$116,684 Taken, 4 years Developed, No game delivered, Developers Vanished

[@battlehotdog]

this just sucks for the game studio they scammed for 5 weeks of work without payments. and the audacity to copyright strike the grass that they dont own is just hilarious.

[@DaMightyHuuma]

The scammers "making" the game seemed to be very talented con artists and knew exactly the best thing to do for themselves at every step of the way. Sad case of freelance devs getting fucking owned but it's a good example why knowing more than 0 information about your employer is a good idea

[@user-10021]

I’m honestly curious on why they even accepted this contract. If you’re not working with a company that employs you, but a single person who offers a one time contract - it should always be done pre paid or half in half...

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@ItsMeBarnaby That is about 450 per person. No way they could survive if that would be their only work. With that amount you have to decide if you want food or a home. And that is without factoring in that the company would need money for their offices as well.

[@kentuckyfriedpepespeaks1550]

From what it seems like to me the guys behind Oath Quickly realize that they had no fucking idea what they were doing in Riverhead so they decided to contract out to another group to make 90% of the game for them so then they could just slap together everything in a way that semi presentable and playable and call it a demo. I feel like that could’ve actually even worked if they didn’t flip shit over a blade of grass and refused to pay the people making their damn game

[@kentuckyfriedpepespeaks1550]

From what it seems like to me the guys behind Oath Quickly realize that they had no fucking idea what they were doing in Riverhead so they decided to contract out to another group to make 90% of the game for them so then they could just slap together everything in a way that semi presentable and playable and call it a demo. I feel like that could’ve actually even worked if they didn’t flip shit over a blade of grass and refused to pay the people making their damn game

[@MrPhyxsyus]

Oh no! A kickstarter mmo that wasn't released and ended up being a scam? Imagine my shock!

[@ffurg8914]

I am as shocked as you are. Absolutely speckledorfed.

[@Dragon-Believer]

Meanwhile Star Citizen is still pretending to be developing a game for the 9th year.

[@fall190]

they asked for 35,000 $ goal for a MMORPG...HAHAHAHAHHA

[@vegassims7]

I am literally standing here with my mouth wide open in TOTAL shock!

[@annabella1650]

At this point I’d be surprised if one of these campaigns actually came through.

[@Paul-zh2jp]

man, i feel for ocean spark. i'm a freelancer and have had the same thing happen to me, though not quite as bad. i set a rule for myself to never work more than a week (maybe 2) without payment from a client. no matter how promising the gig is, you just can't do that. i hope they have that in every future contract

[@moomah5929]

Yeah, I heard about people working for months without payment and this does not only happen in software development as most of the stories I heard happened to people working as builders and other physical labour jobs. Worst thing is, there the laws are so shit, that you have to work for 2 to 3 months here before you are allowed to refuse doing anymore work...

[@Ulthrinifyed]

@@moomah5929 I work in construction and here the rules says that as a contractor you can demand payment 2 times a month and if you haven't been payed you can issue a written warning and chancel work 3 days after that.

[@yahootube90]

Yeah, we've seen a lot of this in the games industry, even in big companies. I guess employees are hopeful that a big company with lots of money will get them their pay if they just stick it out. Some notable examples where people went for months without pay being Crytek and 38 Studios. I'm sure there's plenty more, but that's off the top of my head. And, in a small crew like Ocean Spark, I'm guessing they were desperate for work given the low pay they were supposed to receive. Probably was their first real gig. And it totally ruined them. It's sad.

[@actavisteq1282]

I can relate. I’m a consultant that’s learned the hard way I need to get a deposit before I lift a finger and if I’m not paid after the first week I’m out. Over the years I’ve found clients I can trust and be flexible but it takes awhile to gain my trust like that now. I’ve lost so much money over big contracts like this - it’s always the people with big contracts that are also the most likely to break it and spend money fighting paying instead.

[@cnacma]

@@actavisteq1282 I can’t think of anything more scummy than tricking someone into working for free then deciding it’s cheaper to pay lawyers then to just pay for the work you contracted. There should be robust laws against this. It’s just straight up theft.

[@joshs2734]

I feel so bad for Ocean Spark. When you're a tiny company, yes, a single payment can make the difference between keeping things running and declaring bankruptcy. Seems like they were going to do a good job and fully uphold their end of the contract. The whole grass thing is insane. Artists use references, that's how it works. It was a super tiny mistake. Ocean Spark spent weeks of hard work under the assumption that they would be payed. Instead they lost everything. The only thing they did wrong was continue to work without receiving payment for longer than they should have. Being too trusting basically. Payment deadlines are important.

[@GeorgeG90]

u are missing the point, the tiny compani ocean spark was never gonna recieve money. Why would they steal their time and money ? it is easy when u are already doing it for many years to other people . Haivng private servers on a game that as stated in the video u cash grab thosuands of dollars and close server early (and repeat over and over), that is a scam as well. They are used to it, and ther eare many people out there willing to walk on dead bodies to make money...... The whole crypto / nft thing is a new example of just that.

[@clownworld4655]

They brought it upon themselves being fools and working for free

[@LilyKittyCatto]

@@clownworld4655 your name is fitting, absolute clown

[@clownworld4655]

@@LilyKittyCatto I’m not the one being scammed 🤡 come up with something original next time.

