В сентябре 2015 года, возможно, выйдет компьютерная игра Areal, действие которой развернется на территории Республики Коми. Создают ее разработчики культовой серии игр S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
В сюжет «Ареала» лег фантастический рассказ Сергея Тармашева с одноименным названием.
В книге повествуется, что на территорию Республики Коми в тайге упал метеорит, который породил огромный выброс энергии. Из-за чего на территории более километра образовалась зона поражения, которая расширяется каждый день на один метр. Внутри этой зоны мутировали животные и растения. Кроме того, также появилось множество аномалий, которые способны убить невнимательного путника. Появились артефакты — предметы, обладающие свойствами противоречащими законам физики. Разобраться с причинами возникновения данной зоны правительство посылает специальный отряд «Ареал».
Сегодня, 24 июля, завершился сбор средств на портале kickstarter.com, где разработчики пытались собрать необходимые для завершения проекта деньги — 50 тысяч долларов. Сборы превысили ожидания - игроки собрали на сайте почти 65 тысяч долларов.
Areal Kickstarter project has funding suspended 22 Jul 2014 by Peter Parrish
The twisting tale of the Areal project appears to have reached its conclusion as Kickstarter suspends all funding. According to Kickstarter guidelines, “once a project has been suspended it cannot be undone” so this is the end of the road for this particular fundraising effort.
Areal appeared to have reached its funding goal of $50,000 USD over the weekend, but questions were still being asked about where the sudden influx of an additional $20,000 USD had come from, as well as misrepresentation of stock Unity assets as work from an original, in-house graphics engine. Perhaps the most surreal aspect of all was a claim from developer West Games that they had received a letter of support from Vladimir Putin, and a tirade against the gaming media who had dared to question the validity of the project.
Kickstarter’s Trust and Safety team will only suspend a project for one (or more) of the following reasons, so it’s safe to say that evidence of at least one of these was uncovered:
— Misrepresentation of support, through self-pledging
— Misrepresentation or failure to disclose relevant facts about the project or its creator
— The creator provides inaccurate or incomplete user information to Kickstarter or one of our partners
— The characteristics of the creator account overlap with the characteristics of backer accounts that pledged to their project
— A party related to the creator is posing as an independent, supportive party in project comments or elsewhere
— The creator is presenting someone else’s work as their own
— The creator is offering purchased items, claiming to have made them
I’d hazard a guess at it being one of the first two. All pledges for Areal will now be cancelled.
The Areal Kickstarter, which reached its goal few days ago, has been suspended.
Kickstarter suspended funding on the Areal project, and while a reason was not provided as of press time, the firm can suspend projects should the “Trust and Safety Team” find sketchy goings on.
The notice on the project’s funding page states:”Funding for this project was suspended about 2 hours ago.” Usually if the developer cancels the project, it says cancelled, not suspended.
One of these is “self-pledging,” which could be on of the reason for the suspension: the project hit its goal on July 20 when funds went from $40,000 to almost $65,000 in two days after pledges virtually ceased over accusations of using Stalker materials in the pitch video. Questions were also raised over the scope of West Games’ project on such a minuscule budget. There was even a back and forth between West Games and Survarium developer Vostok Games.
You can look over the funding progress here.
The pledge surge came after a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin had sent the Ukrainian developers a letter discussing how his daughter had backed the Areal campaign, and that he himself was not interested in the game. Even though West Games agreed at one point the letter was likely someone “trolling”, the funding surge happened not long after despite the lack of new backers.
UPDATE: West Games has opened direct crowdfunding for Areal on its website, and has issued the statement below:
Our Kickstarter was suspended without any warning. As per Kickstarter’s policy, we cannot contact them to find out why. Areal is the spiritual successor to STALKER, in terms of our vision for it and in terms of the team that we have (which includes Alexey Sytyanov, the lead game designer and screenwriter for STALKER). You can find out more about us and our team on our website.
From the very beginning, we showed what we have accomplished, and showed the atmosphere for what we want to accomplish.
The fact is that there are a lot of companies that make their livelihood on STALKER, so when we showed up on the scene, they saw us as a threat and did everything that they could to stop us.
People also need to take into account that Ukrainians and Russians are in an information war right now, and as a Ukrainian developer, we were subject to constant hostility from Russian Kickstarter accounts (we even got death threats). There are over 16,000 comments on our Kickstarter, which is unprecedented for the amount of supporters that we have, and a lot of our comments are hate filled. Some sites, in light of this, chose to report based on sources from direct competitors or from the myriad of comments based on lies. Others chose a neutral ground, because of the confusing situation around us, and still others wrote positively about us. All in all, more than a 1,000 news results come up when you type in “Areal Kickstarter” on Google.
After Vice news wrote an article about us, people started contributing every minute, but Kickstarter was afraid of the controversy surrounding our project, so they suspended funding. We set our base goal at 50K; even with 2 days left, we raised more than 64 thousand dollars, and our competitors were doing everything that they could to stop that. Kickstarter is a business, and that was their decision. We were not warned, we do not have a say in the matter, we cannot notify our backers, we cannot message our backers, and we can’t post updates anymore. That is how Kickstarter chose to act.
We are the creators of STALKER, and we know that we can make Areal even better than that series, because of advances in technology, gameplay mechanics, and story. We need your support to make that happen, so we have opened up a website wherein we will continue to raise funds. We ask all supporters of Areal who read this, to please head over to our site and contribute there. PayPal is used for safe checkout, but you do not need a PayPal account to donate. Thank you for your understanding.
You’ll have to make up your own mind on the legitimacy of West Games’ endeavours; catch up on the long, troubled Areal saga.
The Areal Kickstarter was pushed over and then well past its goal a few days ago thanks to a very sudden spike in support, but the saga has now taken an unexpected (or perhaps not) twist, as funding for the project has been suspended.
The Kicktraq graphs tell the tale: After a strong start, the Areal Kickstarter bogged down amid accusations of shady dealings and dubious claims. There were questions about the development team's provenance, its heavy use of Stalker materials in its pitch video and even how it could possibly make such an expansive game, well beyond the scope of the ambitious Stalker series, with such a small budget.
Despite that, the project hit its goal on July 20, thanks to a surge that took it from under $40,000 to nearly $65,000 in just two days. The spike followed the receipt of a letter purportedly from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and while it's extremely unlikely that Putin actually sent the letter (or that he is, as it claims, a big fan of videogames), the studio ran an update about it anyway, expressing doubt but also hope that the project might actually have the support of the Russian President. It was also accompanied by a flood of bizarre, persistent spam from a new Kickstarter account that effectively killed user comments with its warnings against "trolls."
But earlier this morning, Kickstarter suspended funding for the Areal project. No reason is given for the suspension but the FAQ says projects may be suspended if the "Trust and Safety Team" finds evidence of foul play. Foremost among those rules is "misrepresentation of support, through self-pledging," and given that funding tapered off to its previous level almost immediately after Areal hit its goal, that may well be where the trouble lies.
We've reached out to the West Games team for more information and will update when we can.
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