• Controversial game The Day Before will have servers shut down in January 2024, just 45 days after its troubled launch.
• Developer Fntastic has closed down and the entire project will cease to exist, leaving players unable to purchase or play the game.
• Steam will automatically refund remaining players and Mytona, the investor, has been collaborating with Steam to facilitate refunds for all purchasers.
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.
Due to the way Steam refunds work I feel this wasn’t their end goal unless they really didn’t think it through at all.
The theory i subscribe to is that they intended to release a “decent” game but had no experience or intent to make it themselves. The marketing hype machine was to build community hype, which would drive investor funding so they could pay for new talent or to just outsource most of the work. I’m guessing that either didn’t materialize or they mismanaged that plan.
I don’t think they intended to release anything ever. But there was so much attention an them they had to release something.
They got funding from a Kickstarter right?
Nope, no Kickstarter or obvious public funding before the early access “release”.
There’s a chance some people weren’t able to get refunded but due to Steam’s refund policy I suspect most got their money back.
If it was always intended to be a total scam and never release they’d likely have used their own launcher to bypass the Steam revenue share and refund policy.
They’ve got a history of releasing games and abandoning them.
So I believe this was an attempt at doing the same thing just that TDB ended up getting far more attention than their previous game.
Is it still a scam if everyone gets their money back?
This just feels more like incompetence rather than malice.
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.
This makes the most sense by far. Owners of a company always pay themselves a salary, and for a tech company with investors I’m sure these people were able to give themselves an extremely high salary. That salary money is legally their money forever no matter how crappy or failed the company’s output winds up being. Unless you can prove that an actual crime was committed to acquire that money, then it will remain legally theirs.
This just feels more like incompetence rather than malice.
Yeah although I would argue one does not preclude the other. As in, of course with Hanlon’s Razor, this is because of incompetence not malice. But it’s also a scam, just one born out of not being any smarter/better.
I’d agree with you but then you hear about all the sketch shit with the discord and the volunteers. I think they intended to make a game but planned for it to just be a quick cash grab and then they could just slowly dump it. It’s honestly a great strategy, just look at every game the atlas devs have made. They’ve basically mastered the strategy.
Scam is still scam, they could have been realising true gameplay trailers instead of wasting time on rendered false gameplay that does not reflect a game at all
The investors aren’t getting their money back.
Technically yes it’s still a scam. It’s just one that didn’t pan out for them. In this one particular instance anyways. It will continue to work for others.
I mean, it still would represent an attempt at a scam
Yeah a failed scam is still a scam.
I get the impression there is a lot of this bait and switch in the mobile gaming circuit with great game play shown on IG ads but the actual gameplay is nothing like advertised?
Lasted less than Liz Truss lmaooo
I was so confused by the headline, kept waiting to see what the name of the game was
All it needed was to not have all the words capitalized, just the game name.
Relevant xkcd
The should have been “Servers For Game The Day Before Shutting Down After Just 45 Days”
That’s still confusing lol. I think the only thing that would’ve helped is quotes around the game title.
Is this going to turn into one of those things that ends up having a cult following?
Steams most wishlisted game that had an intricate story of weird events and eventually suffered an early demise after a chaotic release? You bet.
How is it even most wishlists if not by using bots tho like I get I don’t pay attention to what’s new much but I literally never heard of the game until I heard of the flop
I’ve discovered this in my own wishlist a few weeks ago. Must’ve been that “this looks interesting, let’s get back to it later” late night steam store browsing, because I do not remember putting it there.
I think it’s the Ghost of Ronald Reagan who’s doing it.
withoutusing botsThat’s actually what I meant
I’m guessing streamers who want to make a video about the terribleness for views are the ones willing to pay so much for this game.
Refund the game while you still can, if you were silly enough to buy it… Don’t let these scammers get away with such nonsense.
Everybody will automatically refunded
Was not aware, that’s great
Nobody should be surprised and everyone who bought this shit should honestly be thankful they are getting their money back.
Howd this game get so much attention in the first place? Theres so many fraudulent mobile games flooding app stores every single day.
Well, for one, they probably used bots to garner the “Most Wishlisted Game on Steam” accolade, they also used shill accounts to counter negative reviews and press.
Thats just blind guessing.
People just liked the concept pitch, its not an entire smoke and mirror show.
Well, that’s 43 days longer than I expected.
Steam will automatically refund remaining players
Wait, so those players get to enjoy over 1000 hours of playtime and then get all their money back???
Sweet deal!1000 hours waiting for a server, such a sweet deal
They’d be lucky to get 10 hours out of that game
I thought it wasn’t an MMO? Why does it require servers?
You know that extraction shooters still require servers to host the people that are in a match, right? MMO’s aren’t the only genre that use servers.
Its still online just 32 people per server
It’s an MO game they just lied about the massively bit.
In a way it’s great that people get their money back, in another way maybe people would learn to not believe the hype if they didn’t…
Skill Up had a very good video describing the whole history of this debacle.
