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jesta, rok temu do games w The Day Before studio say the game's downfall was thanks to "a hate campaign"

Recently, a lot of misinformation has emerged on the Internet from supposedly anonymous sources. Fntastic provides an official response to these statements.

Anonymous people allege that we deceived players

We worked hard and honestly on the game for five years. We didn’t take a penny from users, didn’t use crowdfunding, and didn’t offer pre-orders. Even after the game was closed, we, together with the publisher, returned money to all players, including forcibly issuing refunds to those who did not request them. How many companies return money like that? We are not a fly-by-night company. We have been operating since 2015 and have always conducted our business honestly.

Anonymous people allege that we deceived the investor

This is not true. We still have a great relationship with our publisher. The closure of The Day Before did not affect our partnership. Since 2021, we’ve had a New Zealand venture called MytonaFntastic (mytonafntastic.com) and a successful game, Propnight, which has sold almost a million copies. Propnight also co-financed the development of The Day Before.

Anonymous former employees tell different stories about the development

We’re unsure whether these employees are real or not, but we had excellent relationships with our team. Despite being a small indie company with a limited budget, we assisted employees with relocation and healthcare and helped some of them to buy equipment and with their mortgages and other personal matters. We offered an extra non-working day off each month, vacation pay, and timely salary payments, along with the option of working remotely. Our low churn rate and the fact that half of those who left returned to the company demonstrate our positive work environment. One hundred percent of the team did everything they could to make The Day Before a success.

Who made money on The Day Before?

Certain bloggers made huge money by creating false content with huge titles from the very beginning to gain views and followers, exploiting the lack of information about the game’s development. Their actions triggered a gold rush among content creators due to the game’s pre-release popularity.

Why do they say that the released game is not the same as that in the trailers, and why was the game closed?

We implemented everything shown in the trailers, from home improvements and a detailed world to off-road vehicles. We only disabled a few minor features, like parkour, due to bugs but planned to include them in the full release.

Remember the experiment where you’re asked to count pink objects in a room and then recall the blue ones? You won’t remember any. It’s all about focus. The negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game. Look at unbiased gameplay like Dr. Disrespect’s stream at release. Despite the initial bugs and server issues, he liked the game, which we fixed later, and the game received improved reviews over the weekend. Unfortunately, the hate campaign had already inflicted significant damage.

By the way, after sales closed, many people wrote to us that bloggers had deceived them and they liked the game, and they asked for access. We also heard that petitions were created to continue development, and on the black market, the game’s price exceeded $200, and some even began to make their own mods.

We are grateful to all the senders of mails who expressed support and appealed not to give up and to continue to work. Finally, we encourage you to subscribe to our social networks to know what will happen next.

pacoboyd, rok temu do gaming w Palworld Has Huge Weekend, Sells 5 Million and Overtakes Cyberpunk 2077 in Steam’s Most-Played Games List - IGN

Thier last game (released over three years ago) is still in Early Access and they already got thier pay day. This is why I hate modern gaming. Gamers can’t help but pre-maturely ejaculate over some new thing, so devs are able to keep shoveling eternal Early Access games. I vote with my wallet and don’t buy EA games, but my game group still does. I miss out on a lot of gaming sessions because of it.

Personally I think gaming companies should not be allowed to charge for Early Access and basically just go back to free betas for testing. Or if they do have an Early Access, they should be forced to have a published release date or automatic refund if they miss. That will prevent devs from releasing half baked content and coasting on it for years.

They can still provide content and fixes via standard updates.

ampersandrew, rok temu do gaming w What are some good games that have a bad reputation due to unreasonable expectations?

How do you get 13 years? It's been 11 years since the pre-rendered teaser trailer, and it was less than that between announcement and release. They also were open about not being full force on development for the game until Witcher 3 finished, and the announcement trailer served as a recruitment tool, something that most studios don't do anymore.

Vlyn, rok temu do games w Employees Say ‘Sizable Portion’ Of Gearbox-Owned Studio Has Been Laid Off

That’s simply not true, projects are usually done in stages. You got pre-production, production, testing, launch, post-production, …

So take an employee who mainly works in pre-production. Based on what you said they’d be laid off after everything is done and production starts, right? But that’s not how it works. Those people immediately start with the pre-production work of either the next project, or the DLCs for the current one.

