Lock if posted already.
SOURCE: Misery Dev's themselves.
AREAL by West Games is fraud
Misery Development Ltd. (MDT) has stated that AREAL by West games is a scam from the minute they launched their project on Kickstarter. Even prior to campaign launch West Games have ignored the three basic questions raised by MDT in an interest to safeguard the names of legendary developers and the S.T.AL.K.E.R. franchise. The following is a selection of red flags that are indications that West Games are not who they claim they are. The list will be updated continuously.
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COMPANY BACK-OFFICE
Any Kickstarter pledge to AREAL is directed towards a ‘Leonid Kovtun’.
Who is Leonid Kovtun? What is his role in the project? and why is his name not listed on the main page? All these questions are relevant and important, because Amazon Payments authorized the future pay in benefit of that person, Leonid Kovtun, a natural person and not a company or brand.
Additionally, West Games is based in… Las Vegas?! How far from claimed team nationality can we possibly get here?
West games was only reserved as a company name on May 20 2014 and will expire 20th of August 2014 by Leonid Kovtun of Nevada, Las Vegas.
THE CONCEPT ARTWORK
While the concept artwork is clearly professional work it really pops out from the rest of the Kickstarter campaign layout and design. However, the background info concerning the origin of these designs are interesting and not directly related to West Games in any way:
Soldier concept art straight from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as seen on Areal website:
LINK
Illustrations from the book of Sergey being used as concept art.
LINK
Some more old concept art
LINK
DEVELOPMENT PLAN
What company can build an proper FPS game in one year for all these platforms? Right… Nobody can. This leaves us to think that AREAL development has already come a long way. So why base a Kickstarter video on 90% old S.T.A.L.KE.R. cut scenes? It is irrelevant and this campaign is about AREAL (which is not a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. title).
CONTACT
MDT does have email contact with Eugene Kim, CEO of West games, as well as several former GSC employees. Eugene has failed to answer to even simple technical questions at this point. However, he freely posts several email addresses officially which is something that GSC has never done before. They always kept their contact info safeguarded in a professional way.
None of the listed GSC employees have denied the harsh accusations by MDT that West Games is a fraud company.
So far, all of our contacts at Vostok have stated that West Games are impostors.
STOLEN CONTENT
Why is the black gas mask icon also found online as a vector design?
West Games did this originally?
LINK
EDIT: It appears that soon after this article was posted West Games are replacing some of their topic icons with a new vector design:
But… This vector design is ALSO found online:
LINK
They are doing this without even replying to the statement of stolen content. Raises suspicion, doesn’t it?
LOGO ‘DESIGN’
Why is the Areal logo just a simple font found online?
See the two similar A’s? That is not logo design. That is a simple eroded and downloadable font. GSC developers would do a game logo properly and not simply write the title in a stock font as anyone with a computer is able to do it.
TERRIBLE WEBSITE
MDT have nothing but respect and love for GSC / 4A Games. This is officially known. AREAL claim to have more than one of the creative directors on board. That is cool. When visiting the official website all alarms go off. AREALs official website is NOT made by any GSC/A4 Games creative designer/director. Possibly not even a graphic designer.
Spelling of Eastern European names tend to change when you translate them into English, German or any other non-eastern language, but I don’t think this applies when doing business. So, to come to the point:
The name of the developer, code and apparently also guy who is responsible for the Kickstarter is “Eugene Kim”. However, when you check who the domain is registered to, you get the name “Evgenuy Kim”. As searching this name, especially in relationship to the STALKER or Metro franchise, returned no useful results, the entire campaign becomes once more questionable. Also, the website was created on “2013-09-02 15:35:22 +0200 (9 months ago)” and expires “2014-09-02 15:35:22 +0200 (in 3 months)”. So three months to go for a project that seeks to raise funds? Even developers whose campaigns have failed have a website with a long lasting period remaining.
ABSENCE OF PR
It is a standard procedure for Kickstarter project creators to answer to backer questions while campaigning. MDT have posted dozens at this point. When will West games PR team start looking into these?
Ignorance is a bliss, but some answers would be nice as well. West Games claim to have more than two people on the team taking care of PR.
In addition we should like to see the project creator enable his Facebook account on the project. We are not demanding anything. This is a humble request.
LYING ABOUT ENGINE
West Games have claimed to have developed their own game engine which is a straight out lie. So far all they have shown is X-Ray and Unity footage (and this is not even footage from their own production).
NO REPLY TO SERIOUS ACCUSATIONS
The simple lack of replies to any of our serious statements that West Games is a fraud company should worry you on its own.
STRETCH GOAL EXTREMITY
Another notion that immediately popped up as a red flag:
The Kick goal is $50,000.
First stretch goal is $100,000.
Reaching that goal would have West Games hire more devs to increase the diversity of flora and fauna. $50,000 for an increase in nature diversity?!
Pardon our confidence here but we (MDT) would be able to do so for any Stalker game in like two days time – max!
I am not stating that we are better than anyone. I am simple stating that I (with much dev insight and knowledge) see this as a clear indication of impostors.
I have reason to believe that GSC employees would be able to back this statement any given day.
KICKSTARTER DESIGN
First of all there are many assets utilized that belong to the GSC trademark. Characters, weapons, logos. Texts are not proof read and there are numerous typos scattered everywhere. Images are added between texts in a very simplistic manor. There is much reason to believe that neither a graphic designer nor a PR manager has had a look at this design at all. And yet, West Games claim to have several of both such employees on the team. No AAA company would launch a Kickstarter layout of such poor quality.
SHALLOW PRESENTATION
AREAL campaigning is as shallow as a lantern. All texts and posts are vague and barely touching any depth or detail. Backer questions are left unanswered and the presentation video does not show any footage from the project at all. Pretty much every single aspect mentioned is barely touching the surface of actual explanation.
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