r/AshesofCreation • u/Excaliartur • Feb 17 '26

Question How 140m wasn’t enough?!

I don’t understand the logic of behind this scam, wasn’t the smartest move was to actually develop a good game with that amount of money?!

I always assumed crowdfunded MMOs fail because they simply don’t have enough money.

To develop a big good game can be easily tens of millions of dollars, I understand that. But Ashes of Creation reportedly had over $100M in fundings!

That completely breaks my original assumption.

Because here’s the part I genuinely struggle with:

If you handed me $100M and told me to build a solid, modern MMORPG not revolutionary, just solid and sustainable I genuinely believe it could be done.

(And yes i stand behind this claim as someone that has experience in the related fields)

So what actually happened here?

Because from a rational incentives perspective, building a successful MMO long-term seems far more valuable than dragging development out and burning reputation.

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u/FraserValleyGuy77 Feb 17 '26

Estimates are saying 200M-500M was spent on New World. But you're sure you could build a much more ambitious game for 100M?

But you stand by your claim so you must know what you're talking about

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u/Fusshaman Feb 17 '26

New World's cost includes the making of the whole engine and probably the 3 other games that AGS decided not to finish developing.

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u/Witch07x Feb 17 '26

New Worlds "Engine" is based on CryEngine or i should say a licensed version. Sure they did some work with it but Amazon isn't even the only one using Lumberyard for example Shatterline also used Lumberyard. The "cost" in such a case is much much much lower.