[@path1024]

Who in their right mind buys grass from the asset store and then copies it to look exactly the same for a bunch of money rather than simply using the grass they bought from the store? That makes no sense.

[@dash1dash2]

People don't realize that 100k$ for an MMO of that size is absolute peanuts. Anyone expecting some kind of AAA MMO out of 100k$ is just delusional.

[@TheZombie2415]

If they made that money into retail games that playable for single or multi it might work. But MMO? Man that's millions of money on table

[@sleepykittyMMD]

so how much would be a realistic number?

[@TheZombie2415]

@@sleepykittyMMD you're looking at millions, hundred of millions. At minimum of 1m to 10 millions which considerably small and may end up like games from 90s or early 2000s, to a whopping 500 millions USD for a game like Amazon? Forgot the title. MMO main issue always come from the design loop. "How long does it takes for player to reach our end game?" "What does player do in the end game?" "What does player do daily" "How much money and resources would it cost to develop new content and updates every single month?" "How much money we need for server maintenance" "How many staff are going to work in the company?" "How much money are we going to spend to advertise our game?" And the list goes on before the game breaks or the player left out of borodem, or it become so damn P2W that it kills the casuals which eventually kills the whale. Gacha games is technically the soft version of MMO where you don't need to grind all day all night and the content you can push wouldn't be need as often but it also comes with less expense compared to MMOs. MMOs maintenance cost is also insanely high due the server required to be active with massive load between active dungeons and data flows where gacha games only register data while the game could work offline until the player sent a request. That's why very few company make MMO in modern day of game industry and hell it won't even survive more than a half decade before turning it into profit. MMO is pretty much dead. The leftover is just a remnants of what used to be a very big game.

[@sleepykittyMMD]

@@TheZombie2415 holy crow I had a feeling based on the few online faces games that I play that it must require a lot of behind the scenes leg work to make functional. That sounds incredibly stressful. No wonder it costs millions to hundreds of millions, my head is spinning just thinking about all the work that would be needed to maintain something like that.

[@TheZombie2415]

@@sleepykittyMMD If you know a company called Square Enix which obviously you do, they almost lose everything trying to make FF XIV a decade ago because it's so fucking bad that it almost kill a company with 3 decade of works. Now imagine it for some unknown studio or company spending shittons of money only for it to drop a year and lots of debt? Yeah MMO is like the end game of every game development. Making a masterpiece MMO is so much harder than making a masterpiece Retail game. Just a few reminders that the buzz word "Metaverse" is technically an MMO with social media slapped on it. Making their own verse while forgetting the infrastructure that required to build it. That's why company just stuck having no slight idea how to develop it. No technology able to support it yet. Blockchain isn't required for metaverse and NFT is just a method which people trying to scam idiotic moroon thinking they could resale the value higher.

[@acronen]

Sounds like Ethan and Stephen have the proper background, and experience to join the Earth 2 team now though.

[@santiagocalvo]

Hahahaha i know right??

[@SiisKolkytEuroo]

If Earth 2 was made by Valve, you could feel very secure about your investment not being made obsolete by a sequel

[@54tisfaction]

They could as well join EA, Bethesda or any other AAA studio. They are most of them scammers anyway these days. They just have the resources to make a more convincing scam - thus raking in billions more dollars in the end. Sad state of affairs.

[@GeorgHaeder]

If that would happen, it wouldn't surprise me for one second.

[@Protodead]

Bahahahaha!

[@snazzydrew]

There's something to be said for how easily people can be convinced by a trailer.

[@Theaikro]

people who waste money on shit like this deserve to get scammed tbh

[@HiddenStr3ngth]

@@Theaikro It's not about people getting scammed as much as about trashbags getting money from doing garbage.

[@edwardroh89]

​@@Theaikro doesn't mean scammers shouldn't go unpunished. I'd rather have naive, albeit unintelligent, and innocent people who trust others then letting scammers, no matter how unrefined their scams are, get away with it. Not to mention scammers only breed more scammers as well if they go unpunished.

[@Theaikro]

@@edwardroh89 I understand what you mean. But come on bro, people can be this naive. Giving large sums of money for a unreleased game... 💸💸💸

[@AyCe]

@@Theaikro That is literally what preordering is...

[@colossusrayzu5261]

I knew and had met the Ocean Spark team, they visited our college and later my University, they were close friends with my tutors as ex students and as soon as I saw the claims I knew it to be false, the team there are passionate about games and environment art, it sucks to see a small studio I knew fairly closely just shot down due to one bad contract, they were forced to shut down their studio and close their social medias else getting jobs elsewhere in the games industry would be impossible (or so they were told) I can confirm they have managed to find work at other games companies in the UK I don't know exactly where but I was told (by my tutor I think) they had managed to find work and they were now fine. (thankfully)

[@alansilvero]

is nice to know they found work, sucks what happened to their studio.

[@path1024]

For as cheap as they were I wish I could still hire them. I'd pay them in advance.

[@FinalFinale]

10:15 Thank you for mentioning the mistake as a commonality. I talked with artists/designers back in university and using other people's code is a very common way to practice/learn/refresh tasks. I don't understand why people on the internet are clinging onto this fact and claiming it to be plagiarism.

