Too good to be true: so recognizes and expose your scam

The First Hour is a Ginx TV manufacturing which plays the initial hr of an all new game or a recent classic for the really initial time. The primary presenter has always been Adam Savage as well as has been joined by visitors such as Lucy James and also Neil Cole.

In 1912, London s geological society was transferred to a sensational foundation. The so-called Pilzdown-Man represented the lack of member in evolution between monkey and man. It took 41 years until science was so advanced that they certainly stated: The bones of the skeleton were all different and became probably from Explorer Charles Dawson artfully carved from human and monkey bones.

In the middle of 1925, the French government sold with an official, stamped letter to the Eiffel Tower on the heads of the country s scrap industry - for founding engineering errors, expensive repairs and political problems that should not be discussed here. The bids were astronomically high. The auction itself, however, was a dizziness of the trick betrayer Victor funny, who had previously been talking about his Romanian box of themselves, a duplication machine which should duplicate money after a waiting period of 6 hours. Among other things, his victims belonged to a Texan sheriff.

In 2011, Elizabeth Holmes had invented a tiny machine, which spoke in seconds accurate medical results when the patient gave a single blood drop. The entire Silicon Valley curled out. Holmes and their company Theranos received more than a billion dollar of investors, high-ranking ex-military and politicians sitting on the Supervisory Board within a short time. In 2015, Holmes even managed the cover of New York Style Magazine and Fortune magazines. The Vanity Fair lists you in your New Establishment table. She was acted as the next Steve Jobs - until 2018 was finally known, the Holmes had just thought out. The blood tests were performed by a third party. Your devices were only expensive paperweight.

Table of contents

1. 1-knit extermination in the MMO sector
2. 2Whie scams work at social level
3. 3The necessary costs to develop an MMORPG
4. 4th background check: We have 20 years of development experience.
5. 5The sad background story: It was a hard time, that s my dream.
6. 6The exclusivity: Be part of something big, now or not!
7. 7 Keep a cool head

Trickbetrüger in the MMO sector

A scam, or in German advances, is a fraudulent mesh, which attracts money and recognition from the pocket with false promises or in the case of false facts. As you can read in our introduction, there are many famous examples of colossal scams in history. If you now ask you how people can only be so gullible: Scammers do not pack with your mind, but in your heart. They touch your emotions, curls with the things you always want to have and let you believe you are that you are beating them over their ear - and not the other way around. Scope of assistance and money: Advanced sights are as old as man himself. In 1912, the Mockdown-Man was considered a sensation and was even held on a painting. In 1915, the first doubts came up and only in 1953 the scam was revealed. Source: John Cooke

In the gaming scene you do not have to look for a long time to find similar stories; On Kickstarter there are a lot of projects that promise you the blue from the sky. Especially in the genre of MMORPGs, a striking large number of suspects have appeared in recent times. We give this sentence regularly from us lately. But he is worth being repeated: if something sounds too good to be true, is probably exactly the case. In this article we call you the most important features that make up a scam MMO. In addition, we will tell you the absolute minimum that should be available for it to be a scam MMO. In the following weeks we introduce you to concrete examples and throw a closer look at the games that we merely open here. Here we go.

How scams work on social level

Before we fall into the wild world of MMO scams, we first throw a look at the functioning of a scam itself. The amusing thing is that scams use normal sales tactics in the end, which are merely spitzed into the extreme. Have you ever tried to buy a new TV and the employee gave things like Think about it, but I m in the lunch break, then there s the price with my successor no more. from yourself? Exactly the same do also advocate suppliers - with the addition that their product is not only marketed aggressively, but simply not exists.

The Scammer must sell its product by handing back to your active thinking processes, because if you are initially to deal seriously with the topic, you will come to the dizziness sooner or later on the legibly. The easiest way to achieve that is to pack your emotions. The more passion to bring her for a topic, the easier the scammer falls the manipulation and the less of them understand, the heavier the skeptical part of your thinking process can hold. If your grandmother receives an e-mail from the country, in which the Federal Ministry of Digital Tax Save the Federal Ministry of Digital tax enforcement suggests that you still have to pay the Internet contributions for the year 2020 to the address below and threaten otherwise sensitive punishments - then you can only be more laugh about it. Your grandmother, however, may not be known and is packed with her fear. She has to pay fast, because the deadline was really tight! And with this we come to the next point of the social engineering tactics of the Scammer: time pressure.

