Dreamworld - I can't Actually Believe My Eyes 

To sort of paraphrase George Carlin. It's called Dreamworld because you have to be asleep to believe it.

You aren't insensitive, he's appealing to emotion which is the lowest kind of sales move.

That's the kind of guy that would record himself feeding the poor, turn off the camera and take back the food to redo the scene with another.

2 and a half developers....well that's their problem, one of their employees is just a pair of legs

"Hey man my wife died, my family hates me, I just got out of crippling addiction though it's hard-- Sometimes I feel like I could falter. Especially when I'm sad. Like right now. I could use getting happy instead. Just so you know. Right so, buy my mix tape?" Sometimes people help me *not* have feelings.

Things like this (which includes Chronicles of Elerya) really hurt legitimate indie developers secure crowd funding. At a time where AAA games are literally trash reskins casinos, we need the indie games more than ever.

The VC folks who put money into this 100% deserve to lose it. Honestly, if an investor is so overflowing with money and yet still so delusionally greedy that they're falling for such an obvious scam despite having every opportunity to know better, I find it hard to blame the scammer. I even have some respect for the hustle.

It's actually worse than "all of it's just store bought assets" sadly. I talked with one of my friends that does dev work using the same engine and literally everything shown are free assets, or were free at some point in time. The airship is part of a tutorial that teaches you how to animate the wings, the sweets biome is an asset from fortnite, the pirates cove is a free asset pack, the UI pack is free, the resource gathering is a free pack... They are ALL free. The only thing that they might have paid for in terms of assets, because it was only free for a limited time, is something that would have cost them $150 which is something that's locked behind a backer pledge of $149 (convenient that)

The money will only be used for creating the game, not used for drugs. For sure. Trust them.

His fiancé left him because she realized he's a sleeze ball.

"... but it's fucking irrelevant." this is why I respect you!

lmao, love that the dumb comment asking me to remove my stuff made it in the video, awesome video as always dude, keep fighting the good fight

I need to update my job application resume and add some lines like :"My fiancé left me" "Somebody walked into my house and kicked my dog"

I think "Dreamworld" is a fairly fitting name, considering that's the only place where this game would ever exist. In your dreams.

You should make a kickstarter for a little bouncy "Kira head" that swears at you if you think about backing these scam projects. I'd back that one

12:00 "My fiance left me" Every time I hear it it makes me laugh my ass off

MMO fans never seems to learn. They keep making the same mistakes of getting all hyped up over anything that sounds great on paper from the dime a dozen idea men.

So you've got a guy who was on work experience at Facebook and Google, and another guy who was a waiter, promising to make the biggest game in history. **seems legit**

I want to meet one their backers. I just want to know what pure chaotic neutral looks like in real life.

That last part where the dev talks about how he lost his job and his fiancé left him and such, was so obviously acting and BS that it literally made me cringe this guy can't act one bit but still was able to make a bunch of people give him money, no wonder this scam projects exist they get profit from it.

"this is a rotten onion and we're peeling it back layer by layer." lmao, ffs dude, you come up with the best phrases. Also love "amateuer hour", started using that irl.

11:53 Right there is the answer to everyone questions: He just wants to screw as many people as possible because he was screwed in his life by his boss a job opportunity and a fiance! Make sense!

2 dislikes are the same people who donated 10k+ to Chronicles of Elyria

Been playing mmorpgs for 15+ years. I really love that you take the time to do this kind of analysis, and act as whistleblower against this kind of terrible people.

How could his fiancé leave after hearing his pitch for DreamMarriage?

8 years to get 100 followers on Twitter?! That is some bottom-tier marketing. I got like 20 followers in a week and I don't know what I'm doing, lol.

2 dislikes from the 2.5 developers lol

These guys make Caspian look like Neil deGrasse Tyson. That's some achievement.

The moment he opened his mouth and told a story about him being unable to find a job, get lucky with a job, corona hits, jobless again made me retch. So what? They ask for 10k so they'll get it for sure, since it's a more achievable goal, they'll get the money no matter what and they'll have extras too. Very very malicious.

Thanks for the vid man. I am a game art and design lecturer and it pains me to see this happening. I am increasingly worried about my students adopting this fake it til you make it, without making it attitude as I have already seen this happening. Im increasingly telling my students to make good quality fun things and start from there, not create a brand from the top down with a marketing dept etc and see if you can scam people. Keep uploading man, curious to see where this goes.

Damn, this looks easy af to make some money with.

