Why Is The Day Before SUCH A SCAM?!

[@TheActMan]

The Day Before I had the will to live

[@6-6-6..]

hello

[@aqwDIGEDO]

I’ll give you some of mine

[@setsers1]

OUCH.

[@Poggofruit.]

That’s crazy

[@db_524]

Hi, Act Man

[@zerberus_ms]

The survival of this game was so hardcore, even the company didn't make it.

[@djmerlin2]

@Mr_breast_giveaway i just report you for spam

[@xathu-er2zr]

well they do, they change name and come up with new scam

[@pogethedoge]

​@@djmerlin2good job he's gone

[@_Jay_Maker_]

They died and then rose to scam again, under a different name. This shit was a work from the very beginning.

[@irpanfauzi1160]

Both the ASSET AND COMPANY its Died

[@teajace]

The fact that the tutorial is just long enough for you to not get your refund is actually the craziest move I’ve seen in a while

[@sunbleachedangel]

too bad that didn't work out lmao

[@cursedhawkins1305]

@@sunbleachedangel There are exceptions where even if you go beyond the two hours/two-week mark for the refund policy would still grant a refund, those exceptions would be cases like "The Day Before." since the backlash that would then happen to Steam as a platform wouldn't be worth the PR nightmare of trying to deny people their money back if what they bought was nothing but lies.

[@MrSeniorwaffles]

I have returned stuff with more than 2 hours of gameplay plenty of times

[@sunbleachedangel]

@@cursedhawkins1305 yeah, that what I meant, if I'm not mistaken, the only other time that happened ever was No Man's Sky but I probably forgot something

[@joshchaplin3705]

If thata the craziest thing, you must have an extremely limited world view.

[@italodirenzo5876]

I love how after Redfall, Gollum, and Kong took the critical beatings this year, this thing squeaks out right at the end of the year like "hold my beer".

[@sheldonjplanktonn]

😂

[@eddythefool]

It was a Quiet Man level of timing.

[@YouraverageFPSplayer]

It’s like they heard about all these shitty games and thought “hey, let’s do something even worse”

[@CanoCapo]

I Heard that you can actually Play redfall now, No execuse for companys releasing unfinished Games and fixing them in 1-2 year slowly with Patches... Its Just a Trend now except for a Few examples Like Elden Ring, gow Rag and a few Others but alot companys Just Release Games 60% finished baerly playable and then Patch it over the time, so lazy and dumb man

[@bradleymoore2797]

They had to pump out those games like that so people can forget about Balder's gate 3. Now, when they make microtransaction games a 'little' bit better you'll just be glad to have those games at 70-130 price tag. 😂

[@WiFiDown37811]

The fact that the most the devs had to say about literally all of this is "shit happens" says a lot

[@Verociity]

They probably thought they already won and got cocky knowing they didn't need to make an effort to maintain the facade anymore.

[@WiFiDown37811]

@@Verociity most likely, though they could also just be woefully incompetent

[@LaziesTheAtsumuSera]

"S___ happens, you know?" -AI Napoleon Bonaparte

[@dmitriystarostin8023]

Interesting facts: The CEO of the studio Fntastic, Gotovciv brothers, are responsible for the outcome, not the programmers. They simply do not understand what makes the game “THE game”. They saw what looked hype enough in other games (TLOU, Spider-Man, GTA, etc.) and ordered to literal junior devs to replicate it. If devs opinion didn’t align with Gotovciv’s, they either disagree or just recommend a different approach in game design - they were either immediately fired or placed in leading roles to execute the set orders in maximally short time periods. That included change of game genre, game engine, preparation of assets for potential brands collaborations and so on. The environment was hellish, juniors genuinely wanted to do their best and create a good game, but Gotovcivs were the main problem of the development! What’s even more horrendous - devs were prepared to FIX everything what went wrong with the game! For example sudden disappearance of zombies. In fact, they already prepared the patch but CEO just said “Nah, the game is dead, let’s go to some new mobile project!~” and didn’t allow the patch to be released!

[@Жойлес]

Should be top comment

[@Tenomas]

Gotovci? Are they russian? I thought they from Singapore

[@Gatorade69]

​@@TenomasYes. They are Russian. I don't even know if the actual studio is in Singapore. Look for an article called 'I tried visiting The Day Before developer Fntastic’s offices in Singapore, and this is what I found' Here's an excerpt from it. "The truth, however, is a lot more mundane. Having found their business address via Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), I popped by their office, which was located inside a mixed retail space in Balestier, an area in the central region of Singapore. I tried looking for the company’s name at the tenant directory, only to discover it was a co-op working space. Since that was the case, I figured there was no harm to head up to look around. I had also planned to check in with the other tenants should staff from Fntastic not be around. Alas, I was greeted by the co-op’s cheerful centre manager, who told me that Fntastic merely used the co-op’s address as a virtual office space. That possibly rules out having staff here who were working on the game. I also looked up their original address based on their filings via Google Maps, which puts them in Peninsula Plaza. However a quick check online in the building’s online directory showed no such tenant. Instead, the original address belongs to a management consultancy."

[@isaactang7917]

​@@Tenomas They are. And it turns out, they only have offices in singapore to grift for allowances from Singapore Government, no ones actually there 😂

[@dmitriystarostin8023]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@TenomasEduard and Aysen Gotovciv. And if being precise - from Yakutia, Republic of Sakha. But yeah, they registered their company in Singapore for…multiple reasons honestly which I won’t number here, but in short - it was done to ease the activity for the company on global market

[@justsomerandomcowpoke.6617]

This game literally feels like unfinished homework that the devs rushed on the school bus

[@Accountthatexists]

It wasnt even unfinished homework, it was just EMPTY homework

[@TheActMan]

Me on the last day of summer when my book report is due the next day and I haven't read shit

[@db_524]

@@TheActMan Relatable

[@kayagorzan]

I feel like the ones I’ve rushed are more complete than this

[@justsomerandomcowpoke.6617]

@@TheActMan lol, your videos are awesome man, can’t wait for rdr2

[@Kazrel]

Seeing people actually fall for this blatant lie and then try to defend it made me lose some more of my hope in humanity.

