Dreamworld - Timeline of a scam MMO 

NordVPN were genuinely really decent to work with, and the fact they use a runescape graphic made me happy: nordvpn.com/strife

The little detail that gets to me is how he apparently bought his girlfriend a fake diamond ring. Like, being a scammer extends into *every* aspect of his life.

The scam behind Dream World is possibly the greatest IRL RP game I've ever seen. They both snuck their way into a high level dungeon using stealth and charisma points. Now they're stuck in the boss room with a lvl 99 Lawyer who just cast enrage.

If a kickstarter campaign ever promises something "infinite" it's almost certainly a scam.

I love this story, because it was essentially a rug pull scheme that got too successful for its own good and now they had to actually develop a game to save themselves

I just love how this whole thing escalated from being a kickstarter project to turn into two sociopaths using child labour on their discord

"We need to go back almost TEN years in time" Oh, so back to mid-early 2000s "2012" *DAMMIT*

I interviewed to be a game developer for these guys' company, seemed legit since it was a YCombinator company. They mentioned they work 6 days a week and don't do work from home and I dipped out of there. I think I dodged a bullet

Josh and his mug reminds me of my favorite manager ever, Jim. Jim passed away right after Covid hit but he would just stare into your soul while holding his mug and sometimes crack the driest of jokes-just like Josh. He was a huge DND fan and was around back when it first started. He had so many collections and got me to start collecting topps cards. Anyway, I’m being too parasocial so I’m going to fade back into the void now

I’ve never been so invested in something I care nothing about.

"And then my fiance left me!" he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his avid, unhinged eyes.

Calum is fuckin incredible, he went and literally replicated everything the devs did to show them exactly how full of shit they are. Absolute chad.

As a game developer myself and only just now hearing about this whole thing. I am surprised this 'project' even got this much attention. You can easily tell everything in their demo's are just asset bundles, some of them even free ones. Everything they show off in their demo's would take an afternoon for most developers to throw together.

the technology for Dreamworld is real I swear! It just goes to another school

honestly so glad i jumped on this and became a part of internet history. this scam will go down in the books for sure

Holy hell the "left me" meme montage was just hilarious. Just the clear editing and sad music. I mean, it's sad that the dude's fiancee left, but based on what I heard about her relationship with him... yeah, I think that was a good thing for both of them. I mean... he gave her a fake ring and lied about it. If he had just been honest about proposing and said it was a "placeholder" ring, then I'm sure she'd have been understanding, but to lie like that? That's a look into what the marriage will be like so yeah, good on her to run.

I wish Kickstarter would enforce their policy against the “fully funded in X hours” model. They specifically say *not* to do this. That would reduce the number of the unrealistically low goals and the number of people using that tactic to get to the top of the lists. KS is meant to help creators get the funding to produce something, not as an advertisement platform.

"this mug is empty" We've Been Tricked, We've Been Backstabbed and We've Been Quite Possibly, Bamboozled

In 2028 the Internet Historian will cover this in a video, and then Asmongold will react to it

"And you know something is serious when it spawns memes." True words

I didn't realize when this video came out, but a superbacker on Kickstarter isn't someone who's put a lot of money into a single project. It's someone who has backed a lot of projects on Kickstarter. It's a Kickstarter thing, not a project thing

This Dreamworld situation is the most entertaining thing that’s happened since 2020 in the MMO department

I love how he flexes his mug collection joke and switches his mug on every shot

"like the type of people who play music on their phone... but worse" ok, now I feel old. In my day, it was the vehicle speakers cranked up until you heard the thump half a mile down the road.

I know this is so old, and there are over 3000 comments, but I skimmed through quite a bit and did not see anybody else mention it, so Josh, if you still ever look at these, I want you to know that *I* noticed the Death Note musical video showing up as viewed, and despite all your stories, this was the thing that finally made me go, "Oh. He *is* a theater kid."

I can't get enough of this Dreamworld drama. There's just another car wreck around every corner with these scammers. Lol

ok but imagine being the game dev " Welcome to the team pal! *You have a week to make a working mmo* " " Wait what " " Good luck! "

It’s a real shame as it reflects badly on indie devs. I have been creating a game for some time now and have funded it completely by myself. The reason for this is if it fails I won’t be disappointing the player base.

An MMO is just about the most expensive thing humans can make. Even if a kickstarter raised a gazillion, it still might not be enough to make the game.

The real Freudian slip is that he said "fantastical", which means not real, instead of "fantastic", which is a term of praise.

My money's on: 'blame the game's poor state on everyone who was critical or had legitimate questions'. It's the last resort to try to gain sympathy and redirect anger. Then they'll take a 'hiatus' for 'mental health' and vanish.

Literally went and bought a 2 year membership to NORD VPN because of the Runescape thing hahahaha great video mate.

