• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Crowdfunded game "Ant Simulator" cancelled

S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
Krakn3Dfx said:
I need Kotaku to dig deep and get the real dirt on this. On the surface, it sounds a bit hinky to me on all fronts.
Click to expand...

It's not hard to dig deep. However, its quite close to Detective GAF so I'm not going to do it. Maybe we can get Eric to explain more on what happened. Regardless, there's nothing else that can be said or done. It's very obvious and straight-forward.

You have Eric, who has no formal education. He's been learning programming on his own and has been making games since 2003. He wants to start a company in 2014 to focus on his dream to become a game developer. His high school friends, Tyler and Devon, decide to join his dream because they have formal business education (and wants a business under their resume). In May 2014, they launch the Kickstarter project. His other friend Corey helps with the Kickstarter campaign. Eric is doing all the programming and creating youtube videos and maintaining twitter and all aspects of the creative process, while his friends promise to handle the finances. Somewhere in December 2014, they decide to hire Corey as a full-time to assist in coding and delegating the contract employees. Somewhere down the time, these guys start selling alpha/beta keys on their website to acquire more funds. Some months ago, they burn all the money on hooker and booze without keeping proper track of finances. Eric gets pissed off at negative bank account, and leaves the company. The rest continue their full-time jobs and leave Eric hanging. He has access to the Youtube page while he has no access to the rest, so he posts on Youtube what's happening and clearing his name out to not ruin his reputation.

Eric has everything to lose. The rest don't. It's quite simple. They're threatening to sue him if he proceeds with the project that he doesn't own anymore. Eric will just continue doing his own thing now, and probably won't trust any other business partners from here on forward.

TL;DR: Never do business with friends.
 
S

Sulik2

Member
neonglow said:
He says they were his friends for 11 years. Pretty disappointing to have your closest friends betray your trust like this and threaten to sue you.
Click to expand...

Never go into business with friends or family. You give them the benefit of the doubt instead of crossing the t's and dotting the i's properly.
 
F

Fox_Mulder

Rockefellers. Skull and Bones. Microsoft. Al Qaeda. A Cabal of Bankers. The melting point of steel. What do these things have in common? Wake up sheeple, the landfill wasn't even REAL!
Let's make a kickstarter campaign for suing them
 
T

Tigress

Member
pizzacat said:
That sucks but you don't put your business partners under the bus even if they screwed up like this
Click to expand...

If what he says is true, throw them under one of those huge construction vehicles. Fuck them, they weren't friends nor really his partner (partners don't purposely fuck each other over). They did everything to screw him including stealing his own money he put into the company. Why the fuck do they deserve an ounce of respect or for their assholishness to be hidden? All that does is make it easier for them to screw some one else so all you're really doing is screwing some one else by staying quiet. Being quiet here is not the honorable thing to do. You are hiding the guilty parties and allowing them to fuck some one else over. How is that honorable?
 
R

RS4-

Member
I've got no problems if there names are forever tainted by this shit.

Fuck em. They don't deserve to do business with anyone at all. Or get a job.
 
H

Hello? This is Hailun!

Member
If the money is gone is he refunding out of his own pocket?

But it's also slightly suspicious.

"These people who did absolutely nothing for the game, were not coders, programmers, artists, designers, producers, or directors, had full access to our bank account and spent all the money."

I mean, it's like.... who puts their worthless free loading couch surfing friend on your bank account?
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Four things:

1) this project only asked for $4k. That's a red flag. $4k going to three people is about their living expenses for a month if they're frugal. Projects cannot get done in a month. This, by definition, even without scamming business partners, people were paying knowing that the completion of the project absolutely required the guy to have a day job and other priorities. That's a zero accountability situation.

2) the risks section doesn't mention this possibility. Why not? Is the answer because "no one thinks their partners will screw them over"? That's exactly why the risks section exists. Not for you to write a token one paragraph "there are risks but I believe in the heart of my destiny and I will give everything to make this work". In fact, the opposite is true--the guy brags about his business partners. Savvy backers would note that the business partners consist of college buddies who got business degrees, not people with any actual experience.

3) the actual project goal was pretty unclear. It was for a series of video game tutorials. But the project links a series of video game tutorials by the same author. But these will be higher quality? And it will also include a 3D plat former... But what happened? Did they make a decision to switch the 3D platform we for the ant game, an extension of a game jam game? Does this not strike people as a huge red flag?

4) finished game due at end of summer 2014. Project was funded end of May 2014. So, generously, a four month project just got cancelled about 20 months later?

All in all a brief read suggests to me this was a fatally flawed KS outside of anything related to the business partner stuff and the terrible contract decisions.
 
S

SliceSabre

Banned
Things like this just make me more and more cautious about Kickstarter campaigns unless it is done by a bigger name or more well known group.

Small project like this one causes my scam-o-meter to break.
 
Z

ZackieChan

Member
shagg_187 said:
You deal with someone who understands your field and your business. That's a good business partner. Since he is a programmer, his business partner should've been a programmer or artist or QA analyst or Unity expert or computer science graduate. He dealt with these finance and economics fucks who joined the company, greasing him with words like "We will handle the business side of things. You just make the software, and talk to the community". In short, he is doing the dirty work while they go to stripper's panties. Hell, start alone! You don't really NEED someone who knows finance or accounting in an indie scene. Start from your damn basement, ask Kickstarter for money if you believe in your project, and manage the money yourself. You had yourself to program shit while they stand on top of your head and watch you work? That's not a business, especially if you were the boss to begin with!

*sigh* I feel so sorry for this guy. He got suckered into a dream, and now they've shattered his dream. Who's going to refund the money? I hope not him since he is not the company anymore. His business partners need to be put on spotlight so no other game developer or businessman do business with them. Leave a mark of their bullshit on the internet so when their bosses search their names, it shows up that they don't know how to manage money.

These university graduates think they know it all just because they have a degree in hand. Need a business partner? Do your research! Get someone with proven track record of managing a business and handling the finances. Get their damn resume and contact their bosses to see if they've been productive and have had any setbacks. This is real life, not some high school clique that'll work.

Fuck, I'm upset.
Click to expand...

You do need someone to handle the business side of things. Devs are notoriously bad at it. However, you're right, those fresh out of school hotshots usually have no idea what to do in the real world. You need to vet those partners!
 
S

SaganIsGOAT

Junior Member
perorist said:
These guys

http://www.eteeski.com/
Click to expand...

Oh my gawd

1422226605871


This reminds me of that presentation Will and John C put on in Step Brothers. Prestige Worldwide 😂😂😂😂😂😂
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
If this situation is as it reads... The Dev even lost access to the company and website created with his own name...
Oooph.
 
Mexen

Mexen

Member
Whoa, is posting their Facebook really a good idea?

Anyway. I feel bad for the guy but it goes to show how much you need to be certain about whom you are in business with. Maybe he didn't see it coming but a little prudence goes a long way especially when it comes to other people's money.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
He's responding to questions at Reddit. Like I said, he's pretty uneducated about business side of things.

Eric said:
Everything here is 100% accurate. I screwed up big time by trusting these guys and letting them take lead as much as they did. I really really wish I could go back in time and explain to myself exactly what you just said. I knew nothing about business at the time, way less than I do now. And all that "Director" stuff, the suits, and all that crap, that was their doing. I wanted our company pictures to have explosions behind them and be way more casual, because we're a damn video game company.
Click to expand...
 
C

~Cross~

Member
duckroll said:
Unfortunately for him, out of this LLC Partnership, he was the Director of Creative (ie: dude who does all the work), and his buddies were the Director of Business and the Director of Finance. Lol. It's the sort of MyFirstBusiness deal which has warning flags all over, but it's very hard to see that without any experience and especially when they're your friends. Sucks.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I remember hearing the youtube shortly after being posted and I was going "Why the fuck does a small 1 man development team need a director of finance and operations?". The guy had absolutely 0 business sense and got taken for a ride. He also had 0 management abilities thinking he could make a game in a few months with just 4ks worth of money, but these sort of passion projects can go on as long as the guy finds food.
 
J

Justinh

Member
RoboPlato said:
The fact that this one is ACTUALLY strippers and booze is hilarious.
Click to expand...
This post almost made me laugh the chili dog out of my mouth (I was eating chili dogs).
Occam said:
If true, the creator made the correct choice. Refunding $4,000 of kickstarter money instead of investing time, effort and money in a potentially lenghty lawsuit that may not have the desired outcome is the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately that means his ex-partners are getting away with it.
Click to expand...
Yeah it sucks they'll get off, but I agree that he's making the right choice and just walking away from all of this. Good on him for being up front with people who gave him money, too.
budkin said:
Facebook pages:

Tyler Monce: facebook

Devon Staley: facebook
Click to expand...

Don't be like that.
budkin said:
It's just their FB page. They can control who can see what. Not like I'm doxxing them or something.
Click to expand...

It's an invitation for harassment.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
I don't really get this...it's not a Kickstarter for a game,it's a Kickstarter for some tutorials. He happens to mention the game prototype as an example of something he did in a short amount of time, but that has nothing to do with what he promised. So did he not finish the tutorials or something? If a separate project he decided to do outside of the Kickstarter's scope got canceled, well, that happens all the time, it's not a big deal to anybody, and nobody should get their money back from that.

budkin said:
It's just their FB page. They can control who can see what. Not like I'm doxxing them or something.
Click to expand...

It very much *is* doxxing to post people's personal Facebook pages.
 
Z

ZackieChan

Member
ColonelSkills said:
https://www.kickstarter.com/fulfillment?ref=hero

It's 9%. Not 25 and certainly not 50.

Just as an fyi before we start this crowdfunding loop-the-loop again.
Click to expand...

Also, doesn't including projects that funded as late as May 2015 skew the results a bit? It's fairly common for things to take longer than estimated - I think that's expected by any sane backer. So a video game or board game project that hasn't delivered 8 months later is a failure? Nonsense. It takes 6 months just to get a board game manufactured and shipped from China, often longer. Many delays are kind of out of the devs hands.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
shagg_187 said:
*sigh* I feel so sorry for this guy. He got suckered into a dream, and now they've shattered his dream. Who's going to refund the money? I hope not him since he is not the company anymore. His business partners need to be put on spotlight so no other game developer or businessman do business with them. Leave a mark of their bullshit on the internet so when their bosses search their names, it shows up that they don't know how to manage money.
Click to expand...
One of the guys LinkedIn profiles has already been removed (cached link showed up in a web search, but basically spat back a 404).

shagg_187 said:
Not only that, but it takes two people to vote, and the ones voting against the other is what's going to happen. Legally, he alone cannot do or say anything. He's probably kicked out of his own company, and that's depressing to begin with.
Click to expand...
Almost the same exact fucking thing happened in Silicon Valley.
 
H

Houk

NISA
shagg_187 said:
You deal with someone who understands your field and your business. That's a good business partner. Since he is a programmer, his business partner should've been a programmer or artist or QA analyst or Unity expert or computer science graduate. He dealt with these finance and economics fucks who joined the company, greasing him with words like "We will handle the business side of things. You just make the software, and talk to the community". In short, he is doing the dirty work while they go to stripper's panties. Hell, start alone! You don't really NEED someone who knows finance or accounting in an indie scene. Start from your damn basement, ask Kickstarter for money if you believe in your project, and manage the money yourself. You had yourself to program shit while they stand on top of your head and watch you work? That's not a business, especially if you were the boss to begin with!

