Several months ago Robert Bowling of Call of Duty fame opened started a new company called Gamepump. The company’s goal was to release old classic games that never got a PC release on PC and GoG. Now Bowling has come forth to announced that they will refund everyone who signed up and will focus on publishing the existing titles that they were able to get the rights for. The reason for the decision was they felt the games they did acquire didn’t ‘meet the standards’ to justify their full year subscription service.
You can read Bowling’s full announcement down below…
We have been working on GamePump for nearly a year and during that time we have been negotiating with nearly every major publisher in the world on rereleasing their back catalogs which currently do not appear on modern OS or PC marketplaces.
Over the course of these negotiations, some big games fell out, and several catalog’s our lawyers were working on getting out of the graveyard of bankruptcy did not work out in our legal favor (meaning we weren’t granted rights to commercially rerelease them).
By the end, we had a few great games we could republish to Steam, but when I evaluated the final slate of games that our subscribers would be getting, I felt we were not living up to the standard I had for the service.
Every game I produce, every service I launch, is because I am passionate about it.
If at any point, I feel that a project isn’t going to blow you away, I’d rather face the disappointment and refund your money, than take your money and have you feel under served.
It is with that philosophy in mind that I have instructed our team to refund every subscriber their money and cancel the GamePump subscription.
Those who subscribed prior to cancellation will still receive the two promised games for Jan / Feb once they’re on Steam (in the next 2 weeks, I’m told), as our FREE gift and our thank you for supporting this risky and experimental attempt at archiving our favorite and forgotten games of the past.
“What will happen to the great games you did find or develop?”
We will continue our focus on publishing the great games we did secure and the ones we had originally developed for the service, however since there isn’t enough of those to justify a 12 month subscription, we will simply be publishing them to Steam, GOG, Humble, and other PC marketplaces as standard releases.
I genuinely want to thank you for your support and I’m sorry we weren’t able to deliver on the promise.
It was important to us that we achieved this without using any subscriber money, so that we could ensure that you all received your full payment back if satisfaction was not guaranteed.
Many of you have already received your refund confirmations and if you have not, do not worry, our team is working overtime to ensure every customer is refunded their full amount in the next 48 hours. It takes 1-4 days depending on banking/payment method used to make your payment.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Robert Bowling
Founder, GamePump
