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Ex-STALKER devs want to kickstart its "definitive spiritual successor", named Areal

Derpcrawler

Derpcrawler

Member
Hah, they are now accusing russian-ukranian separatists in east, saying people supporting separatism are attacking them because of "reasons".

I mean with all the shit happening in eastern Ukraine that's probably their priority right now - attack and troll kickstarter page of western ukranians. It's getting better and better, plot thickens. How low can they go?
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
okiemok said:
Now in their latest update, West Games says Forbes is a conspiracy by the Chi-Coms.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts


this stuff is rich
Click to expand...
For those who aren't aware, West Games were given a chance by the Forbes Contributor in question, to tell their side of the story and set the facts straight in an interview. Before agreeing to it, West Games sent a response declaring they'd agree to answer his questions "under the condition that you give us a preview of our interview article beforehand, so that we can consent and approve to it being disclosed and or published." That's their definition of unbiasedness and professionalism it seems.

And let's not forget the bizarre tirade (update 11) where West Games accused games press in general of taking bribes from developers of similarly themed games The Seed and Survarium.
Ooh, they address that in the update. They claim it's the opinion of the person VG247 contacted, and is not representative of the company. Them putting this person in a position to communicate with the press is probably somewhat representative though.

I see they end the update by endorsing a list of alleged trolls that spambots have been ruining the comments section with. That's nice.
 
L

Leb

Member
So, when this project inevitably implodes in a spectacular fashion, WG will blame some combination of the following:
1. A shadowy cabal of Internet trolls for frightening away potential investors and potential employees

2. The systemic bias of Western journalists against all things Eastern European

3. Ongoing harassment from ex-GSC employees and teams of amateur modders who, during the funding period, tried to divert attention away from Areal and towards their projects instead

4. Leo Kouvton for quite unexpectedly disappearing in the middle of the night with the massive 50k (after fees and prepaid credit card nonsense) score in tow

5. Vladimir Putin for appropriating the Areal alpha through direct military action in contravention of international law and in violation of Ukraine's sovereignty

6. Chinese puppetmasters directing highly prominent Forbes Contributor Erik Kain to coordinate a smear campaign designed to prevent Areal from ever being completed

7. Pro-Russian separatists, Ukraine loyalists and the ongoing Ukraine conflict for disrupting power, communications and other critical infrastructure that would have been necessary to complete the game
Click to expand...

Things WG will certainly NEVER acknowledge as contributing to their failure:

1. Gross incompetence

2. Comical mismanagement

3. Preposterously low funding target

4. Overambitious project goals

5. Aggressively awful PR

6. Discovering that you cannot, in fact, just download a PS4 devkit from the Internet
Click to expand...
 
U

UnluckyKate

Member
RandyBobandy said:
They did.

In fact, they've made 11k today despite losing 7 backers

NjhDoA1.png


So that's 22k in two days with only 2 new people backing
Click to expand...

Either people pranking them or dev funding themself at this point.

Or Putin actually baking the game
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
okiemok said:
Now in their latest update, West Games says Forbes is a conspiracy by the Chi-Coms.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts


this stuff is rich
Click to expand...

Reading how they use English in their updates, paired with the peculiar choice of terms (see: constantly throwing the word "troll" around with very little care) it really becomes quite obvious who's using those Kickstarter profiles spamming the comment section in defense of the project.
 
O

okiemok

Member
Yeah, I would recommend everyone report this project. There is an "Abusive" option. Even if you are not supporting, if you feel KS is a good platform for gaming at all, you should. This could have a serious impact on legit projects if it is left to stand.

It was funny until the obvious link to the spamming was revealed.

You can report the project at the bottom of the home page of the project.
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
West Games linked to an article, presumably it is to exhibit the professionalism West Games values.
Then, to make matters even more odd, this weekend West Games claimed it received a letter of support from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What is going on?

“We think that the Russians have coordinated and worked out methods to sway public opinion abroad as well as methods to manipulate foreign journalists to write their viewpoints, and we think that our game is a great example of that,” he said.
Click to expand...
That is great. Both the quote and it accidentally being attributed to Putin.
Finally, the $50,000 Kickstarter goal is more to show the game has adequate popularity in order to attract real investments from an established publisher, said Kim in an interview with the Russian-language Games-TV.
Click to expand...
This is not true. That claim belongs to a Games-TV employee, not Eugene Kim.

