play time that it doesn’t even register on Steam Charts, so it really seemed woth pissing backers off for a title that is essentially a tech demo… wouldn’t have prompted me to post. Even the transparent attempt to hide the failure of Final Stand: Ragnarok by claiming it has really been in “first access” and not “early access” is about par for the course for the company.

Even Mark going on about the Unchained Engine, which has been previously speculated about as the real project that his company has been working on, is just more of the same empty talk that would only be worth me mentioning on an especially slow news day. I could write about a dozen other things, why would I waste my time promoting that BS?

No, it was one little tidbit in the middle of that PC Gamer story that piqued my interest. Among the backers who have invested in City State Entertainment, now changing its name to Unchained Entertainment, is Andreesen Horowitz, or a16z.

You may remeber a16z from such past tales such as Marc Andreesen’s techno optimist screed where he is a big baby about possibly being held to account for his actions (everybody loves personal responsibility until it applies to them I guess), being behind the exploitive pump and dump scam that was Axie Infinity, and the backing of CCP’s Project Awakening, where a16z has promised to fund them with up to $40 million to make a cryto blockchain version of EVE Online. Garbage on top of garbage.

All of the other stuff in that press releae faded into the background once I saw they were involved. I mean, the Camelot Unchained team writes dev updates every month and promises are made and broken on a regular basis and words out of the mouth of Mark Jacobs lack substance for me until they are backed up with actual tangible action for backers.

But16z being involved… well, they are all in on crypto and blockchain and being the rent seeking slumlords of a future internet of absolute shit, so that simply has to be a red flag at some level.

Their involvement does not mean that Camelot Unchained will now launch with some underlying crypto, blockchain, NFT, pay to earn bullshit mechanic built into it. [Edit: Mark Jacobs put out a backer email that said it would not though, again, he is overdrawn writing checks on credibility at this point.]

And, of course, not everything a16z touches turns to garbage, but when you get those shitheels involved, the question does necessarily come up. You lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas, as they say.

So I am adding to the events that would cause me to post about Camelot Unchained. The new trigger event, after “actually ships” and “goes out of business” will be the announcement that Mark Jacobs has completely sold out and gone down the Lord British path to complete irrelevence by embracing all that crypto blockchain bullshit.

Related posts, which vary from not cutting an slack and bringing up the long history of the game (Massively OP) to gullible belief in everything Mark wrote (VentureBeat), some of which couldn’t resist sarcasm or apologetic quotes in the headlines: