Fraud or Fail? The Day of Dragons Story 

As an indie dev, I can tell this never started as a scam but absolutely turned into one. 300k for dragon models....bruh, that's a house you bought not some custom 3d models.

"why would I spend 2 years of my life to scam people" is something a scammer would say

It's absolutely wild that Jao mocked IcyCaress's "ripoff" game for having less complicated code. That's actually a point in IcyCaress's favor. Achieving the same result with what looks like less than half of the code just shows that either IcyCaress is a prodigy or Jao is a complete amateur who really should have hired another dev with the money he raised.

Imagine having a legal case so WEAK that youtube won't entertain your DMCA. That's a big achievement

"Aren't those dragons store bought assets?" Reply: *ITS NOT A SCAM*

when a developer reacts so hostile against someone sho asked a few questions it has to be a scam

They had me at 12:08 That interviewer knew exactly what questions to ask, and them getting standoffish was all I needed to hear "The truth does not mind being questioned, a lie does no want to be challenged"

I love how the first response to a concern regarding whether or not the dragons were store-bought was "It's not a scam" as if that had anything to do with the question asked. Just saying, denying something nobody asked is a common sign of lying in the presence of paranoia. Maybe there's some additional context that prompted that being the first thing he said, but knowing what we do, I doubt it.

I love how they threatened copyright infringement, while at the same time, deliberately using a Night Fury, a Saphira, and a few other very obvious copyright infringements on well-known dragons from fantasy video games, books and movies.

As a former moderator of that Discord back during the days of Big Drama, my favourite memories are Jao gaslighting his entire staff team - telling his mods they weren't doing a good enough job, constantly going over the head of his community manager, never talking to his team and instigating fights himself and then demanding they pick up the pieces, constantly making himself a victim when he was told to stop being an actual abusive boss. Fun times! A lot of people like to say the game isn't a "scam" because "uwu but he's devewoping the game uwu he's making the dwagons uwu he's hiwing all these people uwu" but they seem to happily neglect the fact the entire Discord has become a literal cult where the loudest defenders always get rewarded with mod or admin positions, and are allowed to be vitriolic and abusive to anybody with a concern without any fear of reprimand. Meanwhile Jao brags about how his game is going to be the "WoW killer" and has so much ego that rather than properly version his updates, he calls them shit like J.A.O because he needs you to know how he's the boss and how he's cool and also he's definitely a victim and did nothing wrong ever, don't you believe the nasty little RU-vid liars. Then again what can you expect from a man who puts YandereDev on a pedestal and treats him like a role model?

It’s probably a mixture of ego, inexperience and a scam. On the flip side, it does show that there’s an interest in such a game. Maybe something a major developer might be more interested in doing

As a game developer this "developer" really just spat in the face of all of us trying to make a career out of passion. Would have gotten away with $12,000 if it didn't blow up awesome video.

Considering the lack of gameplay, it's interesting that Steam reviews rate this so highly. I took a few minutes to dig into those and found that the vast majority (~90%) of the positive reviews consisted of a single vague line of praise and were posted from accounts with a Steam level of 1 and just a few games owned. While this in itself is not solid proof of anything, it does bear the hallmarks of review boosting. Makes one wonder if some of that 500k wasn't spent there...

…the first real “hold up” moment for me in this video was when the person was proposing DLC for an UNRELEASED GAME. That’s not only really risky on their part, but it just sounds super-suspicious.

Honestly, I'd love a MMO that allows you to play as Dragons, Centaurs and whatnot. Not many MMO companies go outside the usual Human, Human 2, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Dark Elf.. etc.

Simple logic for any indie game kickstarter : "If that is too good to be true, it is too good to be true" Seriously, if some indie developer claimed to work on a game that's better than AAA game that cost hundred of million dollars in development and takes 5 years to complete by major developer, yet indie developer claimed that game will complete only for 1-2 years ? it definitely a SCAM, doesn't matter "how good their presentation was"

Ah, the famous children's film "How To Scam A Dragon"

As a solo indie developer, this reeks of an absolute scam.

The most shocking part of this video is the fact that the game actually released at all, holy shit.

This hit close to home... I'm developing an RPG that has quite a lot to do with dragons with friends as sort of a sideproject for fun with friends, the idea isn't profit, honestly, it all began in 2016 as an opportunity for friends and I to try and study Unreal Engine 4 together, and it just kept going. DoD is a good example as to why we don't open a kickstarter or advertise anything yet. We're too afraid we wouldn't be able to deliver for really any reason. Also, edit, as a mediocre 3D artist: I used to do jobs as low as 200 dollars for custom 3D work back in the day. Now, I am no expert, but 30k? No goddamn way.

The typical "I am sorry, but who are you?" to try and undermine the other party sais enough.

Either this is a scam or the most unprofessional project I have ever seen, run by an incredibly immature developer.

Someone proving how easy Day of Dragons was to replicate in Unity was the reason I started developing in unity. And for that, I'll always feel kind of grateful to Day of Dragons for being what it was ❤️

my best friend convinced me to be a backer for this game (I never drop anything on kickstarter) and even knowing i spent the bare minimum i regret it. poor girl was a mod for their discord server too, i got some behind the scenes shit secondhand. she was super manipulated by jao, but eventually realized what a huge scam it was and bailed without any help. I'm hoping the in-development game she's currently working with turns out better (i met the dev irl and he liked my homemade banana bread, so that's promising) but I'm never putting a dime to anything until i see the finished product ever again, no matter what.

I love how the "creator" of said game got called out for all his toxicity in this comment section. The truth has found its way.

When you put it this way it sounds a lot like Yandere Simulator. This isn't a scam in the sense that there isn't a product, but this is also a lone developer having a decent enough concept idea, with store bought assets, not delivering for years and also being a really awful PR person.

As an indie dev, I can tell this started as a scam. They just didn't expect to reach the initial goal, let alone the stretch goals. They could cover the failure of the 12k project by saying "it wasn't enought, we undesrtimated the costs" and leave with that. But instead they got 500k and they didn't know how to react to that. The obvious part where you can tell it's a scam is that it wouldn't take 2 years to write the code used for this game even if you did start learning how to code from the day you started to count the time spent coding. Except for the chat and network parts, I could code this game in a day

What sucks is this is an awesome idea. There are NOT enough games out there where you can play as a freakin' dragon.

I really should've known better, but I was so caught off guard when the egg hatched and it was just the same model but smaller. I was expecting some type of model evolution, not just "lol shrink"

It's a scam. He said everything was custom made when it was just bought assets. If he was just honest about it he wouldn't receive vitriol.

I hope one day we actually do get a decent game were you can play as a dragon and/or ride dragons. So many games focus on killing dragons but really I just want to live my childhood dreams of being friends with them.

$10,000 per dragon model? As a 3D modeler I can say that's ridiculously unrealistic. Most freelancers would charge around $1,000 for one.

When he said 'Legitimate concern' to that woman, I died of laughter. My man said 'come back when you are legitimately concerned' after they literally ask him legitimately what his goal is.

Really well done video.

yeah going from needing 12k to claiming that 500k wasn't enough and his hostile reactions towards people including bans and stuff just fires off so many red flags to me. Not to mention the stretch goals required a second purchase because prior backers didn't get the stuff makes no sense. If this isn't a scam its a guy who got greedy as hell and than decided not to deliver on what he promised

this is exactly what you get when you cross an inexperienced dev and the dragon fanbase starved of a proper dragon game. A shit ton of backer money, but a terrible game

The fact that the creator of day of dragons blocks people on the discord who ask questions about bugs and lack of updates you can understand why people would assume the game was a scam surely someone who believed their game wasn't a scam would defend and explain themselves because the blocking and ignoring response doesn't do well for a games image.

One other thing I would like to point out is the fact that the steam page is currently on a "Mostly Positive" rating. Any upon closer inspection reveals that the VAST MAJORITY of positive reviews come from bot accounts/people paid to review after leaving their PC's to rot with the game open for a day or so.

I was one of the kickstarters for the game, and I honestly wish I could get a refund. None of the backers even got the majority of the things they were promised, plus the last that I heard, the game was still incredibly barren.

The guy literally spent two years planning a scam just to have people still purchase the game after release. Sounds like the guy wins.

There needs to be some policy for kickstarters that attempts to mitigate against situations like this. Maybe they hold the balance of funds until certain milestones are reached.