There’s always more to do, after launch of a game you can’t have your developers sit around idle, you need the next project already prepared and ready to go. That’s why game DLCs sometimes release only months after launch, they have been worked on for a while.

Ashtear, rok temu do games w Many players have become "patient gamers". What are games people might miss out on by waiting for sales?

Owning physical editions of games can be a problem for patient gamers. As digital distribution continues to expand (even in previously resistant markets such as Japan), we’re again getting to a point where pre-orders may be necessary if you want a physical copy for small releases.

NIS America has also increased prices on their games, although, unlike Factorio, they have sales. Also unlike Factorio, they don’t spout nonsense like “inflation” for the increase. That doesn’t track on a game that already has virtually zero marginal cost and sunk development costs now that development has moved to a paid expansion. Dude would have been better off just announcing the increase and keeping his mouth shut on the rest.

audaxdreik, rok temu do games w Steamworks Development - AI Content on Steam

Disappointing, but somehow inevitable.

"This will enable us to release the vast majority of games that use it. "

So it sounds like the floodgates are opening and now it’ll be up to the users to sort out the flood of BS. None of this is truly surprising, while I’m not cynical enough to suggest their temporary stance was a quick way to score some easy points with the anti-AI crowd, we all kind of have to acknowledge that this technology is coming and Steam is too big to be left behind by it. It stands to reason.

I also understand the reasoning for splitting pre/live-generated AI content, but it’s all going to go in the same dumpster for me regardless.

I certainly think it’s possible to use pre-generated AI content in an ethical and reasonable way when you’re committed to having it reach a strong enough stylistic and artistic vision with editors and artists doing sufficient passes over it. The thing is, the people already developing in that way would continue to do so because of their own standards, they won’t be affected by this decision. The people wanting to use generative AI to pump out quick cash grabs are the ones that will latch onto it, I can’t think of any other base this really appeals to.

Vodulas, rok temu do gaming w Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 24th

Picked up Lies of P yesterday. I am enjoying it a lot, and a lot more than I thought I would. I saw some pre-release playthroughs that left me hesitant, but it is on GamePass, so I figured why not.

It is a great mix of FromSoft concepts, pulling a lot from Bloodbourne and a little from all of them. Highly recommend if anyone wants a soulslike but don’t want to play Elden Ring again.

mammut, rok temu (edited rok temu) do games w What's up with Epic Games?

This is the same kinda shit that Valve / publishers pulled when Steam launched, though.

Half-Life and Counterstrike originally didn’t require Steam, and then one day Valve told everybody they’d need to start using Steam if they wanted to keep playing the games they’d already bought. That’s a Valve game, but it’s akin to Epic moving Rocket League to EGS (which also pissed people off).

For more general / non-Valve games, there was a time period where you’d pre-order a physical copy of game and honestly not know if it would require a launcher. Tons of games that launched in early days of Steam didn’t bother to tell consumers upfront that Steam was required, and consumers wouldn’t find out until the game hit the shelves and there was a little note on the back of the box, “Internet access and Steam account required.” In that case, non-Steam pre-orders weren’t even given an exception – every copy required Steam. That seems even worse than the Epic mess IMO. There, the publishers at least made an exception for people who thought they were ordering a Steam game. If you thought you were gonna get a real physical copy of game that didn’t require a launcher, and it ended up requiring Steam, the publisher just told you to either use Steam or pound sand.

I don’t like the behavior either, but pulling already announced / released games and forcing them onto a different launcher is standard practice when a new launcher comes out. It’s happened to paid and non-paid exclusives. It’s happened to EGS and Steam (and probably Origin or Uplay or others too). I don’t see any reason to be any more upset at publishers over the EGS debacle than the Steam one.

My take is that launcher exclusivity shouldn’t exist, because every single launcher has just pissed off / screwed over consumers when there is exclusivity / any requirement to use the launcher.

RaincoatsGeorge, rok temu do games w The Day Before Servers Shutting Down Next Month, Leaving Game Active for Just 45 Days - IGN

This was a scam from the start. They fucked themselves because their trailer was popular and they promised the world. Their goal was to create a shit early access game with pre-made assets, get lots of buy in when it was released, endure some bad reviews, promise to fix things but then slowly dump support for the game. I’ve watched this exact thing happen probably ten times now.