*sigh* I feel so sorry for this guy. He got suckered into a dream, and now they've shattered his dream. Who's going to refund the money? I hope not him since he is not the company anymore. His business partners need to be put on spotlight so no other game developer or businessman do business with them. Leave a mark of their bullshit on the internet so when their bosses search their names, it shows up that they don't know how to manage money.

These university graduates think they know it all just because they have a degree in hand. Need a business partner? Do your research! Get someone with proven track record of managing a business and handling the finances. Get their damn resume and contact their bosses to see if they've been productive and have had any setbacks. This is real life, not some high school clique that'll work.

Fuck, I'm upset.
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry, that first part you wrote is 100% backwards. Your business partner needs to understand your field and your industry, absolutely, but if you're the programmer, the last person your business partner should be is another programmer (or artist, or QA analyst, or anyone else without actual business education or experience). The best business partner is one whose strengths cover your weaknesses, who can handle the parts of the business that you can't or don't want to (which for most people who just want to make games, is the financial/legal side of things).

And whether you're in the indie scene or mainstream, if you want to actually make a living making games, yes you absolutely DO need someone who knows financing and accounting, someone who knows how to build a business model and stick to it. If that person happens to be you, great, but you need *someone* who knows their shit about that. When you don't have that, you can get all the Kickstarter money in the world and still royally fuck it all up.

What do we constantly hear over and over and over again? "Oh, I didn't know how much this was gonna cost, or how long this was gonna take, or how to budget or account for this or that cost," and then they have to go back and ask for more money, or chop the game up and sell it in pieces. This happens to just about every team out there, big or small, and the reason almost always comes down to nobody there knowing how to budget their resources, or not listening to the person that does.

You need to protect yourself 100% and be willing to at least educate yourself enough to know what to look for in a contract, and know when something about your finances stinks. This guy's mistake wasn't bringing on people with a background in business, he was just unlucky enough to pick the wrong people. If anything, this shows just how important it is to be knowledgeable about contracts and finances, and to always keep an eye on that stuff as you develop your project.

Your last paragraph is absolutely right - know who you're getting into business with. Because the right partner can be an absolute godsend and a crucial element of creating a sustainable studio. Vlambeer is one perfect example, among many. Those two basically hate each other (according to them) but their skillsets complement each other perfectly.

Edit: To clarify, a programmer, artist, QA analyst, Unity expert, etc. CAN be perfectly suited to handling the business side of things, but that's *in addition* to their stated expertise, not *because of* it. You don't need any technical knowledge about game development in order to successfully handle the business side of things, as long as you're willing and able to understand the basics.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Four things:

1) this project only asked for $4k. That's a red flag. $4k going to three people is about their living expenses for a month if they're frugal. Projects cannot get done in a month. This, by definition, even without scamming business partners, people were paying knowing that the completion of the project absolutely required the guy to have a day job and other priorities. That's a zero accountability situation.

2) the risks section doesn't mention this possibility. Why not? Is the answer because "no one thinks their partners will screw them over"? That's exactly why the risks section exists. Not for you to write a token one paragraph "there are risks but I believe in the heart of my destiny and I will give everything to make this work". In fact, the opposite is true--the guy brags about his business partners. Savvy backers would note that the business partners consist of college buddies who got business degrees, not people with any actual experience.

3) the actual project goal was pretty unclear. It was for a series of video game tutorials. But the project links a series of video game tutorials by the same author. But these will be higher quality? And it will also include a 3D plat former... But what happened? Did they make a decision to switch the 3D platform we for the ant game, an extension of a game jam game? Does this not strike people as a huge red flag?

4) finished game due at end of summer 2014. Project was funded end of May 2014. So, generously, a four month project just got cancelled about 20 months later?

All in all a brief read suggests to me this was a fatally flawed KS outside of anything related to the business partner stuff and the terrible contract decisions.
Click to expand...

