The developers of "The Day Before," once the second game on Steam's wishlist (open in new tab), have slammed the "disinformation and lack of fact-checking" in discussions about the game; in a post on Twitter last night, Fntastic said, "Disinformation is something we need to address because it can harm not only us, but other indies and smaller studios as well," and highlighted the "psychological impact" that disinformation can have on such team members.

Fntastic did not specify which disinformation they were talking about specifically, but it is not too difficult to guess. After a long train of bizarre mishaps, including a bizarre trademark dispute (opens in new tab), an eight-month delay, and accusations of copied game trailers (opens in new tab), it's not hard to find people online who have concluded that this game is some sort of scam. I suppose it is precisely such rumors that Fntastic is obliquely addressing here.

It doesn't seem to have helped; many of the responses to Fntastic's tweets were not exactly convincing, either ridiculing the studio's intervention or straight-up accusing the developer of lying. Meanwhile, after several users asked the company to do a better job of marketing, it became clear that the company has "no marketing department at all (opens in new tab)." However, it has promised to improve "communication (open in new tab)" and "transparency" in the future.

Similar reactions were seen in other corners of the Internet; the consensus on Reddit seems to be that the studio would have been much better off keeping quiet, and that the statement only made things worse.OrcRobotGhostSamurai (opens in new tab) A user named "OrcRobotGhostSamurai" (opens in new tab) said, "I've never seen such a bad developer statement when so many allegations have been pointed out," and the most appreciated comment in the thread Forestl (opens in new tab) said, "It's so funny how everything they do makes this game seem more and more fake. It's very interesting that it's getting more and more fake," and concludes, "There's no way this is going to end well."

Honestly, I can only say that what is going on with "The Day Before" has been deeply mishandled. The studio is not taking preorders and has not raised any money through Kickstarter or similar, so it is hard to see what, if any, hard feelings there might be. On the other hand, the furor over the game's trademark was so ridiculous as to be hard to accept at face value.

Five minutes after Fntastic blasted the "disinformation" surrounding the game, it posted a new tweet, asking fans to retweet it and access a new video "about how (Fntastic) is developing #thedaybefore from 2019" and " The game has been constantly changing and improving since then," he boasted. I really think the studio should hire its marketing department.