The Day Before: It’s Even Worse Than We Thought

[@BellularNews]

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[@thomasmann9727]

That was a pile of no-news.... sorry, the only people interested in this game are those who got scammed by it, the # the patient gamer gets the prey(low price, patched up, top quality)

[@malbhet]

I seriously hope there is a blacklist umong publishers and developers in the gaming industry because the 2 CEO brothers of Fntastic should be blacklisted by every publisher and developer.

[@Dark_Depresion]

Fntastic: "See that tiny speck of light way, way up there in the distance? That's where people told us rock bottom was. We sure proved those suckers wrong"

[@woaddragon]

Nice

[@bounceday]

Fining your employees sounds like clear cut wage theft

[@local9]

Wait... they paid what they called their "volunteers"?!

[@roguegargoyle914]

Even better when you don't pay the "employees" at all

[@christanner8765]

You’re not paying me. Why should I pay you? The mind boggles lol

[@Halvos12]

Can't be wage theft if you don't give them a wage to begin with.

[@unyieldingsarcasm2505]

@@christanner8765 for real, why did anyone even bother playing along with these clowns? xp. If my boss tried to *fine* me, id laugh in their face and leave. f that nonsense.

[@kupaN9]

The sort of leadership that could have salvaged the game is the sort of leadership that would never have let it get to where it was.

[@Millwork1075]

That's so deep

[@tomburress4928]

There is no way this can be legal or enforceable. This needs to have a class action lawsuit brought by the volunteers.

[@steak5599]

No lawyers will take the case if the Defender is uncollectible.

[@littlebear274]

Apparently they preferred to hire devs from developing countries with low populations like Kazakhstan - places where developers generally can't get work, and where there's often a strong culture of people going abroad to earn money to send back to their families. People who are desperate enough to put up with those conditions are also often desperate enough to be unwilling to sue, unfortunately.

[@cirizarry5433]

​@@steak5599"if defender is uncollectible", what does that mean

[@steak5599]

@@cirizarry5433 typo, I meant to say defendant. I mean if a lawyer figure that the person or entity you are suing have no money, he/she won't take your case.

[@Dead_Goat]

It's not america man.

[@lazypaladin]

Fining your employees is one thing. _Fining _*_volunteers?!_*_ that's equivalent to being fined during chartiy work._ Ontop of that it sound more like Emotional Manipulation and Borderline Forced Labour for *_VIRTUAL CURRENCY?!_* Honestly, wtf?

[@theobrominator]

Fining is not ok regardless. That’s what managers setting expectations with performance reviews is for.

[@lazypaladin]

​@@theobrominatorNever said it was ok. Should've made that more clear. My bad 👌

[@Wonzling0815]

I want to know if any fines were actually paid. That would be preposterous

[@dorkydragon5055]

i can understand fining charity if like gross negligence involved ie animal elder child or humanitarian abuse. this is a fkin vidya game this aint a charity muh guys

[@vanhoras3082]

It also sounds very much illegal.

[@simpson6700]

this is why you never work with "idea guys", they don't know how much work it takes to accomplish their ideas and once you implemented their lamborghini, they ask for an entire city on the scale of one of the most expensive AAA games of the year.

[@ericm5315]

Idea guys aren't a problem if they know when to defer and adapt schedules based on evolving circumstances.

[@Steve-of1kb]

I’ve always called them “Grand Planners” lol

[@Eltener123]

​@@ericm5315 I work in stem and they're always a problem

[@Jenazad.]

"We don't take any money from the customer... Only from our unpaid volunteer!"

[@VencentCross]

wow they brought on unpaid volunteers and then charged them money when they produced the sorts of results you expect from unpaid work? how is this at ALL legal?

[@tr4l1975]

I believe I heard in another video on the topic, that the "volunteers" had to repay for use of company provided hardware. I doubt it's legal, these brothers prayed on people looking to get their foot in the door of the gaming industry, who most likely couldn't afford a novice public defender. Evil prays on the poor and naive.

