Category: Editorials

[Community] Mob Mentality, Jason Vorhees, and Website Policy


For this week’s Community article, I’d like to bring up as subject that has been discussed to death over the past few years yet still remains a pervasive issue in not just the gaming community, but virtually every aspect of human life especially when the internet is concerned: Mob mentality and the internet’s ever populous septic tank of human refuse that plagues every community.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Friday the 13th developer Illfonic got caught in some hot water this weekend after a player got banned for allegedly sexually harassing a group of players including a 12 year old girl. The topic has been covered by a number of Youtubers, which you can find and catch up on if you want to know the story, but instead of talking about semantics, I’m going to summarize MMO Fallout’s response to this controversy in one paragraph:

I didn’t write about it, and looking at all of the misinformation that has come out and been repeated by various Youtubers, I am doubling down that not writing about it was the right thing to do. I throw around the term game journalist like it’s a joke sometimes, but this website does strive to follow the SPJ code of ethics, and rules one and two are seek the truth and minimize harm respectively. That didn’t happen in this case.

Among the big book of rules written for MMO Fallout, discussing reports of game bans is virtually off the table except in rare circumstances where the developer is blatantly crossing an ethical line by handing out bans for poor reviews or doing something shady and banning people in the hopes to silence that information. At the end of the day, bans are subjective, and as incredible as it sounds, people who are punished tend to lie about the circumstances surrounding their ban. I say this as someone who has a long history that includes GM’ing an MMO and owning/moderating servers for games like Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty, and more. You’ll be a lot more skeptical after the tenth person you’ve banned in a month (after repeated warnings) for using racist slurs in chat shows up on the forums and says he has “no idea why he was banned for just playing the game better than everyone else.”

But more importantly, these topics tend to be eighty sixed because the internet can’t behave itself, and such coverage is only guaranteed to result in the mob mentality’s three D’s: Death threats, doxxing, and DDOS attacks. Not only has the harassment campaign by online sociopaths begun against Friday the 13th’s developers, but the servers have been hit more than once by attackers trying to either punish the developers or simply ruin the experience.

And make no bones about it, I don’t blame either the guy who got banned for airing his grief or the Youtubers for popularizing the controversy for this response, as I have written numerous times in the past, it doesn’t take much incitement for death threats to start rolling in. It’s also important that we don’t just accept this sort of action and continue to weed out and remove such bad actors.

The player in question has even apologized for what the developers have endured following his review, an act that should be commended in spite of genuinely being unnecessary. It also shows how disturbing parts of the net have become:

I know what its like to be doxxed. I know what it’s like to have your family called and have horrible things been said to them. That’s why I can no longer continue to support this. I have been approached by people on steam, asking me to??????the 12 year old I was in the game with, and to give out the people in the matches information so they could doxx them and kill them. The things people have said to me have really scared me these past couple of days and in no way shape or form did I want this to happen.

While I will never blame content creators for the actions of their community (unless said action is directly or implicitly instructed by said creator), you absolutely have an obligation to verify the facts before making statements.

Other than that I have no opinion on the matter.

Review: Antihero


(Copy obtained from publisher)

Mathilde can’t keep up. For every street urchin she sends to the Bastard’s Bath or Millstone to desperately scrape together some cash, my gang will find them and beat them back into hiding. Any thugs she uses to block the streets or gangs to route out my urchin children will be murdered and left for the rats. I’ve bribed politicians, assassinated those who couldn’t be bought, pulled strings with the church for the purpose of blackmail, and if I have to I’ll hire a Truant Officer to evict those urchins.

But that’s not necessary, because I can throw in another bribe and win the match.

Antihero is a turn based strategy game of wits set in Victorian London where you take the role of a master thief and utilize the city’s underside to expand your empire and drive others out. You do this by playing dirty, hiring street urchins to infiltrate places for the purpose of extortion, bribery, and blackmail, killing your enemies, and generally being a lethal pain in the rear. Antihero was developed by Tim Conkling and at the time this is published, will be available on Steam.