It's fairly common for programmers to use other people's code in my experience, but the problem lies in the fact that they haven't put anything together that resembles a game or original work, its basically a tech demo with a stock environment, they have no unique level design or character design, and they don't really have much as far as gameplay beyond basic movement controls from the sounds of it

I remember looking at the kickstarter and recognizing it immediately as a project with no value or promise. One of the biggest red flags to me was the part that promised "Huge Mega Map. The world is huge and beautiful with multiple biomes including forests, deserts, lava, swamps, grasslands, and caves." 1. what in the world does "huge mega map" mean, 2. How is an immature game developer with no prior history going to create a stable multiplayer game on a huge scale? Anyone with experience in such games knows that the bigger the map = the only way to make it feel alive is to populate it with so many players that the lag is hell. Dude legit just said "the world is huge and beautiful" and that was the extent of the detail given Watching the game develop has been like watching a circus fire except people are still celebrating its existence. The first modeler they hired to work on the game was a 3D sculptor, NOT a game modeler--completely different skill sets when it comes to creating low-poly models capable of being diversely animated, and you can tell when you look at the models... that acid dragon was NOT made with video game modelling skills in mind and you can tell in how stiffly its animated. It's default pose looks like a catastrophe

This style of content suits you well Kira. Really enjoyed this one

This video was really well done.

I remember seeing this and thinking "This looks cool! Lets see where it goes... wouldnt be the first unique survival game that goes nowhere..." And i was right.

Sad to say I was really excited about this and backed it, it had felt fishy from pretty early on but it was the first time I had put money into one of these projects and decided that it'd either be a great game or a great lesson. The community shortly after was pretty nice, a lot of groups sprung up and player groups were forming, I even managed to play on one of the earliest tests and it was fairly fun, because of the other players not the game, which was even more barebones at the time. I remember hearing about the acid dragon addition and I realized that things weren't okay. Then rumors about the assets and even sounds being taken broke out and so many of the groups and servers broke away from the game. I decided to put the game to rest at this point but I let the Kickstarter emails keep going. It was just same thing over and over even until now, just WIPs, ideas, and mechanisms over and over again. I had never even thought about the coinciding Harry Potter event nor realized that RU-vid videos had popped up around it. To some extent, I had always hoped it was a project that had simply gone wrong or didn't have the same passion over time but it was pretty clear within a few weeks or a month that things weren't going to pan out. As I only put a small amount of money into it, I'll just take the lesson I got from it and maybe something to screencap dragon references from once in a while. Guess it taught everyone to give these Kickstarters just a little more of a critical look than before.

I remember watching Sid Alphas coverage of this ages ago. Ultimately actions speak louder than words and JAO can call doubters "trolls" all he likes. But when he is literally taking an extremely hostile and authoritarian attitude towards people that are just asking for answers to their concerns, then he has shown his hand. If he had noble and legitimate intentions then face people with genuine consideration not threats and ban hammers.

I witnessed this spectacular disaster since the very beginning. Jao and the majority if not all of the game's staff were and probably still are part of a private discord server which acts more akin to a literal cult rather than the group of friends they were supposed to be. My girlfriend was part of said group years ago and once the true narcissistic and malicious nature of Jao became apparent, the level of toxicity and harassment towards my partner and other members became more extreme, so extreme in fact that deeply affected her mental health. Jao not only has zero programming experience, but this project was "made" with the intension of filling his insufferable ego while making a couple thousand dollars along the way. The game's "progress", the insane amount of lies and the straight up tyrannical behaviour of the "developers" is already enough to alert people of the horrible purchase they are making, however knowing my partner's stories truly shows how disgusting people they really are. I will never play a single second of Jao's products out of principal and respect towards my girlfriend. Never trust this people.

this 100% started as a scam because he was already lying in the Kickstarter, saying he had been working on it for 2 years when it was actually 2 lines of code and bought assets that could be put together in a day (as was shown later)

My parter wanted to donate to this, she LOVES dragons, she was absolutely in love with the idea of this game, she just wanted to be a dragon so bad, I begged her to wait till it showed developement and I am so freaking glad she did.

