{"id":8957,"date":"2023-07-02T09:41:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T16:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=8957"},"modified":"2023-07-03T22:56:32","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T05:56:32","slug":"most-popular-game-on-steam-is-likely-a-massive-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=8957","title":{"rendered":"Most popular game on Steam was likely a massive scam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@KiraTV1\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@KiraTV1\" target=\"_blank\">KiraTV<\/a> does an excellent investigation into one of the most popular and hyped games called &#8216;The Day Before&#8217;. Hounded by continual delays, strange announcements, and then final removal from Steam &#8211; Kira jumps in and finds that the reality behind the game and it&#8217;s studio founders is even MORE bizarre than you could imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4lWpfOeTbMQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides documenting the bizarre development of the game itself, he finds a lot of interesting things about the even more bizarre <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fntastic.com\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.fntastic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fntastic game studio<\/a>. This includes the almost cult-like studio heads and their idea of &#8216;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fntastic.com\/volunteering\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.fntastic.com\/volunteering\" target=\"_blank\">volunteering<\/a>&#8216; &#8211; which appears to be unpaid work wrapped in lots of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fERzneFCnmw&amp;ab_channel=Fntastic\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fERzneFCnmw&amp;ab_channel=Fntastic\" target=\"_blank\">creepy grooming<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is absolutely something I see on the rise in startup and game culture. I see institutions that create <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/study.com\/learn\/lesson\/cult-characteristics-types-behavior.html\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/study.com\/learn\/lesson\/cult-characteristics-types-behavior.html\" target=\"_blank\">cult-like atmospheres<\/a> around founders and a culture that gaslight new or na\u00efve employees using words like &#8216;passion&#8217;. Meanwhile, the reality is they provide inadequate\/non-existent pay, long hours, and dangerous levels of emotional manipulation for anyone who questions, disagrees, or tries to threaten their control. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KiraTV does an excellent investigation into one of the most popular and hyped games called &#8216;The Day Before&#8217;. Hounded by continual delays, strange announcements, and then final removal from Steam &#8211; Kira jumps in and finds that the reality behind the game and it&#8217;s studio founders is even MORE bizarre than you could imagine. Besides documenting the bizarre development of the game itself, he finds a lot of interesting things about the even more bizarre Fntastic game studio. This includes&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=8957\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool","category-technical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WECr-2kt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8957"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9035,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions\/9035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}