Fourteen developers spent a year making a slice of a game about saving suburbia with kitchen appliances. Investors played it for 20 minutes. Ruckus Games then had the money to keep building.
Harold Ryan built a studio collective around a humane promise and a very expensive AAA model. After cancellations and layoffs exposed the model's weak point, ProbablyMonsters traded one giant bet for a portfolio of games it could actually put in players' hands.