Key insights
- Fntastic is back and they need more money to help develop another video game.
- The team behind the disastrous title The Day Before has apologized and outlined a plan to help them in their quest for a rerun.
- A Kickstarter campaign has been launched with a goal of just over $15,000, and if it's not successful the studio will close again.
The team behind The Day Before, the disastrous open-world MMO that was more along the lines of extraction shooter, is back and has rebranded. Oh, and they want more money.
On Twitter, Fntastic said it was using Kickstarter to generate money to bring the studio back. A link to the studio's website contains the following statement:
We deeply apologize to everyone for The Day Before and take full responsibility for what happened.
There, the team developed a “plan” that outlined how they would overcome their past mistakes and develop the next game. This game is called “Escape Factory” and is “a physics-based multiplayer co-op escape game for 4-8 players set in dangerous factories.”
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson?
The plan, which you can access here, calls for the team to be guided by three principles: honesty, transparency and professionalism. Several “strategic objectives” were also outlined elsewhere, including a focus on community engagement, development standards and brand identity, among others.
An FAQ answers why exactly the team decided to make a comeback after their failure.
Following closure, we reflected on the mistakes of the past and initiated significant internal changes to drive radical improvements.
We have stopped involving external volunteers and are now fully committed to a more professional approach.
Honesty, transparency and community engagement have become our top priorities.
After learning from the mistakes of the past, we developed Fntastic 2.0, a recovery plan.
As part of the planned comeback, the team has created a Kickstarter. If the goal of $15,535 is not reached within the next 29 days, participants will receive their money back and the studio will close again.
Currently, Kickstarter has only pledged $222, split between 10 backers. To that end, the team has introduced multiple reward tiers for backers, including a nearly $10,000 tier that gives backers a dinner with Fntastic, a Discord title, in-game credit recognition, a copy of the game, and a spot on the Backer Wall granted to the website.
Only time will tell whether this plan will be successful, although it currently seems highly unlikely that it will generate the necessary funds. On the other hand, stranger things have happened.