Artistically speaking, Antihero showcases a pleasant style with characters whose heads are disproportionately larger than the rest of their bodies. Animations are quick and exaggerated, and overall the aesthetic of the game feels like it’s been directly pulled from a children’s book. Characters are well stylized caricatures of what you’d expect from a Victorian London game, and while the campaign mode’s bosses are effectively one-dimensional stereotypes, they go as far as needed to convey what they are and how they will generally act.

Each turn your master thief has a limited number of moves which can be used to infiltrate buildings, burgle them, assassinate opponents, and generally thieve around. As you progress through each turn, you’ll gradually accumulate more of the game’s two currencies: Gold and lanterns, which in turn can be used to buy minions and upgrades which make it easier to obtain gold and lanterns. Your thief him/herself is also reliant on upgrades to provide more actions and better damage, and over the course of the match becomes more useful and powerful.

What makes Antihero a thinking man’s game is that it really requires you to have a plan and be willing to act on it with the limited resources at your disposal. Using your gang to clear a building of urchins means not using him to strike your opponent’s gang, or take out an assassination target, but it does starve your opponent of much needed coins/lanterns to inhibit his next turn. Likewise, thugs can be placed around the map to block passages and force your opponent to waste a turn killing them, but they can’t be moved once placed and only last a few rounds. Your thief, while able to do more per turn, is still reliant on the law of opportunity cost. Should you scout the map early, revealing buildings held by enemy urchins, scout your own buildings to allow your urchins to infiltrate and start generating money, or burgle buildings to generate short term cash, or all of the above at the cost of efficient short term growth?

While it can be easy to get ahead in Antihero, staying ahead is a delicate balance of resources that can just as easily be knocked over at the drop of a hat. Your gang gets more powerful as you beat up urchins and murder, but they never become so powerful that a master thief and their own gang can’t take him down in a turn, if they’re willing to dedicate the resources to it. Urchins can be evicted, meaning you can lose that church bribe at any given moment, and assassin targets regularly walk the streets allowing for some late game changing victory points if you can get to them fast enough.

One aspect that I really like about Antihero is the return of the long forgotten casual online mode. Back in the days of crappy dial-up connections, playing a game like Antihero wasn’t viable if you had to be connected at all times, and developers understood that, for what is essentially a board game, people want a more casual style. Antihero lets you have your cake and eat it too, with an online mode with both players present, as well as a casual mode where you can make your move and shut the game off, and take your turn when you get around to it.

Ultimately, Antihero is a pretty great game that is easy to learn and difficult to master. Check out the launch trailer below for gameplay footage.

Recommendation: Two thumbs up.

Crowdfunding Fraudsters Redux: Return of the ZX Spectrum Vega+


If Retro Computers Limited wants to convince me that the Vega Plus is going to be released, they need to prove it. For those of you who haven’t seen the original Crowdfunding Fraudsters regarding the ZX Spectrum Vega Plus, you can read it here. Today we’re revisiting the ZX Spectrum Vega+, a handheld device slated for release in September 2016. It still hasn’t launched.

1. Retro Computers Ltd Breaks Out The B-Team

Where the previous Crowdfunding Fraudster article focused on figures like RCL Managing Director Suzanne Martin, founder David Levy, Chris Smith, and Paul Andrews, Darren Melbourne, and more, the follow up is going to focus on three people whose opinions are entirely present despite being exponentially more immature and irrelevant than people we’d actually like to hear from: Tamara Thomas, Lee Fogarty, and Jan Saggiori.

Thomas and Saggiori are volunteer administrators of the unironically named “Democracy” side of the  Retro Vega+ Facebook group, a title which gives superficial authority along with a ban hammer and delusions of respect. You also get gems like comparing waiting for photos of a video game console to a donated kidney and people dying:

Thomas and Saggiori’s unofficial job is to act as bullies on behalf of RCL, berating frustrated backers so when RCL pushes another delay, they can point to the people that Thomas and Saggiori have deliberately provoked and claim that the delays are due to complaining. Evidently RCL’s systems operate on juju, because people getting angry that Thomas showed up to tell them to “get over it” causes the internet to stop functioning and, thus, prevented RCL from posting photographs and video on Facebook for well over a week a few months ago, rather than RCL’s own incompetence at meeting deadlines. The group has mostly replaced Managing Director Suzanne Martin, whose primary job appeared to be selling photographs and video footage as a multi-million dollar effort.