[@Operational117]

@@tr4l1975 They need to learn that people are very rarely willing to welcome you into their house if you're known for just barging through the door and destroying people's furniture. _(those who do welcome these people are absurdly naïve)_ This applies to a lot of things in life (and in so many different ways across every facet of our society).

[@Crixer234]

Seeing the process of the scope creep started to grow because the CEO brothers saw popular games and tried to add those features in their game reminds me of the development of Duke Nukem Forever where Broussard (the team lead of the time) reset development so many times to match the popular games in terms of features and technological capabilities

[@MephiticMiasma]

Star Citizen?

[@brycearmstrong9370]

@@MephiticMiasma Yeah, Star Citizen is probably a good example. Chris Roberts has shown repeatedly he's a damn good game designer. A game like Freelancer, however, also shows that he's a very poor project manager when it comes to setting realistic scope. It took Microsoft coming in and taking control to get its scope decreased to a realistic level and the game out the door. He just can't help adding more, and more, and more.

[@alexwalker9737]

It's so sad that we actually live in an era where people f up and, instead of taking accountability, they're first response is to blame content creators. "It's KZbinrs' and streamers' fault that WE made a bad product" 😂

[@notrod5341]

In what era have scammers ever not tried to deflect blame

[@ArsRegnandi]

What the hell are you talking about? It is of course the influencers` fault to advertise an inferior product. Which happens all the time. I apologize if you were being sarcastic, the poor mans humor.

[@Ceasingthememes]

Oh boy they're the gift that keeps on giving...

[@MSinistrari]

I don't think there's enough popcorn on hand for the stuff coming out about this game.

[@TheDelinear]

More like the grift that keeps on grifting.

[@urg6923]

Something to add on the fact that they didn't do a kickstarter or early access/pre-order While they didn't take money for the day before, until release, they did leverage the hype for the game on multiple occasion to sell other products (one of which is prop night, one of their other games).

[@darkeather2]

That sort of wild unchecked scope creep is EXACTLY why there's no such thing as "the idea guy" in the industry. Ideas are a dime a dozen and only bog things down.

[@Koncentrator666]

Unpaid "volunteers" getting fined and fired for arbitrary reasons... what kind of stockholme syndrome did they have to not just quit? I know I'm blaming the victim here but come on, I can't fathom being in a workplace like that and not quitting, let alone being an UNPAID VOLUNTEER in that situation.

[@Heedfulconch3]

They were young developers in eastern countries. They likely thought it would completely shoot any chance of being in the industry at all out the window permanently

[@Ylyrra]

Take a look at how many career paths start with "unpaid internship". If people are desperate to get their foot in the door, there's people who will exploit that.

[@anon6187]

Never work from a Black company. Well here you go. Lower wage and inexperienced developers or workers that willing to have work in game industry. And from that country you can say how small to have that kind of company or hard even to joined or work if they have famous industry there.

[@JachymorDota]

The good old David Cage problem: Good ideas implemented badly because nobody could say "No" to the leads. Or, in this case, even dared. This game is another example of what happens when you build a game on the fly.

[@Operational117]

Fear stifles creativity. _Honestly, fear stifles a lot of things..._

[@K-Anator]

2:22 God I love those Synty assets, they look fantastic, and I've seen some great games made with them. I love using them for prototypes.

[@UberAwesomeDewd]

Imagine paying a company to work for them

[@yautl1]

Every company's wet dream, really.

[@alienmilkart]

MLMs lmao

[@michaeloswal9847]

​​@@yautl1Not a dream. The US disgusting System has done that for decades. From "free" internships, to substracting salary into retirement plans without option to deny, to purchasing uniforms from them, and those are just few examples.

[@p.r.1308]

AAA companies: "write that down, write that down!"