[@EndertheDragon0922]

Yes! I’m no professional but have taken some coding classes, and I would constantly look up how to do something I don’t know. Code is so precise and fussy that if you don’t get it right, it often doesn’t work at all. You can’t just “figure it out,” you need a lot of guidance to learn it!

[@vara48]

yea if it was a bad thing then why would stackoverflow exist 👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@Dynwyn]

@@vara48 or textbooks for that matter.

[@chrismanuel9768]

"A good artist copies. A great artist steals." The world's best artists... use reference. Art is building upon what came before.

[@zakkymiftahurrahman1665]

@@chrismanuel9768 don't take me too seriously, but is it still considered "stealing" when you reference your sources?

[@fealubryne]

I know a lot of these throwaway game companies like to use pre-made assets for trailers, but it sends up huge red flags to see a game presented in one style (really stylized bordering on cartoonty) only to show concept art in an entirely different style (far less cartoony, more "badass" designs). Even if it was legit, feels like yanking the rug out from under anyone who backed for a specific art style.

[@SquishyTheVampire]

Tip for artists: never continue working for someone who hasn't paid you what was agreed upon. Giving people the benefit of the doubt will more than likely screw you over. Even if that person truly has good intentions, cover your own ass first. Set up a system where you receive a percentage of the amount owed (non refundable), then release the product when you receive the rest of the payment. That way both sides are somewhat protected. If the buyer doesn't like the product, they didn't have to pay full price and they dont get the product. If the seller isn't receiving what is owed, they don't face a complete loss in funds.

[@onesilverleaf6781]

Bruh, this guy is epic with his breakdowns and details, I still remember Cryy's video and it was so disgusting to see OceanSpark get fucked over for no apparent reason. Rage inducing to say the least.

[@troodon1096]

Oh, there was a reason, just not a good one.

[@MisterNightfish]

I'm glad everything I backed on kickstarter released and turned out to be good, but I'm quite picky. All of the projects I back are done by people that have good track records and now make niche games that would not get AAA funding. I doubt I would ever back an MMO, but for indie games I think crowdfunding is a great thing and many of my favorite games would not exist without it.

[@oliver_twistor]

I agree. Many projects wouldn't be possible without crowdfunding. I guess the reason why MMO's are such a fraught genre for crowdfunding is the immense money requirements (and skill) necessary to pull it off. Compared to a singleplayer or non-persistent multiplayer game, an MMO is a massive undertaking, too big in scope except for the largest of studios. I have backed a lot of projects through Kickstarter, and not only games, but comic books, music, movies, art projects and also technology. Only a handful has not worked out (but seemingly only one scam so far, the others seem to have fallen through unintentionally). I think a good approach to Kickstarter is to see it as an investment, not as a store (Kickstarter is constantly saying this, but I guess many people still don't understand the difference). Investments can fail by intention and unintentionally. If you're prepared to lose all the money you put in, you'll never be disappointed, other than not getting the awesome product you hoped for. I'm sad that many people seem to get burned by Kickstarter, and many who are afraid of backing stuff on there because there are scammers. I want to say to people reading this that if you do your research and never pledge for more money than you're comfortable losing, you should be okay with Kickstarter 95 % of the time.

[@annabella1650]

KickStarter is great for projects that wouldn’t otherwise be released, with a good few boards game and video games I’ve brought coming out of them. I think the biggest problem with crowdfunding is that they are open to being exploited, because there’s not much to be done if the project ends being nothing.

[@MidnightBloomDev]

I'm thinking of making crowdfunding for my game but a bit scared it could go wrong way.

[@GrumpyIan]

@@MidnightBloomDev if you ever watch Slopes Gameroom there are some things you'll notice with the scam kickstarters. 1) They promise everything 2) No prototype when the kickstarter is active 3) They're asking for to little money 4) They talk about how 'next gen' the game is gonna be. (They say things like how it's gonna be like a AAA game in terms of graphics, world size, and character customization) 5) Most of the time it's an MMORPG.... Those are the hardest games to make and especially if it's your first project. He has multiple kickscammer videos (many are countdown style) and they show perfect examples on what not to do.

[@avioracrown6967]

Mmo is pain Indie game is the real game to enjoy

[@KaelinGoff]

Ocean spark has my sympathies. Getting railed by non payment when you're responsible for employees and thier families is just the worst.

[@shyrory]

I remember asking discord in 2018 to verify my discord channel of an mmorpg I had made with no budget over 9 years now and released in 2017. They said it wasn't up to their standards for a verified game server. Meanwhile, Oath that has one trailer and a successful Kickstarter but no game was verified.

[@JaredtheRabbit]

If it makes enough money, it gets verified.

[@simonmalicek]

I think problem is that you can just slap few assets in UE4 together with their network code and say "we go this far, but we run out of money" in court. The court would see a game that's half working, has rendering, assets etc. so they will probably think they tried and just run out of money. It will be another boomer moment.

[@linkesocke4533]

Not all judges or lawyers are old people who never played a video game in their whole life. And depending where the lawsuit happens there will be a jury deciding the case. Even if the backers win, by now most of the money is most likely gone already. And getting money from a company without any games, one employee and little to no company assets will not be easy, especially If it's a llc or the company is located in a different country than the backers sueing them.

