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The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's not fair, but it's understandable.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's not fair, but it's understandable.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dot Esports\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" 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Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/kirilstoilov\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers","description":"It's not fair, but it's understandable.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers","og_description":"It's not fair, but it's understandable.","og_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers","og_site_name":"Dot 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Stoilov","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/bf6c690bbf62d3e2675e55e54be967e3","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1c0d9f4239a65a0bbcc1e74ac9d09dfa?s=96&d=mm&r=g&resize=96%2C96","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1c0d9f4239a65a0bbcc1e74ac9d09dfa?s=96&d=mm&r=g&resize=96%2C96","caption":"Kiril Stoilov"},"description":"Dot Esports general gaming writer. Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/kirilstoilov"}]}},"raw_content":"Not much in life is completely black or white. But Fntastic, the now-defunct developer behind The Day Before, just showed us the worst part of the gamer-developer dynamic, and it could spark unwarranted distrust toward honest game developers. The Day Before launched on Dec. 7, and it was just four days after launch when its development studio closed its doors. This unfortunate turn of events wasn't just bad in a vacuum, it also dealt devastating damage to the already-strained relationship between gamers and developers, making life for hard-working, honest developers that much harder. The Day Before was advertised as an open-world MMO. It\u2019s not, and was rightfully shredded to pieces because of it. You can\u2019t falsely advertise and simply walk it off. Fntastic could possibly have salvaged the situation if The Day Before was a decent extraction shooter, at least. But it\u2019s not that, either, and rightfully was blasted for that too. So, what is The Day Before? According to most responses to Fntastic\u2019s announcement of the studio\u2019s closure, and a vast majority of the game\u2019s over 20,000 Steam reviews, The Day Before is a scam. I don\u2019t want to throw around the S-word around like it\u2019s nothing, but I hate what The Day Before represents in the bigger picture. It's a monument to the distrust between gamers and developers, showing why the former can come off as overly critical, and why the best developers around sometimes catch a stray bullet triggered by shenanigans like the ones pulled by Fntastic. There\u2019s one bit of Fntastic\u2019s statement I can get behind\u2014game development is hard. There are thousands of developers out there who are genuinely doing their best to create good video games, and lumping them together with Fntastic under the generic \"video game developer\" tag makes no sense. Larian and Fntastic are not one and the same just because they are technically in the same profession. But the mere existence of games like The Day Before makes it understandable why gamers don\u2019t and can't blindly trust developers. The threat of another web of lies and misrepresentation, of minimum-effort games sold for $40+, of the studio pulling the plug at any given moment, is enough to keep gamers on edge. That said, it's imperative for the benefit of everyone who loves video games that any such distrust is placed at the right door. Now that The Day Before has officially failed, we can all acknowledge the many red flags in the leadup to its release, but the red flags were always there. Whenever that's the case, gamers owe it to themselves to band together and revolt---but we shouldn't let one rotten apple spoil the whole batch.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/TheDayBefore-header-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063913"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086262,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913\/revisions\/1086262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1063913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":1063913,"date":"2024-01-07T16:31:15","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T21:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/?p=1063913"},"modified":"2024-01-07T16:31:18","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T21:31:18","slug":"the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers","title":{"rendered":"The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not much in life is completely black or white. But Fntastic, the now-defunct developer behind The Day Before<\/em>, just showed us the worst part of the gamer-developer dynamic, and it could spark unwarranted distrust toward honest game developers.<\/p>

The Day Before<\/em> launched on Dec. 7, and it was just four days after launch when its development studio closed its doors<\/a>. This unfortunate turn of events wasn’t just bad in a vacuum, it also dealt devastating damage to the already-strained relationship between gamers and developers, making life for hard-working, honest developers that much harder.<\/p>

\"car
The Day Before was so poorly received that it pushed its developer into retirement. Image via Fntastic<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The Day Before<\/em> was advertised as an open-world MMO<\/a>. It\u2019s not, and was rightfully shredded to pieces because of it. You can\u2019t falsely advertise and simply walk it off. Fntastic could possibly have salvaged the situation if The Day Before<\/em> was a decent extraction shooter, at least. But it\u2019s not that, either, and rightfully was blasted for that too<\/a>. <\/p>

So, what is The Day Before<\/em>? According to most responses to Fntastic\u2019s announcement of the studio\u2019s closure<\/a>, and a vast majority of the game\u2019s over 20,000 Steam reviews, The Day Before<\/em> is a scam.<\/p>