Fogarty, meanwhile, is the web admin and definitely not the spokesman for Retro Computers Ltd, as despite his name appearing in the author box on what appears to be every news piece over at the RCL website, or constantly posting pictures with the test devices on the Facebook page, we can only assume that an actual spokesman wouldn’t be making jail rape jokes in regards to the other side of ongoing lawsuits.

Much like Thomas and Saggiori, Fogarty’s job appears to be primarily antagonizing the slowly dwindling number of backers from the relative safety of not being an employee, while simultaneously claiming complete ignorance on why anyone would be so hostile toward RCL when clearly all they are guilty of is providing a positive atmosphere with a channel where correspondence has completely died and no one posts due to the overanxious ban hammer.

Otherwise the team has pretty much moved on to the elementary school tactic of “I’m not touching you,” posting photos of beta testers and describing how much testers are enjoying their units, and then acting surprised when backers get frustrated. Why? We’re only eight months past deadline for a piece of hardware that was so much on track that it may have had the potential to launch early.

2. The Breach of Security, or, Lying to the Public

Late April, Retro Computers Ltd announced that a security breach had occurred on their domain names:

We have been made aware that late yesterday afternoon a security breach occurred on a number of domains belonging to Retro Computers Limited. This includes the zxvega.co.uk and retro-computers.co.uk URLs

Except there ultimately was no security breach, and this lie has been repeated numerous times from parties both within and outside of Retro Computers Ltd. What happened was that domains were released to the public and picked up and redirected to domains criticizing Retro Computers Ltd.

3. The Perpetual Victim Complex

It should be of no surprise that RCL’s habitual lying and perpetual status as victim often intermingle, either that or this is the first product in the history of Indiegogo to be derailed by people complaining in the comments section. After months of pointing fingers at the “hate mob,” a mostly non-existent entity that seems responsible for RCL’s self-inflicted PR wounds, was responsible for coercing developers into pulling their titles from the Vega Plus, an expose from The Register (with an increasingly immature response from RCL with each new article) shows that the reason actually may point to a dead beat dev. Turns out that, rather than by virtue of internet trolls, RCL hasn’t been paying royalties and rights holders are pulling out.

4. The Continued Refusal of Refunds

Last time we checked out Retro Computers Ltd, the company made a statement that they have never refused a refund, an idea that took all of ten minutes to disprove thanks to the dozens upon dozens of comments on the Indiegogo page claiming numerous refund requests with no response. Unsurprisingly, the Indiegogo page is still filled with complaints of unfulfilled refunds and users resorting to filing fraud claims via Paypal and through their credit card companies to force the refunds through.

5. Cooking Minute Rice In A Week

One big thing I pointed out in the last Crowdfunding Fraudster was that Retro Computers Ltd is completely incapable of performing even the most benign tasks within a reasonable time frame. The company has gone completely silent as of late, with its last announcement being on May 9.

The Roll of Honour email is coming at you this week Please log into your account to confirm all of your details are up to date as we cannot be responsible for wrong ones. And if you have chosen a ‘rude’ name, or you no longer go by a name previously chosen, give this some thought as once it is locked it is locked, and it’s very difficult to change.

Incidentally, I started writing this redux back in early June, and with it now being July and RCL still having not released the roll call list, we’ll be surpassing two months with the company unable to complete simple tasks like publishing a list of backers.

The Vega Plus is supposed to launch this Summer, but we still don’t have a game list (we don’t even have a roll of honour), and we don’t even know if the device has begun manufacturing. In standard RCL fashion, the company’s habitual lying has turned out a new low: The news announcement on May 9th ends with an apology and a promise to “update more regularly from now on.” In promising more updates, the company has gone completely silent.