What killed them was the hype and popularity. They were called out immediately for what they were doing and got stuck having to now make an actual game or face legal repercussions.

At the very least these cash grabs are getting spotted early and they’re not getting to sneak by without facing consequences.

loobkoob, rok temu do games w The Day Before Servers Shutting Down Next Month, Leaving Game Active for Just 45 Days - IGN

I don't think consumers were the target of the scam; if they were, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't have accepted pre-orders for the game. In fact, I think they know that accepting pre-orders would have left them open to false advertising lawsuits which is why they didn't go for them, and I think they were well aware that people could just refund the game so trying to scam consumers (in this instance) was probably not worth attempting.

Instead, I think the investors were the target. The brothers who own(ed?) the studio have been living off investor money for the last few years, and which how suspicious their finances are (their ludicrously high travel expenses, in particular) I'm sure they've hidden away a bunch more money.

The game that exists is a shameless, cheaply-made asset flip that I suspect only exists at all because it makes it much harder for investors to sue for fraud when there's an actual product. If they'd just tried to take the money and run without releasing anything it'd be obvious fraud, but now they can claim they tried their best, expectations were too high, etc, and it's difficult for the investors to prove otherwise.

Neato, rok temu do games w The Insomniac Hack Reveals The Ugly Truth Of Video Game Hype - Aftermath

Yep. When the industry can cut off the only way for games journalists to reliably make money (pre-release review copies) then they are totally controlled by the industry. A real journalism industry would see one company not given a copy or blacklisted and the refuse to cover their release entirely in solidarity. Otherwise none of them can be trusted.

spacecowboy, rok temu do games w Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III Was November's Best-Selling Game In US, Already Second Best Of The Year

You’re right, I did not. I don’t like throwing money at the same product each year. You’re also right, there are plenty of people spending money. People also pre order everything that comes out, giving studios cart blanche to release unfinished games.

You’re all the reason the gaming world is so homogenous and unimaginative. Why create anything new, right?

dinckelman, rok temu do games w "The Day Before" makers Fntastic are shutting down.

Really not upset about it at all. They’ve lied to people, mislead everyone, gave false or incomplete descriptions of the product, and then released a horribly buggy asset dump, that doesn’t look anything like the pre-rendered clip they’ve shown forever ago

Why9, rok temu do games w Game devs should follow the BG3 development footprint

I see what you’re saying, but it’s unviable for much of the industry, and Apex seems to be a rare case where it found success despite the competition of overwatch, counter strike etc and despite being unknown (unlike valorant, which had significant brand recognition behind it).

But it’s unviable. Large studios need to market their games early to recover development costs through pre purchases and get people excited enough to buy day 1 (and to convince investors that there is enough excitement behind the title).

Small studios already do this - they don’t have brand recognition and therefore no money or need to market their games extensively (except on free platforms like Lemmy, Reddit etc), and hope their game somehow gets picked up by twitch and does well (e.g. Among Us). For many, many indie titles, their games die in obscurity, or get just enough attention to cover costs.

In general, what you’re asking for is the following: Don’t tell the public anything. Build a game that’s good enough but has an unknown IP (so that people who are hunting for registered URLs or LinkedIn hires don’t spot anything that could hint at a game), and then release it suddenly, but be absolutely confident that it is genuinely fun, it’s watertight (free from major bugs) and chef’s kiss optimised so incredibly well, that it gets nothing but glowing reviews on day 1 and word of mouth alone, through Twitch and YouTube is enough to propel it into the mainstream and make it an instant hit.

Or be Starfield lmao. If Bethesda is unable to do to Starfield what No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk did, then there’s absolutely no confidence that Elder Scrolls 6 will be a good game.

wreckedcarzz, rok temu do games w What a random person on the internet thought of Homefront

I have quite fond memories of playing this games story, and never touched the mp (none of my friends had it). I liked it enough to pick up the second one shortly after release; it’s still in my pile of untouched steam games, but I really should play it sometime. I just started on Borderlands: the pre sequel, after receiving it as a gift at launch. Patience I guess, I’ll get to it eventually.