[@michaelmonteon34]

In all fairness, the game was released with a HUGE BANNER that said EARLY ACCESS aka The game is not finished yet but you have to chance to buy it now and play as is. You always take a risk with games like that.

[@thetruestar6348]

@@michaelmonteon34”Early Access” All assets are from the Unreal Store

[@Kazrel]

​@@michaelmonteon34in all honesty I was hoping more people would look into the company and see the eight years of shady releases and dealings and just turn around immediately.

[@sowavyryan]

Ayo who defended this😂😂😂

[@Typical_Explorer]

This whole mess is the modern gaming's take on the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady work will bear great fruit enjoyed by most whilst fleeting will make you pure shame and stoking the burning flames than anything else.

[@SergioMach7]

"Let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything, tee hee hee" This is the sort of story destined to be analysed by Yahtzee retrospectively

[@MishraArtificer]

Just not on The Escapist...

[@gabrielarruda4083]

*Day Before dev detected*

[@Skikopl]

Fun Fact: you put more work into this video than the devs ever did to The Day Before

[@angelfilms4886]

GOTTEM!

[@kalomandastra]

That's not saying much.

[@Kaltrademarked]

Not hard to improve on garbage

[@userunnamed5204]

That's not true. Devs worked pretty hard and were abused by 2 absolute morons on CEOs. The Gotovtsev brothers were sabotaging project non-stop, changing plans every day, while shitting on all employees and making their life miserable.

[@tmerchead1]

Now if he would put some work into a Payday 3 video.

[@cmd31220]

I think my favorite part is just how unashamed of the scam they are. Like, they didn't even try to HIDE IT. They literally just launched a broken unfinished mess with no content, took the money, and shut the studio. And purged all the evidence for good measure. Glorious

[@cursedhawkins1305]

Well, what can you expect from the studio that used the hype FOR The Day Before since its announcement to make other games like Propnight, because that was made by the same studio if not the same developers as The Day Before as well.

[@Xfacta12482]

To be fair - most scammers don't feel ashamed. That's why they're scamming to begin with. They don't give a fuck.

[@Taxevader-gk9ms]

Fntastic studios reminds me of Fantastic from Fallout New Vegas

[@gregorymirabella1423]

They didn't take any money though, steam waits a month before they pay you.

[@shamanicdude8605]

​@therotten6152This is a kickstarter scam and kickstarter don't give back refunds cause they take a cut.They already got money from the kickstarter.

[@FrosteryGaming]

The fact they released The Day Before the day before they shutdown is incredible. Truly a Fntastic forshadowing.

[@bbd121]

Ba dump. Ching! :D

[@tmas47]

4 days before...

[@tinwhackertom5808]

Dude seriously I had the exact same thought seeing everything they said before launch and the promos, Skynet in its true form

[@la8ball]

That's simple. They've borrowed too much money and trying to pay what they can. Interest is racking up and no one is getting paid anymore. That's why they released it. Better to suffer criticism than be so far in debt you have to throw the game away and work to pay it off without making a single dollar. Anybody would do this. Imagine if you borrowed $1million and 5 years later the interest starts to add up to $3million and the game isn't close to being finished. You got to hope this game sells over $4million due to all fees to sell the game on platforms. Are you going to wait another 2-3 years when the debt gets around $8million and having to hope you can sell 200k copies(gotta include hidden fees)?

[@tmas47]

@@la8ball They didn't make any money from this. Steam keeps the money for 30 days and it was removed from Steam way before the 30 days mark or whatever.

[@Zerruno]

The fact they mentioned scamming and asset flipping before game release makes this even "better"

[@thevinlanddragon]

If you told me that this game was in actuality, entirely a social experiment where they had an AI do EVERYTHING from the marketing, the entire game, Twitter posts and responses, damage control letters, etc... I'd probably believe it at this point.

[@FlamespeedyAMV]

Yeah and Ubisoft is behind it

[@pogethedoge]

​@@FlamespeedyAMVreal

[@Overlord277]

What marketing? These guys didn't do any research for a target audiance. Ooohhhh, you mean advertising. A minor facet of marketing...

[@XPsychowaffleX]

I'm convinced this entire game was a product of AI in its entirety.

[@kameronjones7139]

​@@Overlord277🤓

[@clencheastwood1571]

Putting on my tin foil hat, I almost wouldn't be surprised to find out this was an experiment to see if an AI could emulate an entire game studio

[@iamlucidess]

Or a bunch of idiots in a studio that used ai garbage to develop garbage. Probably from Russia or China becsuse they didn't care about ripping off anything.

[@Agent86th]

You could be unto something

[@zachflag6506]

“We trained AI to develop and code a video game from scratch and it made the most homogenized, bland, unplayably-broken shooter anyone has ever seen. How could this have gone wrong?”

[@pogethedoge]

That would be interesting

[@adamgeigerjr6995]

just the fac that its all pre built assets & dialogue that sounds so stiff and robotic to the marketing copying others identically would make this claim VERY plausible in all honesty ... Have AI do all your work & run away with the profits before anyone knows what even happened

[@orvilleredenpiller338]

"I've never seen a studio speedrun it's downfall like this." I don't know if it was as bad as THIS, and I don't think of it as a scam, but who ever made The Culling 2 is the closest I can come to that.

[@TheActMan]

TRUE! Although I don't know how fast that studio dissolved

[@Destinylover14]

oh that was 100% a scam, the culling 2 was a silent release PUBG clone made out of unreal engine assets, it got around 1000 players for 30 minutes, everyone quit, then only around 5 people were playing for the rest of the uptime reason people quit so fast is that it was literally impossible to win a match because the game didn't work, that was a massive scam but nowhere on this level, FNTASTIC had a shit ton of players, marketing etc

[@AnarchyDubzYT]

Cant forget when the culling 2 devs charged people to literally play more then 2 times a day with "Purchasable Spawn Tokens"

[@Kratos-eg7ez]

It's such a shame too, the first culling was actually super fun to watch, idk about playing but I remember watching and thinking it was really cool. I didn't see a single gameplay video of the culling 2, the only videos about it are how bad it is and how fast it failed, you literally can't even get into a game because there's only 1 player, the person making the video.

