$4,358,128 Taken, 5 Years Developed, No Game released 

@Baxi it’s not always the case though. Please do not generalize indie devs like that. Scams like this have existed since the 80s. Not all kickstarters or indie projects are like this. There’s way more good indie projects than bad. You just have to look for them. Please do not be closed minded and say that they are all bad, because it’s not the truth. It’s also rude and disrespectful to the indie devs who actually put in the work to make great games. Just for the record, there will always be scams like this. Not saying I’m fine with it because I’m not. But humans are susceptible to greed. There will always be people out there who do this. But understand it’s not the majority, these people are a minority.

Probably because the gaming community is a toxic cesspool of trash and all it takes in one youtuber to bash your project, warranted or not, and all the other hive minded RU-vidrs jump on the bandwagon and do the same. Next thing you know you game has failed before it even gets off the ground. I would have NDA’s as well if I were a developer. The gaming community expects a pre aloha game to play like a fully debugged finished product. Gamers as a whole are F’n stupid.

@Baxi It isn’t the case always though, is it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have tons of amazing games by indie developers. Some crowdfunded are successful. It’s idiots who think funding a game that a world leading studio would need to spend tens of millions on, is going to actually exist.

That's cos they meet the fringe elements of the internet that push studios into this logic. People can be real assholes online even without base incompetence from the developers, and proper PR management is an art form.

Not scum, they crank out updates and involve the community

Well said, my manager needs to hear this too

@@muggins2279 need to force city officials to lower inflation/living cost for all those making below 150k per year to prove daca worth it since for ages DC never lower living cost only print dollars to do more refugee crisis left wing media give protest t-shirts to san quan mayor for lying about never receive maria supplies ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qYmCtYLE9k0.html george bush 14y ago said add ukraine to nato foreshadow nuland f eu coup 2014 support = 1. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nTQ3D1a-j20.html 2001 pentagon memo kill occupy iraq to syria ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_mrJRHwbVG8.html current ukraine gov is proxy since obama drew red line just like did in syria earlier arming rebels telling russia not to interfere while zelensky ethnic cleanse donbass region 7y= 2. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ta9dWRcDUPA.html 3. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IBeRB7rWk_8.html

People need to stop glorifying managers. Doing that brings a ton of bad people into the job who really shouldn't be there. But maybe they just generally get off on ruling over people and there's nothing we can do?

Yea, I have great management skills. Earlier today I managed to stuff 7 Oreos into my face at the same time!

Fully agreed. I'm almost amazed how people can both always complain about bad managers while the same time claiming everybody can do it

A company not making payroll is the biggest red flag possible. If they can't pay you on time then they never will. As you said, leave and then sue them before all the money is gone.

Sueing can be hard, if half of the employers dont live in the same country.

@@samuraidoggy Every country has different rules about this, you need (or should) to talk to a lawyer before you try and sue anyone. But staying with a company that’s stopped paying you is sunk cost fallacy and is rewarding them for bad behavior. 99+% of the time they’re not going to pay you, get out and find an employer who will. Most places (in the US) consider “I left because they stopped paying me” as grounds for collecting unemployment. Companies that stop paying use all sorts of manipulative techniques to get their “volunteers” to stay. Saying you can’t sue them is one. Don’t believe them, talk to a lawyer, many do a free or inexpensive consultation.

@@silmarian some places also give way more protection then you'd expect as an employee too. Where I live unpaid wages are first in line when it comes to debt, if a company goes bankrupt you can claim unpaid wages and get paid before creditors so even if the company can only pay off part of their debts you're still almost certain to get back wages even if they owe a ton to the bank, to suppliers, or to the government. Problem is many people dont know about that and if they dont claim those unpaid wages right away and the company pays off other debts you can get screwed.

Plus, wage theft is a serious felony.

rather them than some poor sap on kickstarter.

Don't want to bring down your joy, but Tencents revenue in 2022 according to their reports has been 86 billion dollars. That would mean their investment in this project was less than lunch money for them. Totally insignificant.

@@mulss1 agreed

Why?

welp, you are not wrong, 4 million dollars for tencent is like piss amount of money to them, so.....

^ This. Why did nobody else mention the "High School Teen" voice?

I think the prime motivation of the CEO was that he liked shooting zombies in computer games.. 🤦‍♂

As soon as i heard him speak i was like "that sounds like a 15 yo, that is a CHILD wtf"

The developer of unturned did well I think.

It either isn’t going to happen or will become one of the most successful things to ever be released

9 years ago! Crazy!! Scammers gonna scam. Good job on your music. Keep it up man!