6. In Plain English, But Not On This Website

I’ve received a few emails asking if I’d be doing an In Plain English in regards to the lawsuit(s) between RCL and its founders, and the answer to that is a tentative: Maybe. There hasn’t been an In Plain English piece about these lawsuits because right now all I have is information from the insanely biased sources of both sides, which contradict one another, and I don’t have the confidence to report on any of it as a result. The United States has Public Access to Court Electronic Records, allowing lawyers and press (like yours truly) to gain access to dockets. The UK doesn’t have that, to the best of my knowledge.

So it’s something I’m working on but can’t make too high of a priority because, as ridiculous as this project is, I’m hesitant to dedicate too many resources to something already outside MMO Fallout’s “scope.”

7. In Conclusion (again)

Barring sudden access to court records, this is the last that MMO Fallout will cover on the Retro Vega Plus. I had a few comments on the last piece about treating Retro Computers Ltd with kid gloves, but I stand by most of what I said. While I’d like to hold out some hope that the Vega Plus will be released, but right now RCL seems to be doing a live reenactment of the I Love Lucy candy factory scene, quickly losing whatever control they had on the situation as the conveyor belt just gets faster and faster.

MMOments: Secret World Legends and the Power Of Second Impressions


The Secret World will go down in history as one of the few games to put some of its executives in actual, physical prison, a strong connection considering that the game itself didn’t exactly leave much of a splash on the genre when it launched in 2012. It’s disappointing but true, while critics were praising the title for its intelligent missions and players were getting through the launch ARG, the game initially tanked Funcom’s stock value and never really garnered the kind of following it deserved or really needed. It was no failure by any means, don’t get me wrong, but five years later, the game is in some dire need of a reboot.

For those who haven’t given The Secret World a look, Secret World Legends is a not-exactly-horror game set on modern day Earth with a lore steeped in conspiracy. To picture the world you will inhabit, imagine that every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard is true. The Illuminati exist but they don’t really control everything, there is a town in Solomon Island, Maine that has been besieged by zombies, the Egyptian gods were real, and Transylvania actually does have vampires living in it. Who knows, Bigfoot probably also exists. You start the game by choosing one of three factions to join: The Illuminati, the Dragon, and the Templars. Who you join basically determines your faction quest line and your choice of faction specific outfits, otherwise you’re pretty much going through the same zones and missions.

The absolute strongest aspect of Secret World Legends carries over from The Secret World: Its story telling. While the animations are about as stiff and lifeless as you’d expect from a Funcom game, the missions themselves are quite a bit of fun to go on. Best of all are the investigation missions, bits that have you solving rather difficult puzzles that require outside reading and research. Normally this is where I’d joke and say “grab your bible, because you’re going to need it,” but you’re actually going to need access to a bible if you don’t want to cheat and look up the answers. A number of the puzzles in Secret World Legends involved cracking open a bible and reading passages to find clues. Crazy, right?

You won’t be doing any long division or physics problems for the puzzles, they’re more understanding references and taking a look at the scenery. Some are obscure, require you to really soak in the scenery, while others are simple “the answer is the length of this song.” Almost every mission starts and ends with a cutscene, and usually some sort of message from your faction offering some more information on the case.

Combat is the next big thing in Secret World Legends, because the one that existed in The Secret World wasn’t exactly what you’d call…well received. This time around, combat is more action oriented, with a reduced number of slots for actions along with each weapon having its own special ability. Combat isn’t great, but it is a step up from the floatiness of The Secret World.

I can appreciate that the game points out harder enemies on the map, not only because they are more engaging to fight than the random mobs roaming around but because this game is seriously stingy when it comes to drops. I imagine that Trond Aas must be getting more from his commissary than Funcom is willing to dole out in goods. The plus side is that you don’t have to spend much time comparing stats since your weapon/talisman drops will just be recycled to gear up your current weapon, so the lack of loot is sort of complimented by the fact that it is mostly useless for purposes other than feeding your current equipment regardless.

