Ant Simulator Dev Says Partners Blew Money on Bars and Strippers - Update

[Pinky's Brain]

I'm not an expert on law but I'm pretty sure he can sue that business partner to the god damn ground because he pretty much embezzled funds and that's not okay thing to do in business.

Sue them for what? Presumably he had short term contracts, his reputation is damaged by this but that's a bit thin.

It's the customers which have to sue. Even with the new completely bullshit terms there is just no way for them to get out from under it now, they need to deliver product, refund or prove they spend the money in a good faith effort. The latter is obviously no longer relevant, so we are back at the old kickstarter terms. Deliver product, deliver money or be in breach of contract.

 

[Czann]

Funny. In most countries a quick visit to the nearest police station would put these thieves in their place.

But in the US of A you would have to sue and spend your own money to get some justice

Broken country.

 

[Weresquirrel]

The business partners have issued a response, so there does appear to be more to this than initially stated.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/02/01/ant-simulator-business-partners-respond-devs-claims-100-percent-bull.aspx?utm_content=buffer883c5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

So, it seems we're left with 2 possibilities:

1 - It's as the first guy said and his two business partners squandered a bunch of money and covered their asses with contracts and enough plausible cover to stop legal comeuppance.

Or

2 - The first guy cracked under the pressure, couldn't make a proper demo and decided to bail and frame it in such a way to make himself a victim and get the first hit in to make the others have to go on damage control.

Either scenario seems implausible and like the plot to a bad soap opera.

Frankly, I'm gonna withhold judgement. If it is as the partners say and the books are open/reported to the IRS, then whoever is lying will come to light pretty quick. Either way, someone's not coming out of this without a blackened reputation. Either a couple of scam artists or someone willing to throw their friends under a bus to save face.

 

[The Bucket]

Funny. In most countries a quick visit to the nearest police station would put these thieves in their place.

But in the US of A you would have to sue and spend your own money to get some justice

Broken country.

I dont know what the country has to do with it, especially since all we have is his word that they even did anything wrong. And even going by his version of events, they seem to have covered themselves so nothing they did was illegal technically

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I'm not going to say I told you so, because I want to see hard facts not just stories and accounts. Receipts, documentation, statements made by any non-business personal who attended these lunches(I'm assuming they were business/sales calls? Taking a potential client out for drinks or something.)

But this seems way more believable than Bender spending money on blackjack and hookers. Especially if the accusation of taking control of the company's bank accounts is true. Pretty hard to steal money if you don't have access to that money.

But even still...friends of 11 years and he purposefully cuts you out of your own business and you don't make a stink about it until after he blames you for something?! I dunno, maybe I have a different idea of what 11 years of friendship means...

 

[Li Mu]

Perhaps this whole thing is a scam. They all agree to blame each other and claim that the other person is a thief and that they covered their ass too well to take legal action. Then the three of them take the cash and go lay on a beach in Hawaii.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

If people are sad about this game being cancelled, why not seek out the original Ant Simulator that was released many years ago. Maybe they can release an update of it, nothing like going to war against red ants or attacking spiders en mass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimAnt

 

[fractal_butterfly]

So they are bickering about, what, like $10.000 in total? For more than three people over the course of over a year? How did they plan to pull off this game with that little money in the first place? Seems like they didn't need booze and strippers to fail.

 

[Dead Metal]

I don't know, the response they give sounds more plausible than his, but I suspect it was a combination of both. He sees how they spend "too much cash" on meetings and other expenses, sees it as scamming him out of money, and then tries to cut them off and take complete control, which then leads to even more money getting wasted and the company going down, because it was just like 10K.

But then again, this is a kickstarter game, a kickstarter "simulator" game, and those are stupid scams anyway. Heck, I'm sure half of the shit you would do in this would have been just "lolz physicZ" and "lolz randomZ" anyway, so no big loss.

 

[Kahani]

So they are bickering about, what, like $10.000 in total? For more than three people over the course of over a year? How did they plan to pull off this game with that little money in the first place? Seems like they didn't need booze and strippers to fail.

Indeed, the more likely scenario seems to be that neither party is actually correct and they're all just bad at business. One blames the others for frivolous spending, they blame him for taking the money, while the reality is simply that there was never enough money in the first place and they just don't understand how it went to quickly even if the spending was all perfectly legitimate. It's not like they'd be the first ones to screw up in that way, or the first to start pointing fingers when they finally notice there's a problem.

In fact, the Kickstarter page for their "Ultimate gamedev tutorial" is somewhat enlightening. There's plenty of talk about how easy it is to make games quickly and cheaply using free tools, but absolutely nothing about management, budgeting, workflow, or anything like that:

Doesn't game design software cost thousands of dollars? All the knowledge and tools will be 100% free and available on both PC and Mac. First of all, what better place to upload a video than YouTube? So watching the tutorial videos will be free. And for the software, people can sometimes be under the impression that game development requires a special computer or expensive software. This is highly untrue. Any modern PC or Mac computer handle the graphic requirements of game development. In today?s age of the internet, many free creative software tools are available and have already proven themselves in the hands of many successful indie game developers.

I guess they didn't know as much about making games as they thought. Maybe competent on the technical side, but completely clueless when it comes to everything else. They tried to follow their own advice, and this was the result.

 

[BoogieManFL]

What a shame. Game looks and sounds pretty nifty, and unique.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Perhaps this whole thing is a scam. They all agree to blame each other and claim that the other person is a thief and that they covered their ass too well to take legal action. Then the three of them take the cash and go lay on a beach in Hawaii.

I would say this is closer to seeming more the case here. If we hear no more updates from either side, then maybe they wanted a way out of being held accountable for not delivering on their promise, whether purposefully or not. Staging a disagreement and a split that essentially holds no one accountable through a he-said-she-said circular script means that the focus will be on who is right, not how anyone will get any money or compensation back. They could easily have agreed that this would be preferable than collectively owning up that they have all failed their customers. Only time time will tell, unless it doesn't.

 

[Czann]

I dont know what the country has to do with it, especially since all we have is his word that they even did anything wrong. And even going by his version of events, they seem to have covered themselves so nothing they did was illegal technically

I know of a country, Brazil where I live every now and then, where this BS wouldn't work. Contracts are deemed illegal if abusive and protecting your ass like that wouldn't work with most judges. I believe most of LA and Europe works the same.

Also you don't need to mortgage your firstborn to sue someone like in the US.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What a shame. Game looks and sounds pretty nifty, and unique.

Yeah, the idea looked good. Of course, might have come out as rubbish in the end anyway.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

"I'm very pissed off I lost money," Tereshinski continues. "I lost over a year in work. And I lost a game that I loved, and I was proud of, and I was really looking forward to releasing on Steam and PS4. It was supposed to be my first big step in really taking a shot at making video games as a career. But I have to start over now."

The hilarious thing is that he thinks that he is going to get a second chance at this.

 

[BarrelsOfDouche]

Sim-Ant-whoregate. What we're calling it.

 

[BarrelsOfDouche]

Aaaaaaand this is yet another example of why I would never, never, EVER support crowdfunding.

People dodge financial responsibility all the time regardless of how they got the money.