[@Deathmare235]

@@Destinylover14wait it was a scam, wasn’t it made by the same people who made the culling and didn’t they apologise for making the culling 2

[@locodez]

“If only he could release Team Fortress 3” Everyone knows Valve can’t count to 3

[@SilverIV]

Dude when returning to this video now I just scrolled over this comment while Act Man said that line. Lol

[@excalibur8073]

yeah they can just name team fortress more than two and less than 4

[@Accountthatexists]

There is nothing to this game It dosent work The developers are scamming Game is Glitchy The world is empty They lied about it being MMO when its a extraction shooter And the servers crash all the times *Who released this game*

[@kesamek8537]

The real enemy is anyone who bought it.

[@DodoYuhhr]

​@beenguy5887 it's OK lizzy just look at the flowers

[@R3TR0J4N]

sounds like a great opportunity for Naughty Dog to release TLOU factions if only they didnt cancelled the game. i mean all this hype built by Day Before was to go somewhere

[@ericmcmanus5179]

I think this studio didn't realize that steam could stop them from withdrawing the money from sales. They probably thought they could drop the game, take the millions from sales and bounce asap. So like most scammers, not only are they evil, but they are incredibly stupid too.

[@fumothfan9]

If i remember correctly steam gives them an "allowance" and its only once a month or weekly based on sales due to taxes and their cut So yeah hilariously funny

[@kg-zj2lq]

They were avoiding getting sued that's it

[@oniplus4545]

saw some people commented on their videos and according to them, they might be after some russian government benefits or something to get money by pretending to have "a company", which makes sense when you remember that they only hire volunteers, means they can get the money and not paying their workers because they are volunteers and why it took so long to finish such an embarrassingly empty game while also not needing to actually put up a crowdfunding in the first place to prevent legal actions

[@DameWhoGames623]

I think they will be back again after changing company name, they didnt complete their objective. Keep your eyes open

[@ericmcmanus5179]

@@DameWhoGames623 oh for sure. This us their 5th or 6th scam. They will definitely be back. Can't wait.

[@AndreB23]

Redfall, Kong, and Gollum were having a hold-our-beer fight with each other throughout the year, and then The Day Before shows up and provides them a tall glass of 4 day old spoiled milk.

[@unnameddelta38]

Thank you for mentioning the release letter, where they say "to the player who didn't believe in us" and then this disaster occurs. I havent really seen it being mentioned the audacity of these guys to try and call people out in the letter, only to be complete fuckups.

[@MaleStomper]

Hey to be fair they weren't calling out to people, they were calling out to a (one) person.

[@sprite9897]

My dad wishlisted this game last year. However he died 4 months before the game came out. Honestly I'm kind of glad he was spared the disappointment

[@zetastreaker47]

My sincere condolences to the lost of your father. May he rest in peace.

[@GivinGame]

Everybody losing their fathers I lost mines as well

[@angelabryant9766]

That's how I feel about the dogshit sequel to Tales from the Borderlands; my dad loved the first Tales from the Borderlands, and he was considering trying it out not long before he died. Seeing somebody rant on it, I'm glad he missed it.

[@zetastreaker47]

@@angelabryant9766 I’m sorry about your pops. I hope he’s resting easy.

[@Wilbernation_2]

R.I.P to your dad… But Atleast he isn’t disappointed when it released.

[@speirsys]

This game is not the clown but the whole circus.

[@Typical_Explorer]

Nah, I would not call The Day Before the entire circus but rather the Bayeux Tapestry of everything wrong with the Triple A market in general.

[@andrewgreen77]

At least 'clown' is a legitimate profession

[@reinhartnata47]

Nah, that's the people who believed the devs and even defended the game

[@dragomight8851]

Not even the whole circus. It's the fucking industry.

[@dyll_pyckle]

Ace Attorney reference moment

[@garrettvenn9022]

20:54 "I don't know if we will ever see a high-profile video game launch like this go so disastrously wrong. It's fucking hilarious." 8 Months later Concord: "Allow me to introduce myself..."

[@Lisanicolas366]

I just saw that part and scrolled down to the comments to see if anyone else noticed LOL

[@dabadman00]

The saddest part of the entire thing is that the moderators are forced to make damage control not even for the game/studio but for themselves so they can find new jobs later on without being called unreliable or malicious.

[@reveriesduh]

What moderators dude? It was a bunch of 15 year olds and absolute morons that moderated the discord. None of them were professionals or fit for the position they occupied in the first place.

[@ajohnymous5699]

Poor bastards deserve much better. I'd honestly leave this off my resume

[@DaBlaccGhost]

moderators for what?

[@doomguy2000]

So they'll easily find new work then since a lot of them companies do this nonsense.

[@juicedup14]

Serves them right. The mods kept shutting down discussion about the game being fake when it was obvious the game was fake.

[@jamaicanator27]

I think the most sad part is those Fntastic Volunteers probably thought that game was genuinely gonna be the big break for their careers and help them fulfill their dreams but it all crashed and burned. I'm almost 100% positive a lot of them were looking for new work MONTHS before launch

[@neonblack211]

the fact that they shut down so fast I think is the most solid evidence that A: it was a scam or B: they were so incompetent but needed to release a product that would help in the case of some kind of legal backlash. I mean it's just so obvious there's some shit happening behind the scenes

[@Rahnonymous]

The "apology" they put out gaslit harder than a disappointed Asian parent

[@Thedandalorian42069]

"I don't think we will ever see another high profile release like this go so wrong" Concord 7 months later: "Hold my beer"

[@dylanchilders]

I love how they claim its not an asset flip, yet they cant bring themselves to actually say the words “we made our own assets,” because I mean that would be an even more blatant and laughable lie

[@dudebruh8534]

They also went on a massive tirade about fact checking and misinformation, but on that asset tweet the community notes pointed at the link full of every single asset they flipped.

[@andrewzubets89]

Who is going to say? Russians who signed NDA with these two yakut clowns?

[@akend4426]

This is literally the equivalent of doing your college semester’s term paper at 3:00 AM the day you have to turn it in when you didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention during class. Actually, even THAT might be too kind for The Day Before!

[@Deathmare235]

I don’t think college is the right analogy since at least with college you have to be willing to go there, the devs weren’t even willing to make an asset in their game

[@ArDeeMee]

These guys did the equivalent of copy-pasting an entire Wikipedia article, and praying no one notices.

