WEBVTT - I Feel Fntastic 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:13.000 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.200 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.040 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. And how the 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.840 tech are yet? So I thought we would talk today 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.240 about the day before, and I don't mean Sunday. So 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.880 in twenty twenty one, an obscure game developer company called Fantastic, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.800 a company that ditched the first A in Fantastic for 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.320 its name, launched a trailer for an upcoming video game. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.519 The trailer showed third person over the shoulder scenes of 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:47.360 characters navigating desolate landscapes, flavor text on newspapers indicating the 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.400 deadly pandemic had spanned the world, and scenes of zombie 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.160 like people bearing down on the characters, and a voiceover 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.120 called the game an open world, multiplayer survival game. The 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.040 trailer claimed to feature gameplay footage as two characters scavenge 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.280 for supplies, receive a radio invitation to join a survivor colony, 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.680 and of course, fight off zombies and rogue player groups. 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.920 It also showed off crafting, dynamic weather events, and more. 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:23.240 Other trailers would show off players seemingly teaming up to 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:28.720 explore dynamic and interesting environments, including abandoned but still surprisingly 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.759 very well lit shopping malls, or another trailer showed off 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.200 what the outskirts of the city looked like, complete with 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.240 woodlands and the occasional vehicle containing a little zombie surprise 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.000 in it. The implication was that this was a massively 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.400 multiplayer online survival horror game, and it was called The 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.480 Day Before, and gamers took notice. In fact, at one point, 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.760 The Day Before ranked number one on Steam wish lists. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.880 That is, if you have a Steam account, the online 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:04.280 video games store platform Steam, well, you can designate titles 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.080 to be on your wish list, and then that helps 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.640 you keep an eye on when those games come out, 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.560 or if they go on sale or release new content, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.800 or you can just let folks know that if they 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.680 want to get you something, well, the games on your 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.919 wish list are a decent option. So anticipation was running 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.480 really high. It looked like The Day Before was going 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.320 to bring together elements found in lots of other games, 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:32.120 such as Seven Days to Die, Day, z GTA Online, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.000 Escape from Tarkov, and lots more. While lots of games 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.360 had some elements of what appeared to already be in 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.200 the day before. This looked like one of those rare 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.160 combos that just matched a bunch of complimentary pieces together 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.919 to make something new, kind of like when you get 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.079 peanut butter on your chocolate. Jump ahead a couple of 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.280 years and then a few more delays. The game actually 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.680 came out this year, just a couple of weeks ago. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.120 In fact, launched in early access through the Steam Store 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:08.520 on December seventh, twenty twenty three, and four days later, Fantastic, 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.359 the video game studio that made the day before, announced 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.200 it was shutting down, and gamers were flooding Steam with 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.920 overwhelmingly negative reviews for the day before. The general consensus 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.799 was that the game that Fantastic delivered was a far 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.120 cry from what it had promised. So today I thought 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:29.800 we'd talk a bit about where Fantastic came from, what 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.680 has happened to it, and why gamers were so upset 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:37.440 about the day before. So our story begins actually with 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:42.000 the predecessor to Fantastic. Before choosing that name, a group 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.920 of developers who would go on to become Fantastic, at 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.320 least some of them, formed a company called eight Points. 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.200 They started their company in Siberia, Russia. According to a 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.800 Kickstarter post they made more about that in a second. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.640 They were quote all from different studios where many of 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.280 us had been working on cash games. We quickly realized 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.040 our passion was not with casual titles, but for deeply 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:10.360 immersive experiences end quote. Now among the members of eight 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:15.120 Points was lead developer Edward Gotoftsev, a name that is 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.120 going to trip me up over and over again, and 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.320 his brother Eisen will also be very important later on 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.920 in this story. So for the first project of eight Points, 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.120 the group decided on a quote plot driven survival co 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.560 op game end quote, and they called it The Wild Eight. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.479 The premise was that a group of eight survivors of 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.320 a plane crash have to work together to survive in 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.000 a harsh, cold environment, not that much different from the 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.960 frozen tundra of Siberia, it would turn out. But plot twist, 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.440 one of the survivors gets tagged to be a quote 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.720 unquote psycho and is actively attempting to sabotage the team's efforts. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.680 So there's some hidden identity elements to this game as well. 