Do you remember the unfriendly television seller? He applies something that is known in the Sales area as Fomo, the Fear of Missing Out . Experienced gamers nod while reading these lines with a ten thousand mile view on the face, because Fomo tactics are long-distance in the Games area and they are used in preorder actions, they attack rare skins in Ingame Stores and things like temporary special promotions or discounts. Scammers also use this effect and additionally reinforce it through steady repetition in their texts or videos. The less time you have to think about your purchase decision or to catch up a second opinion, the better. Therefore, by the way, an old consumer trick with almost flawless precision: If you stand before a big purchase decision, or a kick starter wanted to support hundreds of euros, sleep a day about it. This is usually sufficient to remove the emotional component that drills the first read in your limbic system.

Finally, we expressly point out that there is no shame to become victims of a scam. These people want your money and are very, very good in getting it. The (completely inappropriate) feeling I m stupid or I can not believe that I fished Protects the Scammer in addition to the persecution: He relies on the fact that the shame of his victim is greater than their desire, other people to warn. MMORPGs are part of the most expensive projects of the video game industry. SWTOR cost then when we involve inflation, converted $ 230,000,000. Source: EA

The necessary costs to develop an MMORPG

MMORPGs are with the most expensive projects that can choose a studio. Of course, SetPiece popers like Call of Duty or Far Cry also require a lot of effort, but what finally comes out, a campaign is in two-digit hours and a (hopefully) well-kept multiplayer mode. However, MMOS in the general and MMORPG in particular are a special case: here it is not enough to offer the player for his money 40 or even 200 hours of fun velvet a good graphics - the playing time of a MMORPG is the definition of infinite. Asks a WOW player of the first hour once, which number appears in his chat window when it appears the command / played and then compares the self with mammoth RPGs like Skyrim or The Witcher 3. and yes: who is about deep Dumbers in Rocket League or Dead by Daylight, seasons can easily reach more than 3,000 hours without any problems. The difference is that this is extremely limited arenines - despite their simple construction all pair of updates make the grasse. Ashes of Creation is not only considered great hope in the MMORPG area, it is also responsible for the current MMORPG Renaissance . At least $ 30,000,000 come from private sources, only 3,300,000 from the associated kickstarter - according to Steven Sharif the Absolute Minimum . Source: Ashes of Creation

Now that transfers to a MMORPG in which PVE, PVP, the server architecture, the balancing, the open world, the instances and the latency must vote 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and you do not only receive massive development costs, but also Operating costs that self-catered the ears. Both Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as The Elder Scrolls online cost two hundred million dollars in their development. Once again in numbers: 230,000,000 Dolares! Even the now set Shooter-MMO Defiance Fraß $ 80 million dollars and Wow swallowed around $ 63,000,000 at that time. Ashes of Creation was set to the legs with a kickstarter of $ 300,000 and $ 30 million and Creative Director Steven Sharif gave this funding as the absolute minimum for a core functional game with all promised features . Ultima Online, the heart project of Richard Garriott, shaped the term MMORPG in 1997, as we know him today - and even cost himself the proud $ 6,000,000 in development.

So far so good. However, if we look at the average kickstarter MMORPG, there are very different numbers on the daylight: here MMORPGS are advertised to specify the backer goals from € 10,000 to € 50,000. In the case of smaller or simply putting on the legs to the legs, that can be quite enough. For example, the Virtual Reality MMORPG Orbus VR had a target of $ 10,000 and is today easy to play on Steam. However, if you carefully pollute the profile on Kickstarter, discovers the following statement in the Title s FAQs:

Q: Your funding goal is far too low! How can you put a MMORPG for $ 10,000?

A: You re right, astute reader! This amount of money would not be enough to develop a Flappy Bird clone, let alone an MMO. But this kickstarter campaign is not about putting full financing on the legs, but only to get a small extra boost. We have funded the game privately (from our own pocket), which already ensures that the game is really produced.