[@casshernsins8333]

@@linkesocke4533 nah, they can easily say that they had some trouble with coding and then say they ran out of money before that problem could be solved. Easy way to escape any recourse. Anyways, the company filed for “bankruptcy” so all liabilities are forgiven

[@z-a3594]

Defendants or plaintiffs can seek and present an expert’s opinion with demonstrations that show how an experienced individual can do certain work in which time. Judges also study and prepare for their cases. It is not easy to fool people in court with a good lawyer or prosecutor.

[@morpheas768]

Not necessarily, if the prosecution brings someone who actually knows this stuff (a literal expert without quotes), who can identify all the problems with the defendant's claim and explain to the court how this is just a bunch of assets thrown together and no real work was done so to speak, then there will be no "boomer moment" as you said. Of course, its easier to say that in a YouCensored comment than to explain in a court of law. Although, there wont be censorship in a court of law so....maybe not!

[@Sentient.A.I.]

This is why there is expert witnesses. Both sides can hire them tho and it ends up a he said she said mess. But the discovery could definitely womp the guilty party.

[@BigfryTV]

awe man, I remember this game. I fucking knew it wasn't gonna work out, but I do like that Prompt style combat. RIP Wildstar

[@KiraTV1]

Big rip

[@jacksonkruge]

Damn nice to see you here bigfry

[@magicth]

Same. I miss Wildstar’s combat and it’s a shame developers (“developers”) are toying with people like this. Makes honest, hard working smaller teams look less legitimate.

[@acetown2263]

Wildstar was a gem

[@tempestive1]

Dam. Was just thinking of Wildstar when I saw those health bars! I'm really hopeful the Nexus Forever projects takes off!

[@titansquirrel4408]

I appreciate this video a lot, I have an academic interest in failed Kickstarter MMOs because even though I'll never crowdfund another (I'm over $1000 in star citizen over roughly ten years) I think following these stories helps me and many others stay grounded, not just in the gaming space either. This lesson applies to many aspects of life

[@stellviahohenheim]

It's just money dude

[@stellviahohenheim]

@@SaiSai-uk1yb op wants us to give a pity party when obviously he's rich

[@riks081]

@@stellviahohenheim dude, $1000 in the space of 10 years? That's $100 a year. A $100 a year is rich? And he obviously learned his lesson about the sunk cost fallacy.

[@erbz]

@@riks081 dude must be 12 if he thinks that's "rich" lol

[@e2rqey]

Kickstarters have really demonstrated to me that the saying "there's a sucker born every minute" is completely true and if anything, an understatement.

[@annabella1650]

Agreed, way too many people are willing to part with money on just a half-hearted promise.

[@DxBlack]

So far I've only got hit once on bad Kickstarters, and that of those devs ended up scurrying over to work on Unfortunate Spacemen... All my others were either fully funded (Wolcen, Last Epoch) or would have been great if they had been funded (a sticky lens reticle for your monitor for FPS games that didn't include them for some reason + no-scoping; an abandoned building photobook, which then become a popular thing on KZbin a few years later)

[@Weiswolfe]

@@annabella1650 i dunno, just a thought, nowadays, most games are bad, people will throw money to anything that looks better that we have today, so is so easy for scammers to do false projects, tak eth emoney and run

[@justanoob4425]

Same logic with pre-orders

[@martinaasandersen3775]

Like most things it depends how you use it (and remember as always it's not a store and KS will do jack-shit to help you if anything goes wrong). I've backed countless tabletop ks and have only been burned twice. But yeah if you back without research (into the creator, past history etc) like that diving rebreather that couldn't possible work etc then you're a sucker. KS is definitely not perfect and for one need to take down questionable projects more often and ban dodgy creators

[@DFKeaton]

Something to note in the video about the "Fiesta Online scam" part is, that this behaviour is pretty normal there. Private servers for the game were much more popular, because the main game, which was bought out by gamigo games, is really really really p2w. Dead or Alive 6 DLC prices look cute compared to it. The game is designed around the fact that there is microtransactions and its balanced around it as well. This makes it quite easy for Private Servers to just cut most of the stuff down, slap that ingame for ingame currency, but still have some stuff for real money available to purchase. There is never not a private server without having a real money shop and every player on a server has 100% spend money there. It's a game for whales and depending on the server, it can go from "Cute costumes owo" to "+100 stats on this endgame weapon" and the cycle is always the same: Server in Development (in reality, only add some basic stuff) > Release Server > Players spend money, play the server for a max of 6 months > Server closes > New Server pops up with same name and a number behind it or under a new name > repeat. The digging that was done here is correct. Spoon (Although I believe "Stu" would be the one behind this) is active in the Fiesta Pserver community. They were the first to use the, at that time, newest files for their servers. They will never abandon the scene, because of the money and it's funny that they used their UE4 preview for "Fiesta Online 2.0" and just renamed it to "Oath". They even used the same animations from Fiesta on their preview for Oath. So even if it ever came, it would've been just another game for whales

[@NaZtRdAmUs]

pump and dump mmorpgs seem to be all the rage these days.

[@Olzme]

These deep dives into these scam MMOs should become a series.

[@KiraTV1]

It is 😄

[@Olzme]

@@KiraTV1 appreciate the work you do - the amount of time you put into your research in order to be fair and accurate is commendable.