As someone who abandoned The Secret World early over its lack of players (understandably contributing to just that problem), I’m glad to see Funcom give the game another chance rather than letting it slide into a slow death. While you would be within your rights to be angry about having to start over,

More impressions to come.

One Year Later: Umbrella Corps Was Dead On Arrival


You didn’t need to be a psychic to tell that Umbrella Corps was going to come out of the gates and immediately crash into a brick wall, but I don’t think anyone actually foresaw it performing as poorly as it did given that its predecessor Operation Raccoon City still managed to hit 3 million sales despite overwhelmingly negative attention. Launched June 2016 as an alleged eSports title, Umbrella Corps peaked at 428 players on Steam and immediately crashed into the low double digits over the following 30 days.

And why not? It was the spiritual sequel nobody asked for to a spinoff from the Playstation 3 that few actually enjoyed despite it selling well. I suppose Capcom was hoping that customers wouldn’t subscribe to the whole “fool me once” ideology, and if they were then they misjudged the market. Fatally. It’s a bad sign when you announce your serious project and the customer base is treating it like a bad April Fool’s Day joke.

Umbrella Corps is a cover-based game where cover barely offers help and in many cases is actively detrimental, a shooter where in many situations guns are less preferable than your melee weapon, a zombie game with AI so inconceivably stupid that zombies will miss their attacks from close range or just outright ignore you, and a Resident Evil game embarrassing enough that Capcom decided to strip the game of its titular ties to the franchise prior to release. Like Raccoon City before it, Umbrella Corps shows the signs of a game that could have been much better had Capcom put into place a competent leadership utilizing realistic funding with genuine determination to see the game through to completion.

But they didn’t. Umbrella Corps was released alongside the Beginning Hour demo for Resident Evil 7, the latter of which received much higher praise, making it clear that Capcom had put all of its cash into the main series while handing the Osaka studio fifty cents and demanding that they make a million dollars out of it. Actually, I’m more inclined to believe that Capcom handed Osaka Studio the budgetary equivalent of a hundred dollar bill and said “don’t spend it all in one place,” then proceeded to completely ignore the studio up to, and following, release.

To hammer down on Umbrella Corp’s problems, Capcom had just enough energy to keep patching the game for two months, until on August 19 they patched in four player mode. While Umbrella Corps is a 3v3 game by design, by August the community had grown small enough that getting together a group of six people in matchmaking was a laborious effort, and as a result Capcom patched in the ability for matches to start with just four people. Also in August, Capcom ran its one free weekend for the game. It didn’t work, the population barely blipped and by this point the game’s reputation as not even bad enough to be ironically good was well known.

The only saving grace for Umbrella Corps may be that it was wholly ignored by much of the media when it launched due to the same day release of another, much higher profile disaster: Mighty No. 9. In the world of gaming, Capcom spilled fruit punch on the new carpet only for few to notice because Comcept was playing with fireworks in the next room and set the whole house on fire. The game managed to make it into a number of “Worst of 2016” lists, with a few publications noting its dramatic drop in population, but otherwise the game by this point has mostly been forgotten by the press, gamers, and by Capcom itself who probably had a few options on the table to at least try and revitalize the community but didn’t consider the potential payout worth the effort.

[Community] Why the Marvel Heroes Store Change Matters


Last week MMO Fallout reported on Gazillion Entertainment reducing the price of storage by 50% and refusing to reimburse people who had already made purchases. I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this, both for and against the decision, and I wanted to discuss why this is a topic that needs attention.

First off, let me qualify that whenever the term refund or reimbursement is brought up in this article I’m strictly speaking in terms of cash shop currency. I’m not suggesting, nor do I think many would expect, Gazillion to hand out hundreds of one or two dollar refunds over the PSN. In the grand scheme of things, Gazillion could have easily run a check to see who had purchased the storage upgrades and set the system to place the G’s back in their wallet, or just grant them extra storage for the equivalent new price. But they didn’t.

