It has come to our attention that Jason Moughon of Penguin & Panda Publications and Big Kid Games has been proven increasingly problematic the more we hear about their handling of their Kickstarter campaigns. We felt it prudent to at the very least discuss our involvement, steps taken in the process, and how we plan to move forward from the events.
Japanime Games had been in contract with Jason to provide the distribution/fulfillment of Onimaru once it came to production. We had no hand in publishing the game, ensuring it would be produced, or anything involved with the creation of the game. Our entire purpose, once the game existed, was to make it available and easily accessible as a product for distribution, retailers, and consumers.
When we were originally alerted to the Kickstarter potentially having issues, it fell under the production capacity and we felt no need to intervene at the time. Even in a fulfillment capacity, we wanted to remove ourselves from the equation but did not feel the circumstances warranted breaking contract. However, in Oct 2020, when the contract was up for renewal and the game had still not been published, we did not renew our contract with Jason and instead simply opted out. That said, we are saddened by what we see many consumers going through due to recent communications on these Kickstarters.
In summary, we are dismayed at our own involvement even from a logistics perspective. We did not expect this game to not actually be completed and given the nature around the project, we stepped away. We weren't working on actually creating a game and we're sorry that our logo and name being used with this project caused confusion and concern. We hope that by having a post to direct concerned parties toward that we can alleviate many questions and, as necessary, answer other questions as they arrive.