The ambitious project to create a new type of immersive videogaming experience called Stadeon has cancelled its Kickstarter campaign after 48 hours. According to a spokesperson from Eymerce, the creators of the project, the cancellation was due to lack of crowdfunding support.
The Stadeon project was attempting to eliminate the need for a bulky virtual reality (VR) headset and instead use a huge curved screen to create a sense of immersion with the user. The project was founded by videogame developer Mark Lowe, and special effects expert Richard W Taylor, whose background included work on classic films such as Tron and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
In a statement, Taylor went into details about the reasons for the cancellation of the Kickstarter: “Unfortunately, you cannot present the imagery properly in the 2D medium and that was at the core of our decision to cancel the project. We thought Kickstarter was a good way to create gaming community awareness around the Stadeon project – and we are pleased that we at least got the message out that we are coming soon!”
Eymerce are still planning on proceeding with the Stadeon project using investor funds and without further crowd funding support. The company says it is in negotiations with several VR conferences with plans to showcase the wrap-around screen technology at at least one event in early 2018.
“The crowd funding community in the gaming hardware space was curious about Stadeon’s promised unique screen format,” Said Mark Lowe, “its promise of a game venue based on the number of video clicks received during the live project but the combination of the two promises was just too much for our backers to imagine until the Stadeon demo unit is built for people to see for themselves.”
While it seems that the Stadeon project is not quite dead, what the future holds for it is uncertain at this point.
VRFocus will bring you further news on Eymerce and Stadeon as it becomes available.
via Mint VR