the day before – Syndication Server

The Day Before developer defends its use of unpaid labor

Speaking to Eurogamer, Fntastic clarified its position.

The Day Before, the most wishlisted game on Steam with over 3 million users interested in the zombie MMO, recently revealed that it is created with the help of unpaid workers.

Despite the game’s success, developer Fntastic recently added a page to its website asking for help from ‘volunteers’ to help complete the project. This caused backlash from many, as the studio revealed tasks including localization, and programming features would be carried out by volunteers.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Fntastic clarified its position. In response to the use of the term ‘volunteer’ for both unpaid and salaried worker the company said, “Essentially, the word ‘volunteer’ comes from the Latin word ‘voluntarius’, meaning ‘willing’ or ‘of one’s own choice’, anyone who is open to life can become a volunteer with Fntastic.”

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However, when the studio went on to describe its employees it became clear that roughly 30% of work completed for the studio is carried out by unpaid workers. There are 100 salaried employees currently at the company working as “engineers, artists, and HR professionals”. However, work which is usually also done by paid workers, whether internally or by contracted teams, is being completed by “40 external US and worldwide volunteers,”.

Defending its decision to use volunteers over hiring employees for highly-skilled positions, Fntastic went on to explain, “We ordered localization for Propnight from a well-known large studio specializing in translation,” it continued “ As practice has shown, the result of their work was not so perfect. Most of it had to be redone with the help of our enthusiastic volunteers.”

While some of the work mentioned such as “organizing our Discord communities” can be done by unpaid volunteers, in popular games, and at large studios it is usually the tasks of hired community managers. The studio also claims that Propnight’s volunteers also “found bugs,”, and “dealt with cheaters”, which is usually the task of paid QA testers and customer support.

Defending the decision to use unpaid staff for roles such as QA, localization, community management, and customer support, Fntastic said that one of its unpaid volunteers is now a salaried employee. However, with 40 volunteers currently working for the team this is an exceedingly low transferral rate.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.

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Steam’s most wishlisted game asks for volunteers to finish development

The Day Before developer is recruiting volunteers to finish game.

The Day Before, a zombie survival-based MMO, currently the most wishlisted game on Steam, is recruiting volunteers in order to finish development.

Recently delayed until March 2023, developer Fntastic has changed its website to explain the company’s culture, and ask for volunteers. The most recent delay was apparently caused by the team switching development to the recently released and much improved Unreal Engine 5.

The team added a ‘Volunteer’ page to the company website stating “Fntastic’s culture is based on the idea of volunteering. This means that every Fntastic member is a volunteer.” The team also makes references to the people working there as volunteers multiple times across the site.

The team, which is from Singapore, speaks English non-natively which could be to blame for the confusion. Fntastic claims it is a voluntary culture, splitting volunteers into full-time salaried volunteers, and part-time unpaid volunteers. Salaried employees do not fit the description of volunteers, who are not paid as part of the definition.

However, the part-time volunteers who are remunerated via “cool rewards, participation certificates, and free codes” would fit the definition. Smaller teams sometimes use passionate volunteers for smaller tasks such as community moderation for social media such as Discord or Twitch. However, the tasks which Fntastic is asking volunteers to fulfil fall outside of the usual scope, and would usually be undertaken by paid workers.

In its description Fntastic asks for volunteers who can help with “various activities ranging from translating to community moderating,” going on to say that “Part-time volunteers also can offer their unique skills to improve our projects or create new special features.” Translation and programming features are both difficult and specialized tasks, often classified as highly-skilled work. As such these jobs are usually rewarded financially.

The game recently passed its initial release date of June 21. 2022, supposedly owing to the change in game engine. However, due to the addition of the volunteer page, fans suspect that it has run into issues with development, and are now looking to recruit global volunteers. Fntastic has yet to clarify its position.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.

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Steam’s most-wishlisted game, The Day Before, delayed a full year

Developer Fntastic and publisher Mytona have announced a delay to March 2023, citing a change to Unreal Engine 5.

The Day Before, an open-world survival MMO that mixes the DNA of The Division and The Last of Us, is sitting pretty at the top of Steam’s wishlist chart. It was announced at the start of 2021 with a confusing but pretty trailer, then got a release date of June 11. Now, via IGN, developer Fntastic and publisher Mytona have announced a delay to March 2023, citing a change to Unreal Engine 5.

The game has been accused of being vaporware in various online communities, and it’s not hard to see why. The initial trailer features some pretty locales, but clearly canned animations, UI inserted over the top of the video, scripted sequences, and some odd implications about enemy players that are clearly AI-controlled. It also has a voice over that sounds like it’s being read by a Microsoft Sam off-shoot.

Later trailers don’t do much to convince me it’s improved. It does just enough to remind you of the great games it’s clearly inspired by, but not quite enough to hide what is likely too much ambition and not enough budget beneath. Some very pretty art, though (I looked but couldn’t find anything that matched what’s seen exactly on the Unreal asset store).

Which brings us to the delay, which claims a switch to Unreal Engine 5 means June 11, 2022 has become March 1, 2023. Engine switches range from mild version upgrades to complete restarts of game development, but by all accounts going from UE4 to UE5 is relatively easy. Deliberately so, since the ever-powerful Epic Games wanted as many people on the new stuff as possible. Clearly, Fntastic wanted to put a little more work in outside the switch too.

Being top of Steam’s wishlists is a pretty incredible achievement as well. It’s beating out titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong, which have been gathering desire for half a decade at this point, and industry heavy hitters Starfield and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Plenty of other recognisable mega-sequels (STALKER 2, Kerbal Space Program 2) and long-running favs are beaten out as well.

Very confusing for a game with such odd trailers, no hands-on time, and which went dark for 6 months after announcing a release date, then delayed for another year. Previous game Propnight has been receiving updates regularly and clearly did very well on Steam. A developer like Fntastic managing to work on both games would be very impressive.

Equally so is how big a game this is for the publisher, Mytona. As well as working on Propnight with Fntastic, they have mostly published mobile games aimed at children. They’re based out of Singapore with a decade of games behind them – this is likely their big bet on entering wider gaming markets, so they would want to get it right.

We’ll keep an eye on it to see further developments. I’d recommend they go back dark for a while and come back with a playable build, something approaching final UI, and lots and lots of proof that they’re ever actually going to come out.

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