Internet Historian has the best Nord VPN shoutouts because of the creative liberty they give content creators. His ads are the only ones I don’t fast forward through. It’s really cool how they let you do your thing.

An MMO kickstarter "pyramid scheme" This just keeps getting better and better

“Do anything” in an mmo is basically “You can have any color, as long as it’s black” for Ford in the 1900s

i like this guy, no bs he show you all the sources and put them together in a perfect "timeline" as titled, it's awesome man

BRO these 'Timeline' videos that cover the Fyre Festival of video games are phenomenal.

Okay, how much crazier can this story ge- "First we have to go back almost ten years..." Well then.

I never thought I'd be watching a video of Jon Snow offering me a discount on NordVPN, exposing video game scammers, and flexing his mug collection at me all in one go, but here I am. What a time to be alive.

I'm here because of WickedWiz, Kira, and Callum. I've just lol over every single moment of the coverage you guys have done on this. I know I'm super late to the party as usual, but this is one of the very best cases to what I like to call Peter Molyneux Syndrome. Promising the world, delivering nothing but disappointment every time, then spend an insane amount of time backtracking and "clarifying" your previous vaguery and lies.

17:15 the upside down mug had me laughing. Awesome vid and channel overall

Awesome video, following this mess of a project has been quite the ride!!

It's called Dreamworld because you have to be asleep to belive it can happen.

honestly i like how just straightforward you are with like the intro email from nord, that's cool

I love the visual gag of the mug changing throughout the video, nice and subtle form of humor.

Love how u wanna see the situation of fire~ But now, for what really matters, the mug collection; 0:06 - Blue inside de video 0:23 - Dice Mug 5:22 - Aliance WoW Mug 6:50 - 40k Spacemarine Helmet Mug 8:23 - Imperial Aquila Warhammer 40k Mug 15:55 - Iron Man Infinite Gauntlet Mug 17:14 - Upside Down Tri Force Mug 23:25 - 'A Snare has been set' Mug 28:07 - 'Green' Mug 32:40 - Skull Mug 33:20 - III Mug Btw, sorry, i'm not a Mug Expert neither an avid game player, I'm just appreciating the mugs even if I don't know from what they are inspired from.

I love how they lined up their mom's 6 living room chairs in her actual living room, added the computer chair, and tried to make it look like a meeting room or something. Cute curtains tho, lol

I appreciate the different mugs in each return shot, only started following your channel recently so I'm not sure if that's a normal thing. Love the breakdown on this scam. Well done!

I usually don't comment on videos and mostly forget to like videos I like. But this is the best advert for any sponsor I have ever seen on RU-vid. I haven't even watched the rest of the video yet. Amazing.

Wow, I thought Star Citizen was bad for kickstarting a project that would never be finished, but at least they are trying and have built something. This is a whole new level of scammy

Don't you love it when random people walk up to the airport and be like "is flying hard? Maybe I can be a pilot" and the Company is like "Come right in for an interview!"

Not the DreamWorld Alpha 2 launch ad below this video 😭

I got an add for a music producing software during the CORE section and the transition from your video to that made me think it was a weird joke lol.

23:57 - Just to add to disabling comments. Like to Dislike ratio has also been hidden. Hiding even more to newcomers or those who don't dig into this.

They may as well rename it "Chronicles of Elyria 2"

“Cosmic Imagineer” “Imagineer” just means “someone who designs Disneyland/Disney World rides” XD

Upside down mug @ 17:21. Beatiful!

"[their discord mods were] a 14 year old boy and a 16 year old girl" Wait, isn't that the gold standard when it comes to Discord mods? 🐒

Josh last time: I am not a drama channel, this is the last video I'm making on it. Josh this time: Ok I know what I said but come point and laugh at this trainwreck with me! NGL I was really hoping he'd continue to cover it.

Need more timeline vids, this is incredible

"Kaplan" lol. This is all so easy to understand when you're hip to the JQ

These guys are basically if you multiplied Yandere Dev by two but halved their intelligence, and still gave them insane amounts of money.

How can someone look at this dude(the one "making" Dreamworld), and feel good about anything hes involved with? His body language and facial expressions are deeply subconsciously uncomfortable to me.