Gazillion is obligated to do something for its early backers, not because it’s written into law but because of how Marvel Heroes is being marketed and sold to consumers. I’ve seen a lot of people comparing this to buying a product and then complaining when it goes on sale, a comment which I have to say is wrong on two levels. First, this isn’t a normal product that you buy from a store. It’s a digital good that you’re buying for an as of yet unreleased video game. The cost didn’t come down because of a sale, but because Gazillion made some adjustments and found the price to be too high based on user feedback. As a short second, most stores will reimburse you if an item you bought goes on sale shortly after.

This calls back to an issue that we’ve talked about for years: Developers deciding that open beta now means soft launch, allowing them to effectively launch the game and monetize it while claiming immunity from strong criticism because it’s just a beta. You can’t have it both ways without risking trust issues with your customer base, which is why the first thing that most developers do when they launch a game these days is hammer down the cash shop. It may seem like priorities in the wrong place, but it stops moments like this from happening.

Another point I’ve seen come up is on the idea of products coming out and immediately going on sale. Yes, that does happen and it is not received positively by the customer base for whom it becomes a reason to not trust the developer/publisher. While it may not be particularly egregious, you risk burning out customers early because what you’re telling them is that you don’t have your stuff in order, and you’re willing to make them foot the bill for it. It’s the new form of old developers who sold long subscription times on the premise that they would never go free to play, only to make liars out of their PR people.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

[Column] RuneScape Pride Day Provokes Bigoted Backlash


This Thursday sees the launch of a mini-event in RuneScape, something that given its scope and scale probably shouldn’t elicit much more than an “oh okay,” or a “that’s neat” at the peak of emotion. Jagex is adding in a rainbow scarf, obtained through finding a small number of rainbow fragments hidden all over the game world, in support of Pride Day. This is why players are rioting in RuneScape.

And because a small section of the base wants to show that they are not, in fact, bigots and simply don’t want politics “shoved” in their game, people are showing up in Old School RuneScape dressed in a manner to resemble KKK uniforms, shouting racist obscenities about Jewish people, lobbing homophobic comments at Jagex, and advertising for Alex Jones’s Infowars. Because it’s all about keeping politics out of gaming and nothing to do with bigotry.

RuneScape has previously held events for political subjects, including the YMCA, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Prince’s Trust. In case you were wondering if these players reacted similarly to “politics being shoved down their throat” when the subject wasn’t gay pride, they didn’t. Regardless, Jagex isn’t backing down from their plan to release the scarf. While there are no plans to ban players for simply protesting the event, bans have already been handed out for players using offensive slurs or bigoted speech in chat, as well as for those walking around dressed up as Klan members.

Despite the bigoted backlash, there have been level-headed players offering fair criticism of this event, including the fact that it was not polled. While players have disagreed on whether or not such an event needed to be polled, those of you who read MMO Fallout are likely aware that the game is pretty well built on polling for content, with updates not being delivered unless voted on by at least 75% of respondents.

Banned Steam Seller Is Back, Threatening Steam Users


Gennady Guryanov Alekseevich shouldn’t be selling games on Steam, he was banished from the service in April when Valve discovered that he was using Steam accounts to boost the reviews of his games. In fact, his entire library of games was destroyed: Zi, Julai, and K-Rolik.

Secret Doctrine is a game developed by Luma14Kulan, the alias of Gennady Guryanov Alekseevich and which is currently available on Steam at the high price of $50, despite the aforementioned individual being barred from selling products on it.

Through tough research, MMO Fallout was able to verify that not only is Gennady Guryanov the developer of The Secret Doctrine, but that he is in fact currently going by the username Lama14Kulan. How did we discover this information, you may ask? Via the not-so-subtle about page on the game’s own website.

And since Lama14Kulan is shady enough to get himself banned for underhanded practices, it may not be surprising to see that users are being threatened with lawsuits over their criticism of Guryanov’s business tactics.

For what it’s worth, as with most games of this stripe, while Guryanov may be back on Steam, it hasn’t stopped his game from flopping hard. As of this writing, there is one review of the game (Russian) by a user who is (unsurprisingly) friends with Guryanov. There isn’t a single person playing at this time and sales are expected to be miniscule as publisher Elena Schukina (seen above threatening to sue a user) is trying to play up the controversy as “black PR” to drive more sales.