@@Frost059HD don't think its scam just management f'd up

@@kyotheman69 well, they arent in court for "bad management" dude. They are in court for not delivering on TENS OF THOUSANDS of keys, not paying wages for months on months for employees, and multiple other things. That is obviously a scam. Not sure you watched the same video I did 😂😂 it may not have been with intent but they still scammed regardless.

holy shit just checked the channel, dudes a legit composer wowers

@@Frost059HD if YOU watched the video you would know they arent going to court at all. they just failed from bad management. so not sure what your ' Not sure you watched the same video I did' means because kyotheman69 is right.

I remember you, Winslow.

That Jokka fella banned me on every forum because I would tell it how it was: the game is unplayable

The fact that you were still a bystander does not excuse your actions as a complicit member of a rapacious dev company. You will never regain the respect you once had. Remember that for the rest of your life.

@@nevaehhamilton3493 I stopped being a moderator in 2018, maybe comment when you know more of the story. My problem was never with the community, it was with the community management. The clash was that I wanted them to set a better example, mostly because I was on average 20 years older than all of the devs and other mods. They acted puerile. My constant checking of them in moderator chat led to my dismissal, because the moderators and devs didn't want to be held to a higher standard. Kindly cram yourself up whatever is convenient.

@@WinslowVS you can't tell me to do better, old man.

kickstarters in general are kind of a shitty idea, especially since some major studios are using "indie studios" they own to get kickstarters so they dont need to front money to develop stuff. I'd only do it for someone with some proven track record personally. You're just paying for a product that may never get finished or get massive delays, I cant count how many people I've seen on sites like Patreon that get paid and never deliver, I used to be a huge fan of an animator but just recently found out he folded his channel and dropped a partially finished series, dude got paid for months for work he didnt do and based off the numbers I've seen he was getting thousands a month and didnt appear to work for nearly a year so he basically just pocketed over ten grand and walked away and that's a story I've seen play out time and time again.

​@arthas640 exactly, patreon and kickstarters GENERAL should be illegal. We have all these SEC rules about investing in legit companies and yet no rules for this bullshit!? Wtf? It's literally incentivizing people NOT to finish projects.

Exactly! I left a comment now just like this, you beat me too it! Millions for mods for an already rendered, textured, finished game is absolutely insane and a robbery.

Yeah it's like a DiYer changing an electrical outlet . They have no understanding of how and why the cables get installed . Half the time they're not even sure if turned the power off properly to do the work on it lol

yup lmoa, just because I know how to change settings in my TV doesn't make me a TV maker

Ahahaha what? There are many and many professional game developers who also create mods in their spare time. I would even claim that most sophisticated mods are mostly created by professionals who know their art. DAYZ itself was created by professional game developer from Bohemia Interactive who had 1000+ paid hours of experience working with the engine. Such giants as REDUX or SKYBLIVION etc. developed by TEAMS of professional game developers not amateurs. With all said above Dead Matters devs are obviously amateurs 😅

"When nothing is less, who will you be?" Is likely what the CEO of the studio has been asking themselves for years now

This is what we call luck. Lol. Glad you did t get caught in the shit storm bud.

What is your full name please, for legalities

Nice, now where's the money dude

It looks good

Replace open world with roguelike

Guts and Blackpowder:

Toilet Paper

Open World Never Before Seen New Take on the Genre. With high spec graphics that still look the same as 2014, and glitches everywhere.

"I paid myself first" meaning "I lived off it and the game came second."

Good PM's are worth their weight in gold. -VBA Programmer and Indie Game Dev Hobbyist

Pretty much. Even though I have been working on computers for years, I can't imagine I would be just as good as the manager because I wasn't train or taught the best ways around that. It just seems like Nik knew full well he wasn't fit so he hired a shady guy to do the job without checking up on him to see how he is doing.

Who is Jonathan Blow

​@@Daiyuki117 a game developer who made his own company so he could make any game he wanted without executives telling him what to do

​@@Vitorruy1So a modrn John Carmack?

Yes; but _only_ if your priority is money. if you want to create a *game* game then you need passion born of inspiration, a vision, discipline, and a remarkable amount of time, skills, and effort.

Thanks!

I’m binging them now as I’ve just discovered them and my name is also Amanda. Good taste!

totally agree man

Same

actually... he's ass and wrong

I fell asleep listening to this dude. His vids are perfect for listening while you’re busy or trying to get to sleep. Easy follow along narration.

How many people voted for Trump?

@@princeofcupspoc9073 Please keep politics out of this.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 if you’re gonna make this political for no reason, remember that it isn’t just the side you don’t like.

