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Lance McDonald: Abandoned is not in development other than a paid demo as part of an investor scam
- Thread starter wafflebrain
- Start date
This exact sentence was repeated so many times in the first week but we're still talking about it. š I always wondered what the scam was, now it makes sense.
But yeah, this was always, very obviously, a total fraud. The confusing part was why someone would take it so far. Now we know.
Don't get me wrong, it seemed very likely it was a fake. I recall being semi skeptical but very excited for the carnival of stupid. I thought all the numerology stuff was really funny. I tried reading it aloud to my friends to hear how funny it sounded.
But the no-name indie dev making a project was a trick Kojima had tried before(honestly the best red flag that the whole thing was a hoax), add to that the shit-eating grin Geoff had when answering questions about it... And you got a very easy to believe ARG thing if you're in the business of finding those fun.
Remember how people started victimizing Hasan? Like, "this poor indie dev now has all these unrealistic expectations, leave him alone". That's where Jason S. had the most egg on his face. When they attributed people asking Hasan questions as harassment. The narrative switched back and forth a bunch. I don't fault any of the ARG'ers for following the various rabbits. There's never game over folk and then there are people having fun.
This exactly haha. Eventhough I am sure the lerson in bandages in that interview was not Kojima wearing a mask but a real person covering his face with bandages.
Kojima always trolls people and never gives an end to his masquerade.. XD
Made by a REAL TEAM of REAL PEOPLE in a REAL OFFICE.
Funny how Hasan went out of his way always telling people they were real, though never providing any evidence that their even was an office or employees of any kind.
Still feel bad I downloaded the app about a year ago.
Funny how Hasan went out of his way always telling people they were real, though never providing any evidence that their even was an office or employees of any kind.
Still feel bad I downloaded the app about a year ago.
At this point I'm more interested in Hassan's long term MO. Like, momentary attention and the gratification of showing off a cool idea makes sense in the short term, but it's pointless long term and there's no end goal. The result is never going to be a finished project.
Dude should limit his scope and actually release something complete and relatively polished, no matter how small.
Dude should limit his scope and actually release something complete and relatively polished, no matter how small.
Lol, even the tweets I posted from Jason Schreier are gone.
Is this thread cursed? š»
So now Lance has deleted his tweets. What source did he have that it was fake?
Or was he just chasing for clout again?
Or was he just chasing for clout again?
Wait the guy did a total 180? What the fuck. This doesn't change my mind from months back about this supposed game but why the hell would you put yourself out there and jump into a got damn clown car with the other clown? LOL
![00Quan[T]](/data/avatar/31681832007/115484-m.jpg){kind=avatar}
I bought a chamber of commerce extract when this whole circus began; he is pretty much a solo dude working from home; BBS adres is just a residential apartment.
In what way was it a bad one?
For all we know he made hundreds of thousands and has walked away scott free. Which would make it a very effective investment scam.
How can one get investors to give them money, produce nothing that they said they would produce with said money, actually keep the money for themselves and get no repercution? asking for a friend
(no but really I have no idea how this works and I'm curious)
In my experience, most investors are very shrewd and careful with what they support. Investor scams aren't super common.
However, some investors may not be so shrewd or knowledgeable, and someone like Hassan will seek them out to manipulate them. Picture a retired boomer looking to invest their cash deposits into new and burgeoning industries. They might pick the games industry as it's exploding right now. But this older person might not be so keen these days and won't know the first thing about games or how they are made. These people will be easy to trick into forking over money. If the scammer is careful enough with contracts (or lack thereof) and what they show/say to the investor, they can walk away from it. (Companies fail all the time and every investor knows that - they're just trying to avoid it but sometimes it's inevitable.)
And worse, investors are not necessarily individuals. In Europe, governments are currently THROWING money at the games industry, because it's so lucrative in terms of tax. Thus it's possible to apply for large-scale government grants, say you're making a game, then once you've secured the funds, say the game didn't pan out (with basically zero repercussions). I hear about this happening a lot in Eastern Europe.
wait so for example in the case of gouvernements funding (or even a retired boomer) no actual contract is passed between them and the dev? how does that work? I have a hard time picturing governement or an old rich boomer giving money without making sure they can get it back or at least a part of it through a contract between both parties ?
btw sorry if I'm asking stupid questions, I have like zero knowledge in buziness deals or this kind of stuff ^^
The tweets from earlier this year? Or did he chime in yesterday after Lance's now deleted tweets?