Given that Guryanov is located in Russia and his game has sold virtually nothing, the threat of lawsuit falls on deaf ears. Members of the community should not allow empty threats from a shady creator stop them from exposing and criticizing problematic players in the Steam economy.

(Source: Guardians of Greenlight)

Greenlight Fraudsters: MechDefender Scams Greenlight Bundle


MechDefender is a recently released game by developer Elite Games Ltd, Vadim Starygin, and one that currently has zero concurrent players, a factor that probably won’t change much so long as Elite Games refuses to give keys to the customers who purchased them. You see, MechDefender was partnered with the OtakuMaker Greenlight Bundle, a Steam bundle where players are given the ability to buy games before they are greenlit on Steam at a major discount in return for a key once the game is approved and on the store (this is not a Valve-sanctioned bundle).

Except that while MechDefender was successfully Greenlit, the developer has no intention of actually giving players keys. Why? Despite no doubt knowing how much money he’d be making from each sale, the developer decided after already taking part that it just wasn’t enough.

So I`m about to close this topic. I`ll give out a few keys to play&test in next topic after patch.
Here is bottom line of this disccusion:
1) At this moment I do not have money from “this bundle”.
2) If you wanna get your four cents back – ask for refund at place where you “spend” your cents.

So the developer sold copies of his game cheap in order to get it approved through Steam Greenlight, and then reneged and has decided that the price is too cheap and the buyers won’t be getting their copies. Normally MMO Fallout takes a position of presuming incompetence over malice, but this practice is an outright scam, one that were it to be pursued in a western court would most definitely result in Elite Games on the losing end.

But Elite Games will happily provide a refund, which it has valued at 4 cents.

And, no, I didnt get any ‘real money’. I would love to give it back. It is around 4 cents per copy. At this point we trying to work out a solution. Any suggestion is welcome.

The developer goes on in the linked thread to begin awkwardly going through the play histories of people criticizing his business decision, questioning their play styles and making conclusions to not give them keys based off of perceived motivations which, as far as consumer law goes, is none of his business.

Alright, alright, he’ll send out the keys. But only to people who have been nice…

Since MechDefender is moving towards release candidate.
Lets try first round of keys? To nice ppl – who wasnt calling me names or put in his??????list.

But you people aren’t real customers in his eyes…

“Just wanna add – you are not my customer. I dont consider you a customer – even if you spend four cents and demanding a gift a 5$ value…”

“…I meant not you personaly – but all users who want copy for four cents. They are not customers – including or excluding you – depens on your deeds. I did lost count and stuff.”

And don’t think you scumbag customers thinking you’re entitled to a product just because it was sold to you are going to get this deal again in the future, because you won’t.

And for other games – I can only do this with MechDefender. You have to meet me at half-way.
If you dont like this plan, and insist on more games for four cents – that will not happen. Ask for refund.

A quick glance at the forums shows a familiar field of banned accounts that has become so common with developers engaged in shady practices. While Elite Games has sworn off of Otaku bundles going forward, perhaps it is best for consumers to keep in mind exactly how Starygin feels about his customers, or whatever he calls them because they aren’t customers in his eyes.

Elite Games was founded by Russian developer Vadim Starygin and his wife Tatiana Budarina. The company operates out of Kaliningrad and has been releasing titles for nearly ten years.

Early Access Fraudsters: Shady Developer Lord Kres Is Still Shady


(Editor’s Note: You may notice that this article makes no use of screenshots from the game Voxelized and only utilizes third party Youtube videos. This is rare, but we do it to mitigate any potential frivolous take down requests being sent to our host over use of copyrighted material. Enjoy.)

Steam Developer Lord Kres is a con artist who by all means should already be barred from ever selling a video game on Steam again. When it comes to writing an Early Access or Crowfunding Fraudster column, I do so with a level of grace and caution. As I regularly reinforce, many of the subjects are people who are merely in over their heads, independent developers with a vision and neither the experience nor the finances to see it through to completion, enthusiastic gamers who think that they can crowdfund money to bribe a developer into creating a sequel, or seasoned veterans who start campaigns knowing that the funds are not enough to see the project through to completion.