I had to talk a friend down from this scam. I told him "You'll hang out for like an hour, maybe two, and realize you can't do anything so why bother? It's a glorified dragon RP chat room at present." Which was hard for him, because he's a hella fan of being a dragon. My opinion is it was always supposed to be a small scale asset flip and then move on. Get some original dragon models, and leave it there. He didn't expect to have a fan base he had to answer to, nor interest of how the game is going to perform later. He got overwhelmed from successfully becoming known and got violent because he couldn't easily back out of the project anymore. It was never going to be a grand dragon adventure, but a measly sandbox with little to do and only the dragons as original content. Because it's either that, or he admittedly spent 2 years buying assets and code to cobble together a pretty little glass jar to sit around in.... and fuck all with actual progress making a game. So either he wanted to scam people and move on as quickly and quietly as possible with a very modest kickstarter goal.... OR he has absolutely no experience in game development and is terribly slow/stubborn to learn how to actually create a game. Either way, he's got a shitty personality and a "personal righteousness" that makes him think everyone with legitimate critique is a troll out to get him. Never got my money, never gunna get my money. It's too little too late at this point, and I try my damnest not to support gaming assholes anymore.

I genuinely do believe that DoD wasn't *meant* to be a scam, but with Jao vastly overestimating his abilities as a solo dev and selling a tech demo as anything other than a proof of concept, it certainly became such.

On a side note, from a coding standpoint, more is not always better. When I was learning Python for example, I made a text-based RPG, where you could choose your own class, go explore, have events and all your usual stuff. It totaled something stupid like 10,000 lines. Immediately after that, which took many hours, I redid it from scratch in like 1,000 lines. His flying thing should only really have that much code involved if it is reacting to the terrain or environment, and there's probably a more efficient way to organize it, to speed up performance. I.e. divide the first check in two, with a formula that accounts for speed, and registers if there is an object within that distance. If not, then it defaults to the standard flying pattern. If there is, it then 'reacts' based on the object to change to a different animation, and possibly move the hitbox / model etc. Depends on the engine / language, but you get the idea. This way it only runs 1 check under nominal conditions, so under your usual operation it minimizes the impact.

Might not have started as a scam but it was literally an asset flip and kinda still is so it ended as one.

I was a backer for the game, and let me tell you, I'm very clearly still salty about the game. Very little progress on anything. I've been waiting for more than a year to see the Bio-Dragon. And people who backed much higher tiers than me have probably been pretty disappointed that their money has been used poorly. When the game actually starts looking better, like Draconia, maybe I'll dislike it less. I know there's a road map for DoD, BUT, people have been waiting a really long time for some of these things that have been promised. And for people who backed high enough for the Acid Spitter... Whoooo boi... You'd have to feel sorry for them because they'll have to buy the Acid Spitter DLC, lol. I'm glad I didn't go beyond 40 bux, cuz I'd feel like I would've lost A LOT MORE.

I remember back when this game was getting all hyped up by content creators I found it odd how whenever Jao was being interviewed, particularly in Gaming Beaver's video, Jao always had a tone to his voice that sounded like he didn't care to take the time in the video whatsoever and would leave usually about halfway the way through the video. Maybe it was just his natural speaking voice but I would think someone that recieved such an overwhelming kickstarter would be ecstatic for his vision getting so much attention. But no he usually acted bored or uninterested in ever talking about his own game. Like the only reason he took the time was because he knew it would get him more attention and profit.

You can find a lot of his "new dragon models" on turbo squid. I assume they purchased some models through turbosquid and "tweaked" them enough to consider them as original. Those dragon models go for anywhere between 100 bucks to 1000. Once you purchase them you can basically shape them however you want. It's not that expensive. It's not that deep.

bro, him flexing that his blueprints look complicated as fuck is hilarious, especially in unreals blueprint/visual coding system, simple is better, it's also never the most optimised and normally used for prototyping quickly. To think that your blueprints being a spaghetti fuck fest is actually a good sign just goes to show the experience behind this project. I can't stop binging your vids btw kira, dont stop lol

If you want a dragon game that's actually legit, consider getting Draconia. You can actually customize your dragon and there are things and missions you can do. It's still being developed but it has already far surpassed the crap the DoD developer has done, even with only a fraction of the funding he had.

