KickStarter Areal, STALKER spiritual successor by West Games - LOL CANCELLED

[Xu Fugui]

Now they only have 100 other things to address!

Woha, I could have sworn it was just one guy with a bunch of stolen GSC clips and pirated unity assets trying to scam some poor fools on kickstarter. Turns out there are several guys.

 

[Perkel]

BTW what is going on with this MISERY thing ?

Wasn't that mod for stalker ?

 

[Perkel]

heh i see why they got angry at misery

http://www.miserymod.com/?page_id=1911


Still until they show progress scam alert is valid

 

[Sodafish]

I'd like to be all over this, but thus far "spiritual successor" has been synonymous with fail.

But don't you want to play this on your Wii U bro

Oh shit, didn't see that part

Also yeah, looks like this is dodgy as a 3 bob note anyway.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

God, what is it with these wierdos with degenerate facial features.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-26-that-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-y-areal-kickstarter-whats-going-on

That S.T.A.L.K.E.R.y Areal Kickstarter: What's going on?
UPDATE: West-Games responds and puts faces to names in a video.

UPDATE 27/06 08.40AM BST: There's been communication. Eurogamer has received an email response from head of the project, Eugene Kim, and there's also been a Kickstarter update overnight.

Unfortunately neither correspondence addresses the bigger question about Areal as a game, and whether it has a realistic chance of being made. Questions such as "why aren't we seeing more?", "why did West-Games use S.T.A.L.K.E.R. assets to promote Areal?" and "what is the roadmap for production?" are still unanswered.

The email and Kickstarter update focus instead on proving that the people named do really work at the studio. There's a video featuring five of the key staff at the studio all sat together saying hi.



The email regurgitated some of what had been written on Kickstarter before, about that one vocal dissenter - posting as Misery LTD - who's apparently on a crusade to smear the Areal project, and in doing so promote his own S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-like game.

"It's very hard to see people associated with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise perpetuating lies and biased misinformation with the purpose of attracting people to their own post-apocalyptic video games," Eugene Kim wrote in the email. "It's even harder for us to see that misinformation posted as fact."

I've made contact with that vocal dissenter to find out more about where the intense scrutiny comes from.

These updates show there are people working at West-Games willing to put their faces, in a video, to the game. That suggests this isn't a scam, at least.

Now the team needs to prove it has more than ideas and a video of cobbled-together S.T.A.L.K.E.R. footage - not to mention a proper production plan - for its game.

ORIGINAL STORY 26/06 4PM BST: Accusations of fraudulent claims, suspicions of being a scam - what's going on with that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-inspired Kickstarter, Areal?

There are a few areas of contention: who are the people at West-Games and did they work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Are the assets used for the Areal Kickstarter actually S.T.A.L.K.E.R. assets? And does this project, asking for only $50,000, have any hope of ever being completed?

To answer the first question requires a bit of background - the whole topic requires background.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was made in Ukraine by GSC Game World. GSC collapsed, weirdly, in 2011 when leader Sergei Grigorovich unexpectedly and unceremoniously pulled the plug on the whole operation, citing only "personal reasons" (Polygon report).

Out of the ashes rose two new studios: 4A Games, established a few years earlier and would go on to make the respected Metro series, and Vostok Games, which is nearly ready to release Survarium - an online game that's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at its heart.

GSC - a shell company - and Sergei Grigorovich retained ownership of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand (noted in a post on GSC's website), but nothing has really been heard of them since.

Another studio with GSC ties popped up in 2012. It was Union Studio and it claimed to be created by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developers. Union's pitch on startup funding site Gust said, "We are raising funds for our studio and our new AAA class on-line cross-platform third person shooter." Union Studio "reorganised" as West-Games in 2013.

Of the staff mentioned on the Areal Kickstarter it's only really artist Yuriy Negrobov that could be considered part of the core S.T.A.L.K.E.R. team, having worked at GSC since 2003. West-Games boss Eugene Kim worked at GSC for just over a year and a half.

Vostok Games' chief spokesperson Oleg Yavorsky - who worked at GSC from 2000-2012 - told me yesterday that West-Games' claim of Areal being made by the core people who developed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was "overestimated" - and it is.

But there are people at West-Games who worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Metro, which is probably why Vostok removed the statement from its forum about the Areal Kickstarter making "fraudulent claims".