Hi! I just want to provide a quick bit of additional context on CORE Aegis, since I had a little bit of involvement in the product development. I wasn't directly involved in the project, but my brother was, and I was fairly good friends with Zach through him, so they actually asked me to be the audio tester for the speaker. The process of developing CORE was pretty involved. Zach and my brother both traveled to factories in China to shop for manufacturers for the product, and they went through a decent amount of product testing with the full intention of bringing it to market. It was never meant to be a scam, and the idea for the speaker was fairly well thought out. Zach is a decent ideas guy, but he is just EXTREMELY bad at seeing things through (really not surprising given everything discussed here in the video). At any rate, they really meant this to be a legit thing, and the idea behind it actually makes more sense than just "it's a Bluetooth speaker you can wear in public." Zach (like my brother) was a runner. He liked being outside and going for runs for fun and for staying active. And like most people, he likes listening to music while running. While he was at NYU, he was on a run when he got hit by a car-not seriously, but still enough to scare him a bit. The CORE was meant to be a runner's companion, not something you'd play music from while walking through the grocery store but something you'd use to listen to music while on a jog so you could still be aware of your surroundings. And, on top of that, it had a built in LED light ring, so cars could see you and you could see the road in front of you while running at night. Like I said, the idea wasn't bad; it just wasn't executed how it needed to be. On top of that, bone conduction headphones came out pretty soon after the main production process was about to start, and they accomplish the same goal in a much better way, so there was no hope of the CORE taking off. I think the project ultimately got abandoned because the startup itself fell apart. Like I said, my brother was on the project, and he left because, well, he has bills to pay, and Zach clearly wasn't able to see things through. Without having anyone to handle the finances of the startup, Zach was lost, and had to give up and move on. Ultimately, I think that's where DreamWorld came from-he had to salvage his opinion of himself that he was a genius entrepreneur, and this was how he wanted to do it.

The amount of time, research and timestamps of videos is very impressive, thank you for these amazing videos

NordVPN: "You have total freedom, have fun!" That would explain the, ahem, _"extraordinary"_ ads made by the internet historian

Zac is the guy your mom warns you about when letting you walk home alone from school for the first time.

First time I've sat through an in-video ad; I usually scrub the bar to get past it. Bravo!

At 17:32, your mug is upside down, priceless :)

"and to see the start of this story, we have to go back almost 10 years" And a complete lack of a blurry camera and whimsical flashback music... You were this close to greatness Josh...

The most disheartening thing to me is the fact Y-Combinator let this in. There are (MANY) startups that fight to get large series funding that way, that already have teams lined up from outside networking that would be willing to be signed on day-one to begin development if funding were to arrive, yet these two, with no idea of the landscape they've entered in the gaming market, get a cart ride through the front gates. It's a pity.

I'm still shocked at not only the fact that the first mug was empty but I feel like I was the only one that noticed Josh when though 9 coffee mugs before the video end!! Truly a solid collection Sir

Amazing video! I was curious but didn't know anything about it, so thanks for summarizing

Imagine giving your girl a huge fake diamond ring and then lying to her face and not thinking she would find out. He might know how to trick people into funding his fake project, but it seems he's terrible with girls.

Wouldn't it have been funny If when He Said "this mug is empty" and He turned it around He Then poured His water/Coffee/Milk/Tea/whatever onto himself

I rabbit holed into this video. You, sir, are a great presenter and storyteller, and while I’m not really into MMOs that much, I’ll be watching more!

Freud would not see he saying "what people think we're buikding" as a mistake, but as hes uncountious mind betraing him kakakakakkakak I love it.

He holds that Zelda mug upside down so confidently I had to double check that it was indeed, upside down.

Looking at a the thumbnail my first reaction was : why are they in Stormtrooper armor... then I recognized the UE base model.

love the upside down mug at 17:14 lol

3:19 Yes! I love your collection of mugs. The best I've seen so far, is the Skyrim one.

Thanks Dreamworld! Not for the imaginary game, but the countless entertainment I get watching Josh's and Kira's videos.

RU-vidrs in a month: "So we have evidence that the Dreamworld team is directly responsible for the blood diamonds market"

Love the die mug, definitely something I never knew I was missing in my life before this video. Oh nice work on the video too I guess.

I legitimately hate how funny the memes from this dumpster fire of a scam have been. Every time they make me giggle, it feels wrong, like it's stealing my laughter and doesn't deserve it.

When they said that reality can be stranger than fiction, I didn't believe them. Until this. This sounds more like a script for a TV show than an actual "game".

They most likely wanted to do the kickstarter, not for the money, but to show traction to other large investors. They probably pitched it by saying "see people are already paying for our game".

I love your various mugs dude!

Every cutaway to face cam Josh with the different mug is so painfully British. I died seeing the upside down Hyrule one.

You know a company is serious when the CEO works as a waiter and is applying for other jobs. If you want to start a fashion company you gotta put 100% into it and more.

Came for the drama. Stayed for the coffee mugs!

Your coffee cup gag made my day.

Didn't Disney copywrite "Imagineer" 😂

"My Guild Left Me" is an incredible name!

I'm so glad Bradley Cooper does videos about MMOs nowadays

I’m like…25% convinced he made this video just to show off his mug collection.

Shoutout to Massively OP!!!! Good video Josh thanks for covering it

I just loved that he casually changes his mug to flex his mug collection :D

Tell this to your sponsor: Because of the quality and candor of your endorsement and the fact they let you say whatever you want, I just switched from my old VPN to Nord. Honesty and good faith /work/.

@15:55 earned my sub. So dry that biting the pillow was mandated.