As long as people realise the risks involved, I don't see any problem with funding a dream. I regularly invest money in small start-ups. Some fail, some succeed. But I know the risks involved. I have the same attitude with Kickstarter and similar platforms. The problem surfaces when people treat Kickstarter etc. as a store. You're not buying a product (in most cases), you're funding a project or a company. I've backed hundreds of Kickstarter projects and only three have failed, two of which were game projects. Granted, I never back singular individuals who claim they are going to make a huge and polished game for $50,000. If one employs just a little bit of critical thinking, Kickstarter isn't such a dangerous place many people make it out to be.

That's the basis of investing.

Some of those games were completely horrible. I bought one game for $60, and I gave up after 5 minutes.

@@charlesfranks1902 Which one?

"muh age is ze golden age"

@@icecy7857any age is golden compared to now

More like the stone age.

Xzuma from Hermitcraft actually put it really well in his most recent video about why mods and main features for minecraft. Mods are building onto something that is already there. It doesnt have work perfectly and is usually not built from scratch. When you suddenly have to turn around and create the systems from scratch and make sure they all work and then jnteract properly is much much harder. Code bullet has pointed it out as well. Just the actual time to physically create or retype code you slready have can be huge.

@@donjean6590 Well said. There's a big misconception about the difference between developing and modding. And this unfortunately leads to game developers getting a lot of unwarranted hate.

While I agree in principle (designing a whole ass game is much more complex than elaborating on an already existing one) this case isn't a great example because the mod was a shit show with constant delays too. And they never even really wanted to make the mod, they just used it to advertise their own game. DayZ is probably a better one.

Mildly Unrelated, because a Roblox game, is comparable to a mod, in my eyes. Nelson Sexton created Unturned, after a good run with a roblox Zombie game, I forgot its title, but Unturned turned out great, for a spell.

Keep in mind that a game engine is basically a platform from games to be build off of. In a sense, most video games today are a "mod" of the Unity/Lumberjack/CryEngine/Unreal/Source/etc engines. And some mods become so successful they become their own standalone games, like Counter Strike. Modders can easily become game developers come up but they require the maturity and funding to succeed. The most successful are those who put their own personal time and money into it, without any expectations until they release it. Great recent examples are Among Us and Valheim.

"Finished" is a loose term. That thing had TONS of problems during it's standalone development and the "finished" product is significantly less than what was promised and definitely released in a state WAY BEHIND modern zombie games.

@@chrishaugh1655 You could argue that patching a game is different from developing a game, though it's more semantic/technical choice of words.

@@chrishaugh1655 Lol what? What are these "modern" zombie games that do what DayZ does? There are very few open world multiplayer zombie sandboxes and DayZ is the biggest and the best of them. The rest of them are just bad clones of DayZ that didn't add any own ideas and all of them are smaller than DayZ.

@@cooks37 DayZ is mediocre at best.

@@cooks37 The problem lies in the fact that the "multiplayer open world zombie sandbox" is a painfully boring execution of an outdated idea. All of them have the exact same map - twenty square miles of jack shit countryside with the occasional small town or military base. All of them have the exact same "ZOMBIES AREN'T THE ONLY THREAT" gameplay - where the actual draw of the game is that shitty "hardcore" Rust-style PvP people seem to go nuts over. All of them have the same generic scavenging mechanics - walk through dull grey rooms in barely-furnished copy-pasted buildings, the same generic base-building mechanics, the same boring guns, the same boring attachments, the same boring minimalistic UI, the same dull-ass grey n' brown graphics, the same boring zombies, the same boring environments. It makes me sleepy just thinking about it...

I think the problem is that he never let go of that teenager inside of him. Being a manager is totally different and it means giving up most of the stuff you initially enjoyed and it's a sacrifice you have to make if you want to see the project succeed.

You two still In contact Probably not but hey

Could have*

reach out to him, please. this game can still be great.

@@fallenunder Unfortunately he's cut contact with me.

Exactly! It’s inherently a gamble, don’t bet money you can’t afford to lose.

Just don't back Kickstarter games, period. Their track record is atrocious.

Same like giving money to an addict.

@@chrimony so is literally most forms of bussinesses 60 percent of new ones no matter the product or service fail within 2 to 3 years.