"We have contacted Vostok Games about their supposed claim that we are fraudulent," wrote West-Games in a Kickstarter update. "They say that they have no relation to that claim and have since deleted the forum topic wherein a moderator accused us of being fake."

The second concern is that West-Games used - maybe illegally (does GSC exist to enforce its ownership? I can't get an answer from GSC) - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. footage and assets to represent Areal. Watch the Kickstarter video again:



The dark night intro is very similar to this S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat trailer intro. At around 1.30 there are shooting sections clearly reused in the Areal trailer.


S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat trailer

Now check out this S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky tech demo video. The train-track flyby at 0.47 is used in the Areal video, as is the boat at 1.04.


S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - Tech demo

Even some of the artwork used on the Areal page doesn't belong to that game.

West-Games could be using this stuff to show what it wants Areal to be. It's misleading but that could be the case. But why isn't West-Games showing us Areal? The Kickstarter FAQ says it's in pre-alpha and that lots of savings and time have gone into making it. Why fill a Kickstarter pitch video with clips of other games if that's the case?

Developers are seen, in the Areal video, building an Areal environment. Observers believethe tools to be Unity and the assets to be from a shelf-bought post-apocalyptic package rather than made in house. West-Games suggested it was making its own engine and didn't mention Unity. This could be a short-cut way of making a quick prototype to show investors, but why not make that for the Kickstarter pitch instead?

Even the game's logo came under fire for being thrown together with a bog standard font as if someone didn't take much time over it.

Concern three: Areal will never be made.

Not for $50,000 - the Kickstarter goal - it won't, obviously. That's nowhere near enough - and the team is nowhere near diverse or big enough - to make an ambitious open-world shooter like Areal claims to be. Even at $500,000 it would be unlikely, let alone making it happen on consoles as well.

West-Games seems to be suggesting, however, that raising $50,000 will open new funding doors - perhaps be the evidence a rich investor needs to jump in. Kingdom Come: Deliverance, made in Czech Republic, did a similar kind of thing, albeit much more successfully.

Perhaps the $50,000 is what's needed to make a prototype to demo to publishers, although shopping for publishers via Kickstarter brings up all kinds of problems of its own.

Or maybe West-Games simply set the bar low so it would - at the very least - succeed, and then smash a stretch goal or two along the way.

The biggest problem with all this is that West-Games won't address these concerns. I contacted West-Games yesterday and again today, both through Kickstarter and a contact email addresses.

Here is a company not only pitching its future on Kickstarter but also one that's come under intense internet scrutiny. Why on Earth wouldn't it want to clarify the situation and clear its name? There are many backers who've lowered pledges to $1 until things are cleared up. But all they've - we've - had so far are flimsy updates attacking one vocal dissenter rather than answering the accusations levelled against the Areal project.

Usually developers work themselves to the bone during the Kickstarter drive to raise every penny they can. Not here, it seems.

So what are we left with? Is this a scam?

Whether or not West-Games is going to take your money and run, there's still a worrying lack of an actual product on show, a worrying lack of an actual plan - you know, with proper details - and a worrying lack of communication from the team making the game. Even if this Kickstarter is to be believed, it needs to do much more to justify taking your money. Proceed with caution.

 

[Essegi]

Oh, the update 5.
The first of the long awaited daily updates about "about or creative plans and about progress in general":
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts/893074

 

[Excidium]

I hope this gets funded so they run away with 50k and people learn a valuable lesson

 

[Essegi]

I hope this gets funded so they run away with 50k and people learn a valuable lesson

I suppose you'll be more than willingly to change your mind after update 6: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts/893081
So basically today "creative" update is a postcard size art piece with no explanation and a 12s video with questionable (euphemism) uselfuness and the rest is the usual babbling...
I'm done with updates...

 

[Infinitron]

Robert Purchese is doing a good job with these updates: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-26-that-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-y-areal-kickstarter-whats-going-on

UPDATE 30/06 11.30AM BST: West-Games made a bizarre claim in one of the updates that Vostok Games has now shot down.

Wrote West-Games: "Regarding Union Studio, we had a preliminary project that was supposed to be a generic shooter, and we didn't agree with that vision. That project became Survarium from Vostok Games and we founded West-Games. Now, as you know, we have Areal in development."