[@Shiirow]

talk about being a slave to the company store, thats like working at Wal-mart and getting paid in Wal-mart gift cards.

[@Jim-o4t]

Called it years ago. This was theft with intent imo. They knew what they were doing and everyone who bought in and couldn't get a refund should be bringing a class action lawsuit.

[@Tchernobog11]

Not german myself but used to live there 15-20 years ago, and was reading the physical Gamestar magazines. Always one of my favorite gaming magazines. Nice seeing Gamestar mentioned.

[@CMak3r]

They should explain reasoning behind their decisions in court, not on twitter. Class action lawsuit from freelancers and unpaid volunteers is needed. These working conditions and fines are insane.

[@Incog-e1z]

As the head of a tiny studio, I wish that we could get a fraction of the eyeballs this game got. We’re just a few people trying to make our first title.

[@SlavTiger]

what'cha working on? ill bite

[@0taku912]

One of the most entertaining games I've never played

[@MephiticMiasma]

pretty sure content creators have made more money talking about them than they ever did.

[@steel5897]

Ah yes the completely unbiased Dr Disrespect stream, where the entire chat was making fun of the game and he was constantly praising it in a very weird way and scolding his chat for not giving it a chance, despite the gameplay on screen being obvious unfinished garbage.

[@dontgivetwothwips3615]

The narcissism these brothers display is off the charts. I hope they face some consequences.

[@rremnar]

If my working conditions were bad, plus being fined for the companie's failures; i'd toss them a lawsuit so fast, it'd make their head spin.

[@ekki1993]

"Unbiased gameplay like Dr. Disrespect's stream" is a phrase nobody should ever say unironically.

[@joshuacr]

There's no way this bar could get any lower! *Has to eat their words as they get out the jackhammer*

[@LifeWulf]

Jackhammer? Fntastic took that high powered laser drill from the first Mass Effect game and blew the bottom out of Rock Bottom.

[@joshuacr]

@@LifeWulf thought they spent their laser drill money on the new truck skins 😁

[@Operational117]

@@LifeWulf If we're going fictional, they skipped the laser drill and went straight for the Death Star.

[@MrBluman999]

The people who came up with this idea need some time in prison to rethink their morals.

[@bobbybooshay5388]

I just cant understand how they failed when they aped the development strategy of the most successful and beloved game of all time: Duke Nukem Forever.

[@Baraz_Red]

It was not the first time that they abandoned a game quickly after release. I do NOT believe the good will or good intentions of the two main owners. Force Gaming warned us, and he was right.

[@TarossBlackburn]

It feels like they were coasting on their reputation for Prop Night and likely sent bogus updates to the developer.

[@guitardunce7571]

Mytona probably weighing up whether to give the two brothers the weighted shoes treatment.

[@RONALDEPAUL]

bro. these sweaters. 3 colors now? I love it. they look sooooo cozy

[@Dr.Do0m]

those 2 brothers the first time i saw them on screen made me think of serial killers trying to lure u to them

[@ibarrygames8240]

the publisher didn't have to deal with refunds, steam shut it down way before the 30 day mandatory earnings holding window and closed the game entirely and sent refunds no matter the amount of hours played

[@Monique-iz8lp]

What I don't understand is why would any of the volunteers subject themselves to that? I understand staying in a bad work environment because you can't afford to be jobless, but when the job doesn't pay, why?

[@BrandonDenny-we1rw]

You need experience to get entry level jobs. Only way to get that is volunteering for free experience

[@Barbora_Skrlova]

"A large part of the workforce comes from rural regions of Russia and other CIS countries such as Kazakhstan and Armenia. Regions where there are hardly any other opportunities to work in the games industry."

[@CCrohny]

Experience talks a lot. If you worked on a very successful game you would use it as an opportunity to talk about when you go to get a job somewhere. Or maybe they offered them jobs once the day before released

[@hoontalees]

Not sure if it happened here, but in a lot of cases like this, the company will keep volunteers on the hook by making vague comments about potential employment down the line.