That is completely bogus. Pro-tip : inspect the project you're about to fund. Who is behind, have they already done anything, and what is the scope of the game? One example : the Kickstarter for the Leisure Suit Larry 1 game remake, which involved Al Lowe. Al Lowe developped the LSL Larry from game 1 to 6, worked for Sierra OnLine for decades. Definitively someone that can be trusted. OTOH, you have small projects; someone asking up to 20 000$ to develop a simple 2D platform game. Is that out of scope even for a lone developed without experience? Certainly not. Sure you aren't gonna get an AAA title either, but you'll get what was promised. Also, many KS projects come with more than promises. Several games I backed were completed, the KS was to allow the game to be marketed, (sold in a real box, with goodies and such) for example, which mean that in many cases, a complete game was available and playable right after backing up the project. Other weren't as complete but there were lengthy gameplay footage and dev blogs being updated prior to the KS allowing you to see real progress was made. I think Spintires (which I backed up) wasn't fully available at first, but heh, the game game out and as it was promised.

Man fry i remember watching your stream during the first few weeks of "alpha release" back when the game was chugging so hard. Shame this game went nowhere. Wonder if i can ask for a refund on steam lmao

you clown were hyping it up and shilling for dead matter when everyone was messaging you what a mess it was @bigfrytv

Why is it always men who screw things up in these videos?

@Derek Czerkaski yeah, he's full of shit. Sounds like a spurned streamer.

@@SaschaElble Did you actually watch the video?

I want Greenlight program to come back. Mainly because steam keeps bombarding me with college project games on a daily. That Greenlight filter wall was saving me a lot from those, but now my game feed is ruined.

@@N0N0111 I was always with steam because they kinda filtered their stuff. But in a last few years it became filled with garbage moneygrab unity projects.

@@N0N0111 Yeah Direct isn't really an improvement over greenlight, and curation has been hit or miss, some of the curators are good and care others are scammers... so much Valve could handle better.

Valve is too big for itself and stopped caring because they cant / dont want to even try to manage it all.

@@cericat Also there's the whole "you don't need written approval to be on Steam" thing You can just pay a fee and you're off to the races.

So you're the guy that's funding these videos in some roundabout way.

@@greyfells2829 Hahaha! I guess? I haven't supported anything on Kickstarter since Dead Matter though. Of the five things I had funded during that time only 1 of them actually became a reality after a long delay due to manufacturing problems. And Kira has covered 2 now including this. So 2 to go?

@@demavend6847 what are the 4 that failed and the one that failed? Interested to know

@@Alimthehotty219 The 1 success was Xbows Keyboards, the 4 failures are Chronicles of Elyria, Dead Matter, Saga World a modular D&D thing, and SMACH Z a handheld PC for gaming.

This is also one of only 2 projects I've backed. The other one was successful. You may have heard of Liquid Death.

That guy is skilled. What he accomplished independently is a feat of engineering, art, and game design.

tbf basic farming sim is a much simpler task than an open world mmo whatever tf this kid was promising, if someone creating a simple farming sim was asking for crowd funding like this it’s a red flag from the jump. Paralives however seems to be taking this overselling route and probably will end up the same as this.

He also hasn't made any of his updates separate dlc ❤ as a sims player it's such a relief

Totally agree. And I can't understand why everyone is trying to start with such big projects without having experience and team.

The answer is very very few of us hobby devs. He's also a "hobby dev". Trust me 99% of us looking at this being like "if I had that money..." are just as unprepared and not 1% more moral than Nick.

​@@pushkar000 I mean, it is amazing that Battlebit figured out the netcode to have 254 players and so far I haven't seen any complaints about it (though I'm sure they're coming). People are always surprised at how difficult that part is, it seems to require highly specialised and sophisticated network programming that very few people are qualified to execute, just with how devs talk about it. Many of these small devs seem to bite off more than they can chew, and they probably look to hire other ambitious but equally inexperienced programmers for their team, rather than finding a veteran developer (who probably would be hesitant and require 5x the pay).

​@@pushkar000 If you give me even 1 million, let alone 4 million dollars, anyone with common sense and a decent moral compass would do just fine. I know I, and a lot of other people, could make the game of our dreams with $500,000 and be done with it.

Most hobbyists (which is clearly what the studio lead is) aren't trying to make an open world multiplayer survival game. You see this post from new hobbyist's on the unreal forums and subreddit all the time. "Im new to unreal engine and i want to make a multiplayer zombie open world survival game, is it possible in unreal?". They have no chance of succeeding and no idea what they are even asking, the sheer volume of work that goes into a project like that is insane for a large talented team with clear direction. The successful hobbyists release a small indie game with a reasonable scope and learn as they go.

Yeah. It brings to mind Yandere Simulator. A classic case of 'scope creep' (or was it 'feature creep' idk), where a developer keeps tacking on additional stuff and modes onto their games, rather than focusing on... well, making the game. And like Dead Matter, Yandere Simulator is nowhere near complete.