I put that to Vostok's Oleg Yavorsky, who replied: "We never had anything in common with Union Studio. I do hope it's a translation mistake."

UPDATE 30/06 10AM BST: The main vocal dissenter against Areal - Misery Development - has been muzzled. Misery Development is the team that built the popular Misery S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mod before pitching a full game - The Seed - successfully on Kickstarter.

West-Games accused Misery Development of trashing the Areal Kickstarter comments in order to promote The Seed, and threatened legal action if it didn't stop.

It has now stopped.

Wrote Misery on the Misery Mod Facebook page:

• "Misery Development Ltd. has been formally asked to resign from commenting on West Games and their Kickstarter project Areal. Misery Development Ltd. would like to state that whether or not to pledge on a Kickstarter campaign is for the community to decide, and an individual choice."

The weekend updates to the Areal Kickstarter talked of shifting the conversation away from the campaign's criticism and towards the game itself. But they didn't; there's still no new tangible information - let alone footage - of the game to be had.

Leonid Kovtun, the mysterious man to whom the pledges are sent, was mentioned again:

"Regarding Leo, he handles some legal and financial aspects of our game," wrote concept artist Eugene Tyshkevich. "We've heard of conspiracy theories about him, but we honestly don't care if he has or hasn't filed lawsuits in the past (if it's even the same Leo)."

Success on Kickstarter is still well within West-Games and Areal's grasp. Despite the criticism, more than $33,000 has been raised of the $50,000 goal so far, with 24 days to spare.

Consider that many interested-but-hesitant spectators have lowered pledges to $1 until they're convinced Areal is legit, and that total could jump significantly - should significant evidence, convincing them Areal is a game that can/will be made, be produced.

Two new images were posted with the promise of more to come. One is this area.

The other image confirmed tanks for the game.

UPDATE 27/06 11PM BST: West-Games has sent answers to more of my questions.

There's a question mark hanging over the identity of a man called Leonid Kovtun - the man who the Areal Kickstarter pledges are going to. Nowhere is he mentioned on the Areal Kickstarter page, nor has West-Games explained his involvement. A Reddit user did some digging and tracked him to Las Vegas, where West-Games is registered, and dug up some court cases (small claims) involving him.

He discovered ties with a Maximilian Kovtun, who also lives in Las Vegas, and who was connected to the Space Pioneer Kickstarter that failed in March this year. That was another project registered to Vegas but built by an Eastern-European (Russian-sounding) team.

I asked Eugeme Kim who Leonid Kovtun was and he replied: "Leo Kovtun is our partner. We have a large team, thus we do not have the opportunity to show everyone to the public."

A large team? Only seven people are listed on LinkeIn and 11 named on the Areal Kickstarter page. That's not enough to realise a pitch like Areal's. I asked Kim how big the team would need to eventually be, and he was evasive. "As big as we deem necessary," he answered, with a smiley. "All video game studios expand and contract to suit their current resource needs."

The resources for Areal are minuscule - at least the $50,000 Kickstarter goal is. I asked Kim how much he would need to make Areal a reality. "We have a detailed internal business plan that can be neatly summarised as follows: we have covered a part of the total budget (including salaries), whilst the rest of the budget comes from Kickstarter, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. community and possibly investors."

If much of the investment has come from the team itself, and what we've heard so far suggests it has, then why haven't we seen more of the project they've built. Why did West-Games choose to use predominantly old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game footage for its Kickstarter pitch?

"We used footage from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to show the games that we have worked on in the past," he replied. "We are working on the game and will show in-game materials through various platforms, including Kickstarter and Facebook updates."

So how much work has actually been done on Areal so far?

"We have chiefly worked on game design, world building, positioning our project, getting a team together and many other things," Kim assured me. "These are very important aspects of video game development that are often overlooked, but are exceedingly important."

I asked whether West-Games was using Unity to make the game, as some suspected, having seen what they believed to be Unity during the Kickstarter trailer. Kim reiterated what was already said in an update: that the team had worked on "various engines" to evaluate them. He didn't say anything else.

 

[Perkel]

Still no anything close to ingame and they stated they have game on their own engine in pre alpha.

And that is not even close to adressing money issues.

