[NM] Youtuber DalasReview Pulls Fur Fun From Steam After Game Flops


Youtuber Dalasreview has fully pulled his title Fur Fun from Steam barely ten months after a controversial release and virtually no response from the Steam market. Fur Fun began as a game attempting to obtain crowdfunding to produce a Banjo-Kazooie style game. When those crowdfunding attempts failed, popular Spanish Youtuber Dalasreview backed the game and helped publish it, presumably also helping fund its development.

When the game launched into early access last February, it immediately struck a negative response. People quickly discovered that stolen assets from Banjo Kazooie, Minecraft, and Mario were present in the game’s files, a public spat over whether or not Yooka-Laylee composer Grant Kirkhope had created music for the game resulted in the Fur Fun account publicly accusing him of lying on Twitter, and Dalasreview began filing frivolous DMCA takedown notices against Youtube videos critical of the game and its developer.

In all of this controversy, it looks like the only thing that people weren’t doing was actually buying or playing the game. A quick glance at the Steam charts shows that Fur Fun never once after launch managed to beat a monthly average of one user. Steam Spy indicates that the game had maybe around 717 owners as of December 31, which doesn’t account for copies that may have been given away for free. Despite Dalasreview’s 4+ million subscriber count, it looks like far more people were interested in talking about the controversy of Fur Fun than were actually willing to buy it.

The Steam announcement sounds very similar to other jilted indie devs, even ending with a “good riddance” farewell.

This is our last goodbye!
It’s been a long time trying to keep up the project alive, but it’s time to say goodbye.

Fur Fun is getting out of Steam.
Thanks to all of you for your support and kind comments.
Good riddance.

(Source: Steam)

Gaijin Embroiled In Extortion Scandal, Producer Fired


WarThunder_A-36

Gaijin Entertainment, developer of the WW2 MMO War Thunder, is under intense scrutiny this week after allegations that the company’s producer engaged in extortion tactics against a popular Russian Youtuber, attempting to force him into a legally binding contract carrying heavy fines for criticizing the company.

The news of Gaijin’s extortion scheme hit several War Thunder blogs, including Status Report, detailing that producer Pavel Kulikov tried to pressure a popular Youtuber Alconafter into signing a contract that would essentially give Gaijin complete control of the account. Alconafter would be required to create four War Thunder videos weekly and would not be allowed to produce any content critical of the game. To seal the deal, violating the contract would carry at ten thousand dollar USD fine per instance.

In order to force his hand, Kulikov used Youtube’s DMCA takedown system to shut down Alconafter’s Youtube account, offering to start a new account under his name and the contract. Alconafter refused.

Gaijin CEO Anton Yudintsev stepped in and has stated that the whole ordeal was Kulikov acting on his own and did not reflect on the rest of the company. Kulikov is no longer with Gaijin, according to his Twitter and Linkedin profile.

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Translation: I offer my public apologies to all touched by this scandal. People have to communicate, and I broke this rule.

Rift: Now Integrated With Youtube


The program FRAPS is great, but recording tends to slow down my computer. Xfire video does the job, but not all of my games are supported. I’d love to see more MMOs implement what Trion just did today: integration with Youtube. In today’s patch, Trion added in support for players to link their Trion accounts to their Youtube accounts. By hitting Ctrl + Y in-game, players can record up to three minutes of footage. When the capture is complete, the video is encoded, and once the encoding is complete, can be sent off to Youtube straight away. Note: Unfitting death metal music and terrible editing skills not included.

To show the system, I’ve included a short 30 second video I recorded today, using this system. I did have some trouble on longer videos with the video skipping, and I’m not sure what is causing that.

If you are in Rift, hopefully you’re doing better than my server in fighting back Alsbeth. More importantly, I’d like to see more MMOs incorporate their own recording system. I’m looking at you, Alganon.

One of the Best Ads of 09 Goes To…


I’ve been trying to find a video version of this for a little while now, and for some odd reason it never occurred to me to search Youtube. So without further ado, one of the best MMO banner ads of 2009, from Dungeons and Dragons Online: Broccoli Vs The Beholder.