Project cancelled, crowdfunds spent on booze and strippers


Yeah, I just heard. Turns out it was more of a Hedonist simulator than an ant simulator.
If the story is to be believed in it's entirety then "what assholes"!
 
Man, at least those backers KNOW what happened to the money and the get some answers, albeit unhappy ones.

I funded the Meet Earl tablet a while back; it's been 2 years since I backed and not a single piece of real information has been brought forward. The whole project went dark last year and the dude running it has basically disappeared, for all intents and purposes. Now I'm a little wiser.

Its a wild west of crowd funding these days, more often then not you're left holding the bag. I really like the Pyra as a project though; you don't have to kick and prod to get updates or information and all the fund raising has been sort of secondary to the actual process. Can't wait to get in line when they start taking orders.
 
Damn, never heard before about this game, but the videos were really promising, I feel sorry for the main developer, he seemed really into it.
 
The development on Ant Simulator was done by a single guy, Eric Tereshinski. He partnered with a couple of other guys, Tyler Monce and Devon Staley, and together they formed ETeeski
If all the development was done by one guy - aside from taking all the money - what were the other two there for? Sounds like he would have been better off just going solo
 
If all the development was done by one guy - aside from taking all the money - what were the other two there for? Sounds like he would have been better off just going solo

In the beta videos he explained that the work from others was HUGE, expecially in the graphic compartment, and underlined this many times, that's the reason because he abandon the project, he is unable to continue alone.
 
They should have done a crowdfunding campaign for booze and strippers directly. With a little press here and there, they might have gotten people to back them.
 
In the beta videos he explained that the work from others was HUGE, expecially in the graphic compartment, and underlined this many times, that's the reason because he abandon the project, he is unable to continue alone.

Really? I thought he said that he canceled the project because his company partners (the ones that blew the funds) threatened to sue if he released it independently. The fact that he even said he wanted to release it on his own should show that he's confident he can. I never heard anything about these two guys with "Director of Finance" and "Director of Operations" as their job titles actually doing any technical work on the game. Furthermore, if these guys had any stake in development I'm sure they'd be livid about him saying the project is cancelled when they could continue working on it. Most likely it's cancelled de facto because there's no one left to work on it.

My guess is that he went into business with them because he had expectations that the company would grow and hire more developers. Maybe they also contributed some of the initial investment money. But this isn't really the order you should do things in. If they spent all the company's funds on booze and strippers then they probably didn't have more than some tens of thousands at the most, not enough to really start hiring anyone full time. Eric Tereshinski should have went into business with other developers first (who are willing to code for business equity or crowdfunding shares) and focused on releasing a breakout game that could bring in enough revenue to grow the company further. He certainly shouldn't have given other people the level of controlling ownership in the company that these two must have had. But since these two guys were his childhood friends who knows what they convinced him to think he needed to do.

On the other hand, I bet those two are sure regretting how they handled this. Their names are now heavily tainted and this is going to make it hard to even get decent jobs let alone manage a business.
 
Exactly, I was kind of surprised that their full names were out there in the clear. I guess he has to have some pretty concrete proof of their behaviour for that not to be defamation.
 
Some informative follow-up articles:

Tereshinski explains the situation in more detail, and admits that it's not exactly the financial catastrophe it sounded like: http://www.polygon.com/2016/2/1/10889756/ant-simulator-eteeski-strippers-liquor-allegations-video
The two friends chime in, predictably denying the allegations: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...ers-respond-devs-claims-100-percent-bull.aspx

Given how much this story blew up I figured the two accused would release a statement where they denied everything. This makes everything a matter of hearsay, but I was betting that the nature of their denial would say a lot about how guilty they look. And I wasn't disappointed.

Apparently, they think that the money they spent on bars and clubs is commensurate for game dev studios they were totally in the clear because they reported it to the IRS and everything.

Now sure, spending company money on drinks could make sense in some contexts. Like if you're working with a client or trying to boost morale of your employees. But there's no justification for two executives and part-owners to treat themselves with company money.

Furthermore, a fledgling startup of this meager size with such limited funds has no business spending company money on this sort of thing regardless. The guy doing all the development work wasn't even taking any kind of salary and here they are blowing the company's money on things that do nothing to advance the company. On something that the company simply can't afford.

Anyone with common sense can tell they were the party in the wrong here and it's embarrassing that they don't realize this. They look like wannabe hotshots that are playing corporate. They were lucky to even get a stake of a company riding entirely on their friend's hard work and they blew it.
[doublepost=1454446890,1454446675][/doublepost]
Exactly, I was kind of surprised that their full names were out there in the clear. I guess he has to have some pretty concrete proof of their behaviour for that not to be defamation.

Indeed they say they're considering legal action against him. If this goes to court I have a feeling they're going to end up looking even worse, as their exact behaviors will become a matter of public examination.
 
@Exophase : Maybe my spoken english comprehension is not the best, but in this video he is definitely listing all the people who worked on the project (at around 4:40) and are more then 2...

 
Okay, it sounds like the "others" were contractors, not the two co-owners of the company.
 
"I didn't do anything wrong, I reported all the income from my back alley drug dealings to the IRS"
 
Back
Top