This is exactly why channels like this one are extremely important to the entire mmorpg global community & awareness

So $1000 for game $10000 for crack, 1000 for game $20000 for crack. These guys are using the money to buy crack guys.

Girlfriend left him, a move Kasparov would be proud of.

You aren't insensitive, I showed my gf this video when you first covered it and we laughed and laughed because there's no way his backstory happened the way he says it did

Make no mistake, dear viewers, this channel - with regards to the gaming industry - is one of, if not THE most important channels you will likely watch. I do not say this as a 'fan-boy' - or, whatever the current vernacular is these days amongst youth/teens - but, is an honest dissection of the machinations behind the production of games and/or, the possible pitfalls/hopes from Kickstarter products. Not only that: this can applied to the whole industry; especially the disingenuous marketing employed by AAA games. KiraTV speaks from the heart and you can tell he is a gamer (if you are here, like me, you most likely fall under this category, also. I have been a gamer since I first witnessed my teacher boot up a game on a ZX80, on a black & white TV, in the 1970's, in my UK school) and has you and the gaming industries interests at heart. I watch his channel with interest and hope that it will blossom into the hallmark of how reviews/overviews SHOULD be done. On another note: take care out there because the world is bleak but, if we have good games, we can escape...

If these guys really made a technology that allows them to have 1 million!!! people on 1 server, then never mind this kickstarter... they could just sell the technology for billions XD I have watched the interview that they made with some youtuber... the technical part did not make sense XD they want to solve their 1 million ppl servers with some kind of a fantasy p2p Lan connection XD

On the first day of the campaign I was somewhat interested in it. Since it had very few details I sent a message to the creator pointing out the sparse information and asking a bunch of questions. He took the easiest questions that could be answered in a subjective manner, reworked them, and used them to create the FAQ entries. He directly avoided answering questions like what he would do for servers and where they would be located. Between his statement that the game would be everything to everybody and his unwillingness to discuss any plans for back-end server support I came away with the impression that he didn't have any plans for actually releasing a game. A couple of days ago I followed a link he posted in the comments for a video he claimed showed multiplayer support (among other things). The video was 3 hours long. I skimmed it and never saw a second player in the "game". What I did see was horrible stuttering and lagging in a world that only had one player. I'm tempted to join the Discord just to lurk and see how long it takes for him to start spouting excuses for why people aren't getting the promised alpha access.

I really can’t understand for the life of me how people keep falling for these kickstarters especially ones this obviously bad... I’ve lost all trust in game companies tho, I don’t get hyped for any games anymore. I learned my lesson years ago lol.

I'm surprised it got any backers at all, and I'm genuinely curious about the kind of people who would back such a project. I want to know the profile of the type of person who would fall for this.

As a VC in the gaming industry you really should be able to tell yourself that this project stinks to heaven...

The outro song makes me feel happy and sad at same time. Its like i had an awesome day and then its closing time , time to go home.

It's vile brilliance. All they have to do is basically deliver what that cobbled trailer shows and and that's all she wrote.

12:10 Kira you're a savage my man and 100 percent right.

Screw it, im becoming a scammer

Default Unreal Engine character is an instant red flag

Two weeks? A couple of semi-experienced game devs can probably cobble this together in two days xD

Kickstarter is like eBay if u don't read carefully u end up with a box of the Playstation and that's it 😂

Kira back with the informative video! 👌🏾 These are my favourite types of video.

The really bizarre thing about their entire concept is that I'm pretty sure one of them (or perhaps both) watched the movie "Ready Player One" and then decided to base the concept of their scam game off of "The Oasis" from the movie. Millions of players in the same world? The promise of adding in mechanics that will allow for all genres of games to be played in their game? Surprised they didn't add in the idea that they will hide obscure clues in random bits of the game that will turn over control of their company to the people who decipher it. Bloody hell, I've played a lot of MMOs and other online multiplayer games. The stuff being promised for "Dreamworld" is ridiculously out of reach for even the biggest AAA game companies. And these guys claim to be able to do it for $7,000 and 2.5 developers?

am i the only that sees the guys eyes looking more n more high after each of the cuts he made in the video ? xD 65k$ for drugs hoorrayy , genius dude.

All I can hear from their Kickstart video is "PITY PARTY CONING THROUGH, FEEL SAD FOR ME, GIVE ME MONEYYYYYY"

Wow, that investor is probably investing in a casino or drug dealer by proxy lmao.

Lmao that "Oh woe is me." story.