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.320 So the kickstary campaign laid out some interesting features. You know, 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.920 death was nearly certain as the environmental dangers ranged from 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.440 freezing to death to being attacked by wolves and bears 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:12.400 and maybe some less natural kind of critters. Characters could 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.400 be revived, but with the psycho element in the game, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.240 there would always be the question of whether it might 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.160 be better if you left a character to stay dead 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.200 because maybe that character was the psycho. It was a 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.680 neat idea. The team was asking for fifty thousand dollars 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.360 to complete the game, noting that all of the team 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.040 had really sacrificed much of their own money to work 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.240 on this project. This was in twenty fifteen, and they 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.000 said they were aiming for a late twenty sixteen release. 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.719 Backers actually on two hundred and fifty seven backers helped 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.320 the team meet their goal, funding the kickstarter with fifty 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.680 nine thousand, six hundred and forty four dollars worth of pledges. Now, 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.360 the team finished the game, but it took a little 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.880 bit longer than what they wanted, just a little bit. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.799 The game actually launched an early access in February twenty seventeen, 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.719 so it wasn't finished yet, but it was in early access. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.000 All was not well within eight points, however, there was 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.200 some sort of internal disagreement among the group. I have 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.760 never been able to see what that actually was. I 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:16.640 did a lot of digging to see if there was 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.039 any more detail on this, but there wasn't. But ultimately 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.560 there was a schism within eight Points, and so eight 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.880 Points sold the Wild eight to a publisher called hype 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.200 Train Digital, and at least some of the folks from 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.080 eight Points, including Edward, would leave to form a new 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.479 company that would become Fantastic. As for the Wild Eight, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.480 that game would continue to go through development. It would 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:46.920 launch in final form in twenty nineteen, and recently hype 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.080 Train changed the name of the developer because it had 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.640 been saying Fantastic, they changed it to eight point or 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.240 eight Points, back to the original name of the developer 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.479 group because of the fallout that is going on with 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:05.320 the day before. So Edward names himself CEO of this 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.239 new company. His brother Eisen comes on as a co founder. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.040 Both of them reportedly put in around fifty thousand dollars 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.960 of their own money into the company as capital. That's 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.000 actually in Singapore dollars, I should add, because they based 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.560 the company in Singapore at least in name, and a 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.560 Singapore dollar is worth about seventy five cents American Now. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.440 According to former employees, the company didn't actually maintain a 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.560 physical office space. They did use a co op space 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.080 as a sort of virtual office, but they didn't really 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.960 maintain a real world brick and mortar office within Singapore. 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.600 They did produce a few actual game titles. They made 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.880 a first person shooter survival horror game called Dead Dozen Again, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.640 with a mechanic for players to turn against each other. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.280 One player would be playing a zombie like ghoul, and 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.760 if you succeeded in killing another player, they would then 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.520 become a ghoul, so it became kind of a last 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.960 man's standing sort of game. They made an adventure game 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.560 called Radiant One that showed the studio's more artistic side, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.400 and they made an asymmetric multiplayer game called prop Night, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:18.960 in which one player takes on the role of a 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.640 hunter killer type and all the other players attempt to 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.240 hide within an environment by disguising themselves as common inanimate objects, 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.000 and then when they are relatively safe, they tried to 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.640 repair some stations to allow them to escape, kind of 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:39.360 a prop hunt slash Dead by Daylight mash up here. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.040 This s dollar game was made popular from a Gary's 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.880 mod game that was being prop Hunt that came out 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.959 several years earlier. In twenty twenty one, the year the 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.280 studio released prop Night, they also unveiled a trailer for 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.040 their new game. The trailer referenced it as the open world, 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.000 multiplayer survival game, and in this game, like I said, Appendem, 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.319 had wiped out most of the world's populations, leaving cities 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.839 empty of everyone but a few survivors and occasionally an 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.240 infected person who's more or less a zombie. The trailer 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.360 and others that would follow gave gamers the impression that 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.640 it was set in a persistent online world, that it 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:22.920 would bring together elements of massively multiplayer online games, survival, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.960 horror games, crafting and base building games, et cetera. While 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.520 there was some initial skepticism about whether or not this 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:38.840 small and still relatively unknown studio could achieve this massive project, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.400 some folks were actually starting to get excited, and that 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.600 was what was leading to more and more people adding 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.320 this title onto their Steam wish lists. It became the 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.360 number one wish listed game on the platform in October 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.040 twenty twenty one. Fantastic said the game would be out 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.840 by June twenty first, two thousand two, some more trailers 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.440 would come out proclaiming even more amazing features that the 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.080 game would have, and then the studio kind of went quiet. 