Aha! The majority of the capital was therefore already available in the case of Orbus VR - the additional funding aimed only on bonus features and flowed directly into the further development of the title. The problem was addressed directly and the source of money was disclosed. Let s look at Drreamworld on Kickstarter, the whole thing is not so clear: here also $ 10,000 was set as a destination, and with almost $ 65,000 for multiples surpassed. But the money is still not enough to employ the necessary development team more than a week, because unlike Orbus VR, Dreamworld promises you the universe: a single, undivided and infinite MMORPG world with thousands of unique biodes, on the millions of players Zock - without a centralized server model. Dreamworld uses the combined computing power of all active players! This is not only absolutely utopian nonsense, but also a rough violation of personal data security. We will deal with Dreamworld in our own article, here was only to say that even a budget of $ 200 million would scratch only the surface with such a title. An infinite MMORPG with content created by players and a novel peer-to-peer technology for scarce $ 65,000? Unlikely. The investors from the Silicon Valley remain unnamed, while the profile on the website of the Investor Y Combinator also hardly reassures our concerns. Source: Dreamworld Where does the capital come from? Let s scroll through Dreamworlds Pitch we see that you have some of the best investors of the Silicon Valley on your side. Which investors? This is probably a mystery, because Dreamworld is neither in his pitch nor in the FAQ. Also note the sentence We are sure that we can make the alpha and more with the money we have already put on the legs - not the full game mind you, but only the alpha and more . If you dig a little deeper, an investor actually comes to light, Y Combinator. The company supplies small start-ups in the founding phase with money as well as contacts and gets 6% of the entire company shares. The customers of Y Combinator include sizes such as Reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox. In itself a great recommendation until you get through the companies on Y Combinator. Reddit and consorts of course have employee numbers from 3,000 to 5,000 people. Dreamworld owns three .

Three employees for a MMORPG to revolutionize the market and multiplayer infrastructure for years. The Nepotism allegations allegedly passing the company to the test process of Y Combinator, we dedicate ourselves in a coming Dreamworld article itself. This should only be said here: Check very well with every kickstarter MMORPG whether the developers are based on the financing of their Project. And where the money is finished. Dreamworld founder Zachary Kaplan gives as personal experience some projects in Unity . It fits well that most of the Dreamworld objects were imported directly from an asset store. Important: The assets themselves can look quite good, because they were designed by independent artists and are free for sale. Source: Dreamworld

The background check: We have 20 years of development experience.

The MMO Earth 2 promises its players not only a fully walk-in three-dimensional representation of the entire world in the 1: 1 scale (!), But also user-generated content and a complete metaversum , which should close the bridge between true and virtual reality. The clou: You can buy virtual land for real money, which of course only a limited amount exists. Of course, if your dangerous lidging out, you have right and again we have to develop you: Earth 2 is such a big topic that we will treat it in your own article. Here we only take a look at the founder Shane Isaac to demonstrate the importance of extensive background checks. Do not lure from emotional stories. Anyone who does not post his CV in his MMORPG pitch, but his background history would like to pack in your compassion and guilty feeling.

(1) Source: PC Games

At the beginning Shanes CV reads very well: Over 20 years of experience in development, product development and management. This is the so-called familiar-mir statement , which should bring you with universal statements to give the author. After all, he has a lot of experience, right? If you look at his LinkedIn profile, it will recognize that this has existed for a few months at the time of Earth 2 announcement and only two entries include: Managing Director of Xyz Social Media since 2016 and CEO of Earth 2 since 2020. That First company provides a social media app, whose website and Facebook page does not have a fine-cut that you would expect.