In the case of Lord Kres, we are dealing with a shady name that has already been punished once by Valve for blatantly defrauding customers. Let’s talk about that.

The subject of our backstory is Journey of the Light, a title released in 2015 under the promise that the game would be incredibly difficult. The Dark Souls of puzzle games, if you will, but cranked up to a thousand because the puzzles turned out to be so difficult that nobody was able to finish the first level. Not a single person, aside from the developer himself. Now that’s hardcore gaming! Suspecting that something was up, a few intrepid sleuths took a look at the game’s code and came up with a fantastic reason why not a single person had been able to pass the first trial: The game was designed to be unbeatable.

Oh and the last six levels of this seven level game didn’t actually exist. At all. It was a real life Xantar from Wayne’s World.

In his defense, Lord Kres claimed that the levels did exist and were accidentally removed from the game due to a bug added in a then-recent patch, an excuse that sits just above blaming the two armed man in terms of believability, or Kres’ subsequent claims of being sick to avoid answering questions. In case you’re wondering whether Kres then turned around and immediately patched those levels back into the game, like he would if he had been telling the truth, he didn’t. Instead, Valve opened Journey of the Light up for refunds regardless of time played and removed the game from the Steam store. Incidentally, the soundtrack is still shown on the store, but you can’t buy it.

One thing that can be said about Lord Kres is that the guy is crafty. According to numerous forum posts, users were told that hints to completing the first level were hidden within the game’s trading cards. Those cards are useless in completing the puzzles, and (according to user reports) conveniently don’t drop until after two hours of gameplay, the general limit for Steam’s refund policy. Clever girl.

What is still on sale on Steam from Lord Kres is Voxelized, a prototype with virtually zero content. Voxelized started out as a low quality Minecraft clone, as seen in the video below:

It later evolved into a not-as-low but still low quality Minecraft clone with a lot of bloom and using Unreal assets.

And most recently, the game has transformed into an Unreal engine asset flip with no gameplay.

Eagle eyed viewers might be under the impression that Lord Kres has no vision for this prototype game that he is selling on Steam in Early Access, and if you hold this opinion then you’re probably right. As laid out in the mission plan, Kres wants a fully fleshed out world with some animals maybe? I don’t know, some guns, whatever. Let him know what you want and he’ll probably put it in.

  • Maybe you would want to see some animals?
  • Maybe some Guns, Swords or Armors?
    Let me know what you want.
  • I am also planning a Full Control Support
  • And Full HDM Support (Head Mounted Display)
    Workshop is a planned feature

It’s important to note that Voxelized has been on the Steam store for two years, since March 19, 2015 to be precise, before being changed to the content-void Minecraft prototype into the content-void Unreal asset flip. Naturally this has left some of the buyers pretty annoyed, to which an alleged moderator showed up on one critic’s Steam page to tell him to kill himself. Unsurprisingly there have been numerous reports of people being banned off of the Steam forums for writing negative reviews or critiquing the title.

So here’s where we stand: Lord Kres is an established fraudster who had previously attempted to pull a con job by selling a game as finished while secretly making it unbeatable and then making up excuses as to why the levels weren’t in the game. Despite this, Valve is still allowing him to sell a prototype that has radically shifted in a different direction, two years after entering Early Access, and despite having no content describing itself as “fully playable.”

The game in it´s current state is fully playable and the features still in development do not affect to the gameplay. Main reason for adding Voxelized on Steam in Early Access:

Just as a side note, you have to appreciate that the game is still called Voxelized when there doesn’t seem to be anything voxel-related in the game.

With luck, either Valve will put this game to bed where it belongs (sleeping in a coffin six feet under) or the constant negative reviews will contribute to Steam’s algorithms burying this title into the nether regions where nobody will find it. Or hey, maybe MMO Fallout should open up a publishing wing, buy the assets, and make a game that isn’t completely muck. It’s always worth considering.