I fell victim to a kick starter scam, not as big as some of the other ones out there, but it was the Space Odyssey game on kickstarter. I personally thought that "hey, if Neil deGrasse would put his name on a video game, it's going to be cool!" and lol, it was just a money grab. the kickstarter in case you wanted to look into it. www.kickstarter.com/projects/2000580152/neil-degrasse-tyson-presents-space-odyssey-the-vid

KiraTV is my freedom fighter. I can count on you to keep me aware of these kind of scams. I like to back Indie companies trying to make real games with great ideas. These guys with Dreamworld make it hard for real devs trying to make a real game that could be great, it's just sad and Irritating....

Game looks and sounds like absolute dogshit. Might as well just light your money on fire at least you would get some warmth from it

kira + drama/scam = instant click 🤡

Great source of information for this genre coming from this channel, absolutely love it. Nailed Dreamworld perfectly, I remember laughing at it when I saw an ad, and then how much they wanted... Makes you wonder if they were just looking to recoup ad costs in that kickstarter and pick up some more suckers along the way.

Now I know how to get funding for my game

Good work calling out these and potentially (in ur previous vids) other scammers. Sounds like u really did ur homework :)

It's been a week now and it's so strange how the DreamWorld devs have been radio silent since the campaign ended, almost like they're hoping this will just blow over and everyone forgets. Apparently they're making a video this weekend, but I'll be amazed if they go into depth and it's not just some PR rubbish.

A group of university students could make that in week or so , absolute joke! And that much money :/

Really glad this has been covered, came across this weeks ago via a Facebook ad, and as a developer myself was amazed at it's Kickstarter success considering the lack of professionalism and clear use of asset bundles etc. This would take less than a week to put together in the condition shown on Kickstarter, it's a real shame that your average customer would look at this with different eyes and not understand why it's not worthy of investment

Well Chronicles of Ellerya “2” here we go.

I appreciate your level tone in these videos. So many other youtubers just shout everything with little analysis, swear to the point of oversaturation, and have some obnoxious hiphop or lo-fi beat as background music. Instead you get straight to the point, give your analysis and then opinion, moderate your ideas, and then move on to the next point. Really satisfying. Subscribed.

If you make a mmorpg that's a asset flip that completely fine. You just need to inform your supporters that it will be that type of game and think about the cost of it and make a concept displaying what it will have and you should also know if it's a reasonable project to make before you start a kickstarter. If you get negative feedback you should be professional about it and maybe consider that feedback to improve that game.

I love you dude but I wish I could watch one of these without cringing nearly to death. ;) Keep up the good work, we all appreciate having someone like you in our corner keeping people honest and exposing those who would take advantage of us!

This was a refreshingly reasonable take on purchased assets.

At this point I have no sympathy for backers. If you blindly throw your money at a project without using your brain to figure out that it's very clearly bullshit, then you probably deserve to be scammed.

i never kickstart anything. i happy buy a game when it is done and it looks good,

This stuff really disgusts me, glad you’re bringing light to this. Hope more youtubers do

i would give an individual object to the backer as an award, then theres a skateboard with graffiti inside of the medieval game, which you can use as a Weapon or Shield.

I bet his ex gets teased about this all the time. I need a in depth interview with her!

Love you're content and 100% agree with everything you have said.

I lost my job. And my fiancee..... wtf. I'm sorry that sounds incredibly suspicious like holy crap.... just weird like seriously

We put something together like that in 3 2hr lessons back in University. 2-3 weeks is far too generous. UE4 is basically drag and drop game development these days. Also, his sap story at the start of his video is something called "Emotional Blackmail" it is a very effective marketing tool as you can see. I'm also pretty sure it is illegal in the US. Not 100% sure on that though,

Had a door to door salesman try the emotional manipulation tactic on myself and my roommate. Gave this whole story about how he was on his last leg and his life was just falling apart. If we bought this completely overpriced vacuum, he'd be able to go on this expensive vacation. As I was pushing him out the door my roommate said she'd buy it. I was absolutely floored. She spent $2000 on a vacuum that broke the first time she tried to use it. To this day I have ZERO respect for her and her stupidity.

Zach's answers to questions reminded me one old joke: - I correctly interpret the semantics of the question, but completely ignore its essence. - Could you give an example? - I could.

Very intriguing video. Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be a scam, but those are some lofty goals for two people. I understand the reasoning for funding projects this way from a developers point of view, but am totally against it. It's very difficult to pinpoint a financial goal that guarantees a product will be finished when reached, especially in a creative environment and in their case with so few resources. I'm certainly no expert nor claim to be, but I don't think issues with scams and/or ignorance like this will go away unless people just stop paying for it. The same goes for similar issues that come with "Early Access" games and pre-orders. Good points on the asset store stuff. Asset store items are what make it possible for true "indies" like myself to prototype, complete large scale projects, or provide enhancements that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. It's very difficult (in my experience) to be talented enough at any of the skills required to make a game, let alone multiple skills, so you cut corners where you can to reach your goals and the MVP.

