The Day Before Devs Guarantee Full Refunds on Steam; New Facts on Studio [Update]

Fntastic and publisher Myton have announced that they are working with Steam to allow for refunds to players who purchased The Day Before.

Kamil Kleszyk

December 14, 2023 00:49

Source: Mytona

Update

Fntastic has informed on X Steam will accept any request for a refund of their latest game, regardless of how much time the user in question has spent playing The Day Before.

The studio has also insisted that it has had long nothing to do with The Evil Eight. The decision to remove the developer's name from the game's card on Steam (and replace it with Eight Points - that was the name under which Fntastic previously operated) was supposedly dictated by a desire to disassociate itself from the title, which, according to the developer, was met with an unjustified wave of negative reviews after the studio halted development of The Day Before and ceased operations. Further supervision of the game is to be carried out by Cyprus-based Russian publisher HypeTrain Digital. Is Eight Points now a separate creation from Fntastic? That's what we'd like to know.

Fictitious headquarters and intriguing finances

An interesting article about the studio was published by Yahoo. It shows that the Singapore headquarters of Fntastic does not really exist. As it turns out, the address appearing on the Internet led journalist Aloysius Low to the site of a labor cooperative, where Fntastic rented space, only virtually. Of course, on the spot he encountered no one associated with the developer of The Day Before.

As if by the way, Low took a look at the studio's finances - the company's Russian brothers Eduard and Aisen Gotovsev generated revenue of $3.4 million in 2022 (mainly thanks to Propnight) and a profit of $840,000. The brothers took in $200 thousand each from this sum, and spent $308 thousand on travels. The documents do not show that the studio paid even one employee at the Singapore address. Low also proves that $1.4 million is deposited in Fntastic's bank accounts., which he says "undermines the company's statement that the company lacks funds to continue operations."

By contrast, we know nothing about the company's debts, other than a loan taken out at one time to finance operations (in the amount of $481,000). Will Eduard and Aisen Gotovsev use the funds they have to spin off another gaming "business"? Time will tell.

Original news (December 12)

After Fntastic declared bankruptcy, many gamers began to wonder if they have a chance to get their money back, which they spent on The Day Before. After all, Steam policy clearly states that a refund is possible if the customer has not spent more than two hours in the purchased game.

However, the situation of the online shooter is so unique that, most likely, Valve's platform will take into account the refund of purchase for all players. At least, this is according to the announcement that the title's publisher, Mytona, published on X. Here it is:

The Day Before Devs Guarantee Full Refunds on Steam; New Facts on Studio [Update] - picture #1

Source: X/Twitter, @mytona_official.

Fntastic commentary

Commentary on X was also posted by the developers at Fntastic. Developers of The Day Before stressed that they will not receive any money from the sale of the game in early access.

The Day Before Devs Guarantee Full Refunds on Steam; New Facts on Studio [Update] - picture #2

Source: X/Twitter, @FntasticHQ.

As expected, X users reacted to the developers' announcement. One of them wrote that Fntastic is "a disgrace to the entire game industry." The developers reacted to this statement, but one can infer from the nature of their response, they are unlikely to feel remorse.