[@MrBizteck]

Replace 'volunteers' with 'Internships' and that will answer your question.

[@seanissimo]

The dumpster fire that won't stop burning 😂

[@TheDom277]

I like to think of it as the tire fire in The Simpsons. 😂

[@tr4l1975]

I think they've gone into nuclear plant disaster territory and the cleanup crew is wearing bubble wrap suits.

[@danielscrimgeour8812]

isnt the lambo scene a call back to iam legend when hes deer hunting?

[@Railuge]

The same thing happened to Prodigy. While building the game to the original view, they kept making new ideas and adding to the game before even an Alpha release. Once they even scrapped half the characters they made and created a whole new team, asking the backers if they want to swap their base team to the new one. Oh yeah, it was a figure scan game when that was huge, but they released their shell of a game after the figure craze ended.

[@nolanwilson3272]

There is a reason I waited a year and a half to buy cyberpunk. There is a reason I didn't buy anthem. My general rule is wait six months or so and see if it's a big steaming pile or actually worth picking up.

[@fosteredlol]

Love your sweater Edit: Sweaters

[@Sgt_Killersnow]

If they keep it up, The Day Before will become The 13th Reason Before-

[@btbarr16]

Guaranteed the people paying $200 for game keys were content creators who missed the train.

[@stanknight9159]

Most people misunderstand the title, The Day Before; It was not due to the subject or premise of the game; It was really when the studio closed. -- The day before launch.

[@Ylyrra]

Pathological liars always make themselves out to be the victim, however ludicrous the mental gymnastics it involves.

[@_Paul_N]

You know it’s bad when your game is an internet masterpiece but not for the gameplay that it offers 🤣.

[@x8jason8x]

There's a healthy dose of RDR2 in the original trailers too.

[@alanwakeish]

After hearing how they treated their employees, it's surprising that the brothers are still breathing.

[@awrawrwar]

That point about hanging around and fixing the game if they had a dedicated fanbase? Simply reminded me of No Man's Sky, who DID hang around and fix the game.

[@Ironystorm]

Even if your the publisher if the developer owns the appid they can still publish the game regardless of your decision. So a publisher can be in a position where they advise the dev not to release but they still demand to and release anyway then you have to go along with the flow or stop being their publisher.

[@yerd1511]

put these guys in jail holy shit

[@pedrojuan8050]

The sad implication is that FNTASTIC had a set of decently capable game developers and they threw it all out of the window almost entirely by mismanagements. Genuinely curious what TDB could've achieved had they had been led by better people.

[@eddiephoenix9698]

jeez, those german game journalists popping off lately, huh? :D and yes, i regularly watch GameStar and GameTwo :D

[@tommargarites2811]

If this game were to be salvageable at all, the rights would need to be sold to a company that could properly work on it, or just take the IP and build it up from scratch. Which is entirely possible if the current owners don't get too greedy for the cash they will need for all the lawsuits, I have no doubt, that is pending against them.

[@ittadakimaho]

The moment i dont get paid for my work .. i stop working. If i see the company treating my co-workers this way, i stop working. Why exactly can 'companies' be run this way and how can anyone be fine with that? The usual excuse is: because people need the money, but apparently .. there isn't even money paid here .. This is .. even though the story tries to frame it as .. bad planning and an honest attempt of a game, everything screams scam to me still. Given this is also not the first title by said people or 'company' .. to go this way. This goes far beyond leaders not knowing better .. this goes down a clear line of: willingly doing harm.

[@Sparkbomber]

Criminals like these should face consequences.

[@benjones3466]

I may have missed it, but weren't these devs volunteers? or just some of them? A dev being fined for their work is horrifying enough. The idea of a volunteer being fined... well I don't know how that could even be close to being legal, so perhaps it wasn't the volunteers. I really hope there aren't even worse details than this to come out. I don't even know what that could be.