It’s interesting - I view cod as a try-hard series, both in playerbase and in development (money printer go brr). Call me counter culture or something, but I just don’t jive with the whole masses and their hype train. I really liked COD4, but that was likely because it was my first exposure to it. I went on to play, what, World at War (?) and thought it was trash, that one where “what do the numbers mean”, and then MW2 which was /fine/ for a once-and-done playthrough. I haven’t revisited the franchise since. “oh no, bad people in sand place are doing bad things and you should not think about it and just indescrimimately murder until we say so” as the story, give it “future ultra warfare X” behind the cod name, and bam, buy your next yacht. Two, why the hell not.

I also really liked Spec Ops: The Line, another game where seemingly nobody else has heard about it. Maybe the twist of not always being the good guys, coming to terms that war actually has depth beyond ‘double kill’, not always being on the offensive, not always “fuck yeah America”… is why I like these two titles in particular. COD, anything Tom Clancy or Battlefield, is just so… cookie-cutter bullshit. I like The Division/2 as well, likely for the same reason. We/Nato aren’t always the good guys in a conflict.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just getting old.

jarfil, rok temu do gaming w The developer of The Day Before seems to be deleting evidence that it was ever an MMO game

The promise I’m referring to, is to “release the code”.

(long version)I understand the thought process of people not wanting to show how messy their pre-production code is… but that’s why, following semver rules, you mark it as a version “0.x.y”. It’s not an exam, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, anyone who’s written code knows that’s how things work, and it’s on the community to be understanding of this, so the “initial dev” of an open source project should feel confident in releasing a tangled mess, no less no more.

Promising the code, then disappearing without giving a community that’s invested in the project a chance to take over, is what I find fishy.

sukhmel, rok temu do gaming w The developer of The Day Before seems to be deleting evidence that it was ever an MMO game

I’ve nothing to say more on topic. Off topic, people may be quite different and even if objectively there should be nothing bad in releasing pre-production, they may find it sensitive + there might be someone to actively offend for that. I only encountered the former, luckily

Sordid, rok temu (edited rok temu) do games w Light No Fire Announcement Trailer

It seems that you need a refresher. I suggest you rewatch those original pre-release trailers and then try playing the game to see if it looks anything like that. I did that a few months ago, and spoiler alert, it did not. Continued support is of course praiseworthy, but it wouldn’t have been necessary if Hello Games had actually kept their promises to begin with. It boggles my mind that gamers so vehemently defend a company that took a decade longer than it should have to deliver some (not all!) of what was promised and also wasted a bunch of time and resources on bloating the game with stuff that was never mentioned and that nobody asked for. Gotta be some form of sunk cost fallacy or Stockholm syndrome or something…

Needless to say, I disagree with you that there’s little reason to believe this will be the same. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that. Due to my skepticism, I was talked down to by people excited by the trailers back then, just like I’m being talked down to by you now. Vindication felt very sweet first time around, so I’m looking forward to round two.

Sordid, rok temu (edited rok temu) do games w Light No Fire Announcement Trailer

That’s also something I was told in response to my skepticism during NMS’ pre-release hype phase, and it’s a complete misunderstanding of what’s going on here. I’m not trying to stop people from being happy, on the contrary, I’m trying to help them avoid disappointment by getting them to stop huffing hopium in industrial quantities. But they don’t wanna stop.

PlzGivHugs, rok temu do games w Light No Fire Announcement Trailer

I’ll treat it the same as every other, if after a couple weeks once the hype has worn down the game actually fulfills the general schtick and seems to have learned and integrated its NMS lessons, then I’ll consider getting it.

I got NMS for ten bucks at the NEXT update and feel like I’ve gotten far more than my money’s worth. This title hasn’t proven anything yet, and I’ll wait for the truth before purchasing it like I do with every other game. It’s been this way since like 2013 when the industry started pumping out incomplete live service nonsense with seasons and battle passes.

Thats exactly my point. We don’t know anything about the game, and are supporting it by just assuming that its going to be a great game and exactly whats promised from a studio that had previously lied frequently leading up to its last release. Thats why you don’t feed into another ridiculous hype train, and don’t pre-order or make day-one purchases. If they’ve actually learned their lesson and reformed, make them prove it before buying the game. I’m not saying don’t buy the game, I’m saying don’t buy in to the hype.