Game development is also much different from software development and I'm assuming that's what he was doing at Facebook, Apple, and Google? It's different architecturally and my biggest mistake was assuming all principals were transferable but I had a lot to learn and still do.

Kira as always you hit the nail on the head!

This is why I never back kickstarters who keep thier backers in the dark or come off as dishonest. I would only give up to about $5-$10 at the most because that's honestly how much I can spend when I'm not paying off bills or doing other necessary life stuff.

Update: Up to today I learn that seem like they got more backer with million of dollar outside of kickstarter, their discord is run by bunch of minor as moderator, one of the MOD is ~15 even, like holy shit. If you come there and try to ask or say anything a bit forward, the CEO (yes, the CEO, not MODs) will ban you and remove your text. Even the guy's girlfriend said that she left him because the guy seem to live in a dream world.... lol. He has lot of ideas here and there but always out of reality. She even expose him. This shit is literally robbing in the day light and walk out free.

I notice with these asset games the UI just looks non existent. Years ago I made games with Dark Basic and even with those I at least had some fairly nice UI elements. Seriously, if you are making a game and have shit UI let me know, 2d art is my thing, stop making awful looking games. And I have to say that sob story video looked fake af and I was cringing hard.

Dreamworld is like a game that's being pitched by a 4 year old. Seriously who the fuck other than a toddler says "It's gonna be every game, every style and it's best at all of them and it's gonna have infinite number of players at the same time in same world."?

Dude, I'm on like my 30th idea, and 10 prototype. I would love to get to a point where I feel a Kickstarter would be suitable. I am a designer, but can do audio, music, programming, and some environmental modelling. I would only feel ready for a kickstarter once all of those elements were done, and I needed a character modeller/animator to help with the bits I can't do. It's frustrating seeing these videos.

If a company is open and says "Hey, we just want to let you know everything as of right now is store assets so we can really work on nailing gameplay feel and features before we commit to bringing on artists etc" but this is clearly nothing of that sort. Definitely looks just so fishy at face value. Crazy to think they've gotten the funding they have..

$65,000 to fund an MMO? Yeah, that's an obvious scam as it takes much more than that, Hell ESO cost at least $100million to make.

I'd say these people are indicative of the whole bloody gaming industry now, all the way from triple A games down to this shite. Over priced games, games not as advertised, micro-transactions, broken promises... its the whole bloody industry. There are some good'ns out there but they're growing less and lass every day...

i saw this game in a facebook ad like two weeks ago and could not believe my eyes that it was fully funded. i'm not super familiar with premade assets outside of interior ones but i recognized the stairs instantly - i'm 90% sure it's the same model that valheim uses (the valheim dev has said he does use some store-bought assets to save time and edits them to fit the look of the world, in case others didn't know, but they do a great job!), and all of the rest just didn't seem to have a cohesive style which was a big clue. also that fps drop in the fireworks scene lmao.

Sad part is money like that would likely benefited other early access games like Empire of Ember, where developer have really done a lot to improve on game putting out hotfixes and updates regularly.

Im a neckbeard and just lost my imaginary girlfriend and my job. I've decided to make a game, pm credit card details to me. Thank you.

Store assets should not be used in games imho and if you use anything it needs to be transformative as in you change the asses to something new that doesn't resemble the original too much. I and most people use it for prototyping and nothing else but I understand the temptation to just copy paste assets and levels (even demo showcase maps) and make it to a game to earn money, sometimes I wish I was that scummy because I'm broke but alteast I have my morals intact.

as a previous game dev, if i was going to make a game with friends, we'd prototype the fuck out of it first in our own time, to see if it had potential - not run to kickstarter etc for funding. at this point, there should at least be a decent prototype, consistent art style, design document and concept art or whatever.

My WIFE still doesn’t believe in me! I'm telling her "Well honey this is real!"

I don’t have any issue with someone who has left big companies to do their own thing. Lots of people are unhappy in the corporate world and just want to make their own art and be happy.

this zac fellow is the kind of guy that would lie about putting the brown sauce in the fridge

I actually tried to report this to kickstarter...but it doesn't actually fit any of their tick boxes 🤷‍♂️

Man I need to get into the mmo scam kickstarter business I can retire tomorrow