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[Eternal Phoenix]

For those of you who don't know: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a series of post-apocalyptic first person shooters, considered also as survival games with RPG elements. The studio which made these games (GSC Game World) disbanded after the third game which led to some former developers forming a new studio called Vostok Games where they're creating a free-to-play online first-person shooter titled Survarium which is also a survival FPS with RPG elements and considered a spiritual successor to the STALKER series.
 
All was fine until a studio called West Games formed and started a Kickstarter project titled Areal which they called the "definite sequel" to the STALKER series. The studio claimed that they also consisted of former developers from GSC. In the end, only two turned out to have ever worked on the STALKER series.
 
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Areal project on Kickstarter was always fishy. The whole structure and set up was unprofessional from the start and West Games didn't even have anything to show for a ambitious open world game which they claimed would be releasing next year on Xbox One, PS4, Wii U and PC with just £50,000 from Kickstarter to build the game. The developers refused to answer questions, their images for the game turned out to be photoshopped images of examples from the Unity Engine and their mysterious partner, Leonid Kovtun, was tracked to Las Vegas (where West Games was registered) where some court cases came to light involving him and another called Maximillian Kovtun who had previously done a Kickstarter (which had failed) with the same layout. Both were against the same opponent in the court.

 

West Games continued with their suspicious behavior when they posted a screen from their game which was actually a photoshopped image from Warhammer.
 
The controversy flamed up more when the developers of Misery (a massive mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. CALL OF PRIPYAT) attacked West Games and called them out for all their shadiness alongside Vostok Games. This led to West Games acting rather unprofessional and attacking both the developers of Misery and Survarium numerous times in their Kickstarter updates and even threatening them with legal action. {Sources: (1) (2) (3) } Somehow, West Games got the developers to stop with their comments and (as the last link shows) celebrated this and posted a video showing their team which still didn't show any game footage or answer any questions people had.

 

After nearly a month, West Games finally showed footage of their game and it uses example assets straight from the Unity engine. For a game that West Games has said is nearly finished and will release next year, this looks awfully far behind.

 

 

You can read the rest of the details as they developed on Eurogamer if you desire.

 

But the worst part just occurred today. The Kickstarter actually reached its funding and rather suspiciously too as it had been stuck on £32,000 for several days. Suddenly, £30,000 is donated to it.

 

I think this is clearly a scam.

 

Here's their Kickstarter page.

[Liamv2]

Well this is disgusting. I have never played stalker but I am well aware of it's cult following. How dare they abuse the love of a few loyal and desperate fans and show a game that looks like it's been thrown together in a few weeks. Kickstarter really needs something to root out the scammers.

[Chris]

Yeah, i do despite all sh!t that's going on with kickstarters like the idea and with the publishers today that is only interested in milking franchises and never dare to take a risk with creating something new or games in the vein of classic rpg's it proves a good opportunity to get games we would want but never got to play otherwise if kickstarter didn't exist and i have pledged to several like Larian (which turned out really good), Obsidian etc and i do trust them but it's unfortunate especially with this incident that every time something shady like this happens it will be harder and harder to know who you actually can trust.

 

Maybe the only option is the wait until the end of the funding before pledging here after.

 

If this turns out to be a scam then i hope that everyone of these people will be forbidden to be involved in another kickstarter.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Well this is disgusting. I have never played stalker but I am well aware of it's cult following. How dare they abuse the love of a few loyal and desperate fans and show a game that looks like it's been thrown together in a few weeks. Kickstarter really needs something to root out the scammers.

 

I can't believe it even reached its funding considering its entire comment section has been filled with people (who have only donated £1) remarking upon how much of  a clear scam the project is. This is not to mention the people who are aware of this from sites such as Eurogamer, VG247 and Pologon where suspicious new users have appeared in the comment sections for articles on Areal defending it with the same arguments against people who have called it a scam.

[Eternal Phoenix]

It's been suspended.

 

https://www.kickstar...602/areal/posts

 

After that "we've got mail from Vladimir Putin" post where they claimed the Russian President wanted to play their non-existent game, if it weren't clear that this was a scam before then that just settled it.

 

Suck it long and hard West Games. Suck it hard.

[TheChris92]

It reminds me of the shadyness behind the whole Shadows of the Eternal kickstarter -- The problematic implications of this whole concept rears its ugly face.