The Fntastic Shut Down Gets Weird: Vulgarities To Customers And A Rebrand

I will admit, after my last post on Russian game developer Fntastic shutting down operations days after the release of the much-hyped The Day Before, I really thought it would be my last post on the this whole fiasco. But, no, it turns out that the developer has given us more to write about. If you need a quick summary, Fntastic hyped up the game as a zombie apocalypse MMO for several years, with lots of rumors swirling around as to whether the game was real, whether it was a scam, or whether it was a money-laundering operation. The game finally got released, got slammed by reviewers and the public alike, and four days later the studio announced it was shutting down.

But rather than going away quietly, Fntastic has both gone about trying to disappear itself from all corners of the internet as well as responding to pissed off customers in a manner that certainly doesn't inspire any confidence that this was a professionally run organization.

Failing this badly at delivering a usable game after hyping the shit out of it for several years only to have the coda to this story being the developer telling someone Shit happens" is a level of reputational perniciousness I haven't encountered previously. This also comes days after the game was delisted from Steam, Fntastic wiped its own website from the internet, its YouTube channel and the CEO's ExTwitter account was disappeared, and it has been left to the publisher, Mytona, to address the matter of refunds to customers.

This has been a complete shitshow, obviously. But if you thought the folks behind Fntastic had learned their lesson and moved on to separate endeavors where perhaps they might be more successful, it appears instead that they'd like to play subterfuge games to give this whole thing another try.

One thing that is clear: shit happens" appears to be the extent of Fntastic taking accountability for the mess. Players have already spotted the studioseemingly attempting to rebrandas 8 Points" on Kickstarter, Steam, and elsewhere so that the stink ofThe Day Beforedoesn't rub off on its other projects.

As long as the public has some sense that 8 Points equals Fntastic, if that's even accurate, it's hard to imagine why anyone would hand a copper penny over to these folks ever again.

Editor's Note: The article originally referred to the game as The Day After" rather than The Day Before," but given that the game barely exists, it's not clear this matters. Still, it has been corrected.