To say that Chronicles of Elyria boarded the drama train a while back with a long-distance ticket is a bit of an understatement (and a strange analogy). The implosion of this high-profile Kickstarter MMO resulted in a lot of angry feelings, employee layoffs, and even a lawsuit. What it hasn’t produced — yet — is a playable game of any kind.
But Soulbound Studios Jeromy Walsh is adamant that he’s not going to give up trying to make Chronicles of Elyria into reality. In a new lengthy blog post, Walsh shares his personal journey over the last several years, admitting to painful failures, suicidal feelings, and bewilderment over the lawsuit. Yet he shares this so that “others can learn from [his] mistakes.”
Walsh says the pandemic and work-from-home switch in early 2020 helped hasten the demise of the original team when it ran out of money and led to the firing of pretty much everyone at Soulbound Studio. Following that, he says was flummoxed at the accusations (which he calls “bullshit”) that he was trying to abscond with millions in crowdfunding. Walsh confessed that it got even worse with the class-action suit.
“We received a pre-litigation demand letter in 2020 that we refund everyone’s money or else,” he wrote. “But with what money? It’s not like we made $8 million in the previous 30 days and were sitting on it […] There was no money to refund. It’s $8 million in and $8 million out.”
After finding inspiration in several self-help and inspirational books, Walsh said that he’s come to the point where he “lost [his] fears and feelings of failure” as he’s hired more staff and worked to move the project forward rather than giving up on it.
Further reading – here’s everything from the mass-layoffs to now:
