As one does when running a legitimate business.
This week’s rant covers Earth 2, a multi-level marketing scheme being operated by a questionable group of characters and propped up on Twitter thanks to a rabid horde of crytpocurrency pyramid scheme participants looking to make a quick buck. Earth 2 is in phase 1, which essentially means the devs are running a shady investment program where people buy plots of Earth on a 1:1 scale of the globe with the expectation that the value of said property will increase over time. It’s like those delicious nutritional supplement pyramid schemes, but without the delicious nutritional supplements.
You can find all kinds of videos covering the question of whether Earth 2 is a scam by checking out YouTubers including Josh Strife Hayes, BigFry, and SidAlpha. The simplest answer is that the developers are definitely exaggerating their capabilities on what they can put in the game and what it will eventually become. The obvious lesson is that nobody should invest their money in this, unless they expect very few of the promised features to ever come to fruition. Now I’m not going to come out and call the developers scam artists. But they sure do act guilty.
But this week the Earth 2 team has a new hire that should tell you everything you need to know about their ethical standards. The new team member is none other than Tanner Rozankovic, aka Varius Benson, aka the CEO of CapitalGamingRP. Varius Benson oversaw the disastrous failure of the game Civil Contract before announcing that he was stepping down to join the Australian military. Evidently “Australian military” is a euphemism for starting work at another company. Someone’s being lied to.
In a way, Rozankovic is a perfect fit for Earth 2. He’s a toxic, abusive, cowardly bully who pitches fervent tantrums in the face of criticism, fabricated a fake review because nobody liked Civil Contract, and is willing to try and leverage legal systems he doesn’t understand to try to intimidate people into silence. He’s not just a bully, but a notoriously incompetent bully at that.
The team at Earth 2 has been making every attempt possible to silence criticism, which is exactly what a trustworthy and ethical company does. The team has been striking critical YouTube videos for defamation and making them unavailable in various countries including Australia and Italy.
Earth 2 is an absolutely shady project, and MMO Fallout viewers would do well to avoid letting their money anywhere near it.
Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter. Credit goes to SidAlpha, BigFry, Josh Strife Hayes, and others for doing all the digging into Earth 2.
MMO Fallout 