[@Jaina1971]

STEAM needs to review and test games before listing and costing people their money on scams like this.

[@bradhaines3142]

if i was one of the volunteers who got fined id say take it out of my pay, and ignore everything else they said. no way they could actually expect to get anything from people they never gave anything to

[@demoncushion9600]

With the game being the most wishlisted game on Steam. That shows there is a MASSIVE market for this kind of game... who is going to be the one first to market now?

[@kvproductions2581]

I can't believe THE DAY BEFORE and ABANDONED were actually the same game! such a kojima-like reveal!!!

[@zantanzuken]

a few things that are a bit off: steam actually forced everyone who bought the game to recieve a refund, and its entirely likely that none of the money ever transfered out of steam (as those things usually take a few days to begin with, but steam was likely watching the progress as much as anyone and going 'hey wait a minute...') and the real reason why they didnt even bother to try and keep the game alive is that funtastic as a company is now defunct (though the brothers aparently are trying to work on a new game anyway...?)

[@soundrogue4472]

CHARGING PEOPLE FOR FAILING AT THEIR JOB? WHAT!

[@MagashiSaizen]

I've been saying this for the longest time, these mofo's need to spend some serious jail time, they're just gonna keep doing it.

[@xNotFatalx]

whats sad about all this is that Prop night was actually a really fun game, bought the game with a few buddies when it came out and we put a few hundred hours into the game and then took a short break, came back around 2 months later and the game was just dead

[@roguegargoyle914]

So glad I saw this for what it was long before I was ever invested in to it. Meant I got to enjoy the drama without feeling scammed.

[@mattzomix89]

I'm pretty positive suprised you know about the journalism of game two and gamestar. I hoped and tried to bring the pale beyond into their Format "unter dem radar" or under the radar but it didn't work ^^ Well great to watch your Video ^^

[@lavaskull2489]

they also received grants from the korean government for the game and their office space that didn't exists i've only seen one person report about this so i'm not sure how true this is but i wouldn't put it past these dev as they keep saying they took no money from anyone but if this is true they took money from their government for fake office space and a game they knew wasn't ready to launch

[@TheRealJDPerry]

Refunds weren't their choice, they should not be given credit for that.

[@micheljolicoeur6094]

So FNTASTIC scammed Mytona and left them holding the bag. The report went on to say that the brothers have formed another company and are now working on a mobile game.

[@thejayman1886]

Fntastic and Mytona are the same company. Fntastic changed their name to Mytona as another attempt to shift the blame onto someone else

[@tonysolar284]

When Founders can't find their balls, they'll blame the staff.

[@EighmyLupin]

I could understand if you paid someone for their voice acting and they did a horrible job, asking for your money back or wanting them to redo the work for no extra pay, but charging people who are working for free is just beyond stupid and greedy

[@ashroskell]

“Anonymous people!”??? . . . Absolutely EVERYBODY put their names to the very clear and obvious statement that this was a con job! And that includes KZbinrs! WHO remembers seeing or hearing anything anonymous??? And their publishers deserve everything they suffered. They weren’t diligent enough to listen to the global howling that was EVIDENT.

[@jamesrich8463]

Its back up on the steam store page for $5.99 I bought it just to see if it worked but 0 bytes download file just gave error when I tryed to download/play it, had to refund. Are the devs trolling us now?

[@SarahEvans-g9f]

Those two brother thieves who "developed" this game have the word "criminal" written on their faces. Whoever didn't see this coming is an absolute sheep.

[@hoodwalker6491]

GameTwo: a good way to spend the german mandatory independent media subscription

[@zebulon3044]

99% of households who have to pay the fees probably would disagree. also "independent". yeah...no.

[@hoodwalker6491]

@@zebulon3044 glad i'm the 1% for once. Yes there's some control by political parties, but way less than in private media.

[@KPX01]

While the are not scamming people of their money, they seem to cash in the popularity to also promote other "product" even tho the game is not even finish.

