A real dilemma
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An update on the situation,
West games have made no attempt to provide solid evidence regarding the validity of the Areal game, Infact more troubling info has come to light regarding the gentleman the kickstarter money would be payed to and his link to another gentleman (they were co-defendants in an unrelated court case) who was the creator of the Space Pioneer Kickstarter, an unsuccessful project that appears to be littered with uncredited space art from DeviantArt masquerading as concept art.
You can find out more here:
Forbes.com
Sadly I have to agree with you, sadly because it would be great to actually hope that this game could be realised (no pun intended). I have spent some time watching the "fun" on Areals kickstart page, comments section and see you joined in, as expected you ask the right question and show other users, the link you show here, to warn them.
Vostok/GSC or whoever could actually produce a new legitimate Stalker game would not only be following this fiasco (no doubt with their legal heads on), but also seeing the huge interest that Stalker still has (and the money making potential) and just start working on Stalker 2 sooner rather than later. That should put an end to potential scammers and/or badly thought out crowdfunding campaigns all using Stalker as the bait and downgrading it's status.
Sorry, a bit of a rambling post, well done for keeping the community alert to this situation.
My "real dilemma" here is, that there are already people funding the kickstarter...(To be honest I wasn't aware of how all this kickstarter stuff worked until this Areal sh*t came up).
I'll just strongly suggest people to do nothing except watching how this thing further develops, but DO NOT put money into it.
I'd never joined Kickstarter before this but I paid my pound/dollar so that I could post there basically. If they prove themselves to be genuine I'd put more in but they won't so I'll take it away before the end.
Holy hell, the photo they used for their "Lead Game Designer" is from shutterstock! And as of the present time, it's still up on their kickstarter page
I.imgur.com
Shutterstock.com
The thing is that is him, so presumably he modelled for Shutterstock at some point to make a quick buck, a few of them did from what I've read. Part of the problem is that they keep trying to divert attention away from the real problems with the project. If you listen to there spokesman (not the girl) he keeps treating this like these are what the issues are along with how apparently he's also taking flak for wanting to make it cross-platform and how MDT are using him as a stepping stone to increase there games publicity. The thing is there not the things he should be focusing on. He could end all this very easily but by not doing it he proves us right. I imagine a video will turn up with very limited clips which will be what there cobbling together right now on an engine such as Unity.
What's so sad is stalker fans have already given them $31k without a shred of evidence that this is legit :/
True. That alone is enough not to invest in the project. But all these accusations about them being actors or scammers is a complete LIE. They are just amatuers, they are the left-over ex-GSC employees that didn't join 4A games or Vostok.
We'll have to see, I'm not fully convinced that we have no scam here, but looks like you said. PR is apparently their weak point, starting with a Kickstarter before releasing anything in-game related is just stupidity...
The girl obviously is, They claimed she did some sort of course about gaming in a London university, Yet an old profile she did that I linked somewhere around here or GSC is quite thorough and has nothing related to gaming in it, It's all about her acting career, The rest of them have been involved with one aspect or another of the industry for most if not all of there working life's.
Facebook.com
Panchenko is luckyraccoon the photographer. Simply click his website link in his about for his shutterstock profile and it will give you a link to his site and full name. He is friends with Peter and Eugene.
People were saying they were actors. That comment is a reply to Atanna... Even MDT posted on their website that this was proof. My point is do not back Areal for the right reasons, not made up ones. MDT straight up said "they are in fact actors" That is libel and defamation. West Games' reputation is completely ruined now because of lies, far worse than their apparent copy-right violations and misleading presentation alone would have done.
I don't think Eugene Kim is who he says he is. He is not credited on anything GSC has done and an article says Kim stated he worked on STALKER online. But that was not developed by GSC. Peter and Yuriy are indeed real ex-GSC employees who are credited for all three games. The team is poorly managed by this man.
I agree, Too many people have gone off topic with there claims about the people, I haven't bothered looking up any of MDT's comment's on there site (I haven't ever visited it), I've seen a few posts from them on the Areal kickstarter and I've seen them mentioned by every man and his dog but I'm more interested in the relevant issues regarding the game itself and what there is or isn't of that, I found the claims that Eugene Kim had a co-defendent in a legal case who did a failed, proven dodgy Kickstarter project a year or so ago interesting though.
No-one here is saying there not involved in gaming, It's proven that they are, The issues come from the video, One example being the panning shot of one of there developers working on a pc that shows an Areal Screenshot followed by a couple of seconds of in-game footage which if you take a close look at it you can see that it's COP, Just about every issue I have is based around how the video was done, In my opinion (and it is only an opinion) it was clearly designed to fool people who don't know the games used in it that well, On top of that they got concept artists on board and used there old work from other projects. Claims that they have an engine and game that is up and running with working quests etc (there words no-one else's) should be backed up with video evidence when there trying to get investors, And that is what there trying to do, There selling game packages that cost thousands with features such as how they'll make one of the characters in the game look like they're you, that's one example of many. Yet after all this **** flinging they still haven't provided a shred of hard evidence for the actual game. I don't really care about other peoples claims about the team, That's neither here nor there, That's just going off-topic, I care for the game and someone using fans of the franchise to make an easy buck. I bet right now there trying to come up with a video of gameplay or engine development to show us and I wonder if when it turns up what we get will be manipulated in such a way that we can't determine whether it's from a known engine or even if they've managed to put something together from the assets of the failed Nuclear Union project that the teams boss was leading last year.
People have the "choice" to pay, so its easy to wait it out... but the pitchforks are out, and rumors are flying about. If they are not legit then the truth will come in time.