[@KiraTV1]

@@Olzme thanks mate

[@Paelmoon]

Ah man, I really miss Cryy's videos. Hope he is doing well. Edit. Also, the irony that this game seems to have more actual gameplay footage than CoE wtf.

[@Nintendo641200]

If you know their identities, you could get them in trouble for scamming people. You'll be surprised what happens to scammers who get caught.

[@DsiakMondala]

You mean you can spend over 20.000 dollars in legal fees and have them get a slap on the wrist and never see a return on the 20k you sunk in your lawyer?

[@Kaibamon]

I still got the ocean spark oath document

[@morpheas768]

Upload online or it didnt happen.

[@L.Bomrek]

upload it. share the link. the proof before the talk

[@SsnakeBite]

Post it! Post it! Post it!

[@Kaibamon]

@@SsnakeBite www.dropbox.com/s/p14uj0503uhtzab/OceanSparkStudios_OATH.pdf?dl=0

[@thevalorousdong7675]

@@Kaibamon i want to click but I'm afraid it's malware lol

[@Windows98R]

“We are censoring the community” Oh yea, what a great action towards your fanbase. On a game that is either a shit-show or a no-show.

[@Sundaydish1]

I don't know what people are taking. An MMORPG for 60 grand? Get outta here. An RPG maybe, but if you want to add MMO on there you need to add another 3 0's to what you're asking for. Everyone who backed this needs to slap their own face a few times. Don't give money to something that is just a video, stop throwing your money away. People appear to have more money than sense.

[@machineofadream]

Of course people should be more skeptical. I can't personally see why anyone would bother donating to this. Maybe some people thought they were being nice to a small indie develper, but that's naive, no doubt about it. In any case, the Kickstarter claimed that they already had an initial investment, and that crowdfunding was just to secure additional funding, not that it was paying for everything. So I guess some people thought that sounded plausible. Also, the majority of the backers pledged $25 or less. A quick glance at the page shows me that 6 people accounted for about 13% of the total donations, and 20 people accounted for almost 25% of the total donations. That's out of 971 backers. It's just a handful of whales that really tipped the scales here. The same concept that drives free to play games. No doubt these people have more money than sense, but you only need a small number of people like that to make a huge impact.

[@JS-wp4gs]

Except there have been multiple successful mmo's released commercially for massively less than 60 grand

[@DsiakMondala]

@@JS-wp4gs Surely if there have been many, you can name at least one, right? I mean, surely... right?

[@twizz420]

13:00 defamation doesn't just mean someone wrote something untrue about you ffs... They have to KNOW it's untrue when they say it, otherwise it's not defamation. Clearly ReadyUp (which ironically isn't ready for anything, especially a lawsuit) clearly haven't even begun to speak with a lawyer.

[@TheMattTrakker]

Nope To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person

[@twizz420]

@@TheMattTrakker You also forgot to copy the next line when you copied that from the first result on google... "Different states vary in their anti-defamation statutes."

[@IceStorm-l4t]

I've never paid into any kickstarter and never will.

[@SuperiorApostate]

people should file a class action lawsuit against kickstarter for all the scams they're pushing. the money should be held in escrow until some kind of proof is delivered.

[@yourteacher1005]

@@SuperiorApostate it’s not kickstarters fault, they can’t close things based on a speculation when even a little bit of the promise has been shown

[@blzzz]

I don't even buy early access games on steam anymore. If they ever do fully release I am already bored with them.

[@yourteacher1005]

@@blzzz would you pay a little extra to get early access to a game?

[@ces4156]

Not wrong tho, never will support any kickstarter tho... no matter "how much passionate" they are *wink wink Pantheon..

[@mrskira8163]

Congrats on 80k Subs baby ❤ Love you x

[@KiraTV1]

❤ Love you

[@llowery720]

Comment for the youtube algorithm, keep up the good work Kira! I respect your commitment to accuracy and you are quickly becoming one of my favorite youtubers for MMO and Kickstarter content hope your channel continues to grow!

[@IndiePatron]

Sad cause it looked cool. But seriously 35k for a functional quality MMO? When will people learn.

[@donmarelio]

Yeah. Do people not know basic cost of living, not to mention equipment costs and software licensing and such? 35k is barely enough to sustain a single indie dev for 1.5 maybe 2 years if they continue living like a college student in a small appartement and working out of their bedroom. But to fund a company that supposedly had multiple employees? Yes they said the project was "close to being finished" and had investor support, but that makes very little sense to me. For one thing, it's quite obvious from the trailers there wasn't much game there and secondly, if you did have an investor, couldn't they just fork over an additional 35k in exchange for some equity if they really believed in the project?This seemed fishy from the outset.

[@machineofadream]

I agree that it sounds ridiculous, though I want to point out that the Kickstarter claimed that they had another investor already, and that crowdfunding was a way to get the community involved in design decisions.

[@edmundmondo1682]

8:48 Stephen: "Sorry Ethan diarrhea is still going on after almost a week! You should see him, he practically lives in the bathroom now! I have nicknamed him the waterfall man hole! I will send you pictures after I stop laughing oh and your money too don't worry."