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.120 And that was already starting to worry people, right, like 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.640 the hype machine was an overdrive, and then things went 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.280 to radio silence. When we come back, I'll talk about 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:34.120 what happened. Okay, So, as I mentioned before the break, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:39.960 we had Fantastic going to radio silence in the months 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.720 leading up to what was supposed to be the release. 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.640 But in May twenty twenty two, which was just a 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.360 month before it was supposed to come out. Remember, originally 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.840 the publication date was supposed to be June twenty first, 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.240 twenty twenty two, May twenty twenty two, Fantastic issues a 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.800 statement saying the game would be delayed by at least 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.920 eight months. The reason for the del according to the company, 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.760 was that the team decided on using a different game engine. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.720 And yeah, that would definitely set you back a lot, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.880 asked the folks who worked on Duke Nukem Forever, another 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:17.040 game that was in development for ages. So the move 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.880 to a new engine struck more than a few people 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.480 as a questionable decision. It's not like you can just 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.800 lift all your assets that you built for your starting 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.160 game engine and then just port them to another one seamlessly. 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.120 So this is where some folks were really starting to 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.680 smell or aunt. Then we got another big reveal, one 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.080 that I think would have totally made me rage out 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.280 had I been following this story at the time. In 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.000 June twenty twenty two, around the time that it was 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.439 originally supposed to launch, word got out that Fantastic depends 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:55.560 at least in part on volunteer labor. So they had 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.560 a distinction between full time volunteers whom they say they 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.800 were paid, which to just sounds like an employee, and 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.760 part time volunteers who were not people who would work 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.760 without being paid for it. They might receive some other 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.360 form of compensation. The company appeared to be targeting fans 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.560 who had some developer skills to work with them in 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.680 return for stuff like game codes for example. So yeah, 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:22.600 you wouldn't need to buy a copy of the game. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.240 You just have to work on developing the game for free, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.880 and then you get hooked up. Others might do work 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.120 for exposure. This is where I remind you you cannot 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.000 make a living from exposure, but you sure can die 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.600 from it. Fantastic later said that volunteers weren't responsible for 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.719 coding or anything like that. Instead, they were doing other 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.040 jobs like community management or working on localization, you know 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.360 where you're trying to craft the game so that it 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.319 is understandable and playable for people in different regions of 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.880 the world. Meanwhile, more delays were around the corner. In 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.600 January twenty twenty three, Fantastic announced that there was an issue. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.320 Apparently a calendar app also called the day before, objected 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.559 to the video games title, and so the companies needed 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.520 to work out a solution. The release date was moved 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.160 from March first, twenty twenty three, to November tenth. It 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:19.680 would actually release into early access on December seventh. Now, 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.200 the two brothers told IGN that the IP dispute was 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.160 just a complication and that the studio had actually already 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.880 decided to delay the game. So this seemed to contradict 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.440 what they had just said, and the dispute apparently just 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.080 coincided with the company's plan to announce the delay. So 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.359 again it appeared that there was some contradictions in communications 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.280 to the public, and that was exacerbating concerns about the 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.600 game at this point. Now there's another party involved in 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.719 this that we have to talk about. There is a 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:56.480 video game publisher called Mytona. Like Fantastics predecessor, Mytona is 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.600 a company that's from Siberia, Russia. Also, coincidentally, it was 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.880 co founded by brothers, different set of brothers. These are 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.280 twin brothers who co founded my Tona. Apparently my Tona 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:09.880 had invested in development of the Day Before. This is 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.760 not unusual, you know, publishers will invest money to help 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.880 fund the creation or development of a game. But I 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.360 bet these days that my Tona really wishes it hadn't 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:25.640 done that. Anyway, the repeated delays were making gamers increasingly uneasy. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.160 Some had been referring to the Day Before as a 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.280 scam for a few months at this point. That was 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.200 an accusation that the brothers denied. They also said that 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.240 it wasn't just an asset flip. That's when you get 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.560 a bunch of pre existing assets and then you just 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.760 sort of cobbled together a game from them. The brothers 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.960 were saying, no, that's not you don't understand how much 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.360 work is being done on this title. That is not 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.320 an accurate portrayal of what this is. An official statement 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.200 from Fantastic said the game had been development for four years. 