The risks section is not for shit like "Our company might spontaneously explode" or "I might just spend your money poorly" at all. That would just dominate every KS if it were "Risks include me getting struck by lightning" etc. There is a risk that we mismanage funds because we're inexperienced perhaps, but certainly not "our business might be run by assholes"
 
N

NinjamicWZ

Banned
Wow, 11 year friendship too. I hope this dude can bounce back and also find a new social safety net and learn to trust again on top of it. Life without friends and trust isn't easy.
 
Z

Zepp Twofist

Member
This whole thing seems super sketchy. Why was their website recently changed from a hobby-quality game dev site to a "look at these douchebags that are easy to hate"-site?
 
R

RiverBed

Banned
He/they should have been professional. There is no thing as 'they spent it behind my back'. Be a pro, use a paper trail, hold people accountable.
This is a general comment from what I gather from the OP. I don't know the the topic, but as a general rule, when running a business, no matter how small it is, and especially when there are other people involved and there is money, be professional and make people involved liable for their action just as they are rewarded for them. Whenever there is confusion and smoke, you know there is some shady shit going on that you want to keep hidden.

But obvious rant is obvious.
 
J

jeremiahg

Neo Member
The worst part about this is that if you look at the youtube progress videos, it was actually turning out to be pretty awesome. This was not just some lame genre rip-off, but a genuinely innovative title that the devs were putting their hearts and souls in. :(
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
Houk said:
Yeah sorry, that first part you wrote is 100% backwards. Your business partner needs to understand your field and your industry, absolutely, but if you're the programmer, the last person your business partner should be is another programmer (or artist, or QA analyst, or anyone else without actual business education or experience). The best business partner is one whose strengths cover your weaknesses, who can handle the parts of the business that you can't or don't want to (which for most people who just want to make games, is the financial/legal side of things).

And whether you're in the indie scene or mainstream, if you want to actually make a living making games, yes you absolutely DO need someone who knows financing and accounting, someone who knows how to build a business model and stick to it. If that person happens to be you, great, but you need *someone* who knows their shit about that. When you don't have that, you can get all the Kickstarter money in the world and still royally fuck it all up.

What do we constantly hear over and over and over again? "Oh, I didn't know how much this was gonna cost, or how long this was gonna take, or how to budget or account for this or that cost," and then they have to go back and ask for more money, or chop the game up and sell it in pieces. This happens to just about every team out there, big or small, and the reason almost always comes down to nobody there knowing how to budget their resources, or not listening to the person that does.

You need to protect yourself 100% and be willing to at least educate yourself enough to know what to look for in a contract, and know when something about your finances stinks. This guy's mistake wasn't bringing on people with a background in business, he was just unlucky enough to pick the wrong people. If anything, this shows just how important it is to be knowledgeable about contracts and finances, and to always keep an eye on that stuff as you develop your project.

Your last paragraph is absolutely right - know who you're getting into business with. Because the right partner can be an absolute godsend and a crucial element of creating a sustainable studio. Vlambeer is one perfect example, among many. Those two basically hate each other (according to them) but their skillsets complement each other perfectly.

Edit: To clarify, a programmer, artist, QA analyst, Unity expert, etc. CAN be perfectly suited to handling the business side of things, but that's *in addition* to their stated expertise, not *because of* it. You don't need any technical knowledge about game development in order to successfully handle the business side of things, as long as you're willing and able to understand the basics.
Click to expand...


You're right. I was just ranting and upset because I've been in a similar situation as him, except my project didn't pick up, though my business partner/friend ended up doing his own thing and so did I. It was a mutual "this isn't going to work".

He's someone with zero formal education, so he needed some legal advice before getting into a business. He is better off finding someone else. He admits he doesn't know any business terminologies or suits or contracts. You need lawyers present all the time. But then again, it was a very very small business so the loss, while big for him, could've been much bigger.

