Fntastic announces shutdown four days after releasing "The Day Before"

https://www.fntastic.com

by rightenant • 3 years ago

52 52 3 years ago

You got to hand it to Fntastic, they kinda had a novel life-cycle for this sorta grift.

Usually they either disappear immediately after the funds are raised, or they hang on forever subsisting on what little funds they can grab from their faithful (a la Earth2 or Chronicles of Elyria).

Rare to see this sorta grift which was not a smash and grab nor a never ending thing.

Hamuko• 3 years ago

How long does it take for Steam to deposit the revenue from sales to the developer's account?

droptablemain2• 3 years ago

I've heard this happens on the 30th of every month.

whalesalad2• 3 years ago

Yikes, the reviews for the game are pretty terrible. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1372880/The_Day_Before/#a...

joemi• 3 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the extreme negativity is at least partially due to people piling on because they know it's not liked.

whalesalad2• 3 years ago

You can filter for reviews with at least 1 hour of play time.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

I'm sorry to hear it. The game didn't turn out as well as they'd hoped, and I imagine they might have been crossing their fingers for a miracle to happen on release, only to have it become a disaster. Many of us have been on failing projects, and know that it can be due to a hundred reasons unrelated to the talent and commitment of the people involved. I don't know what happened in this case, but I can sympathize with the people on the line, slogging for years on a doomed game they can't save.

Arainach• 3 years ago

Is there a better article that explains what's going on here? What is (was) Fntastic? What is/was "The Day Before"? What makes this relevant to hacking/startups?

This brief paragraph leaves me with no idea whether this was a documentary, a crypto product, a timepiece, a React framework, or what.

forbiddenvoid• 3 years ago

This is about a game and a gaming company.

HackerNews is about sharing things that may be of interesting to software hackers and startups, not necessarily topics directly related to those two things.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gafage• 3 years ago

The second paragraph clearly states that it is a game.

Ensorceled• 3 years ago

I was 100% sure it was a game just from the headline even though I have never heard of Fntastic or "The Day Before" before this headline.

"The Day Before" is a really strong hint, the quotes indicate that it is a title; so book, movie, game, etc. You don't write "The React" or "The Bitcoin". So, could be a documentary.

neogodless3• 3 years ago

Additional recent context:

https://www.aroged.com/2023/12/09/the-day-before-is-sold-as-...

The Day Before arrived on the market and turned out to be very different from what everyone expected. The game is not only full of bugs and assorted problems, but also has a different gameplay structure than promised. The team was in fact talking about an MMO, or a massively multiplayer online game. In reality, it is more of a draw game.

https://www.polygon.com/23992623/the-day-before-steam-launch...

Players and streamers who are playing the game say it’s more of an extraction shooter, à la Tom Clancy’s The Division, without the balance or depth of similar shooters.

droptablemain2• 3 years ago

I've been following this train wreck for a while, as it was pretty clear where this was headed.

There was a supposedly leaked internal screenshot surfacing purporting that roughly 50% of the game's sales had been refunded. Hopefully Steam does the right thing and removes this product from the store immediately and refunds ALL customers.

For those out-of-the-loop this situation goes far behind over-promising and under-delivering. This "game" was largely just an Unreal Engine asset flip that appears to be hastily cobbled together with duct tape and fiddlesticks by amateurs, and didn't even deliver the same genre it advertised for years.

ianbicking• 3 years ago

For those of us who don't know Fntastic, could someone give a quick summary of what's going on here?

lbotos• 3 years ago

I learned about the game yesterday -- it's a "last of us prequel"

I thought it was a joke from Videogamedunkey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC9a4Dkbq-g (a comedic, but respected game reviewer)

Basically seems like the game is super boring and nobody likes it -- games studio is folding.

neogodless3• 3 years ago

To be clear, "Last Of Us prequel" is in quotes because it's not connected in anyway, but they would have loved for video game buyers to associate the two...

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/the-day-before-under-fire-r...

red-iron-pine3• 3 years ago

Low-to-Mid tier shovelware company hypes up a game. They made and sold mostly crap games and now this is their time to stop producing slop and make something that stands out.

They hype it up... but then it got released a few days ago, and it is crap.

Scam? Genuine attempt that failed, but they had to publish? Who knows, but unlike some games that got hyped -- and later turned out good / got improvements -- this company just folded, meaning that it'll never get better.

For example No Man's Sky was hyped but when released was terrible -- but got better -- and Cyberpunk 2077 had a lot of problems but recently saw several patches and DLC (and is pretty awesome). Lotta hype, lotta disappointment, but the developers stayed at it and made it good.

LorenPechtel• 3 years ago

So they released what they had as a hail mary, it didn't work.

csydas• 3 years ago

For those needing context, The Day Before is a survival style game. (shooters usually, limited supplies, always hostile zones with NPC enemies and player enemies (usually)

The genre is fair well established so there were many comparisons during development to existing games in the genre and some hiccups during development [0] and some ethical concerns [0].