Love the format of this deep dive, very much reminiscent of Sid Alpha, one of the main youtubers behind the original coverage of this story

“Each dragon costs 10,000 dollars to make and there are thirty dragons” How did literally anyone buy this? Anyone who knows anything about game development would call bullshit on that immediately.

I bought this one Steam's greenlight because my mind was like "Dragons, awesome!" Messed about for less than an hour realizing how it was nothing like what was advertised. And fortunately got a refund from Steam.

I'm glad you reviewed this one. Anthomia got so many death threats from fans that still believed the piece after he backed out and said this isn't right. So thank you for reviewing what happened

I do like the bias free outside view. It’s is refreshing to see a well researched video that doesn’t have a personal stake in things. That said, are we really not going to talk about the discount nightfury? How has Jao not gotten his ass sued be dreamworks yet? Like… how?

New here, and glad I stumbled onto your channel. I deeply appreciate this type of content and the massive amount of research that goes into it. Good work!

"im not here to be interrogated by other developers" aka "if you work in the industry you might figure out my scam"

Pro tip: if the developer can prove to steam they are being review bombed. (regardless of deserved and fairly acquired negative rating) Then steam will reset the review amount to 72% every time. I noticed the game starbase always dipping to 50-60% then magically with no new reviews it would jump to 72% this happened over a period of weeks. Steam just resets the score and leaves the total reviews while discounting the negative ones. There are further ways to find this just by looking at the review graph for a game. So in the case of this game with a spicey history. I could easily see the developer using this tool to keep his crisp 72% approval.

I love that you went back and looked at this "game." I remember when all of the drama started about it. It's cool to see where it is now to an extent, even if it's essentially a scam that keeps on scamming.

Let's of course not forget that Jao also _violated steam ToS by hardcoding bans of the steam profiles of several content creators that were critical of him._

Thanks for putting this together. I might have picked this up if it came across my recommendations, and I don't think I will now even if it ever gets better. I'm surprised he hasn't been sued to prove where all that money went.

The biggest benefit of terrible insomnia, I can watch Kira videos as soon as they hit from over the pond!

I knew it was serious when Kira didn't have the face cam...

Update April 24 2024: the game is still a growth simulator. Only difference is better map and 1 new free dragon to play. Lol what a joke

1) String together assets from an asset store without writing a single line of code. 2) Make a kickstarter. 3) Profit This is becoming way too common.

I didn't think Day of Dragon was a scam at first but just a case of wannabe game developer way in over his head...until he started pulling Star Citizen crap I believe this game is still being "worked on" solely to avoid lawsuit from pissed off backers, just like Chronicles of Elyria but with more progress. The nerve of this guy to sell "bundles" in early access stage though...

I've been following Day of Dragons since before the kickstarter ended. I backed it about 18 days in. I was originally very excited about it and backed it knowing full well that a polished, original game may not happen. However, as time went on that quickly soured. I felt that the kickstarter backers were (and honestly still are) being ignored. At one point the game was getting updates on their patreon, instead of on the kickstarter page or in the discord. I was there in the discord event when the acid spitter was announced. It might not seem like it now, but just about everyone was being very vocal about how much they disliked that a DLC dragon was being planned before even getting the 3 base dragons fully designed. Even today, the Acid Spitter was the first "original" dragon ever added to the game. Not to mention how they made some of the kickstarter-exclusive dragons (which I can question the fairness of) unlockable to anybody. I put original in quotes earlier in my comment because of my biggest gripe: either Jao or the designer is taking very heavy inspiration from other popular dragons in media. The wyverns and the 4-legged fire dragon is fine, they look like generic dragons, but its when you start to look at the others that I find a personal issue with. The plasma dragon (Shadow Scale i think) is obviously inspired by Toothless from How to Train your Dragon (HTTYD). The ridges along the spine, the protrusions on the head, the tail fins. Hell, the fact that it glows blue in its mouth and along its back (you can see this at 21:17 in the video), EXACTLY like Toothless does at the end of the second movie? Its far too close for me to think they came up with it completely originally. I won't go into my other examples as detailed, but it can be easily looked up and compared if you would want to do so. Their Hybrid dragon looks like Stormcutters from HTTYD, the Singe Crest looks like the Banshees from Avatar (Blue people movie, not the last airbender), and the Blitz Striker looks like Skrills from HTTYD. I could go in depth about what exactly I see that's the same or similar about each design, but my comment is far too long already. I can give details for anything I've said here if so desired. But tl;dr:The game is a disappointment. Not because of the game itself, I never expected anything from it, but because of the developers. Or, developer (singular) I should say. I was hoping for some exciting, original dragons, maybe a pvp toggle, and a cool environment to explore. However, it feels like backers are ignored, the dragons are derivative of other media, and any discussion area for the game is one you WILL get shut out of if you disagree. I'm just done and tired of it, but want to put some kind of word out there for anyone who might consider the game.

