The saga of The Day Before has been a bizarre one, and we thought it was finally over. That was until developer Fntastic briefly resurfaced in recent hours to post a strangely conspiratorial press release, blaming the game's failure on the haters.
The studio posted the message to Twitter, alluding to "certain bloggers" that triggered a "gold rush" of dunks, with content creators racing to publish their takes, ultimately leading to the game's downfall. The statement blames "misinformation" from "supposedly anonymous sources" (presumably this one) and provides answers to questions no one was asking.
On the question of who, if anyone, actually made money from the project, Fntastic claims that "certain bloggers" made vast sums of cash thanks to the resultant views and followers gained by all the negative attention. At one point, the statement asks: "Remember the experiment where you're asked to count pink objects in a room and then recall the blue ones? You won't remember any. It's all about focus. The negative bias instilled by certain bloggers making money on hate affected perceptions of the game."
It goes on to describe how, actually, the final game delivered on everything that trailers promised (except bringing the game to PS5), that the project represented five years of hard, honest work, and points to popular streamer DrDisrespect as an example of fair and unbiased coverage of gameplay.
Fntastic repeatedly overpromised, all the way up until launch, where the situation quickly devolved. The studio soon dipped, dodging criticism and closing up shop after just days, directing customers towards publisher Mytona for refunds. The game was a flop and would ultimately be removed from Steam, with servers closed just 45 days after launch, with every player who purchased the game entitled to a refund.
What do you think of Fntastic's statement? Do you think it's the bloggers who are to blame? Post your own takes in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com, via ign.com]
Comments 36
It is so good to see these guys go bankrupt.
I need these guys names so I know never to purchase anything they might put out should they move on to open another scam dev studio.
It's not the bloggers fault! It's my mum's fault!
She raised me to question everything, especially when it comes to investments. When the game launched in a buggy state, missing core features and being revealed to have been built using assets purchased online, I decided not to buy it.
If me mum hadn't raised me to be cautious, I'd have purchased it without question and the game would still be alive today! Totally me mum's fault!
How ridiculous. They are just making it worse. At this stage why wouldn’t they just let sleeping dogs lie…
@Mortal DAMN YOU, MUM!!!!’
If I can't get away with my sh*t, start Blamegame and Emotional Blackmail.....
What a bizarre set of statements. Are these fellas living in the same dimension as the rest of us?
I don’t think the quotes are completely untrue. One example that immediately comes to mind is the Infinite Warfare YouTube trailer bomb. The game ended up being awesome in so many ways. Campaign was fantastic, multiplayer was one of my faves of all time, and the zombies mode was great and up there with Treyarch zombies modes. That game never really got any positivity after the initial trailer. People were just done with jet packs at that point, but if that game came out today I’d imagine people would love it for its Titanfall 2 style speed and movement. The current CoD games just seem to be getting worse but still selll like crazy.
So nothing to do with the fact the fact that the game looked nothing like the quality shown to everybody in those mock up trailers? It's everybody else's fault you couldn't get away with scamming people out of their money for something that was never going to deliver? I don't usually like to see software devs go under but on this occasion it's well deserved as all they were doing was deceiving everybody. Unreal.
I watched Kira's video on this and this statement is just straight up lies and contradictions. These Devs are con men and i hope they never make a game again.
@Doctor_BK IW still done well and honestly i can see why that entry was hated and its because it wasn't CoD anymore. The series was already nearing that jump with Black Ops 2 and Advanced Warfare but IW decided to say f it and just straight up jump over that shark. We have had worse CoD's since but at the time IW was easily up there with the worst CoD games imo.
Or, just hear me out, people didn’t like the game.. because it was bad?
@DennisReynolds oh man I disagree wholeheartedly. It had a very strong community. The game was very high quality. The hate for the movement could be justified if you are not a fan of that, but it was objectively very well done. So smooth if you knew how to use the movement to your advantage. There were very few things about the game that weren’t done well. The maps, weapons, and game modes were all well done. The abilities were fun and new. I just can’t agree with the idea it was a bad COD. I see it as a top 5 in the entire series and I’ve put months of my life into these titles annually.
