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Well it sounded great until the following events were uncovered.
- No footage or screenshots were posted until just three days ago. There's just one problem with the footage: It apparently contains assets from a Unity engine pack.
- They allegedly received a letter of recommendation from Vladimir Putin.
- They mysteriously received over $20,000 in the span of just three hours after having been stuck at a total sum of $30,000 for weeks prior.
- That additional $20K? It was apparently added without having gained any additional backers. That seems to indicate (though there is no way to tell for sure right now) that West Games artificially inflated their own campaign with those substantial donations to make them appear more desirable to legitimate backers.
- They actually gained roughly $11,000 in one day while losing seven backers in a day.
- West Games, the studio behind the game and Kickstarter, have apparently sought the help of others to spam their comments with lists of supposed trolls. "Trolls" in this case are the names and information of anybody calling Areal out on their bullshit.
- West Games made a public reveal of the names and various forms of information on these supposed "trolls" that are out to get them. Yes, a game studio doxxed a bunch of people.
- Some of those supposed "trolls" include staff members at VG247 and Forbes, two media outlets that have gone to great lengths to investigate and report on this scam.
- In the same update from Areal in which they call out their "trolls," they also say that Krik Kain of Forbes is being unprofessional due to Forbes' "recent sale to a Hong Kong based company." I couldn't make this up if I wanted to.
- The images and "evidence" from their supporters that contain the personal information of the "trolls?" Well, they contain some of the very same Metadata as the letter from Putin, meaning they were likely created with the same program and settings. That is to say, West Games is just making things up at this point.
- Their "PR and Community Management" person, Ievgeniia Lakosnyk did not study at Brunel University of London for Digital Games and Design Theory. She actually studied improv, photography, and various dance courses at Kyiv State Higher Music School.
- They have shamelessly stolen art assets that they tried to pass off as unique works. One is supposedly some original work from Areal, the other is directly taken from a post-apocalyptic pack on the Unity asset store. The original was made by Unity developer, Manufactura K4.
- They have consistently deflected any questions regarding the legitimacy of their game, their company, and their Kickstarter campaign.
There is more to this story and I know I am omitting quite a bit but I'm keeping it short. The real work here has been done by VG247 and Erik Kain at Forbes. I strongly urge you to have a look through both of their articles and to check back on them regularly as they seem to be updated on a near daily basis with new and fairly damning evidence against this Kickstarter.
Even with all of this, I must say that the biggest offender in all of this isn't West Games, it's Kickstarter itself. This Kickstarter is one that shouldn't even be allowed to continue and yet here we are at 66 hours remaining on this scam without any intervention in sight. And really, why should Kickstarter intervene? If the project is funded, Kickstarter takes their cut and they effectively wash their hands of any real obligation to any of the backers. It's not in Kickstarter's best interests to intervene with this or any Kickstarter.
Unfortunately, we're starting to see more and more pitfalls to backing projects on Kickstarter. The Yogventures Kickstarter has turned out to be a complete PR disaster for the YogsCast and, by way of association, Kickstarter itself. It's a kickstarter that pulled in over half of a million dollars with nothing to show for it except for over 13,000 irate backers that were screwed over.
We have things like the "Potato Salad Kickstarter" still going on. That thing has raised over $61,000 from over 6,300 backers and it still has 11 days to go. Why? While technically not a scam (as far as we're aware right now), it's still a Kickstarter campaign that only serves to damage the Kickstarter name. It opens the doors to imitators looking to cash on on the gullible and those donating "for the lulz," and all of it is simply free cash for Kickstarter itself when they are successfully funded.
Meanwhile, another questionable Kickstarter campaign can be found with Confederate Express. The team revealed to their backers that they are going to put development of that game on hold while they go work on another project, Knuckle Club. The studio behind it, Kilobyte, said that they will give Confederate Express backers a reward pack for Knuckle Club as a way of apology. The thing is, there might not be much crossover between the two games' fan bases. Confederate Express was a zombie apocalypse RPG while Knuckle Club is a 2D fighting game.
Kickstarter needs to start intervening on these suspect campaigns before people get screwed out of their money. They need to implement some form of insurances that protect backers. Their first stop should be at the Areal Kickstarter campaign. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason why this campaign has not been shut down yet. It is entirely possible that they're waiting for more people to report them to the obvious. If that is the case, I urge you to do your part and click on "Report this project to Kickstarter" grey button found at the bottom of the Areal Kickstarter page.