[@zer0_cool]

It's amazing to me just how incompetent the heads at Fntastic are, if they just released a mediocre 3rd person zombie survival game that spends 7 years in EA, sure there would have been a lot of refunds, but overall they would have made a lot of money and could have added microtransaction garbage to live off while "finishing" the game.

[@Nor-tc8vz]

Sounds like George Broussard who wanted all sorts of features he witnessed from playing other games incorporated into Duke Nukem Forever.

[@Kollektivable]

Gamestar

[@SoxyGamer]

is it illegal to charge devs / volunteers for errors or subpar developing?

[@tgreaux5027]

Mytona the publisher didnt check out the game that could've been potentially their most valuable future asset by far? BULLSHIT. I don't believe that for a second.

[@alexmipego]

They should be forced to opensource it. Now it will just disappear…

[@littlebear274]

You know what game I was surprised had such a good rating on Steam? Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. KZbin is serving me nothing but negative reviews for it, but it seems like a fair number of people are actually enjoying it. So I don't know, maybe players actually can make up their own minds!

[@vilidious]

I think there were suspicions on that game that negative Steam reviews are being deleted. I wouldn't trust even Steam unconditionally. Then again, this is just something I remember hearing about some days ago, so not certain if this is true either. Welcome to modern times, when everything you want to trust can be a scam.

[@GorehowlBeardhead]

Okay but seriously, how is this legally okay

[@ihatecabbage7270]

I get the feeling that the Brothers aren't actually developing The Day Before, they might developed smaller games, got a lot of money from that said games and managed to attract actually skilled folks for them to changed things so willy nilly. I find it harder to believe that they fined folks who work for them, either the devs are paid well enough that 1500 odd dollars is worth the losses, or this is some made up bullshit to hyped up the story. That's a lot of money in rubles, nobody is gonna be that foolish to take losses in an already toxic working environment.

[@Ketyimp0rta]

The Day Before: It’s Even Worse Than We Thought

[@AvanCade]

Sometimes I wonder if people are just stupid. Who works at a company that doesn't pay you and if you make a mistake you have to pay them an insane amount. I admire your passion for games if you commit to that.

[@treesaretough]

its kinda like if someone asked chat GPT to write a news story about the CCP developing a video game

[@TheOtakuFoxBronie]

I can only imagine the two brothers of Fntastic are seeing Pal World and are like "shit why didn't we put Pokemon adjacent characters in our adds, we would made tons of money then"!

[@rockjianrock]

Ubisoft, EA and Blizz, take notes

[@timothywilliams8530]

"So amazing" You thought this trailer looked "So amazing?" What part of the trailer made you think this looked good?' What am I missing from modern video game hype? People said they were hyped for starfield off nothing but a three second long teaser and the "idea" of skyrim in space. I don't understand hype.

[@every-istand-ophobe6320]

Have you seen the work force lately? MOST EMPLOYEES are TERRIBLE. and I'm 100% good with the company fining people for repeated "mistakes" or write ups. Hey maybe if they were doing their jobs CORRECTLY they wouldn't have to worry about it!! It cost the company for every mistake. Every 1 hr bathroom break. Every text message or social media post. So they are just passing that cost BACK to the employee!! Get better if you don't like getting fined!

[@billbillinger2117]

"How much do I owe ya', to work for you for free?" - Volunteer Employees

[@stephenwood9703]

I'd like to see how they got money from unpaid volunteers, the phrase 'trying to get blood from a stone' comes to mind.....

[@austinm5630]

Clearly, "f4ntastic" falls under the second definition of "fantastic" according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality." They certainly are removed from reality!

[@HermitGeek]

Helped an employee with a mortgage? Actually paying your employees does that, what a crappy cop out attempt saying that is...

[@Kolljak]

The brothers are from Russia which clearly likes to conscript people. or "Voluntold".