In today’s world, it is known that scams are the order of the day in all areas, from the famous “Uncle’s Tale”, to true “call centers” whose mission is to defraud unsuspecting or naive people, posing as “Service to the Consumer”. In an increasingly connected world, the possibility of defrauding people is such that various projects have managed to attract investments or monetary contributions that will never see final results. The video game industry is no stranger to this problem, and here we tell you about some of the most important scams that have occurred in recent years.
Star Citizen
You have probably heard of “Star Citizen”, a project started and developed by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games. In its beginnings, the title promised to be a multiplayer space simulator, in which you could do practically whatever you want, from being a simple space merchant to a true tycoon of some industry. The game was initially financed with US$500,000 on the Kickstarter platform, with contributions from people interested in the project, reaching up to US$500,000,000 to date, thus becoming the most expensive video game in history. Although the title is playable, its current state is far from what it initially promised, showing a rather empty universe, with little to do, beyond exploring certain planets, buying various types of ships (with prices in real money ranging from US$20 to thousands of dollars for the most expensive and exclusive), among other activities.
Catalog of Star Citizen Ships available for purchase
Despite all the money that has been involved in the project, the current state of the game is far from what it should be after such an amount of resources that it has had over the years, constantly staying in its version “beta”. It is not a scam per se, as it continues to develop, and it has a daily active player base of around 3,000 players. Although the number of active players is not important, more than 1.7 million copies have been sold over the years, which is extremely striking. Will the day come when Star Citizen reaches its maximum splendor? We’ll see.
DreamWorld
Another case, perhaps less well known than the previous one, but even so, improbable, is that of “DreamWorld”. This title, according to its creators, would be “The last game you will play”, alluding to its infinite possibilities, promising to leave any other title “in shame”. Until today there is a financing campaign on Kickstarter, where the creators initially requested US$10,000 for the development of the “Alpha” version. $10,000 to start working on the Alpha version of a title that is supposed to be the definitive video game? Clearly, that is something impossible, without forgetting that the project is in the hands of two people.
DreamWorld “Gameplay” Example
Among the gameplay options offered by the financing campaign are, for example, an “infinite” open world, millions of online players, the exploration of thousands of different biomes, or the possibility of fighting and taming incredible creatures. The campaign, as of today, has collected US$64,706, a derisory figure for a title of this caliber, and, despite the fact that it appears to be an unfeasible project, the developers indicate that they have secured most of the funds thanks to the investment of some of the best investors in Silicon Valley (without giving details of who they are, or how much money they have contributed). It is not a minor fact that the campaign indicates an estimated delivery date for May 2021, yes, you read correctly, 2 years ago, and that there is still no playable product, beyond a “Free Trial” version. You can see the derisory Kickstarter campaign at the following link.
Life Simulator
For last, we leave the most shocking case. We are talking about RAW, a supposed open-world “Life Simulator” that, according to its creators, “would leave GTA as a cheap imitation of a mobile game”. This title also began its financing through Kickstarter, where they managed to collect more than US$200,000 in financing. Among the characteristics that the game would have were, among others, a construction system, Government and Finance systems or various professions that players could exercise.
Police station shown in the trailer
Two years after the campaign began, the creators released a “gameplay” of a player driving a truck on a road, without further details, and best of all, a trailer that showed various possibilities offered by the game. Now where is the mother of the lamb? Well, most of the resources presented in the trailer, such as weapons or a police station with a good level of detail, were nothing more than generic resources offered by the “Unity” graphics engine resource store, and which are shown in the trailer without changes or customizations specific to RAW. Fortunately, the Kickstarter platform, realizing how ridiculous it all was, withdrew the funding that had already been collected, thus eliminating the possibility of more people being scammed through this pseudo-campaign. Next, we leave you the famous trailer, so you can see it with your own eyes.
With all of the above, it makes us think that seeking financing on various platforms, through contributions from the interested players themselves, is an easy way to scam, but many other cases show the opposite. Among the most emblematic cases we can find successful titles such as: Wasteland 2, Darkest Dungeon, Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera or the iconic Undertale. And you, do you know more cases of scams in video games?
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