Tuesday, December 12th 2023
"The Day Before" Developer Ceases Operations 3 Days Into Game Release, Steam Steps in with Refunds
"The Day Before" is an open-world post-apocalyptic horror/survivor game that released to much fanfare on December 7. Like most games released in the past 3-odd decades, it's a little rough along the edges at launch, which its developer is expected to smoothen out with regular game patches over the following weeks or months even; if only there was a developer left. Fntastic, the game's developer, ceased operations as a business on December 11.
Everyone who pre-ordered the game and bought it after the December 7 release date, still has it; but they now stare at the prospect of a game that potentially has gameplay breaking bugs and other issues that will never be fixed. Steam's refund policy sets a 2-hour gameplay deadline in which to decide if you like what you're playing, and get a refund otherwise. Predictably, there is a large class of gamers who have played more than 2 hours, but yet are left with a potentially broken product that's no longer supported by its developer, just 3 days into its launch. Gamers took to Reddit come draft a template for support e-mails to send to Steam, requesting refunds. The store responded, and made an exception for owners of "The Day Before" to seek refunds, even if they've crossed the 2-hour gameplay limit.
Source:
Takeown
Everyone who pre-ordered the game and bought it after the December 7 release date, still has it; but they now stare at the prospect of a game that potentially has gameplay breaking bugs and other issues that will never be fixed. Steam's refund policy sets a 2-hour gameplay deadline in which to decide if you like what you're playing, and get a refund otherwise. Predictably, there is a large class of gamers who have played more than 2 hours, but yet are left with a potentially broken product that's no longer supported by its developer, just 3 days into its launch. Gamers took to Reddit come draft a template for support e-mails to send to Steam, requesting refunds. The store responded, and made an exception for owners of "The Day Before" to seek refunds, even if they've crossed the 2-hour gameplay limit.
39 Comments on "The Day Before" Developer Ceases Operations 3 Days Into Game Release, Steam Steps in with Refunds
Read an article here:
www.eurogamer.net/the-day-before-developer-fntastic-suddenly-announces-its-shut-down
Let´s just say after reviews, put my wallet back in my pocket and slowly walked away again.
Seems like i dit the right thing. Shut down 4 day later. I wunder if this was just a money grab. Milk as many as possible and then take the money and runs away fast.
So no i dit not buy it, but was close to do so. reading reviews saved me from it.
Spended my money on the new avatar game in stead. Much better choise as well.
Also, just LOL, game looks so bad on YT, a lot reddit comments are : i don't even know who/why people buyed this game
It seems Valve (or the developers) has delisted the game from Steam. Dude mere moments after posting that tweet:
I hope people can get their money back somehow. Dumpster fire situation here.
I seriously wunder what they where thinking releasing this trash. This image is just like the game developer from game release to there fall.
Oh, the studio shut down and the CEO deleted his X account too.
The game was developed by Fntastic (the company that closed) and published by Mytona, a separate company that financed the title.
Typically if the publisher finances development, they get the pink slip (i.e., they own the IP). Theoretically Mytona could hire a different studio to continue on with the Day Before IP. It really depends on how the contract was written (the general public will never see the legal documents).
Any Steam revenue went to Mytona who would have duly paid out Fntastic in time. But for sure any game sales did not go directly to Fntastic (which was based in Yakutsk, Russia).
And this publisher-studio difference is probably why the game is still playable for those who own the title: the game servers are still running, presumably owned and operated by the publisher Mytona.
This is all very, very fishy. While I have zero evidence, my hunch is that the dev did something(s) illegal (they have been accused of stealing game assets before) and with the game's general release, it became clear that someone would figure it out quickly. One tellling hint is that the studio CEO swore that they did not take any money from customers during the development phase or take pre-orders. Now that the game is being sold (even in "early access") if the studio stole someone else's work and was making money from it, that would be a big no-no. So they hastily disbanded before legal action could take place.
We will probably hear more about this in the future. My guess is that any legal action will be stopped by Russian authorities who will claim that nothing can proceed because the legal entity (e.g., Fntastic) no longer exists.
Dear Videogame Industry,
"Fake it until you make it" is not a viable business plan.
"According to a (leaked?) Telegram message from Fntastic's CEO Eduard Gotovtsev, it's had 201,000 buyers and 91,700 refunders - a 46% refund rate!" (Source)
The Steam page shows Developer: FNTASTIC / Publisher: Mytona Fntastic (Note: according to SteamDB the developer tag was changed on the 11th Dec 17:49 from "FNTASTIC" "Mytona Fntastic", at 21:14 it was changed back). They didn't find a publisher so they published it themself. It's basically the same company. Purchases on Steam will get refunds, but they go only to people who try to get a refund. Also folks who bought Steam keys on 3rd party sites will be out of luck. Don't know the refund policy on other platforms. Believe it was also sold on EPIC.
Tbh. this whole thing looks like a Ruzzian Scam OP. :wtf: They are basically the Puttler Pinocchio's of game dev's. Who even knows where the cash is flowing. The headquarter in NZ could just be some letter box company. Have seen enough such cases. They also wiped all their traces on social media platforms. This could be well worth a criminal investigation, if they are not already sitting in Ruzzia an laughing all the way to the bank, lol.
www.journaldugeek.com/2023/12/12/the-day-before-les-developpeurs-accuses-darnaque-reagissent/
Looks like they are wiping themselves from the internet. youtube page, wiped, twitter account deleted.
They have other games that are still available for sale on steam. Even though the steam community have stepped in to review bomb the publishers games/DLC. they are still available for purchase.
Propnight isnt even playable as the developer shut the game down on the sly without telling the customers and repurposed the servers to run The Day Before before that game got pulled and studio shut down and also game servers shut down. Propnight is a dead game with no servers and still available for purchase.
Is it a case of dumb dev or just trying to do bare minimum to avoid getting sued by the publisher?
Quick back of the napkin scam math: Let's say they sold a total of 200K copies keep 60% of the 8 million they made from steam sales of this game due to a 40%+ refund rate - lets say 4.8 Million, make it an even 5 pre tax:
They've been around since 2018... that's 5 years now, let's say there's only 5 people in the company and they're making on average (top guys more, juniors less etc) 180K a year with benefits and taxes that's costing them let's say 225K a year per person.
That's already 5.6M over 5 years just in staff, no other costs. I don't know what the cap table looks like, how much was fronted by the publisher, or how much other debt/"miscellaneous expenses" they've taken out, But there isn't enough money in the scamming portion to even come close to breakeven.
Unless they're selling drugs on the side there's no way for this to be an organized scam. Something / someone definitely got scammed, but I think it was internal rather than external - someone is holding the bag/crying under a desk right now.
more like The Day After
Let me see if i remember how to fix it.
....
Nope - calling boss man to sort it.
Guess this was the trailer bait ?