The Day Before Servers Shutting Down Next Month, Leaving Game Active for Just 45 Days - IGN
ign.com
• Controversial game The Day Before will have servers shut down in January 2024, just 45 days after its troubled launch.
• Developer Fntastic has closed down and the entire project will cease to exist, leaving players unable to purchase or play the game.
• Steam will automatically refund remaining players and Mytona, the investor, has been collaborating with Steam to facilitate refunds for all purchasers.
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Due to the way Steam refunds work I feel this wasn't their end goal unless they really didn't think it through at all.
The theory i subscribe to is that they intended to release a "decent" game but had no experience or intent to make it themselves. The marketing hype machine was to build community hype, which would drive investor funding so they could pay for new talent or to just outsource most of the work. I'm guessing that either didn't materialize or they mismanaged that plan.
I don't think they intended to release anything ever. But there was so much attention an them they had to release something.
They got funding from a Kickstarter right?
Nope, no Kickstarter or obvious public funding before the early access "release".
There's a chance some people weren't able to get refunded but due to Steam's refund policy I suspect most got their money back.
If it was always intended to be a total scam and never release they'd likely have used their own launcher to bypass the Steam revenue share and refund policy.
They’ve got a history of releasing games and abandoning them.
So I believe this was an attempt at doing the same thing just that TDB ended up getting far more attention than their previous game.