The makers of the badly flopped survival game The Day Before reported back at the end of September 2024 and vowed to be transparent and honest in the future. But there are already allegations against their new game on Steam.
What game is it about? Escape Factory is supposed to be the new game from the makers of the infamous survival flop The Day Before. On X, formerly Twitter, the developers heralded a new era for their studio: “Fntastic 2.0” should be honest, transparent and professional.
At the same time, the developers announced their new game and started a campaign on Kickstarter to finance it. However, players suspected a rip-off, similar to The Day Before – and it seems like they were right.
That was the story with The Day Before:
The Day Before: Between fraud and incompetence
More videos
Honest new game supposedly a cheap asset flip
What’s going on with the game? Users on social networks have identified Escape Factory as a so-called asset flip. These are games that are assembled from ready-made assets without any particular effort being shown.
The Steam player Occular Malice has listed all the assets from Escape Factory that he has been able to find so far in a forum post. Networking, the lobby and matchmaking are examples of “Unity Demo Code”, which can be used to learn how to develop multiplayer games.
Numerous other assets from the game are also said to come from the Unity Store, many of which are available for free.
Fntastic responded to the revelation by apparently deleting posts from the Steam forum. A backup of Occular Malice’s post can still be accessed via the WaybackMachine.
Even with The Day Before, which failed so badly, there was talk of an asset flip. Meanwhile, on X, the developers assure that all assets were acquired legally. They also emphasize that they created the artwork and music for Escape Factory themselves.
In principle, it is not uncommon for smaller developers to use pre-built asset packs – for example if you have a good idea but don’t have the corresponding artistic talent. The developer of the Steam hit Vampire Survivors originally used such packs, but later had them reworked by an artist.
However, if finished assets are simply cobbled together carelessly in order to make quick money, this is called an asset flip. Just recently, Steam took action against a developer who made money with such games and a lousy scam: Valve is deleting 248 games from a single studio from Steam, and there’s a good reason for that