Homesick dev Chloe Sagal successfully crowd-funds life-saving operation
Update: Indiegogo responds, citing detection of "suspicious activity".
Update #4: Chloe Sagal posted false information on Indiegogo, Eurogamer can confirm. She was attempting to raise money for gender alteration surgery and not to remove metal shrapnel from her body as she had declared.
Update #3: Day three, and I still haven't managed to unearth any concrete clarification about what happened.
Project Zomboid developer The Indie Stone has clarified its position in the matter, however.
"Given the size of our donation [$4030] and its origins in our playing community, the situation is less clear than we feel comfortable with. As such we will require further details and satisfactory public explanations for exactly what's going on from Chloe and/or IndieGogo - or by necessity we would start looking to donate all money raised to a different good cause," the developer wrote on its website.
Update #2: Indiegogo has responded. I had asked for an explanation about why Chloe Sagal's Indiegogo campaign had been taken down, and this is what I received:
"Indiegogo has a proprietary and effective fraud algorithm and when suspicious activity is detected the campaign is immediately suspended and all contributors are refunded," an Indiegogo spokesperson told me.
"Indiegogo's proprietary trust and security algorithms, and our community of credible, conscious participants help to make Indiegogo the world's largest, most trusted global crowdfunding platform."
I replied asking for more information on why that specific Indiegogo campaign had been taken down, and received more or less the same answer.
"When suspicious activity is detected, the campaign is immediately suspended and all contributions are refunded."
I couldn't reach the spokesperson by phone but will continue to ask for further clarification.
Update #1: Chloe Sagal's Indiegogo campaign has disappeared without explanation. I've asked Indiegogo for that explanation and will update when I hear back.
Original story: Chloe Sagal, developer of indie horror game Homesick, has successfully crowd-funded an operation that will save her life.
After a near-fatal car crash a few years ago she was left with shrapnel in her body, and now has metal poisoning. Her prognosis of having a few years to remove the remnants recently took a turn for the worse.
She collapsed and was taken to hospital, where she was told she had months and not years, and would lose basic functions before she died.
"I don't have time to futz with the system," she wrote on crowd-funding site Indiegogo. "Right now I just need to get this thing out of me.
"I am a strong and independent woman, I can handle almost anything myself, but I'm setting this aside, because I do not want to die from this. I never wanted to resort to just donations (as opposed to asking for donations from people who've enjoyed my work), but it's clear that this is the best option I have right now."
The surgery will cost $29,000 and she's just raised that on Indiegogo.
All told, she's asking for $35,000 so she has a bit of a buffer and some money to live on after the op.
(Her family won't help her, incidentally, and her friends are doing what they can.)
There is another, second operation related to the car crash that Chloe Sagal is seeking. "It is not vital to my survival," she wrote, "but it is vital to myself being able to live a normal life." It will cost an estimated $25,000 or more.
Any surplus funds she raises beyond that will be donated to charity, she said.
Sagal tried to raise money for her operation by releasing Homesick with a donate button. But apparently direct links were passed around and she lost out. You can track down Homesick from Chloe Sagal's YouTube page.
In a heart-warming move, indie game developers have shown Chloe Sagal their support. The Indie Stone donated all proceeds from sales of Project Zomboid for three days to Sagal's Indiegogo campaign, raising $4030.
Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell did the same thing, raising $255. Both offers have now ended.
Good luck, Chloe.
