Erik Chevalier came up with a “nerd-approved” board game that he used to trick people into giving him money. The people who fell for the trap, ended up giving away over R1 million to a guy that was taking them for a ride. 

This is what The Doom That Came To Atlantic City was about:

A light hearted Lovecraftian game of urban destruction, for two to four players.

You’re one of the Great Old Ones – beings of ancient and eldritch power. Cosmic forces have held you at bay for untold aeons, but at last the stars are right and your maniacal cult has called you to this benighted place. Once you regain your full powers, you will unleash your Doom upon the world!

Fans of the game started to give Chevalier their hard earned money, exceeding the creator’s R300,000 mark. He ended up raising over R1,2 million, just to design the board game!

This week Chevalier released a statement letting people know that he had in fact spent all the money and couldn’t finish the project everyone had invested their money in.

Here is a short version of the statement, thanks to ValleyWag:

The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled.

After much deliberation I’ve had to make this decision. I’ve informed Keith and Lee and neither at all happy with this situation. Every possible mistake was made, some due to my inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications. No matter the cause though these could all have been avoided by someone more experienced and I apparently was not that person.

From the beginning the intention was to launch a new board game company with the Kickstarted funds, with The Doom that Came to Atlantic City as only our first of hopefully many projects. Everyone involved agreed on this. Since then rifts have formed and every error compounded the growing frustration, causing only more issues. After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting softwarelicenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return.We had to print at that point or never. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards for a variety of reasons.

Something to think about the next time you give money to a stranger.

[Source: ValleyWag]