Scam Never Dies. It Could Have Ended Up A Disaster – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Rip-Off Promoted With... Putin
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In fact, in the next two days Areal managed to raise the pledged sum. But with this project hardly anything happened without raising suspicions. So was the case of the last donations which were far from squeaky-clean. Two sizeable payments of USD 11,000 and 12,000, respectively, made within 24 hours almost doubled the amount that the West Games had accumulated in the previous twenty odd days. The creators failed to notice anything unusual about this and soon shared the happy news on reaching the goal three days before the end of the campaign. Unfortunately for them, the owners of Kickstarter assumed a more skeptical approach and came to a conclusion that the Ukrainians co-financed their campaign themselves. As the terms and conditions of the portal are very firm about this kind of financial shenanigans, the campaign was suspended, thus depriving the developers of the amount of almost USD 65,000 raised in a controversial manner. Oleg Yavorsky from Vostok studio claims that the owners of the portal behaved in an exemplary manner: "It is difficult to ensure that new projects on Kickstarter are immediately available to the public and at the same time 100%-verified in legal terms. The administrators did what they had to do: they followed the reaction within the community and reacted with perfect timing." Of course, West Games didn’t remain silent on the whole matter, claiming that they were treated unfairly because of the atmosphere of scandal surrounding the game. The Ukrainians did not intend to lay down their arms and after a few months they came back with a new fundraiser.
Since the string of suspicious information following Areal made it highly unlikely for its creators to have a chance at success with any new crowdfunding campaign, they have implemented substantial changes in their existing project. They started with a name change – West Games was now working on STALKER Apocalypse. In addition, Wii U was no longer among the planned platforms; in turn, support for Oculus Rift was added as well as a new engine – Unreal Engine 4. Above all, however, the creators left Kickstarter and moved to World Wide Funder – a portal that can boast very few fundraisers so far, most of which didn't even raise a single dollar – registered in Las Vegas. Since this website gives no guarantees to return the invested funds in the event that the goal is not achieved, it could be a perfect place to earn a lot with no need to actually create a game or any materials. This time, West Games didn't even bother to hide the fact that they were in it for the money from gullible investors; the goal was set at the enormous amount of USD 600,000 in the space of 90 days. That’s quite the sum for a company that failed to collect more than USD 50,000 in a month without resorting to scams.
The fundraiser was terminated on 11th March this year with a rather unimpressive amount of USD 16,336 collected. It's exactly USD 16,336 too much, but the whole story found a happy ending eventually. Had the owners of Kickstarter, so far choosing the policy of not interfering with the projects presented on their site, decided to look away from the unhealthy atmosphere surrounding Areal and allow the developers to walk away with the money raised in a suspicious manner, the Ukrainian studio would probably disappear into thin air and many players would lose their funds. Fortunately, the most popular crowdfunding site at the moment passed this difficult test – West Games didn’t get a single penny. The players, in turn, were graced with the weirdest Kickstarter story so far, involving stolen materials, mysterious investors and, to top it off, Putin as an aficionado of shooters. I dare not think what it would take to outdo Areal in this respect.
