According to an email message supplied by GaymerX co-founder Matt Conn on his Twitter account, NIS America via its marketing coordinator David Alonso had to pull its $3K co-sponsorship pledge from GaymerX2:
I have some pretty bad news, and I feel terrible saying it, but I don’t think we’ll be able to fulfill the co-sponsorship deal. When I talked with you, I checked to see that we still had spent left in our games in our games budget. Unfortunately, during this time our games producer was out and I didn’t find out until today that the remainder of the budget had already been allocated.
NIS America had already received advertisement at GaymerX whether it was in banners during the convention, personal commendations from Matt Conn in speeches, and the VIP party which several GR members and I attended where a large portion of the $8,000 tab was attributed to Prinny Bombs. Given the placement, I’m surprised that NIS America wasn’t required pay the $3,000 up front, though there is an invoice dated July 8, payable within 30 days, between the developer and GaymerX.
Regardless of NIS America’s reasons for pulling out, Matt “feels awful and betrayed”:
We were already in dire straits, but we were really relying on this $3K to pay for our artists who came and to take care of some of the outstanding hotel bills. This just further puts a nail into our coffin if we don’t figure out a revenue stream very quickly.
Matt has received some criticism for his Tweets that equate NIS America’s actions with bullying, and he admits that he was caught in the heat of the moment, stating in a several Tweets, “I realize I still have a lot to learn about keeping cool in heated situations and I apologize to all of you who felt upset by todays events. Everything hopefully will be worked out tomorrow and I plan to apologize to @NISAmerica personally for my unprofessional language.”
Luckily, NIS America and GaymerX “are working it out,” and Devolver Digital has graciously stepped up to pledge $3,000 for a 2015 GaymerX sponsorship.
We’ll continue to update this story as it resolves.