I don\u2019t want to throw around the S-word around like it\u2019s nothing, but I hate what The Day Before<\/em> represents in the bigger picture. It’s a monument to the distrust between gamers and developers, showing why the former can come off as overly critical, and why the best developers around sometimes catch a stray bullet triggered by shenanigans like the ones pulled by Fntastic.<\/p>

There\u2019s one bit of Fntastic\u2019s statement I can get behind\u2014game development is hard. There are thousands of developers out there who are genuinely doing their best to create good video games, and lumping them together with Fntastic under the generic “video game developer” tag makes no sense. Larian and Fntastic are not one and the same just because they are technically in the same profession.<\/p>

But the mere existence of games like The Day Before<\/em> makes it understandable why gamers don\u2019t and can’t blindly trust developers. The threat of another web of lies and misrepresentation, of minimum-effort games sold for $40+, of the studio pulling the plug at any given moment, is enough to keep gamers on edge.<\/p>

That said, it’s imperative for the benefit of everyone who loves video games that any such distrust is placed at the right door. Now that The Day Before<\/em> has officially failed, we can all acknowledge the many red flags in the leadup to its release, but the red flags were always there. Whenever that’s the case, gamers owe it to themselves to band together and revolt—but we shouldn’t let one rotten apple spoil the whole batch.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not fair, but it’s understandable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2137,"featured_media":1063061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":2,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-01-07T21:31:35Z","apple_news_api_id":"e45f6372-6f69-47d3-920f-5a1d39c5299d","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-01-07T21:31:35Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A5F9jcm9pR9OSD1odOcUpnQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47153],"tags":[],"invoiceable_action":[46996],"internal-label":[46551],"article_type":[44127],"coauthors":[{"id":2137,"display_name":"Kiril Stoilov","user_login":"kirilstoilov","user_nicename":"kirilstoilov"}],"class_list":["post-1063913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-day-before","internal-label-gaming","article_type-feature"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's not fair, but it's understandable.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/the-day-before\/news\/the-day-before-debacle-only-hurts-honest-game-developers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Day Before debacle only hurts honest game developers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's not fair, but it's understandable.\" \/>\n<meta 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Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. 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Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/kirilstoilov"}]}},"raw_content":"Not much in life is completely black or white. But Fntastic, the now-defunct developer behind The Day Before, just showed us the worst part of the gamer-developer dynamic, and it could spark unwarranted distrust toward honest game developers. The Day Before launched on Dec. 7, and it was just four days after launch when its development studio closed its doors. This unfortunate turn of events wasn't just bad in a vacuum, it also dealt devastating damage to the already-strained relationship between gamers and developers, making life for hard-working, honest developers that much harder. The Day Before was advertised as an open-world MMO. It\u2019s not, and was rightfully shredded to pieces because of it. You can\u2019t falsely advertise and simply walk it off. Fntastic could possibly have salvaged the situation if The Day Before was a decent extraction shooter, at least. But it\u2019s not that, either, and rightfully was blasted for that too. So, what is The Day Before? According to most responses to Fntastic\u2019s announcement of the studio\u2019s closure, and a vast majority of the game\u2019s over 20,000 Steam reviews, The Day Before is a scam. I don\u2019t want to throw around the S-word around like it\u2019s nothing, but I hate what The Day Before represents in the bigger picture. It's a monument to the distrust between gamers and developers, showing why the former can come off as overly critical, and why the best developers around sometimes catch a stray bullet triggered by shenanigans like the ones pulled by Fntastic. There\u2019s one bit of Fntastic\u2019s statement I can get behind\u2014game development is hard. There are thousands of developers out there who are genuinely doing their best to create good video games, and lumping them together with Fntastic under the generic \"video game developer\" tag makes no sense. Larian and Fntastic are not one and the same just because they are technically in the same profession. But the mere existence of games like The Day Before makes it understandable why gamers don\u2019t and can't blindly trust developers. The threat of another web of lies and misrepresentation, of minimum-effort games sold for $40+, of the studio pulling the plug at any given moment, is enough to keep gamers on edge. That said, it's imperative for the benefit of everyone who loves video games that any such distrust is placed at the right door. Now that The Day Before has officially failed, we can all acknowledge the many red flags in the leadup to its release, but the red flags were always there. Whenever that's the case, gamers owe it to themselves to band together and revolt---but we shouldn't let one rotten apple spoil the whole batch.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/TheDayBefore-header-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063913"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086262,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063913\/revisions\/1086262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=1063913"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1063913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

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