There is hardly anything to bring about the professional past of Shane Isaac before 2016 - on the LinkedIn profile, it is not noted. His third project from 2018 was not only listed on LinkedIn: the Tipeme Holdings Pty Ltd has so far only registered a patent that refers to an app that can encrypt user data on a smartphone. For such a mammoth project like Earth 2, the very few background information that also has nothing to do with the development of MMOs in particular or even three-dimensional virtual environments in general. But now quickly: Scams go to your feelings and the fear of missing something important. Sleep one night about it and your decision is much sober. Although emotions are always playing in a purchase decision - but the trick geter wants to make a quick plural decision. Source: Dreamworld

Another example of the usefulness of itself superficial background checks are the two Dreamworld founders Zachary Kaplan and Garrison Bellack. Both have, as well as Shane Isaac, never a big video game put on the legs. The nine years of video game development , which indicates Kaplan, refer to personal projects such as Flash games and Some work in Unity . Kaplan describes himself as an entrepreneur and marketer. His previous startup products are limited to a portable Bluetooth speaker (correctly read: not headphones, but speakers) named Core Aegis and a few graphic designs for T-shirts presented under the name Baron Brand. Bellack gave as Coder of the two in a now deleted section of the pitch that he already worked as a superstar ex engineer on Google, Apple and Facebook, but the companies left the last end to pursue his dream at Dreamworld. The Clou: He worked in fact with these companies. However, in two of them for half a year for half a year as a trainee and in the third as a software tester. Thus, it ensures that the studios are led by people who have already made themselves in the MMORPG genre, as well as that the allegations of the developers actually vote.

The sad background story: It was a hard time. That s my dream.

A good Kickstarter pitch calls emotions. Of course, this is nothing bad, because after all, MMORPG players belong to the rather emotional hobby communities. MMORPG Zocker often prescribe a game fully, crafts on their character, build friendships and want to lose themselves in general in the online world. The passion, with the most privately funded projects such as Ashes of Creation be adopted by the community, says volumes in this. However, to note, if the target emotion is not a joyous excitement, but compassion. Heart-catching history has absolutely nothing in a kickstarter pitch, because it should bring you in the end to develop a kind of guilty to give the author money. Do you know the situation? Someone calls you and want to propose a contract extension for your phone. In the middle of the conversation, however, you decide and then get to hear: But now I have already spent 15 minutes to create your profile. The sad story uses the same rail emotional blackmail by looking at a kickstarter video and learns in the middle or in the end, what a serious time of the developers behind them - is best accompanied by sad music. Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion was a kickstarter MMORPG famous-noticed kickstarter MMORPG through his death-stringed pitch video. However, after the financing and an open beta, the community from the developer opposite a total radio silence, the website has been disabled and the servers were switched off in 2015. Source: Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion The Kickstarter-MMORPG Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion From 2014, a trouble-visible pitch video has a trouble-free pitch video in which the developers complain to their suffering. Here you can expect almost 15 minutes of human misery, because the MMO has ever been scrambled and should reser with the Kickstarter. That does not even have to happen out of bad intention, but sentences like I had the feeling that everything I did was wrong. I was completely disilused, which was the idea of ​​a player-powered sandbox. I felt like me as if I felt like me As a developer a complete failure would be very manipulative.

Instead of providing the player with core gameplay systems that inspire existing backend technology and a lot of enthusiasm, it is pushed into the emotional defensive. The same thing was to read a while in the original pitch of Dreamworld, where Zachary Kaplan told his hard time in the first days of Covid, in which he lost his job and left his girlfriend. Finally, the love of video games brought Zachary and Garrison together as a developer, so they could now realize their long-cherished dream with Dreamworld. Only that Zach s announced friendly friend Aislinn Evans announced that it went well at this time through the just starting model career of Aislinn, and Zachary worked for her parents - many months after he s already working on Dreamworld had started. So fits if your tragic stories hear in the pitch, because they belong to the emotional arsenal of the advance surgery.

The exclusivity: Be part of something big, now or not!

The last big warning signal plays greatly into the above-mentioned Fomo. Although almost every Kickstarter game has exclusive rewards for backers; However, if these take over or fill a large part of the Kickstarter pitch, you should be very quickly suspicious. The MMO Global Adventure, for example, has a rouser table with eleven backer levels, of which you secure nine pieces of exclusive Ingame items, including Ingame Currency - although the developers explicit Fair to Play. Never Pay to Win as Feature. If you do not believe us, look at the Steam reviews of Global Adventures and is looking for the keywords PAY TO WIN.