[@stanleymorse3260]

I guess they really did make the entire game... The day before

[@taoofjester4113]

​@rd2680 I briefly worked for a company that literally did that for their training manual. In fact, it was such a shit job. When they printed out the manual some sentences were underlined, which happens when it is a hyperlink. The parts they actually did write were not even ran through a spell check. Or ever reread. They spelled a person's last name three different ways in two paragraphs. I was let ho after pointing out what a shit job of plagiarism it was and was part of the reason they had a 90% turn over rate.

[@gstellar96]

I would say its more equivalent to scrambling to make a presentation "the day before" you were supposed to present and instead of actually presenting the shit show you send it to your teacher and while they're just flabbergasted looking through this garbage you immediately drop out to avoid the embarrassment

[@akend4426]

The Day Before is honestly proof that there should be a video game equivalent to the Golden Raspberry Awards.

[@jsquared222]

TheActMan: "I do not know if we will ever see another high-profile game go this disastrously wrong." Concord Enters the Chat.

[@pacmonster066]

The trademark story is fascinating in its own right. FNTASTIC released the first trailer for The Day Before in 2021. But they did not register the trademark for their game ahead of time. A South Korean app developer then registered a trademark for that name for their calendar app. FNTASTIC did not fight that trademark at the time when challenges could have been made allowing that calendar app to get the trademark. Then, a few days before the game was supposed to release early this year (after it was delayed like a year to change engine to UE5, which was also bizarre) Steam delisted the game due to the trademark violation. FNTASTIC and the publisher Mytona actually did fight the trademark in South Korean court where the calendar app developer lost. As his trademark was viewed as overly broad (again, this could have been pointed out as a challenge over a year earlier when the trademark application was first filed, but FNTASTIC is incompetent). Which is why they could legally use the name for the game launch. So the fact that they did actually fight for and win a legal dispute over this travesty is so fascinating.

[@CrazyxEnigma]

​@GH0STST4RSCR34M Apparently not. The one example that comes to mind is way back when Bioware was developing Kotor the character of Bastila Shan was originally supposed to be Vima Sunrider a character who first appeared in the Tales of the Jedi comics in the 90s. However the name Sunrider was trademarked and copyrighted by somebody else in a completely different field, Bioware tried to fight this and lost so we got Bastila instead.

[@pacmonster066]

@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Copyright is about protecting an original work. Meaning a physical or digital product created by a person. If a person takes code from or assets made for a game and uses it for their own product that is copyright infringement. Trademark is meant to protect a brand or name from market confusion. For example the Coca Cola logo is trademarked. Nobody else can call their company Coca Cola or produce a label that even looks vaguely similar due to that trademark protection. Trademarks must be registered for specific market segments and the word(s) chosen must *not* be seen as overly broad. Apple was only allowed to register "Apple" for trademark because they registered it specifically for the tech industry. This is why made up words are often the best for trademark as they can be registered for multiple market segments and have little difficulty holding when challenged. This is why the South Korean calendar app developer lost the court case. They registered the trademark for like all industries. Which normally would never stand up to like even the smallest challenge from anybody. But since nobody challenged that developer during the period of time a trademark application is allowed to be challenged, it went through. FNTASTIC argued that their game would not cause brand confusion for the calendar app and the South Korean court ruled in their favor. Intellectual property law across countries is always complicated because a lot of the time it comes down to honor rules. China often ignores US copyright and trademark and there's nothing much the US can do about it.

[@pacmonster066]

Another fun fact about trademark, at least for US Trademark law, is that a trademark *must* be maintained. If an entity does not challenge or sue people attempting to use their trademark, the trademark is seen as abandoned and is fair game. There's also the case when a brand name becomes too ubiquitous and therefore can no longer be trademarked. Hoover and Kleenex are two famous examples of this. Hoover basically became the default name for "vacuum cleaner" is a lot of countries (especially the UK) and Kleenex became synonymous with tissue paper. Google actually fought extremely hard to allow their name to stay trademarked despite their company name becoming the de-facto verb for searching for something on the internet.

[@ArDeeMee]

Equal parts fascinating and baffling.

[@pacmonster066]

@@GH0STST4RSCR34M It depends on how the trademark is registered regarding how it can be used. If a trademark is registered for like everything then it doesn't matter what other industry wants to use the term, they can't. As for trademarks registered in other countries, like I said, it's an honor system. Technically a trademark only needs to be registered once and other countries *should* honor that trademark within their own countries even if the trademark isn't registered within their country. The reason for that is international trade. If a foreign company wants to do business in the US, which has a massive economy, they are expected to follow US law for any business done within the country. So if a small computer company wants to call themselves Apple in Sweden, if they plan on doing *any* business within the United States, then they are expected to follow US trademark law and would not be allowed to call themselves Apple. If a company only plans on doing business within their country and not internationally then it's harder for any foreign country to sue. It is for that reason larger companies will sometiems register trademarks in different countries, but they don't have to. In The Day Before's example, FNTASTIC did not register a trademark for that name in any country. But the South Korean app developer registered a trademark for the name in South Korea. But the app is sold on app stores Internationally. Meaning any country which wishes to do business in South Korea needs to uphold that trademark. Valve does business in South Korea even though they are a US company and so they followed the South Korean trademark dispute and delisted the game. FNTASTIC works out of Russia but is incorporated in Shanghai. Since they listed their game on Valve's storefront they have to abide by Valve's rules which means following international trademark laws. This is why they went to South Korean court to fight the trademark and not like some court in Russia.

[@pphead9960]

My favorite thing I saw was someone saying they probably never had the game made until like a month before launch and realized they needed something. Seeing that basically everything was an asset flip makes me believe that even more.