[@dominicbellanca1193]

Great video, I enjoyed the historic story telling and impartialness! But I also like you're other vids where you give you're opinion. Keep up the great work

[@KiraTV1]

Thanks mate

[@Sylcatam]

Thank you for making this video. I remember reading the entire posted documents on both side as well as listening to the interview and the reply. I made up my mind after that and just feel sad for how Ocean Spark got shafted. They were struggling but this was the nail in the coffin for those people who just wanted to do a job they're passionate about. I hope some of the scammers watch this video and realize how far and deep these scams can hurt people. It's also a good warning though to research before getting into business with people.

[@kozakos1999]

Scammers are willing to hurt people to make money rather than doing it the proper way. I doubt this video will change any minds.

[@edwardroh89]

@@kozakos1999 because our overly convoluted/complex laws are useless, awareness and shedding light on scams, is a way to punish (at least a bit) these scams with bad publicity is a good thing. Scammers deserve to be punished, and if the law doesn't do it, channels like this will helpfully prevent more. You don't need to convince them, you just need to punish them like you would with any misbehaving brat. The most frustrating thing for a scammer is to punish them without listening to their trivial reasonings. No need to listen to people with poor intent

[@kozakos1999]

@@edwardroh89 I was responding to OP who think that this type of videos will change the scammers' mind.

[@GoesSlow]

How did they get shafted? RU posted their chat histories, as well as the payment history and documentation. OS shouldn't have been using unlicensed UE assets, and they were paid for all work up until that point. Also, if one month of missed payments is enough to dissolve your studio, you likely weren't going to be in business long term anyways, as you've made some critical business errors.

[@kozakos1999]

@@GoesSlow So? There's still no game!

[@ZX-zw7to]

Kira your content is always fire my man, I really appreciate your sheer work and dedication to go deep down to the core of those matters, keep it up my man!

[@KiraTV1]

Thanks bro , I'll try

[@cesarromeroalbertos3839]

As a game developer I can tell you that making an mmo takes millions, no kickstarter will ever give birth to a proper mmo. You need a huge company, thousands of people, a huge infraestructure, servers, etc, etc, etc. In fact, making a normal game, not even an mmo, already takes a lot of money. Never support projects that are too big and too good to be true. Specially mmos.

[@mikaelviitala3471]

Sad how these hardly ever end up in court...

[@bellidrael7457]

Anyone else notice those wolves aren't even ripped from store assets, they are World of Warcraft wolves lol.

[@MedievalMarty]

Love these deep-dive videos man, I go in knowing nothing and always enjoy the story!

[@DRsideburns]

Imagine stanning an MMO with a budget of $67,000

[@williamrhea-banker3005]

I'm sorry but nobody knew who the developers were, if they were even working on the game or at the very least were even actually qualified developers and they were still sending these people money? I understand that when you're excited about a game, you'll do a lot to help it get released but come on, that's on the people sending the money, honestly.

[@NobodyHere951]

I like how this became a series.

[@SquishyTheVampire]

Why didn't everyone just go to court in the first place instead of causing drama online??...... lack of court money?

[@infinitexp420]

Trying to sue Cryfuu is beyond bullshit!! He didn't deserve that negativity in his life.

[@kesper1334]

So this its why Cryy left youtube ? fck man i love his content and the way he always chill.

[@KiraTV1]

He didn't leave due to this , it probably didn't even play a factor

[@roskelld]

Excellent work bringing this back to light. I remember seeing LazyPeon's video on this at the time and things didn't smell right with the project. We can't let stuff like this be forgotten.

[@Zap_R0sdower]

Great video. These kickstarter scams/flops are fascinating as well as concerning. Keep up the great work

[@TheCrypticGamerLive]

Honestly anyone who invests in games on Kickstarter need a mental health evaluation

[@nadtz]

Thanks for the time and effort that go into these vids. As much as I hate scammers thee only way to stop this kind of thing is make more people aware.

[@melviness4769]

Wow, not another kickstarter MMO that burned to dust.. 😅

[@infinitexp420]

True that..... ;(

[@Ginonth]

Yeah, the Fiesta Online private server scene is .. A different kind of beast.

[@michaelwilson8461]

Thanks for doing this vid man, I was wondering what ever happened with all this stuff. Unfortunately , I'm entirely too lazy to go digging for info. FORTUNATELY we have guys out there like you, that do the leg work so the lazy among us can still eat lol. Great stuff as always man.

[@KiraTV1]

My pleasure man , glad you enjoyed it

[@Bannockburn111]

Kira, you do an amazing amount of work to keep us well-informed. THANKS!

[@KiraTV1]

Thanks mate , try my best

[@IamAWESOME3980]

it always amaze me how much a duchebag that humans can be and how much incompetent people overestimate their own abilities

[@AkaiKnight]

5:16 LOL i actually recognize that axe combo animation from Frank Climax 2 Handed Axe animation pack. 19.99 on the unity asset store

[@spicygnomesoup]

I see, you're also a human of culture. NGL Frank Climax does have some good anims though.

[@AkaiKnight]

@@spicygnomesoup yeah his stuff is really good TBH. Very dynamic.

[@tomorrowisyesterday3215]

It's always from Kickstarter to court. When from court to Kickstarter?

[@thealientree3821]

If I had a nickel for every time there is a controversy involving an indie game and grass textures, I'll have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it happened twice.

[@kittyjayway]

Thanks!

