The Real Reason Mansion Lord Never Fulfilled Its Kickstarter Promises

Sometimes, Kickstarter is the bane of every gamer's existence. While many crowdfunding projects end up successful, producing beautiful games, others end up robbing fans of their money or producing disappointing titles. Mansion Lord, a 2014 Kickstarter by Golgom Games, promised an innovative RPG, but it delivered nothing.

Golgom Games completely ghosted on its backers, simply disappearing after the end of its successful Kickstarter. The company hasn't tweeted on their official account since 2014 and has gone silent across the internet. But what happened, really?

Mansion Lord seemed to have it all. Its Kickstarter page promised a combination turn-based RPG, business sim, and murder mystery game. Golgom Games planned to release Mansion Lord on Mac and PC, including tablets, with stretch goals to release the game on the Wii U and PS Vita. However, unlike some Kickstarter-backed games that simply took a while to publish, Golgom Games disappeared shortly after the Kickstarter was over. After the Kickstarter officially ended, Golgom Games provided an update requesting more funding via PayPal, and then it stopped updating all together, leaving empty social media accounts and angry Kickstarter backers behind.

It seems like Golgom Games might not have ever existed in the first place. In 2015, Jason Schreier of Kotaku attempted to research Golgom Games. He managed to pin down the owner of the company's domain, Michael Wong, but couldn't find any further information on Wong or his associates. Though the article stated that Kotaku would keep following the case, no further information materialized. Golgom Games disappeared into the night, along with its backers' money.

Kickstarter continues to be a somewhat risky move for those who want to support indie creators. While it offers a variety of creative controls for developers, it also poses problems for companies that can't follow through on promises. In the comments section of Mansion Lord's Kickstarter page, countless disappointed backers have left notice, even years after the fact, that they'd like their donations back. It's unclear whether they'll ever see a penny of their initial pledges.