The Day Beforeis a name enveloped by infamy, from the accusations of false advertising and unpaid labor leveled at its developer to its brief lifespan of just over a month. Now the studio behindThe Day Beforeis back with another project and profuse apologies for previous snafus, but it seems that old habits die hard.
Dubbed a “scam game” by many,The Day Beforewas, for a time, the most wishlisted game on Steam. However, its 2023 gameplay trailers soon exposed how promotional material from 2021, which had gotten players interested in the first place, did not at all reflect what the final product would be. In a controversy similar to those surroundingNo Man’s SkyandAliens: Colonial Marines, fans were left disappointed after marketing had set expectations so high.
The Studio Behind The Day Before Is Working On Something New, And It’s Not Going Over Well
Developer Fntastic announced its shutdown four days after the game dropped, and the game shut down its servers not long after. Despite allegations of false advertising being present for over a year beforehand, the game was still able to hit a 38,000 peak player count, leaving many players outraged over the revenue amassed.
On September 26, Fntastic made its comeback to little applause. That day saw Fntastic dropa Kickstarter for its new projectEscape Factory, a physics-based party game that appears to very much mimicFall Guys. Though Fntastic was never going to easily shirk the reputation ofThe Day Before,Escape Factoryhas actually added fuel to the fire with some fresh controversies.
A Problematic Kickstarter
Devoid of context, the teaser forEscape Factoryisn’t half bad; it may be a tad derivative, but the gameplay presented is of decent quality and brings some new ideas to the table. On the other hand, Fntastic’s reputation should give backers pause over any of its advertising—and the campaign does little to quell such concerns. The Kickstarter is extremely vague on details, stating only brief snippets about the core concept and mechanic, such as it being for four to eight players and offering support for keyboard and mouse.
Moreover, the Kickstarter skirts around Fntastic’s history. The campaign comes out the gate with a vague “We sincerely apologize for everything that happened” before moving on, not touchingthe topic ofThe Day Before’s misleading marketing whatsoever. Fntastic also mentions that some of its team members are working on the game out of ‘goodwill,’ suggesting that unpaid labor is still present at the studio (with the use of volunteer work being another controversial element ofThe Day Before).
Allegations Of Asset-Flipping
If all of this wasn’t bad enough,Fntastic’s gamehas been accused of asset-flipping. Twitter user bsimser wrote a thread about how they’d discovered that a good number ofEscape Factory’s assets, including the code for its networking, lobby, and matchmaking, were all bought from the Unity store. Fntastic has since responded to the accusation on its own Twitter, saying that some pre-made assets were acquired for “VFX and a small part of the code,” but that art and music for the game are being “100% handcrafted by our team.”
‘Asset Flip’ may not accurately describeEscape Factoryhere, as the term was originally coined by journalist James Stephanie Sterling to describe games that more-or-less resold asset packs. This term aptly described the shovelware of Steam Greenlight and mobile gaming at the time, but it seems thatEscape Factorydoes at least have some original bones. Still,The Day Beforehas already shown Fntasticto be misleading in its marketing, and this case is not dissimilar.