But shonky and kool-aidy as it occasionally is, if an article in which this sentence is written...
In terms of whether or not Areal is a legitimate project in development or a scam to make a quick 50 grand, the answer remains elusive.
Click to expand...
...is the most positive coverage they've been able to dig up or influence, then I reckon games journalism deserves a round of applause.
 
R

Rats Off To Ya

Banned
People in the comments are posting this form letter they got from Kickstarter.

Hello,
This is a message from Kickstarter’s Trust & Safety team. We’re writing to notify you that the Areal (Suspended) project has been suspended, and your $1.00 USD pledge has been canceled. A review of the project uncovered evidence that it broke Kickstarter's rules. We may suspend projects when they demonstrate one or more of the following:
A related party posing as an independent, supportive party in project comments or elsewhere
Misrepresenting support by pledging to your own project
Misrepresenting or failing to disclose relevant facts about the project or its creator
Providing inaccurate or incomplete user information to Kickstarter or one of our partners
Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges. No further action is required on your part.
We take the integrity of the Kickstarter system very seriously. We only suspend projects when we find strong evidence that they are misrepresenting themselves or otherwise violating the letter or spirit of Kickstarter's rules. As a policy, we do not offer comment on project suspensions beyond what is stated in this message.
Regards,
Kickstarter Trust & Safety
Click to expand...
 
D

doniewhalberg

Member
Well, at least Kickstarter acted eventually. It was gross thinking they had actually pulled it off, when it was so clearly a scam. They were about to walk away with £25000 dollars there for something that would likely turn off a lightly modified unity pre-package. And when I say modified I mean putting stickers around the place that say Areal.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
HOLY SHIT

I wonder what did them in. My guess is the recent, improbably large pledges from the improbably small number of donors.

I like to think I did my part by reporting them for fraud a while back.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
One of the spammers/bots in the comments:
Loren
28 minutes ago
He has just invented that letter by himself!
Click to expand...
Loren
26 minutes ago
But why the project was suspended?
Click to expand...
Loren
25 minutes ago
Really! What is going on now? What was the real reason for suspending the project?
Click to expand...
Loren
19 minutes ago
Why do the half of you are so happy? You have given your own money. And now are laughing. Theres no logic. Who are you then? At least the game could have been created!
Click to expand...
Loren
14 minutes ago
lol. Do you pretend the game may be created without sponsoring??? They do need theese investments to make the game see the world faster. And because such people like you, people with a dream may lose it. It's disgusting. You are very poisonous.
Click to expand...
Loren
9 minutes ago
Guys, why do you think it was really suspended? I ask again
Click to expand...
Loren
2 minutes ago
And now a couple of hater, who are probably from the company of their opponents, try to intervene the WG. Is that because you envy? As for me it's better to work on your own problems, than trying to sink your competitors.
Click to expand...
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Hollow said:
Took kickstarter long enough but I'm glad they finally did something.
Click to expand...

Think of it this way. They would have zero reason to care if the project hadn't gone over the funding treshold. Because then, no one's money would be at stake anyway. Now that the reached their goal, it's a different story.

Edit: What I really hope is true is that the Kickstarter people thought this trainwreck was too funny too kill early.
 
L

Leb

Member
This is a satisfying conclusion to the single most entertaining Kickstarter I've ever participated in. Kudos to all the parties involved.
 
R

RawNuts

Member
They just posted a response on their Facebook.

Part of it:
People also need to take into account that Ukrainians and Russians are in an information war right now, and as a Ukrainian developer, we were subject to constant hostility from Russian Kickstarter accounts (we even got death threats). There are over 16,000 comments on our Kickstarter, which is unprecedented for the amount of supporters that we have, and a lot of our comments are hate filled. Some sites, in light of this, chose to report based on sources from direct competitors or from the myriad of comments based on lies. Others chose a neutral ground, because of the confusing situation around us, and still others wrote positively about us. All in all, more than a 1,000 news results come up when you type in "Areal Kickstarter" on Google.
Click to expand...
BWAHAHAHAHA; it's like they just can't help themselves.


They also restarted funding on their own website, but I'm guessing that you don't get your money back if they don't meet a goal there.

EDIT: Beaten into suspension by kinaesthete
 
L

Leb

Member
So, in a nutshell, the Kickstarter failed because:

The fact is that there are a lot of companies that make their livelihood on STALKER, so when we showed up on the scene, they saw us as a threat and did everything that they could to stop us.
Click to expand...

That's all it was, really, and it's just too bad that some bad eggs at Misery and Vostok Games had to ruin the definitive spiritual successor to STALKER, made by the team that brought us STALKER, a team that makes the best games, because they definitely know how.

They'll continue to dream, act and win in our hearts.
 
K

kase23

Member
haha ! Just saw the news about the suspension
Honestly wasn't expecting any action from kickstarters part but I guess
this goes to restore some of the trust I lost over the last 12 months with crowdfunding
 
Terrible_Majesty

Terrible_Majesty

Member
i know most of you have decided that this is a scam. i'm not convinced. i mean i'm not giving them any of my money, but one of their claims is that forbes is owned by chinese. i looked it up and yup, they are as of 2014 majority owned by an asian company. the litmus test will be the updates they post. then if they can actually deliver a demo or game that we can play, we will know whether it was truly areal game or ascam.

although i agree with ks' decision to suspend their campaign, that was more of a precautionary measure imo. they have already reached 1/5th of their goal on their new page, so lets wait and see what happens...
 
F

fabricated backlash

Member
Terrible_Majesty said:
i know most of you have decided that this is a scam. i'm not convinced. i mean i'm not giving them any of my money, but one of their claims is that forbes is owned by chinese. i looked it up and yup, they are as of 2014 majority owned by an asian company. the litmus test will be the updates they post. then if they can actually deliver a demo or game that we can play, we will know whether it was truly areal game or ascam.

although i agree with ks' decision to suspend their campaign, that was more of a precautionary measure imo. they have already reached 1/5th of their goal on their new page, so lets wait and see what happens...
Click to expand...
Dude, one of them tried to fund a nuclear space station for 50k ... it was is and always will be a scam.
 
Terrible_Majesty

Terrible_Majesty

Member
again, if they can produce anything it would be interesting lol. first off, they need to hire someone new for their PR. A SUPERMAN! ULALA <3_<3 is either Michael Scott levels of funny or just at this point i dont think they care or are trolling or all of the above OR they are genuises lol
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
fabricated backlash said:
Dude, one of them tried to fund a nuclear space station for 50k ... it was is and always will be a scam.
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely comfortable with presenting it as fact that Max Kovtun was/is involved with this project. There's enough fishyness to suspect that could be the case, but there's no definite proof from what I've seen.

Anton Sugar said:
http://i.imgur.com/ij4kYLL.png[/QUOTE]
Are these alien robots on space drugs?
[quote="TucoBenedictoPacifico, post: 122360191"]Between the letter from Putin, all the accusations of filo-Russian propaganda and this conversation, I must say this Kickstarter is seriously turning into some surreal shit.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like you may have missed [URL="http://www.vg247.com/2014/07/02/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-areal-vostock-sparks-legal-and-fraud-threats/"]the bribery conspiracy[/URL]. Update 11.
Click to expand...
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
Terrible_Majesty said:
i know most of you have decided that this is a scam. i'm not convinced. i mean i'm not giving them any of my money, but one of their claims is that forbes is owned by chinese. i looked it up and yup, they are as of 2014 majority owned by an asian company. the litmus test will be the updates they post. then if they can actually deliver a demo or game that we can play, we will know whether it was truly areal game or ascam.

although i agree with ks' decision to suspend their campaign, that was more of a precautionary measure imo. they have already reached 1/5th of their goal on their new page, so lets wait and see what happens...
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone took offense to or opposed West Games' claim that Forbes was owned by a Chinese company. It was more the part where if an article is skeptical and questioning, and/or does not play ball with West Games' requests of previewing and approving articles before they're published, they'll accuse the writer of slander and being unprofessional.

The counter on their site is run by West Games. It doesn't mean anything.
 
S

SkeptiMism

Member
Wow. People are still actually giving them money on their website?

Or is it possible that it's set up to seem like people are giving money? I really hope nobody is actually giving any.
 
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