[@konradcurzethereturnedandv2845]

Those two developer brothers were some of the creepiest looking and acting people I’ve ever seen

[@Psyopcyclops]

They should have sponsored a video, and Actman would have loved it. Throwing his mask on and shilling hard lmao

[@mikehawk2235]

​@@Psyopcyclops Just stop🤦🏻

[@vd2130]

​@@Psyopcyclops nice

[@Psyopcyclops]

@@mikehawk2235 Sponsor my comment and I’ll stop

[@____Carnage____]

@@Psyopcyclops this comment sounds insecure

[@d3oth3tris48]

Man Todd has some I don't care about our game competition from "it just works" to saying "shit just happens" BEAUTIFUL 😂 👏

[@worldburnerbreadman7886]

The biggest foreshadowing for The Day Before was one of the devs quitting and saying that it was in an unfinished state and that it most likely wouldn’t even be complete because the devs had no idea what they were doing at all like two years ago

[@Verociity]

how long ago did that dev quit? reminds me of some other scams where high level people leave before they get caught.

[@worldburnerbreadman7886]

@@Verociity it was around 2021-2022 like a few months after they dropped the trailer and mainstream media starting talking about it (I didn’t like it cause it looked like a cheap version of the division with zombies), I don’t remember why but the dev said that they quit and that it was all “unfinished” they weren’t getting paid enough some other shit, there was a KZbin video talking about it so I might try to find and link it

[@MoronSky147]

they spended all that money on the game just to quit. Idk I think they should’ve work on the game to make it better

[@K9Five]

14:55 They didn't have a PR Department because that wasn't an asset they could purchase from the store.

[@josebernardino3535]

This game edged and teased so many players for so long just to rise and fall within a few days. Crazy some companies can do this.

[@R3TR0J4N]

I remember dodging the game as soon as the environmentally controlled trailer has car physics competing of Mudrunner on an MMO openworld.

[@ion1984]

"i dont know if we'll ever see a video game launch go this tragically bad" Concord: Hold my beer.

[@ion1984]

at least this game was only a few jerkoffs flipping some assets and basically amounting to wasting a lot of people's time. Concord burned enough money to wipe out world hunger for a year.

[@ggR3fleXx]

This should be a guinness world records for worst scam attempt in human history

[@irongriff12]

Frfr 😂😂

[@TheDiameter]

Unfortunately nobody is beating Karl Marx

[@xer0c]

No, that goes to religion.

[@TheDiameter]

@@xer0c Nah, religion has killed 100 million per 1,000 years, Communism has killed that per 100 years, it’s not really the same at all.

[@TimeBucks]

The survival of this game was so hardcore

[@haqeqat7217]

nice

[@opmmukan]

Great person and it's great video🎥👍👍

[@Water_White053]

bot

[@Dukesparrow1999]

Yeah hard-core on my tolerance

[@muneermirza4301]

Nice

[@migl1802]

What a bold move for a studio to make whole video game a day before release, then file for bankruptcy 4 days later. These truly are the Days Before...

[@leoloccs229]

"Are you a shitty game developer?" "NOOO" "Well you look like one"

[@shinfil3737]

"Get ready for the best survival experience of the year", that was right, the survival part of the game was so hard even the studio failed XD

[@Axemania21]

The rebrand thing deserves to get clarified. The Wild Eight was developed by Fntastic over its early access period, but when the game graduated from EA, it was taken over by Hype Train (publisher) and Eight Points (the og guys behind the game's idea). Hype Train deliberately changed the listed developer name because people were review bombing the game out of association with Fntastic.

[@binary1045]

I honestly thought even if this game wasn't a scam, it still wouldn't deliver

[@sleepisthecousinofdeath7395]

It delivered scams

[@ifirespondiamstupid7750]

😂​@@sleepisthecousinofdeath7395

[@jeebbers5195]

The whole point in this, at least what I think it was, was not to scam customers, but instead to scam investors. I can't say for certain, but with how stupidly done all of this was, I feel like it had to be something to scam investors and not customers. Who knows though.

[@thedesensitizedsympathizer5307]

To be fair. Those investors could be assholes.

[@Nixeu42]

Or they were just unaware of Steam's policies, and thought they could actually withdraw the money made from the sales. Their community post seems to imply as much, I.E. that they thought they could shut the game down and get money to pay back their "partners".

[@MaciekRodriguez]

I'm 90% sure that they just made the game in a month to avoid a lawsuit, they thought they could get money and run. The entire map is a $300 dollar asset, they barely even made the game.

[@AmaterasuOjo]

They wanted to pull the rug but were too stupid to realise Steam has a protection to a certain degree regarding such schemes.

[@thefancytiefling]

The thing is. Steam holds on to their money for 30 days. Meaning not a single person that got it on steam got scammed because it all got auto refunded back. They certainly tried but they didn't read the fine print when signing up for the early access program

[@ic2089]

Wow you watched the vid too?

[@ArariaKAgelessTraveller]

my condolance to anyone that got the game outside of steam... somehow

[@shatteredsentient5321]

Common steam W ​@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller

[@Travizeno92]

​@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller I bought it at walmart

[@charlesdemers1197]

@@Travizeno92oof

[@commanderwyro4204]

it says a lot about the gaming industry and community that this game was not only the most wish listed. But actually had people defending it in the steam forums saying it was just early access and needed time

[@Mrhellslayerz]

I don't know why it's so hard for most gamers to be at least a little skeptical, especially when games nowadays are regularly released unfinished and filled half-full with lootboxes and slot machines. Like, you CAN be a fan of something and still criticize it out of a faith that the game can be good.

[@EmergencyChannel]

I had it on my wishlist because it looked interesting from the trailers. Probably less than 1% of the people that wishlisted this game ended up buying it.

[@stingerzz]

wow thank you act man for calling out scummy games and not promoting other games that where equally if not more scummy

[@bigtime39384]

I'm not sure if they will understand the sarcasm. You deserve a candy bar.. A PAYDAY Peanut and Caramel Candy Bar perhaps 3 of them. PAYDAY peanut and caramel candy bars are a delectable treat right for almost any occasion.

[@SuperPipe28]

Payday 3 is a scam? Had no idea.

[@OrionDawn15]

The Payday 3 beta didn't really look so bad(the version he played). It was fun and it worked well, it's not like anyone could've exactly known that it'd release in the state it did. Suspect it, maybe. But absolutely know? No. And Payday 3 wasn't a straight up scam, it was just a scuffed release like most games nowadays. Payday 3 is nowhere near as bad as The Day Before and you're coping *hard* if you actually think that.

[@shoobydoo]

Wasn't expecting a video on this but I'm here for it.

[@joshchaplin3705]

Why wouldn't you expect this? Major gaming drama. This is right up act mans alley. You must not watch act man.

