22cans ask for donations as Curiosity server upgrade increases costs

By: Moses Abaortae

  |   November 14th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

The block breaking experiment has hit a hitch as Peter Molyneux, the founder of 22cans, has asked for donations as the upgrade in servers to deal with the unexpectedly high levels of traffic have increased maintenance costs.

Peter Molyneux made a name for himself with the Fable games on the Xbox 360 before showing off a number of tech demos for the Xbox 360’s motion controlled peripheral, the Kinect. Although ambitious and a great concept to daydream about, it never saw the light of day and soon after Molyneux left the studio in order to start up his own venture.

The result was 22cans, a small independent studio, which Molyneux plans to use to create more experimental titles and approaches towards games. His latest project, titled ‘Curiosity’, is based around the concept of social gaming. Players can download the app on their iOS and Android devices. The purpose or rather objective of the game is to chip away at the cube, removing its various layers and finding out what is at the centre.

Sounds simple enough, however, the response has been overwhelming with over a million players taking part in the experiment since its release. This has been both great news and a disaster waiting to happen at the same time as 22cans underestimated the response from the public and are struggling to keep up with demand.

In fact, a number of players cannot even seem to access the app and get the dreaded ‘Server Error, Try Again’ message. Molyneux acknowledged the issue and assured fans that the studio was doing all it could to keep the experiment running and accessible.

The situation saw an upgrade in the servers to accommodate the increased load from players who have so far chipped through three layers of the cube and are working away on the fourth layer. However, with the new upgrade the maintenance costs have increased and 22cans is now asking for help from the gaming community to keep the game running.

Peter Molyneux personally appealed for donations when he issued the following statement:

“We may need help to make the experience truly wonderful, our server costs are going to ramp up with our new fix.”

At the same time, the developer’s official website also has a message requesting any donations that gamers may feel like making:

“We are a small independent developer and due to popular demand we now offer the option for kind people to donate, so that we can make Curiosity the best possible experience it can be. However, big or small the donation; it will really help us make Curiosity better.”

The issues with Curiosity have blighted what has otherwise been a rather successful experiment, although no one has purchased the ludicrously expensive DLC for the game yet.