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.880 That's something that some people began to question because again, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.960 a lot of what the trailers were showing were things 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.160 that look like assets that had been built for the 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.440 Unreal Engine but hadn't existed for more than a year 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.280 and a half or so. So there were questions about 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.240 how could this game have been in development that long 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.280 when the stuff that you're showing off hasn't even existed 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.160 for four years. Now, at this stage, some gamers were 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.360 taking a closer look at the stuff Fantastic put out 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.760 in trailers. They did point out similarities between the game 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.240 and various asset packs that are up for purchase as 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.240 part of the Unreal Engine. And I've talked a bit 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.680 about asset packs. Let me explain what those are. This 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.000 is stuff that has already been built on top of 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.720 a game engine. Some developers have already created these assets 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.320 that you can purchase and then incorporate into your own project. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.440 And these aren't necessarily just visual assets. A lot of 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.240 them are a lot of them are things that are 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.280 you know, like objects or structures that have both the 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.200 visual element and the geometry right, like a house with 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.560 multiple floors, you have to program all that in well packs, 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.680 you could purchase these things and incorporate them into your 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.480 game and with some tweaking, make it all work. It's 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.320 not like it's plug and play. It's not that simple. Actually, 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:10.920 it does require quite a bit of work to get 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.480 an asset to work within the world of your game, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.440 so I don't want to dismiss that. But it also 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.720 means that you don't have to do everything from scratch, right, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.280 You don't have to build every single element in your 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.800 game by hand, because you can actually purchase stuff that's 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.920 already been made, and that can really help. However, some 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.200 gamers also began to say that the Day Before was 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.720 going beyond this and actually copying not just assets, but 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.440 like existing game trailers in order to make their own trailers. 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.760 They said that there were elements in game trailers for 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.800 the Day Before that were directly lifting from a trailer 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.920 for Grand Theft, Auto five or Call of Duty, Black 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.440 Ops Cold War. So those questions were starting to get 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.360 more heated as well were really starting to look grim. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.439 But on December seventh, twenty twenty three, Fantastic did release 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.800 the day before in early access for thirty nine dollars 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.639 and sold around two hundred thousand copies of it, with 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.800 a statement saying that the studio hoped to emerge from 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.840 early access within six to eight months to be a 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.560 fully released game, whereupon it would cost forty nine dollars, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.240 so you know, buying an early access safety ten bucks. 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.680 And it turns out none of that would be relevant. 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.960 It was all moot. It would never get the chance 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.960 to go to full release because right away gamers began 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:40.520 to film their gameplay sessions and compare their sessions against 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:45.080 the trailers to show the disparity between the actual experience 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.240 of playing the game versus the game that was being 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.679 showed off in trailers for a couple of years at 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:55.280 that point. They also complained that it was really hard 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.400 to get a gaming session going because the servers could 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.400 only hold around a one hundred people per server, and 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.639 they filled up really fast. I mean, you sold two 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.360 hundred thousand copies super fast, so that requires a lot 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:14.480 of servers for you to be able to actually facilitate gameplay. 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:19.320 Then you had the really problematic issue where gamers found 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.320 out that the day before was not an MMO survival 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.679 horror game at all. Instead, it really belonged to a 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.080 different kind of genre called an extraction shooter. So in 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:37.720 an extraction shooter, gamers enter into an online map and 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.480 they're only in it for a certain amount of time. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.600 And while they're in this online map, they do their 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.800 best to collect resources and to complete certain objectives, and 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:49.879 then they need to make their way to an extraction 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.080 point before their time runs out or they lose everything 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.600 that they gained in that session. But there's no persistent world, right, 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.800 It's not like you can leave a bit building or 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.360 hide a stash into building and then come back three 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.639 days later and get that stash. You can't do that. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.679 There's also no elements of role playing games in the 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:14.040 Day Before either, so gamers felt like they had been bamboozled. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.280 They said, this is not the same game that was 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.879 being sold to us. Later, an anonymous former developer for 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.440 Fantastic told Eurogamer that not only was The Day Before 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.840 not an MMO, but that there had never been a 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.840 plan to make it an MMO in the first place, 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.159 that that was clearly beyond their abilities, and that it 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.040 should never have been marketed as an MMO. The game 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.640 would be played on servers. Like I said, they could 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.919 support like one hundred people, way too small for a 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:50.560 classic MMO, and without role playing or in game plans 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.480 or raids or anything like that, it just didn't meet 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.040 the definition. The game that was being marketed was just 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.439 not the same one that was actually development. And this 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.720 former dev also said that when team members would bring 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:09.040 up concerns to the brothers and say, hey, you know, 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.280 we're misleading people, this is not the same sort of 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.560 game that we're actually making, they were often ignored, or worse, 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.119 they were moved off the project. The former developer also 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.600 claimed that the brothers frequently changed their minds as to 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.199 what should be in the game, and this contributed significantly 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.520 to production delays because you would be working to add 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:35.480 features in or take features out, or change direction, and obviously, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.600 without a unified approach to the direction of a game, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.520 you're not going to have a smooth development process. Okay, 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.920 still got a little bit left to say about what 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.600 went on with the day before. Before I get to that, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:21:03.520 Let's take another quick break, all right. As I said, 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.120 this former developer with Fantastic was saying that there never 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.960 had been plans to make this game an MMO, something 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:15.080 that really shouldn't come as a surprise based upon what 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.280 was released, but it really shows the difference between the 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.560 marketing and the development. Meanwhile, gamers were flooding Steam with 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.480 more negative reviews. The game wasn't really stable. Servers were 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.600 filling up so quickly that players were often left waiting 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:36.560 for ages for a session availability, only to feel disappointed 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.520 once they actually were able to connect to a session. 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:41.880 And this is part of what made the story so notable, 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.320 because it went from being one of the most highly 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:50.040 anticipated titles on Steam to one almost universally reviled by 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.360 the player base that had purchased the title. That made 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.480 it really interesting, It was probably not so interesting to Fantastic, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.919 which attempted to go into damage control mode again. They 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.439 made denials of being an asset flip. They said that 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.440 they'd been working on the title for four years. They 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.040 made kind of a half hearted apology for the marketing, 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.040 saying that maybe the game hadn't been marketed properly. There 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.359 should have been no maybe there, but these measures clearly 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:29.640 weren't working. They were not modifying the game community at all. Shockingly, 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:35.480 four days after launching the game into early access, Fantastic 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.359 announced that the company was shutting down because the game 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:44.480 was not financially successful. Now, this also raised eyebrows because 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:47.880 it had sold two hundred thousand copies in early access, 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.480 and yes, a lot of people were already requesting refunds. 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:56.160 But there'd been lots of games that had really rocky launches. 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.680 A Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven springs to mind. That game 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.159 had a terrible launch. There were so many people pointing 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.360 out flaws in the game, and yet the teams behind 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:13.200 those games would rally and they would address the issue. 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:17.520 And with Cyberpunk, it became an incredible turnaround. I mean, 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.119 if you've heard about the DLC that came out earlier 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:25.639 this year, that turned Cyberpunk from a joke where people 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:30.160 just dismissed the game entirely, saying it's JANKI it turned 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.199 it into a Game of the Year contender, right. That 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:38.520 is phenomenal. That's incredible dedication in your developer team, and 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.639 it shows what can happen if you really do take 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:46.200 the incoming criticisms to heart and try to address them. 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.800 But Fantastic would never get that chance. The company focused 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:54.960 instead on wiping out its online presence, including its YouTube channel, 0:23:55.880 --> 0:24:01.240 its founder's Twitter feed, like it's on website, pretty much 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:09.399 its entire online existence. Fantastic deleted Mytona. The publisher said 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:13.040 it will honor refunds for all players who bought the game. 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:15.959 If you buy a game on Steam, you can request 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.399 a refund, but only if you've not played the game 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.600 for too long. Two hours is the cutoff here. The 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:23.800 idea is that if you play a game for like 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.560 forty hours and then you ask for a refund, what 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:28.520 you're doing is you're trying to scam the store and 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:30.520 get your money back for a game that you have 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:33.960 thoroughly played. But if you bought a game, you booted 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:36.000 it up and within an hour or so you realize 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:40.320 you made a huge mistake, to quote arrested development, you 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.160 can get your money back. But a lot of players 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.199 were in that post two hour group, right, and that 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:48.719 was largely because of those server issues. It's not like 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:52.639