[@shoobydoo]

@@joshchaplin3705 not really lmao. All he covers is COD, Halo, Diablo and fromsoft. With the exception of a few other controversial games. This game is so far off the mark of his content that if wouldn't be expected. He also liked the comment which goes to show. "You must not watch the act man". One of us is a member, the other isn't. Figure it out chief.

[@joshchaplin3705]

@shoobydoo he has multiple videos relating to scam/shit/bad games. He hops on trending drama with games. Also I don't believe in God, but relating to what you said. Just because you donates money to the church doesn't make you any more godly than me.

[@Gods-own_loser]

​@@joshchaplin3705 Lol he edited the comment to get rid of him pushing his religion.

[@jessemach5817]

This has to be in the history books as one of the biggest scams of a gaming of all time

[@KingShibe]

Remember Identity RPG game?

[@hua..]

won't even be remembered in a few years

[@Mrhellslayerz]

"The best survival experience this year!" *Commits dishonorable Seppuku*

[@eeomen21]

You should check put chronicles of elyria then lol

[@swordsmands]

I think the biggest red flag was Fantastic advertising their other games during the "development". If you're working on a groundbreaking game, I wouldnt want any focus to be anywhere else. The other issues were very suspicious, but with both it felt like they were just trying to funnel people into their other titles based off the hype. Then of course, they didn't anticipate the massive amount of hype it actually generated so they were forced to rush out some asset flip so they wouldnt be sued for fraud.

[@zakugt5098]

The ones who should be sued for fraud aren't the devs - it's the owners, the Gotovtsev brothers Gotovtsevs don't even understand what a video game is, all they wanted was money and fame gained from cheap labor of junior-level devs They didn't even allow the devs to release a big, major patch just because big streamers like Dr. Disrespect were streaming the game

[@theodorehodbor5080]

I think a genuinely possible idea for why all this happened was the studio was out to make a quick buck but due to legal issues took out some *very* dodgy loans with fucked pay times in order to pay legal fees and get to market. However they highly underestimated how little money they'd actually get from the project so they decided instead of paying money for server space to instead pull the plug entirely and sell off whatever few studio assets they have to pay off these partners (i.e. loan sharks).

[@TheAdorelis]

you're overthinking it. They're just scammers. This was a scam from the very beginning. What is surprising is people still falling for it after so many red flags

[@WeekendGamerTX]

All youtubers should thank the developers for the content they have given them. Great video!

[@JK-vy8vh]

Crack smoker.

[@shaunlevin5081]

"Get ready for the best survival experience of the year" Mate the studio couldn't even survive this game's launch.

[@PatrickBoyda]

I think this is a genuine look into the future of what a lot of producers and devs are gonna try to do, in both games and probably film and TV. It's the ideal cost-cutting they aspire to, there's no unions, artists, creators or tradespeople they have to go through. They literally won't have to pay anyone to work on the project -- they'll just have an AI generate an idea and write the script, then they'll purchase assets and fill them with artificial voices and pre-existing face models.

[@shcdemolisher]

Yeah which means that we need to fight much harder to prevent that from happening. Since it's going to wreck all media as a sort of disaster point, like the Great Depression. Or honestly, let it happen but have the Indie scene be the savior of media.

[@mattd5240]

Indie is already the savior, modern games are ass.

[@zzzzz-em2jp]

could be good thing if the "scam" dev market got oversaturated. since everything will be so monotone and nobody will buy it, in result games with good quality shines

[@JustDatBoi]

It’s already happened to Netflix and major movies.

[@JustDatBoi]

@@zzzzz-em2jpidk man, people still fall for gacha games

[@ghostfire5973]

OMG having the hindsight of Concord makes this vid raven funnier lmao

[@Nimesh1102]

Fntastic Studios: we did the biggest scam of 2023. Jirard: Hold my beer.

[@Saftevand4]

Honestly this year was probably one of the best and worst year for videogames we had so many game announcements yet so much trash

[@R3TR0J4N]

From abandoning games, to abandoning a studio

[@Deathmare235]

This was the year of scams

[@EveBatStudios]

As a casual unreal Dev the fact that so many of the assets from the marketplace were recently released is so telling. Whats really messed up is that there are full blueprint kits for multiple zombie survival games on that marketplace right now that legitimately play so much better than this, have melee, and run more smoothly in multiplayer in my experience.

[@ArariaKAgelessTraveller]

i had to check the age of those marketplace assets (more than i could count with all 4 limbs) and found out that most of them are not even 2 years old, one of which was released on marketplace at Oct 2022 This game had 5 years to develop let that sink in for a moment

[@Gerorgebushsr]

Main reason why they couldn’t have waited 30 days is because when it comes to games releasing, their publisher is the one to gain the money first. I’d imagine before they saw a cent they would have a lot of trouble doing so

[@Likwidfox]

Still did better numbers than Concord.

[@andrew2044]

The "Prepare" quote is even funnier thanks to how the studio just gave up They didn't even try to survive, they saw the apocalypse coming and shot themselves

[@ZarthianOrder]

I think it’s hilarious that the company filed for bankruptcy and to close four days after the launch

[@REV4N_115]

It's not even bankrupt They only changed their name to continue scamming

[@FloatingOfficial]

It's all a lie. Don't believe anything they say.

[@hexblack2215]

I have never experienced a story with so much irony. I do feel bad for the volunteering programmers who probably did work hard on making this "game" thinking it's going to look good on their resumes.

[@spartanmora9349]

Interesting how youtube decided to recomend me again this video right after one about how Concord failed lmao

[@isk8atparks]

Feel like you missed a big part of the mystery in this video. Why they did it, and why they constantly claim they never took money from anybody. Theres obviously some kind of money incentive behind this. Havent looked into it much, but it seems like they mightve been scamming investors and were legally obligated to atleast release something

[@feurig4518]

There is answer for all of your questions. Belorus journalists took an interview from devs about game (devs reached them first because) and published 1 hour long video about what happened. Apparently CEOs sabotaged game development, they are unable to understand how game industry works. I can't express what I heard, but trust me, any shitty boss who you can imagine would be better than that two guys. They are human-like equivalent of Wheatley from portal 2.