@Doctor_BK Disagreed, the movement in every futuristic cod game always felt like a downgraded version of Titanfall's movement. Infinite Warfare does have a great story mode with interesting setpieces but the fact that the mp doesn't utilize the some of the story mode's cool setpieces into the mp like flying around in zero g makes it crap in my eyes. With the MW reboots out with the more immersive movement and far better gunplay than the old games I would like to now see them take a spin at a futuristic COD.
I imagine this would be the exact situation we would see if Blue Box Games actually managed to release Abandoned.
They made a terrible game and falsely advertised it, simple as that
While it's certainly true that there are a lot of content creators out there that thrive on negativity and destructive criticism, there are simply no excuses for this former studio. They've been completely dishonest from day one and it seems like they still aren't done.
That and the fact that the "game" they released was by all accounts a vapid, barebones experience with such severe technical issues that it was barely playable. They've only get themselves to blame for that.
@ATaco Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev
I think MOST of the drama was on them and they should take ownership of their mistakes and try to learn.
But it's also true many content creators orchestrated a dogpile on the game. It's a sad side of gaming discourse nowadays whether it's TLOU2, Starfield, Suicide Squad or The Day Before it seems hard to have discourse on certain games without people piling in and bringing the whole thing down. That's on us and I have sympathy for devs in these cases. Even if it's only a LITTLE in this specific case.
Damn people can't take any responsibility anymore for themselves
Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.
I love the fact that despite shutting down, pleading poverty and blaming others for their shoddy communication and outright disingenuous gameplay clips, they are also apparently creating a new game too... Coz of course they are.
And so the cycle will continue..
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see them prove they can create an ambitious (and good) game, as that's never a bad thing for players, but at this moment, with their history of leaving games to die, I doubt it...
That tweet is not working so I guess they deleted it. No doubt they are running damage control so they can release and sell another dud later. These types always do it.
Hit the road jack.and dont come back no more.that developer is horrible.word up son
@Nepp67 to each their own. I prefer IW’s movement over Titanfall. Personally, it felt way better to me. Also, I don’t think zero gravity would’ve felt fun or competitive in the multiplayer setting. I think that was an intentional and smart design choice. The zero g movement was fun in campaign but VERY slow to get around and would’ve been so awkward in MP.
"It's OUTRAGEOUS how the FAKE NEWS Bloggers called out our methane gas claims of open world's & using free labour & bots to push something that never was & take your $$ & run!" 🙄😂
Youtubers aside, the people that played the game could see for themselves how trash it was. Blaming streamers ain't really the way to go. But on another note, anyone that actually watches or pays attention to that drdingle guy should take a look at themselves. That guy is a 🔔🔚
Doesn't change the fact that the game was sh#t
tbh I dont think we should be seeing this sort of misinformation on a respected site. I appreciate the news here is that the developer is spreading misinformation - but as with the nuttz on 5G and all the other nonsense we've half-heard these last few years; its better to let them mutter amongst themselves and not give them the respect airing their views would imply.
Ironically they are making those same bloggers - that they claim to have brought down the game - more money.
By releasing statements like this, it will only provide more content for bloggers to farm for clicks.
Would have been much better off apologising for the state the game launched in and promising to rework it to make it something they - as a dev team - can be proud of
Also, whilst there are indeed bad faith content creators out there, video footage doesnt lie, and it doesn't take much information to form an independent opinion on the title 😅 and its not a positive one
It’s like the pain to acknowledge they are in the wrong is too much to bear so they’re blaming everyone/thing else…
@Nepp67 this feels like a precursor to another game announcement, honestly. These two guys that run this sham use volunteers as meat shields for bad PR, I get the feeling they have no problem lying about going broke to avoid more fallout. Complete idiots.
More like fraud
@Doctor_BK The campaign was fun god the multiplayer was the worst thing i ever played.
It's simple. Drumming up hatred is what keeps their names alive. Exactly what everyone else in every other medium is doing nowadays. Tune out
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