[@Joe-th7kf]

Great content man, love the thoroughness

[@KiraTV1]

Thanks bruh

[@TheDenssy]

That's why most kickstarters end so badly, people (little developers and patreon alike) think that it is possible to create AAA quality games with minimal inversion, even if they rise a good amount, something like 10 million dollars, that's not enough to make something outstanding especially in 3D games, with that money maybe you could create something like a really good metroidvania but not an MMO. Now those folks got 100k, what people expected? Donating on a kickstarter is nothing but a gamble

[@teycona9759]

The longer I watch Kira's videos, the more I am convinced that we need new laws. Fast.

[@unreallifewithlou7779]

Hey Kira - We've seen a lot of these scams now - it would be good to do a side by side comparison of a scam project vs a real project and what to look out for. I know it's not an mmog but Equilinox dev diaries is a great example of a small studio (one person) releasing a game slowly and sharing the project

[@pyrotechnick420]

I think the use of Discord as a communication medium between the dev team and the consumers played a role here with letting the devs keep their anonymity. How can you raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, anonymously? Kickstarter is kinda fucked

[@ReplayUnlimited]

What game is being played in the background?

[@natwon633]

10:47 Oath just didn't want (/couldn't) pay, only reason they "freaked out" about it

[@TuberoseKisser]

7:39 just noticed something....is that the Guild Wars UI?

[@lanishx8935]

poor Oceanspark

[@Tolstoievsky]

an escrow-like smart contract could be used to avoid situations like the ocean spark bankruptcy(so that they would only start drawing once the money hits the escrow account and it would get released automatically once the deliverables are ready). This is the kind of actual use-case for blockchain that people are completely ignoring.

[@AhSawDood]

My first and last ever backed Kickstarter... What a journey it was lol

[@KiraTV1]

Sorry to hear !

[@GLIEPNIR]

Live and learn pal, live and learn...

[@zargos101]

Can you do a video about a Kickstarter board game called Chai: Tea for 2? It's a huge mess. They are supposedly using fund from the Kickstarter to pay for shipping of their previous project. The silence from the creators keeps happening until it's convention time. Then they post some generic "we're working on it" post. Would be awesome to see a video like this for that game.

[@Safersephiroth777]

Why people think that game developing is easy? Even if you use all bought assets which is fine if the game is good, MMORPG's are the most difficult game to make!

[@PROJaiRU]

people, everytime a " developer" launch a 100k kick starter you CANNOT believe them, it's just a scam, you can't do shit with that ammount of money

[@mana7047]

Kickstarter went from a trustworthy site to a site where scams run supreme.

[@zombieater6663]

Recent ran across this channel. And they amount of research he does is very impressive. Been binging they videos.

[@tobiashinchelypedersen3789]

Can you do a video on The Day Before? Such a hyped game and so many red flags at the same time… Many struggle to figure this one out. (False release dates, bad marketing, former abandoned games from the studio etc)

[@pajamajordan2991]

Another good deep Dive, I especially like that you went the extra mile at the end.

[@warlockCommitteeMeeting]

Making a game takes an insane amount of time and effort.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

Game dev here. _Shipping_ a game is one of the hardest things to do. It takes an insane amount of work, dedication, patience, knowledge, skill, time, and money from programmers, artists, and designers, etc.

[@smithgdwg]

If you decide you want to make one, do something small and do it on your own time by yourself. Don't involve crowd funding or other people expecting to be paid. This will give you experience on what it will take to make a game. If after these attempts you feel you can tackle on a bigger project, then you can proceed with Crowd Funding

[@MichaelPohoreski]

@@smithgdwg Agreed. Not being able to control scope has sunk many games. The classic Project Management Triangle is. You can have it on time, on budget, within scope. **Pick two.** Focus is saying no. Success is staying focused.

[@alloounou6900]

The last, and only thing to my memory, I backed on Kickstarter was Bloodstained (which I loved). These stories of loss are all too common to justify using the site.

[@inhert666]

I feel like tomorrow I'll be watching Strife Hayes covering 'Oath takes Kira to court' XD

[@Antenociti]

Bloody good for the Historical Record this sort of video Kira! Otherwise it all gets forgotten.

[@nestharus]

Great video and highly accurate! I never personally uncovered Stephen's identity, only Ethan and his bro. A few tidbits are that neither Ethan nor his bro were ever in the Discord. As one person from the Fiesta community put it that had worked with all of them, Ethan always hid while Stephen managed everything in the front. Stephen was the GM in their servers and the CM in their discord servers. He also did the server deployments and management. Ethan did the custom coding. Another note is that Stephen == spoon. I also believe that atleast some of them still believe that they are going to release a game and that they are still working on it. Stephen screenshotted me a very recent build. I don't think they'll ever be able to finish it. I also believe that they didn't have the intention to actually scam, or atleast most of the team didn't. From what I know, Ethan steals most of the money from the projects that he is involved with. As others from the Fiesta community put it, they'd likely release a game that was barely functioning and under-budget since most of the money would have gone to Ethan. Not even the community that knew them expected them to release absolutely nothing : /. What this project teaches is that it's incredibly important to know the background of those involved with the project. A project doesn't have to shoot for the moon to be a scam. It can be entirely realistic with a team that seems passionate about it. Maybe they have very limited experience but want to accomplish it nonetheless or maybe they have a shady background like this team did with Oath. I've backed plenty of projects, including those managed by people with little to no experience. This is the only one to date that's failed me : (. One project I backed is being built by a single person that's a high school history teacher. 2 years of backing later they finally released their first playable alpha and everyone was invited to participate : ). It's really hard to know how a project will turn out and this one could have gone either way, though with a bit more digging you could have found out that the best case scenario was a shoddy thing that paled in comparison to what was promised =P. This won't stop me from backing promising looking MMORPGs with passionate teams behind them. Some of them are definitely going to fail. I don't expect every project I back to succeed. I just hope that some of those promising projects do :3.