[@TheActMan]

Yeah that could be it. The CEO also made an internal post that said they have to pay $1 million for the server contract but I have bo idea if that's true or not

[@stephengrigg5988]

I feel like working at this company turned into the end of 'the boiler room' for the employees. Showed up for work after release and the office is just empty with wires and shit hanging out of the walls

[@rxdvoices]

6:16 100% agree this sounds like Ai generated and this came out right before Ai ended up coming on to the scene. Your breakdown of the tone betrqaying the scene was also very well put. As a voice actor right off the bat I could tell something was wrong.

[@MonteCrush.]

Russian youtubers from the "iXBT games" channel contacted the developers of The day before and told how the Gotovtsev brothers (Fntastic executives) mocked the developers. The Gotovtsevs could not structure the development process, they simply did not understand how games were made. Initially, the game was made single-player for many years, but in the end the Gotovtsev brothers wanted the game to be multiplayer because of this, the game had to be completely redesigned for multiplayer, they constantly rushed from one concept to another because they played one game after another "it's fashionable today, it's fashionable today" and the developers redesigned the game for what they wanted Brothers. The Gotovtsev brothers are to blame for everything, not the game developers

[@JamieEhh]

The butt at 9:25 is the only good part of the "game"

[@balintgyuri6555]

With how shady the dews are acting, I think it's possible that they knew it was going to be a massive L, but still took the miniscule chance of success with their thumbs on the self-destruct button. Or they didn't get the funding but still went ahead and released the game so at least they could say they did something.

[@notatrollll]

1. Releasing a game helps for liability purposes and legal purposes. 2. They still profit from anyone who doesnt ask for a refund, and they sold over a million copies in 4 days so its very possible a fraction dont refund and they make money.

[@riptofen6015]

20:59 ohhhhhhh buddy how wrong you were lmaoooo

[@grey_apache]

Absolutely insane that the studio somehow thought this would work

[@notatrollll]

So….theres more too it. They had investors including business grants from Singapore to encourage commerce. They likely committed fraud and got away with it there and delivered a product to satisfy businesses. At minimum, they got a steady stream of money to enjoy during the projects 5 year span, putting out just enough to keep investors interested. At the end, they will still get money from thise who dont refund. They sold over 1.3+million copies. Even if 80% of people refund its very possible 20% dont and they still make 1-2 mil.

[@grey_apache]

@@notatrollll Interesting, I didn’t think about that

[@spencer6736]

I'm hoping they absolutely sued to hell for this because if they do get away with it, it's gonna become a framework for future scam games/projects

[@JustDatBoi]

Gullible folks will buy it

[@believer431]

The Day Before feels like a game someone made after taking a game development crash course

[@KingShibe]

Identity RPG

[@R3TR0J4N]

Reminds me of my unity project with bootleg assets, and tomorrow was it's deadline.

[@alessandrocanale6189]

9:33 "my niggas there is a child predator in the chat"

[@Alex-gg9ht]

Imagine joining the server and this is the first thing you see

[@alessandrocanale6189]

@@Alex-gg9ht yeah that discord server was wild as fuck mate

[@Messoras]

Man I was always horrified of weird scale bugs in computer games, but I think this might be a literal phobia. I got so triggered by the bug compilation in the beginning. I might actually suffer from verzephobia and I didn't even know what that means until 5 minutes ago.

[@kingpeso4240]

I hate weird looking glitches too just makes my skin crawl🤣

[@valydendor4472]

Now that you say this, I might have the same thing.

[@FrozenPantiezzz]

​@@kingpeso4240now imagine someone glitching in real life. NOW WHAT

[@kingpeso4240]

@@FrozenPantiezzz imma freak out to lmao video games tend to mirror real stuff so that might be why Cause if you ever played or looked at WWE 2k20 that was insane

[@Cloud10Ten]

The survival experience mentioned in this game was actually for the developers, they lost on day 4

[@Spiderwolfer]

NOW THIS is an act man video. This was hilarious and is exactly the style of video I subbed for. Awesome job dude. Seriously.

[@isaacstevenson7971]

This year has been a wild one for gaming. So many absolute bangers dropped one after the other, and cyberpunk really turned itself around, but we’ve also had so many stinkers lmao.

[@Dan-qy6zv]

I would honestly say that this has been the most diversive year in all of gaming, quality wise.

[@JacobSky5110]

"The things are about to get heated" fucking ruined my whole day. 🤣😂

[@LuvHarp]

17:15 It's not AI, its a poorly done translation with something like google translate. Afterall they -are- _were_ a Russian company operating in Singapore. You know when you find english speaking people who will translate a word or phrase they like and get it on a shirt or a tattoo, this is what it ends up looking like to people who speak that language.

[@jericho663]

I knew about these devs since “The Wild Eight”. I got the game in a humble bundle. It was okay, but then people started talking about how they promised so much, and nothing came of it. Stayed far away from these devs. When prop night came out, I convinced my entire friend group to not to buy it.

[@Shadic4101]

They couldn't even do an asset flip correctly. The point of an asset flip is to buy something relatively cheap and profit off minimal effort. Buying thousands of dollars worth of assets and then closing before you make a return defeats the entire purpose of doing an asset flip. Also that many assets would be harder to get working together than it would be to just make it yourself

[@RShezmo]

The real video people want is: Why is Pay Day 3 such a scam and why wasn't it properly adressed outside some shitty obscure community post by those who promoted it like it was a master piece?

[@VergilDarkslayer]

Didnt they fixed it?

[@Timeward76]

Payday 3 is overpriced, but I'd hardly call it a scam lmfao

[@OrionDawn15]

Payday 3 definitely is not a scam. It's release was just scuffed like most games these days. And I'd argue that TheActMan shouldn't be bashed for that video since... well, he played only the beta. I played the beta myself and I can confirm the game was pretty fun and good, I didn't think that with how it was it'd release in such a poor state. Suspect it? Maybe. But absolutely know? No. If he were to review the game positively after the launch, the criticisms would be more valid.

[@oldironsides4107]

@@Timeward76 why is the day after a scam? Isn’t it a beta early release meaning it’s u finished and update before the actual release as games do to raise money? Just because a game is shit doesn’t mean it’s a scam.