In the last backer level for $ 750, a search photo with your face is hung in every city. Of course, only while stocks last. Not only does that speak your fear of missing something, but at the same time your pride. Dreamworld also delivers an excellent example here, because the name of each backer is immortalized in the so-called Pantheon on a marble panel. The more you pay, the greater your name becomes. You also pay for a house? Congratulations, each Dreamworld player will be able to admire for eternally your house as a small gold model in the Pantheon. You own in Earth 2 the entire city center of London? Then both the temporary exclusivity, your scope of assistance and pride as well as feeling on a potential gold pit will sit satisfied. Beware, until it turns out if the game is really produced or only the given promises stopping, does not matter. After all, you do not want to miss the opportunity to be one of the first and complete all the great exclusive items. Or? If you read the pitch of a MMORPG and immediately shakes the head skeptically, you are not the target group of scammers. Attention: If you know someone who fallen to an advance of advance, please tell him. Scammers rely on their victims of pure shame holding his mouth. Source: PC Games

Keep a cool head

As you see, it is important when dealing with Kickstarter MMORPGs to keep calm and to knock the project very prudent on inconsistencies. But this is just as in the other direction! As the Youtuber Josh Strife Hayes already noticed in his revival videos, your first train of thought should be with a suspicious kickstarter Hanlons Razor : Do not go from maleness when stupidity is enough. An MMORPG in VR, which was equipped with open world, Raidbosses, dungeons, occupations and a separate player home - for $ 10,000? Rather not. Anyone who reads the pitch of Orbus VR recognizes that the game was financed to a large part by private assets. Source: PC Games

That sounds very hard at first glance, but often describes only the missing experience of a Kickstarter studio in the development sector. Maybe the studio has left his dreams to something that would not be aware of them. Small and inexperienced developers often do not know anything better. However, if absurd low kickstarter targets, a lack of transparency, which concerns financing, exaggerated allegations and an alleged extensive experience, your alarm siren should be started instantly.

Finally, we want to give you once again that you probably do not be the target group of scammers if your article like this read. And even if you have prepared you, intelligent and worldwide - a pre-fraud can catch everyone. So if you know someone who has gone to a trick getter on the glue, then does not laugh at him, but help him to finish with this circumstance. The goal of your amusement should be the scammers themselves. Keep a cool head. And now all together: if something sounds too good to be true ... that s probably the case. Take care of yourselves.

short and scarce - the scam checklist

In the text we go a little closer to the points. But if you only want a list where he can hang you along with checking a kickstart MMORPG, just use the following key points:

1. Too little money: MMORPGs are extremely expensive. Nobody can develop an online rolling game with only $ 1,000,000, let alone $ 10,000. What you want to see are sums from $ 30,000,000.

2. No clarity about investors: If the money is already available , it should be clearly clear where the money comes from. Investors should be traceable or at least clearly existent. If the MMO is funded privately, it must be recognizable in the starter or FAQs.

3. Too little experience: Who introduces a MMORPG to Kickstarter, should have already collected a lot of experience in the video game industry.

1. Too few background information: If the developer s career is not clearly traced back and Linked-in-profile are just a few years old, caution is required.

2. One to emotional pitch: This is our dream and We had already given up all hope should make you suspiciously, like I had a difficult time.

3. Fomo: The Fear of Missing Out Kaches you with things like excessive many kickstarter exclusive rewards or unique opportunities . From things like investment opportunities in the MMO sector you should keep as far as possible away.

4. Exaggerated exclusivity: Beware of pitches in which things like your face in the game or your name, for all readable in the skin city occur .

ATTENTION: Many of these things today are customary on Kickstarter themselves with good projects. If your name appears in the credits or gets a special render, that does not have to point out a scam - the combination of these criteria is first that make an advance of advance. There is no unique Scam detector. But it is already helpful if you know what to pay attention to.

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Tales of Elyria was there first, but Dreamworld owns the doubtful honor to have brought the discussion about Scam MMORPGs again. [Source: Dreamworld]

From Christian Schmid author & Maria Beyer-Fistrich Brand / Editorial Director 18.09.2021 at 09:00