Prior to the release, the Dev Team for the game released a statement preparing players that the game has issues, and trying to quash claims of the game being a scam [1]

I have not followed this game's development personally, but when I first read about it on another forum this is the context I wish I had.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Before_(video_game)#De...

1 - https://twitter.com/FntasticHQ/status/1731680871856369689#m

edit: fixed formatting on citations.

Springtime• 3 years ago

Two additional specifics: it was the second-most wishlisted game on Steam prior to release and upon release customers discovered that it was essentially a different genre of game than was marketed, along with being buggy and much smaller in scope.

This led to mass negative reviews and refunds and calls of it being a scam, which the company denied.

rmccue2• 3 years ago

Also, supposedly large amounts of the game are basically just assets off the Unreal Marketplace, eg: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/ameri...

umanwizard• 3 years ago

What is an asset flip?

JohnMakin• 3 years ago

It's basically this - purchase a bunch of "assets" (3d models, plugins, etc) off unreal marketplace, cobble them together with duct tape and superglue, and release it , hoping to at least recover the cost of the assets you purchased + profit.

neogodless3• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_flip

An asset flip is a type of shovelware in which a video game developer legally purchases pre-made assets and uses them to create numerous permutations of generic games and sell them at low prices.

In this case, maybe not "numerous permutations", but throwing together the (presumably purchased) assets with the bare minimum components of a video game.

starburst• 3 years ago

Assets Flip is when you replace the assets in a game with other assets and sell it under a different name. Usually from a demo project or even from a complete game that was "stole".

This game simply used a bunch of assets that were bought on the unreal asset store which is different and tbh completely fair especially with a small dev team.

spzb• 3 years ago

It's hilariously buggy too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRS-ilp_Sf4

Ekaros• 3 years ago

So over promise, over hype. And fail to deliver. Sell 200k copies, get 100k refunds... Close down...

No pivot here for pretty bad game...

Sphax• 3 years ago

I don’t know them but it’s too bad Propnight might disappear too, some streamers I follow play it sometimes and it’s fun to watch.

optimusPrimal• 3 years ago

Seems like their business management was of the same quality as their game development.

newsclues• 3 years ago

Surprise, things are hard!

There is a reason not everyone starts a car company or a game developer studio.

m3adow• 3 years ago

Up until now they released:

- The Wild Eight (Metacritic: 63; Steam: "Mostly Positive" with 6,161 reviews)

- Dead Dozen (Metacritic: TBD; Steam: "Mostly Negative" with 579 reviews)

- Radiant One (Metacritic: 82; Steam: "Mostly Positive" with 166 reviews)

- Propnight (Metacritic: TBD; Steam: "Mixed" with >15,000 reviews)

- The Day Before (Metacritic: TBD; Steam: "Mostly Negative" with >19,000 reviews)

Scores don't look good, but they also don't look as bad as I expected them to be after the train wreck of The Day Before. I wonder how this would've played out if they hadn't overhyped the game as much as they did.

red-iron-pine3• 3 years ago

they're a shovelware company, no surprise.

but like that quote about how you make shitty movies so you can make the artsy ones, The Day Before was going to be the artsy one funded by all of the slop.

Except it was also slop.

m4nu3l2• 3 years ago

The game is in early access. Steam clearly explains that when you buy an early access game you take the risk of it never being finished. I don't know much about the events or the promises behind this game but I woundn't say it's a scam just because it went bad. Social media are full of people calling it a scam. Am I missing something or is it just the usual social media nonsense?

oxinai• 3 years ago

Original marketing and Steam tags indicated it was supposed to be an Open World MMO, but on release, neither of those things were true; they also took steps very recently to remove both of those tags from the Steam page.

wmf• 3 years ago

It's not a total scam IMO but the game is really boring and nothing like what was promised in the trailers. An early access game should still be fun even if it's unfinished.

froggit• 3 years ago

It was meant to be a full release for PC and consoles in Nov 2023 (after having been delayed twice already), at which point they announced it would be delayed a 3rd time, until Dec 8th, and would be released as PC-only Steam Early Access content instead of a full game like they had led gamers to expect. The 2 years leading up to that point were spent releasing promo videos and info which grossly misrepresented both the game's content and the progress of its development.

I don't know that this technically constitutes fraud, but it is completely disingenuous and abusive of the trust gamers had placed in them.

m4nu3l2• 3 years ago

I've seen people complaining about early access games before just because they never got released (hence my question). From the comments I get this case is a bit different though.

andrewstuart• 3 years ago

People are really getting stuck in here.

Look, if its fraud of some sort, sure, get mad.

But if this is people trying to make a living making games and not being very good at business, and maybe not even making great games, then cut them a break. Creating a financially successful company is hard - and when things break down it's pretty mean to attack.

ncallaway3• 3 years ago

Look, if its fraud of some sort, sure, get mad.

I mean, it has the smell of fraud to me. I’m not sure it is, but it seems like it should be investigated.

readyplayernull• 3 years ago

Thinking whether they inspired their name on the New Vegas character:

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic

Fntastic announces shutdown four days after releasing "The Day Before"

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