[@ScentSense]

Did you even bother to watch any of the dozens of videos about it? My God, you people are hopeless. ​@@oldironsides4107

[@Firzj]

not a single word that this game was developed by the yakutsk devs from russia, and how bad they were treated during the development phase. The bosses simply wanted to make a AAA game without understanding how gamedev works. They snatched all the money and got away. Fntastic did a great job hiding all that, but the truth comes out quickly 👍

[@randybobandy9828]

Huh what money did they get? Nothing from steam

[@zakugt5098]

​@@randybobandy9828 Gotovtsev brothers are quite well known for their shady practices here in Russia, the moment I saw their names I knew it'd be a shitshow. Every single product under their guidance failed so far

[@exquerl0x252]

​@@randybobandy9828from your mom

[@HeisenbergFam]

"The Day Before Company's Shutdown" should've been name of the game

[@nerdymidwesterner3662]

This dude really is in every comment section

[@sageslayer942]

They also used bots for twitch viewers. There was a small streamer who had like 20k viewers. When he changed the stream title to the shit before his viewers dropped to a few hundred then when he changed it back to something positive he went back to over 10k viewers.

[@TheActMan]

Oh shit! That explains the high viewer counts then

[@WereWhusky]

When even the guy who thinks "Payday 3 Was A Certified BANGER" says your game is bad, you must believe it.

[@nicholas_gurr]

💀💀💀

[@OrionDawn15]

I know this is a joke, but... this irks me. Because in all honesty, the Payday 3 beta didn't really look so bad. It was fun and it worked well, it's not like anyone could've exactly known that it'd release in the state it did. Suspect it, maybe. But absolutely know? No. And Payday 3 wasn't a straight up scam, it was just a scuffed release like most games nowadays.

[@nathanaeldiegofariassantos4926]

It's easy to trash a game when you are not being paid to overhype it

[@oldironsides4107]

Well say after should have sponsored him that way he could have a different opinion to the audience.

[@oldironsides4107]

@@nathanaeldiegofariassantos4926 What do you mean nowadays? Granted I don’t play as many games as I’d like too but I watch my sons play and they look pretty amazing Growing up in the 80s and 90s. Nearly every game you rented was dog shit. Hell in the 00s as well. Now people say it’s a scam when the game is shitty?

[@PrestonSikes]

200,000 sales in 4 days at 50 bucks is 10 million dollars. 10 million dollars in 4 days is INSANE, and with an all volunteer dev crew they shoulda been making money hand over fist

[@ScepticGinger89]

I don't think there was a crew of volunteers. I think they made this up so nobody would ask how such a tiny studio could make that super revolutionary zombie MMO they had announced.

[@PrestonSikes]

@@ScepticGinger89 you're probably right, I don't believe anything these guys are saying either. I'm pointing out that *if* what they're saying is true they still made a good chunk of change off an indie game

[@marvinthagoat]

@@ScepticGinger89most this game was made by content you could already buy on the internet, we could’ve made this game literally they paid a couple thousand that’s it. There really wasn’t no major funding behind this game & that’s the reason it never was going to reach a good potential to even roll out…

[@smakfu1375]

I think Hanlon's razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". I don't think this was an intentional scam; I think there was some effort to build the game, at some point, but the two oddballs who started the company simply lacked any ability to realize the ambitious ideas they surfaced. Major studios, with large teams, structured program management and deep skillsets, often fail at ambitious projects. These two threw together sandbox implementations of certain mechanics for trailers but had no idea how to implement the thing as a complete MMO. Perched atop Mount Stupid, wrapped in the comfort of their Dunning-Kruger blanket, they flailed for years. Once they realized that their investors and their publisher were going to require them to ship something, they cobbled together an asset flip. Some of the evidence of their haphazard approach to ideation are sprinkled in the trainwreck they shipped: the safe-haven "lobby", the pointless and disconnected "build your base" thing, etc.. My guess is they thought, with more time and money, they could retrofit in the connections between these pieces. But like the SnowRunner mud physics in their trailers, they had no idea how to scope the larger game systems to accomplish any of this (e.g. do on-foot players and zombies also interact with or get stuck in the mud?). If we could see what they've been doing for all these years you'd probably see dozens of discarded experiments, sandboxes, likely built by young, underpaid, short-timer developers who were given "daily" tasks, but had no overarching goals and objectives and were micromanaged right out of the studio. The crazy part is they sold 200,000 units in a day! That's proof that a large market exists for the game they claimed to be building. Now building such a game would not be easy (with all the features they promised), but (as a software engineer) it's doable with the correct level of investment. I'm willing to bet that at least one major studio has noticed those numbers, so I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't see a real-deal effort to build just such a game.

[@thaddeusgenhelm8979]

To be fair, there's actually indications that this was actually meant as, and this is kooky, an advertisement for a productivity program, based on requests they made of interviewers to ask them about said program, and a number of other things they did. Which is to say, if you look into everything they did, the scam wasn't originally going to be a bad video game, it was a completely *fake* videogame they were using to create PR buzz for something else, and then they had to glue the game together at the last minute when it turned out they couldn't sell their other program. Based on other behaviors of theirs, it seems likely this was, in fact, an intentional scam.

[@deaglebee9194]

Found your career: Gaming journalism. Absolutely love watching your content!

[@Ariaelyne]

Twitter: This game is 98% purchased assets FNTASTIC: You flipped the numbers... Me: 89% is not a figure to be proud of either

[@gameragodzilla]

If the wording in the official materials isn’t AI generated, then it’s definitely the devs grabbing random people who aren’t native English speakers badly translating. As a Chinese-American, I see a lot of mistakes that non-English speakers from China do.

[@JWBDWP2]

17:02 a lot of your jokes are havin more avgn vibes to em and I’m lovin it

[@DirkTheDaringDnD]

I love the consistency of the fact that no matter which video I watch of act man, I’m guaranteed to hear some Old School RuneScape OST music ☺️

[@InsideTheJoshMind]

I have not laughed this hard at a video in years. My God 😂😂 this is a gem lol especially the “We didn’t harm anyone” reaction 😂 omg

[@FloppyFiona]

7:16 Did they get the woman from the GTA 5 and RDR 2 gameplay trailers to voice this?🤣🤣🤣