Realeasing game for consoles will cost much more than 100k considering they will need to do QA for each platform, ESRB, PEGI and that QA can sometimes be much more than just one QA. In bad situations QA can take months and there is cost to each QA.


Still smells like bullshit from day1.

 

[Outlander]

I hope this gets funded so they run away with 50k and people learn a valuable lesson

Yep. Except they won't learn shit and fall again for the next obvious scam.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I hope this gets funded so they run away with 50k and people learn a valuable lesson

Yep. Except they won't learn shit and fall again for the next obvious scam.

They'll learn. They might not realise it's a scam, but they'll soon lose their enthusiasm for Kickstarter projects if they keep backing ones that never deliver (we're not talking about a project where people are backing it as a means of expressing their ideological preferences, and won't notice if it never delivers).

The problem is that there's an endless supply of new fools to replace them.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-08-areal-adds-key-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-and-survarium-designer

Areal adds key S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Survarium designer
But serious questions about the Kickstarter still remain.

There's been a noteworthy update to the controversial Areal Kickstarter (beyond what I dug into last week): the full-time hiring of Alexey Sytyanov, the lead game designer of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the lead game designer of Survarium.

He's confirmed his role as producer (exactly what that entails, it's unclear) in a video update, and his hiring adds weight and credibility to the project as a whole.

(It's worth pointing out that Vostok Games, creator of Survarium, explained that he left the Survarium project because his design work had been completed. Sytyanov is credited as part of the design team for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rather than one of the key people leading development of the game. Vostok confirmed to Eurogamer that Sytyanov was "at the origins of the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game".)

In a video, Sytyanov - positioned apparently 200km away from "a war against Russian terrorists" - explained: "Nobody is right now developing a game that is as close to the concept of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as Areal. This is a shooter about surviving in the apocalypse. Imagine a mix of DayZ and Metroid Prime.

"You start the game all alone, but there are meetings with future friends, enemies, discoveries and mysteries ahead.

"I see a lot of promise with this project and offered the guys from West-Games a couple of innovations that would give Areal something that was missing from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Survarium. For example, a combination of multiplayer with a deep story."

More importantly, he announced: "In the next couple of days we're going to show footage from Areal and talk about a few game features."



A show of game footage is what the Areal Kickstarter campaign has sorely lacked since it begun. Backers simply don't believe there's an actual game there, so many have lowered their pledges to $1. That's why, with 16 days to go, the project has stalled at around $35,000 of the $50,000 it needs to raise.

I quizzed West-Games a few days ago about whether there would be any footage released at all throughout the campaign, because I wasn't convinced.

"West-Games are working about a lot of the things," I was told by a person called Valeria who works there. "The work is going. And we will show everything what we will have.

"They are working in Ukraine, where situation is terrible, and they do all what they can. We never hide anything from the people, and in every update we show everything what we have."

I presume Valeria meant "the work is ongoing" and that if footage was ready, we'd see it. But Valeria's message didn't fill me with confidence to say the least.

Art that's been added to the Areal Kickstarter page.

There's still a big question mark hanging over the game's apparently minuscule budget - $50,000 - too. 'That can't be all of it,' we assumed. 'It must be a sum to pay for a demo to show investors or a publisher.'

Eurogamer Germany asked West-Games boss Eugene Kim some questions of its own, and shared the relevant answers with me.

"First off," Kim said, "we have pooled together a set sum to cover salaries. Second of all, marketing takes a large chunk of the budget, and we are relying on word of mouth instead. So when you take that into account, $50,000 doesn't seem so low.

"If you take a look at Misery LTD's Kickstarter, (the team that first stated that our base goal is too low) then you'll see that their budget is even smaller, with roughly €20,000. And I have heard that Survarium has a relatively small budget too."

That seems to suggest that Kim intends to make Areal with $50,000, plus whatever money the team invested.

But in the comments section of the Areal Kickstarter there's a quote from a Russian website supposedly handling PR for Areal, which (reportedly - this is not verified) reads: "The game's producer explicitly told us that the success of reaching the 50,000 mark is meant entirely to show off in front of investors. Factually, that money is needed only to attract the 'real' big cash, because the development of this game of such a game would cost much more than a million dollars."

They are conflicting statements.

