The Day Before went from survival hope on Steam to huge disappointment. Many players feel cheated, but can you call it cheating? And what rights do buyers have? GameStar Talk speaks to a lawyer.
What is the current situation surrounding The Day Before? After a long wait, several postponements and a legal dispute, the formerly most wanted game finally went into early access on December 7, 2023. However, what skeptics had long predicted came true: The Day Before was not the game it claimed to be.
MeinMMO editor Britta was there for the release and reported on her dashed survival hopes.
Many players felt cheated: In numerous videos on YouTube, discussions on Reddit or the comments under the X-posts from the developers Fntastic there is talk of a “scam”. In a video with almost 140,000 views, The Day Before is even called the “biggest scam of the year” (via YouTube).
But what does this look like legally and what options do disappointed buyers have?
Who’s speaking? The colleagues from GameStar Talk spoke to lawyer Kai Bodensiek. He specializes in advising publishers and developers of computer games on questions of contract and licensing law, copyright and competition law and corporate law and has been a guest on GameStar Talk several times.
You can find the whole talk on the GameStar Talk YouTube channel or here in the video:
The Day Before: Between fraud and incompetence
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Is The Day Before officially a scam?
What does the lawyer say? Bodensiek is careful when using the term “fraud” because it is a criminal offense in the legal sense. Whether developer Fntastic has committed a criminal offense still needs to be examined. In order to meet this penalty, deliberate deception of consumers and intentional financial harm would have to be proven.
The studio itself writes on X that they overestimated their own possibilities: “That was our first big project. Gone stupid.”
Instead, the lawyer speaks of “misleading advertising”. Although it is certainly legitimate to exaggerate something in advertising, as soon as concrete promises are made, they must also be kept.
So if a survival MMO with an open world is promised, the buyer can expect to be able to move around in a large, open world with many other players. If this is not the case, according to Bodensiek, one can speak of a defect that can also be warned by consumer protection associations.
Even early access status does not protect against keeping promises made. To do this, it would have to be clearly communicated that some planned features are not yet included in this version.
You can also find a written review from our colleagues at GameStar.
Steam is probably making an exception for The Day Before
Do players get their money back? Basically, there are several ways for players to get their money back on Steam. If you haven’t played for two hours yet, you can usually return games within two weeks without any problems.
In the case of The Day Before, players with more playing time also have a good chance of getting their money back. Developer Fntastic on X also promises this. Accordingly, all buyers should get their money back, regardless of the playing time.
According to Bodensiek, anyone who decides to return it in view of the recent development with the alleged closure of the studio behind The Day Before can give a good reason:
The lawyer even suspects that Steam itself could take action to refund players their money. In fact, numerous gamers are said to have already successfully returned the game.
You can find another exciting GameStar talk with our editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski here: Middle finger to the AAA industry: Baldur’s Gate 3 was no coincidence