Zepp Twofist said:
This whole thing seems super sketchy. Why was their website recently changed from a hobby-quality game dev site to a "look at these douchebags that are easy to hate"-site?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did Google cache of the website, and it was essentially full of content. He even had his portfolio up on it. They clearly took it down to make no reference to Eric. The two themselves have done nothing better so might as well use it as their page while they figure out what to do.
 
D

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Zepp Twofist said:
This whole thing seems super sketchy. Why was their website recently changed from a hobby-quality game dev site to a "look at these douchebags that are easy to hate"-site?
Click to expand...

Will wait for the inevitable Gofundme campaign. It would be the perfect con.
 
H

heringer

Member
The website is hilarious. These two dudes with a suit pretending to have an important conversation about business. They would look like douchebags to me even if I didn't know the story, lol.
 
L

LePie

Member
As with most stories, there are multiple perspectives. Such is the case with Ant Simulator and allegedly embezzled funds. Earlier today, a video made the rounds, with developer Eric Tereshinski claiming his former friends and business partners' theft led him to cancel his game.

I spoke tonight with Tereshinski’s ETeeski LLC business partners, Tyler Monce and Devon Staley. It’s been a long day of accusations for them. The two have been painted as the villains in a story about an indie developer’s supposed realization that he was swindled.

When I spoke with Monce and Staley, the two opened up about their work at ETeeski, the allegations, and their side of the convoluted story. “We created the company with Eric,” Monce says. “We didn’t sign on. Because of our size, we had to be jacks of all trades. We handled a big number of things.”

During the 20 months the pair were part of the company, Monce and Staley say they invested a combined $5,000. They told me that was more than Tereshinski put into the firm. The company also had one other significantly smaller investment from one of Tereshinski’s friends.

The duo flatly deny their former partner’s claims. “It’s completely false,” Monce says. “I don’t know why he’s painting that picture, but the reality is that anything that was spent in a bar or restaurant was very reasonable in nature when you look at any business, including video game companies. It was part of our operating budget, it’s not anything that was excessive. It was all reported to the IRS. The picture he’s painting about that is 100 percent bull****.”

Monce, who served as ETeeski’s director of finance, says that the books were open. According to him there was no opportunity for clandestine embezzlement, because Tereshinski had access to all the financial data.

According to the pair, things were going well until November 2015. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Tereshinski made the decision to cut ties with the rest of the company. In doing so, he allegedly made the unilateral decision to close the firm’s business accounts.

“He took control of everything,” Monce continued. “He took control of not only all the company’s physical property, our bank accounts, our social media accounts, our website (which he changed to just our faces for some unknown reason), that was all him. This all started to take place right after the game started to get really popular late in the summer. My personal theory is that he wanted to take it all for himself and cut us out of it. We made it clear that we weren’t going to let him do that, because we had a moral and legal right not to."

According to Monce and Staley, Tereshinski moved the company’s funds to a personal account. That money was being used to support the development of the game, which the pair tell me included nine or ten independent contractors.

[...]
Click to expand...
Just an extract, I really recommend having a read of the full article:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/02/01/ant-simulator-business-partners-respond-devs-claims-100-percent-bull.aspx
 
S

Sylas

Member
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Skybound turns to crowdfunding for triple-A Invincible game
News Game Dev
35
1K
RedC replied
Former Kingdom Come Deliverance art director launches Kickstarter campaign for 2D pixelart game called Scribe RPG
6
723
March Climber replied
  • Locked
Volition Veterans Form New Studio Shapeshifter Games, Working on Xbox Game Studios Project
News Game Dev 2
60
3K
lh032 replied
[VGC] Cancelled Hyenas was ‘Sega’s biggest budget game ever’, it’s claimed
News Game Dev 2
93
6K
DaGwaphics replied
The man who owes Nintendo $14m: Gary Bowser and gaming’s most infamous piracy case
2
85
5K
SHA replied
Top Bottom