Great video, you highlight the issues and talk about them professionally without being overly critical which is very tough to do. I never personally got involved with DoD at the beginning, I disagree with buying things unfinished although I'm not small minded enough to understand that funding is how stuff gets done when you're a small company. However, I have seen so many videos on it and it's all the same. I cannot believe DoD is STILL getting away with carbon copies of a night fury and what now appears to be the dragons from GoT but with a set of four legs instead of two. What a joke. Are we so desperate for a game where you play as a dragon that we are ignoring the uncreative, unqualified and incompetence behind it?

I discovered your channel recently and really enjoy your detailed videos. Thanks KiraTV!

best case scenario this man was completely delusional to the difficulties of game development and in complete denial of how basic and shoddy his attempt at making a game really was. But lets be real here, the level of hostility and defensiveness he was showing when being investigated and how little actual work he put into it, (especially when you brought up the copy someone made with 0 skill or time), I think it's clear that he knew what he was doing. I've worked on games, including shoddy little projects with not many developers. Even when something is not going well or you're not sure how to proceed, you typically still put in so much more effort than what he was displaying.

This game will forever hold a special place in my heart, I was one of the kickstarter backers that jumped into the hype train with the original video. But after seeing it for what it really was I promised myself never again to pay anything for a game that isn't already released, I'm still holding on to that idea to this very day.

Does anyone know the outro music that plays? I've heard it before but can't pinpoint where it is from.

Commenting for the algorithm, binge watching your stuff after discovering you, nice work!

The fact that the game was replicated in a few hours by someone with little to no game development experience says it all for me.

A RU-vidr literally recreated the game on his own to the point that no one could tell the difference. It's a complete scam. An asset flip for money.

It actually pretty amazing how easy it is with modern tools and store assets to make something that looks like a game with a lot of work put into it when it really isn't anything at all. People really need to learn to be more critical of these things.

Excellent information! Love the presentation! Also the ending where you give the question... Was this a scam or one guy pushed into a corner? I hope more people view theirs live with these kinds of optics.

This is why I only take interest in games after it released, don't even care about pre-order

This is the best edited and my favorite video you've made. This is exactly what I look for when I wanna see reviews. You've never edited a video like this before. I loved your old way of doing things but I couldn't turn this one off. Great job. Best vid you've made to date. No joke.

You keep on rocking it man! Love the content. I wish I had made a scam of a startup game so I could send all that money suckers gave straight to you.

IGPs favorite game lol. I remember when all of this was going down, I found out about this game through IGP but still knew very little of the situation. Thanks for shedding light on the whole thing.

Woww this guy was so hostile. 'I'm not here to be interrogated' -- but here you are with no background asking for money for your scam game. The paranoia as well thinking it's another developer out there to 'steal' his ideas or coding reeks of scam and desperation.

Love this "story time" format! Keep up the great work. Having said that, please never stop your ranting videos either!

30-35k for a indie game soundtrack. Wow that’s a musicians best scam of a lifetime.

Whether he's a scammer or just a terrible excuse for a dev who doesn't actually develop anything, he should not be producing game products. That said, somehow he's garnered a positive score on Steam and as long as that's true, it feels like the people who apparently like no-content games should be listened to. Not in the sense that anyone should buy this hot garbage, but in that maybe it still deserves to be for sale on Steam.

Great video! Love these "history of a thing/game" vids.

Does anyone know what font is used for the subtitles during the interview with the developer? Thanks

Just found your channel I’ve been binge watching for ages

His game is all just store bought assets, can you even really call him a developer? Great video.

i saw the game and never backed it, I figured i'd wait to see if it ever gets released into a real game, then wait to see reviews to see if it was worth the money.. games are tricky to back cause you never know.. great video