Eurogamer Germany also quizzed Kim about the ambitious - given the lack of game evidence so far - September 2015 release date for Areal.

"There is nothing insane about a two-plus year total development cycle," answered Kim. "Some games take longer to make, and others don't. We feel that our dev cycle is reasonable as is."

Backers are also still concerned about the identity of Leonid Kovtun, the man who pledges are going through to. "Leo Kovtun is a partner," was West-Games' previous description of him. An artist elaborated that "he handles some legal and financial aspects of our game".

Leonid Kovtun lives in the US and it could be that his location made him a perfect partner to set up a US company address for West-Games - something that's required to run a US Kickstarter campaign (usually the most successful).

Whether the County Court cases he appears to have been involved in have any bearing on his legitimacy - or the Areal Kickstarter's legitimacy - is unclear. Extra clarification would certainly help.

Meanwhile, the Areal Kickstarter comments section is full of mistrust on one hand and over-the-top excitement on the other. The enthusiasm is uncharacteristic and somewhat out of place, and has led to accusations that the people posting are involved with the project.

 

[Baron Dupek]

There is AMA on reddick right now, some examples:

Q: You announced that you're going to launch Areal on PC and Mac, but have you acquired licences from Microsoft and Apple already?

A: To launch Areal on any platform we have to conclude agreements and treaties. Our partners are interested in Areal’s launch on their platforms.

Q: Regarding the platforms you've anoounced Areal to be launched on. Are you already registered developers at Sony and Nintendo?

A: This is an indispensable condition for launching on these platforms.

Q: Why is there unity footage in the kickstarter video when you claim you are making your own engine?

A: Regarding the video, we have the right to use all footage that conveys what we have accomplished in the past, which includes assets from unity.

Q: In your Kickstarter video you also show footage from the Post-Apocalyptic Pack for Unity3D. What was your involvement in creating that?

A: See above.

Q: It doesn't answer my question. You might as well have showed footage from Skyrim because you played that once. It had nothing to do with your game.

A: Simple, every dev company has the right to use these packs. We added our own assets to it, but it only represents what we've done in the past. Same thing with STALKER. We presented us and not Areal in the video. We'll show progress on footage from Areal this week.​

And that one

Q: Have you already bought developer kits? Can you show them to us?

A: Those times when you needed special equipment are gone. Now it is enough to conclude an agreement with a platform holder and download developer kits as software. You can get them for yourself! But you can actually only release your product on some particular platform if you can make a decent game.

Are they went full retard after some pre-defunct issues in studio or they really from other planet?​

 

[Invictus]

Wtf there is now an update with a video and it looks definetly like Stalker...could it be true or are they using some retextured models from another game?
Can we actualy hope...?

 

[Excidium]

Are they went full retard after some pre-defunct issues in studio or they really from other planet?

They're from ukraine if that answers your question

 

[Invictus]

Ah so they used Unity assets again for their demo...and from the comments even a 5 year old could have made that video with the Unity program and about 300 bucks in assets from the store.
If they have come out with a cool "we have this cool idea help us develop it" instead of lie upon lie and half assed retarcts and a reasonable and believable goal like "we need 1,8 milion dolars" it could have worked but now I just pity the fool who ever believed them

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I told you this isn't worth your time and money.
Now fund them so I can enjoy watching the rage.

 

[Perkel]

AREAL devs explaining people concerns:

 

[Infinitron]

Some good comments here from "Philomelle": http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/18/stalker-kickstarter/comment-page-1/#comment-1627655

 

[Perkel]

"Scam" funded.


Can't wait for butthurt

 

[Jaesun]

Oh man, this will be some DELICIOUS Butthurt and D R A M A.... <3

 

[Perkel]

Imo i think most of this 60k is just developers themselves paying for whatever money they want to steal. It was especially visible at the end of kickstarter when suddenly 20k happened just like that.

It would glorious if scamers wouldn't know that kickstarter takes 20% and in the end they would lose money :D

 

[Zed]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts/919596

Out of nowhere yesterday, we got an email claiming to be from Vladimir Putin. We thought at first that there's no way that this is legit, because we are a Ukrainian studio for the most part, and it's probably the usual trolls trying to deceive us, but then when we looked at it closely, we started thinking that it might be real.

So fucking stupid they make retards seem smart as hell.