When I saw those, I thought there was no way this person has ANY experience with money or how much it costs to do anything. $60K? Then the additional tiers are each $10-15K more? Those numbers are CAD, too! If I saw this KS and the numbers I'd immediately bail because I'd know the management has no clue. A single senior engineer is going to cost $10K a month. Such massive features would take several engineers and artists months to implement at minimum. The math just doesn't work.

Between Zomboid and 7 days to die, it really doesn't feel like survival/base building zombie stuff really has any gap for me personally.

You could try Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I prefer a fork of it thats more gamey called Bright Nights. Zomboid is easy to drop into but cdda is addicting to me.

I mean, zomboid being an fps is a great mix, it just needs a competent studio

I always have wet dreams of PZ meets Tarkov.

@@ElysianAura if dead matter was done right it could have been great

Thanks, I can only take partial credit. The editor is doing a fantastic job :)

@@KiraTV1 Nonetheless, it has been awesome to see your progress from before 50K subs. I hope you're doing well in life and in your health my friend

@@KiraTV1 need to force city officials to lower inflation/living cost for all those making below 150k per year to prove daca worth it since for ages DC never lower living cost only print dollars to do more refugee crisis left wing media give protest t-shirts to san quan mayor for lying about never receive maria supplies ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qYmCtYLE9k0.html george bush 14y ago said add ukraine to nato foreshadow nuland f eu coup 2014 support = 1. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nTQ3D1a-j20.html 2001 pentagon memo kill occupy iraq to syria ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_mrJRHwbVG8.html current ukraine gov is proxy since obama drew red line just like did in syria earlier arming rebels telling russia not to interfere while zelensky ethnic cleanse donbass region 7y= 2. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ta9dWRcDUPA.html 3. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IBeRB7rWk_8.html

I wish the fussy letters of text to be sharper. It looked a bit on the very blurry side, 4K would be nice :)

My pleasure

I've stopped bothering with this, because developers rarely seem to care. Can't recall how often I posted and investigated game breaking bugs, just to never get a fix, or even a developer response.

Theyve been giving out refunds for Dead Matter so are certain tiers not getting refunds??

It always suck when you are fighting the war on their behalf but get tossed aside as they want to purge the old "toxic" forums. Terrible that they didn't want to promote you as a mod for the forums and just let the forums waste away like that.

dude did their PR for free

I made the unfortunate mistake of backing it

@@codlogic7060 yeah, sadly did the same... dead on arrival

Maybe if you backed it it would've given it the juice it needed to get completed lol. Joking. I hadn't heard of it until watching this video

It seems like that's a good thing

@@jeremygalloway1348 you were one of the lucky ones. Honestly the only reason I backed it is because I trusted BigFry another youtuber who was hyping this game up and had talked with the devs a bunch and they seemed like they had it all under control. My first time backing something on Indigogo and probably my last

Not the best comparison because that’s how JPL started. More like a young rocket enthusiast who’s only played with bottle rockets before

Yeah 7 days to die is one of the “good” ones, and even that game has its problems.

@@zachcanreed8549 True, but it has way more progress than Dead Matter has.

Hopium.

Star Citizen : Looks awkwardly to the side...

I can bet a majority are the same braindeads that put their faith in Dead Linger and didnt learn a thing from that...The horde gunna horde...

Not really what happened. It was more like two separate projects, the first being smaller with way less money and commitment involved.

Not really what happened. It was more like two separate projects, the first being smaller with way less money and commitment involved.

Same. The way they let the same handful of posters in the Discord shout down anyone that had anything negative to say was a big red flag.

You must have not paid it much attention because they did, for awhile at least, post quite the regular updates through their developer blog.

Hell, why do people seem to ignore that most of the indie studios that have seen any longevity started out with small-scale projects that could, y'know, be finished in a timely fashion because they weren't, by and large, reinventing the wheel.

People want to create giant mmorpgs. Aim high and all that. Maybe a smaller game could actually show the company what they can do. What to improve. If the team even works. And you seem more serious with having finished games. Then again I kinda get wanting to make something bigger. Something that generates hype. Because hype can generate money.

@@Wote89 "Hello. We are a two people studio. We want to generate this massive mmorpg with 100k players on one server."

haha.

yeah pretty much, not sure how 20 year old was in charge of everything, Tencent shouldn't of bothered to fund this kid, 20 year old isn't adult, they aren't experience the world yet

Even at the age of 20, your frontal lobe isn't fully developed.

That epigram always sounded like bullshit to me. i have always hated it. from my experience: "Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice". someone doesn't make a multimillion dollar kickstarter then just fly to the Bahamas incidentally after nebulous 'problems'. and that doesn't happen over, and over, and over again.