[@TestamentScar]

where is the reference video talking about the 40pg doc?

[@AaronVictoria]

Damn another one I warned people about. I pointed out how every element in this game was just a cobbling of assets. I hate when I see that level of asset implementation and feel that there is no chance of further progress coming, because I believe you could literally have nothing but assets and build something great. It was just something about the way they mashed all that shit together and barely showed anything of their own. I'm so tired of being right about these damn things, but people need to start looking at these things early before donating.

[@casshernsins8333]

What’s funny is the backers always compliment these type of kickstarters for being beautiful looking, innovative, original, not like other mmo, etc... when I’m like “these are generic store bought assets and nothing originally made by these scammers”

[@AaronVictoria]

@@casshernsins8333 Yea, it's really unfortunate. As someone working on a game, myself, I use assets but always do my best to use them to compliment my own custom content or code. I have no complaints about people making a game that is 100% assets, but I feel if that's all you're showing you should talk about that early on; explaining to people that what they're seeing is 100% assets and nothing of your own. That way they can determine if they are confident enough in your skills to produce something, and make a proper assessment before donating. When all they see is what looks like tons of work done by the presenter with no other proof to assume otherwise, it usually earns an easy donation. People have to put more effort into researching this stuff for themselves or they'll keep losing money. I love what the Chronicles of Elyria community is doing to try to recupe some of those 8 million dollars they donated, but I fear they'll receive nothing. The devs will release that little asset-flip they are working on and it will be enough to say they received an alpha product.

[@pyrotechnick420]

Ocean Spark was naive to take a project and begin work without any form of initial compensation. I've made the same mistake before as a freelancer, and I took a hit from it but survived. But having that happen to a company of people can have devastating effects that can reverberate onto entire families

[@timbrown6457]

MMORPG scams are common enough to be expected at this point, but them bankrupting another company makes me kinda wanna die.

[@iv4nx3]

how many times people have to put money on MMOs through kickstarter to finally realize it can't be done?

[@xPorsum]

Oh wow, I remember seeing the trailer for this and was actually hype for it at the time because it seemed so similar to a game I enjoyed playing at the time called Dragon Nest.

[@krado76]

I'll buy my game completed thank you. No kickstarter, no early access and certainly no pre-order (like a digital game will run out of copies...).

[@lpoki8897]

Wow you know you're dealing with crooks when they jump at the chance to raise a stink and keep money from you over a miss click.

[@KnakuanaRka]

For some reason, I find this especially tragic; I’m usually not much of one for MMO-type games, but some of the gameplay shown here looks genuinely cool and up my alley (some of the mage’s moves, the guy in purple with the martial attacks, the crazy axe combos). I know that most of these games never come out and this sort of footage can be deceptive, but this is probably one I would have given at least a few dollars if given the chance. Well, at least I guess I didn’t get tied up in this. Also, good lord that is fricked up; even if what ReadyUp is saying is true, their reaction to the blade of grass thing is completely ridiculous. As mentioned, it was just one asset that set off a flag; if OceanSpark was being malicious in cutting corners, why would they only do one asset? Even if I thought it was deliberate, I would call them, ask them what was going on, and ask it be rectified (and watch for more copied assets in the future); refusing to pay, lying, and generally screwing up your business relationship over something this minor and easily fixable is a supremely moronic dick move.

[@fightfan9739]

Oath fanboys deserve being scammed after harassing the development team that weren’t paid 💯

[@mathewomolo]

As a 3D artist it's so easy to make something like a GTA6 or Witcher 3 trailer. In fact, if people only give money from trailers then you're lucky the talented 3D artists are not into scamming. it's almost like people forget 3D animation is a thing and you can literally show someone whatever they want to see.

[@FEEAR1000]

And this is why I don't back anything till I see legit gameplay

[@silvianbruno7512]

I'm sorry, I'm still stuck at THAT getting fully funded

[@VideoGamingSociety]

I remember being excited for this... like I was exited for Chronicles of Elyria...

[@yolopro1148]

We are taught to not to judge a book by its cover, but at the end, that is why the covers look good-we judge a book by its cover

[@auqustfire]

You're telling me...There are private servers for FIESTA ONLINE??? I can't believe that game isn't dead yet lmaooo

[@Haych_Q]

This series is addictive

[@noneofyourbusinessfkr]

Kickstarer should enforce more legal risks for things like this to happen.

[@Tailionis]

Thanks for posting about oath. No one talks about that scam. I sent money and they vanished. Back than I didn't know about game assets. It just looked like a fun mmorpg. Glad that was my last kickstarter investment.