The tweet from earlier this year was still there few hours ago, then it got deleted recently. Likely just after it was posted here.
Jason and others have been just sort of mad this guy got so much attention when other indies struggle for any hype.
I think not promoting anything related to this liar is the best choice.
The fact IGN published a "woe is me" article / Hasan interview was so trash.. even tweeted directly at the writer that the article contained provable lies (all meant to make Hasan look like a nice guy victim) but they did nothing.
I think not promoting anything related to this liar is the best choice.
The fact IGN published a "woe is me" article / Hasan interview was so trash.. even tweeted directly at the writer that the article contained provable lies (all meant to make Hasan look like a nice guy victim) but they did nothing.
Gotcha. I think it's valid to delete tweets about this whole situation as of now. Hasan has dug such a deep hole for himself and he's the one responsible for getting himself out. Not promoting or highlighting him is the best course of action, and always has been.
Actually, it was a tweet from June 2021:
Blue Box Game Studios- Recently announced their game Abandoned as a PS5 Exclusive now this weird tweet comes out today.
Time to spicy things up
www.resetera.com
Next thing to happen, this tweet will probably be deleted too:
FYI here is proof Hasan lied to IGN.
1) That image went around twitter (that's in this thread) talking about his past scam games, one of them being an Android "game" called The Whisperer
2) Hasan gets IGN to interview him with a woe is me article "explaining" none of his games were scams: https://www.ign.com/articles/abandoned-blue-box-history-free-game-the-haunting
3) IGN prints this: " The Whisperer did see release on mobile ā as a free-to-play game with a $0.99 purchase to turn off ads ā but was quickly pulled. Kahraman says the game was removed because it had been made for PC and didn't run well enough on phones. To Kahraman's knowledge, all those who bought the game received refunds, but he says anyone who didn't can email blue box with proof of purchase to claim one."
4) The reality? The game was on Android Play store for upwards of 3 years, and he actually increased the price several times over the years. He actually scrubbed that game, and others, from the internet right before doing the Sony blog post.. here is a link to an archive.org page showing that his 2018 game "The Whisperer" was still on sale, for quite a bit more than .99 cents in 2021:
web.archive.org
He's just a pathological liar.. he's been lying about his games online for 6 years, making bad attempts to "fake people out" that he's Kojima doing another fake dev gag.. he lies to cover up his lies.. he plays victim when confronted with his lies.. and he's so brazen people in games media just aren't really equipped to call this guy out.
Stop giving him attention.
1) That image went around twitter (that's in this thread) talking about his past scam games, one of them being an Android "game" called The Whisperer
2) Hasan gets IGN to interview him with a woe is me article "explaining" none of his games were scams: https://www.ign.com/articles/abandoned-blue-box-history-free-game-the-haunting
3) IGN prints this: " The Whisperer did see release on mobile ā as a free-to-play game with a $0.99 purchase to turn off ads ā but was quickly pulled. Kahraman says the game was removed because it had been made for PC and didn't run well enough on phones. To Kahraman's knowledge, all those who bought the game received refunds, but he says anyone who didn't can email blue box with proof of purchase to claim one."
4) The reality? The game was on Android Play store for upwards of 3 years, and he actually increased the price several times over the years. He actually scrubbed that game, and others, from the internet right before doing the Sony blog post.. here is a link to an archive.org page showing that his 2018 game "The Whisperer" was still on sale, for quite a bit more than .99 cents in 2021:
THE WHISPERER: A PARANORMAL INVESTIGATION GAME - Apps on Google Play
THE WHISPERER is a paranormal investigation game played in First Person. Explore, investigate and communicate with ghosts via EVP ( Electronic Voice Phenomena). Capture entities on camera and defeat evil spirits. This game is viewed through the camera's infrared nightvisionmode. -High...
He's just a pathological liar.. he's been lying about his games online for 6 years, making bad attempts to "fake people out" that he's Kojima doing another fake dev gag.. he lies to cover up his lies.. he plays victim when confronted with his lies.. and he's so brazen people in games media just aren't really equipped to call this guy out.
Stop giving him attention.
Don't worry, it's a very strange 'back room' world which most people never experience.
Contracts basically always happen. But 1. sometimes they're not very good or robust, 2. often they account for failure, or a game not coming to fruition, etc. Everyone knows they might lose money and that's usually built into every contract.
Oh ok like the investors have some insurance that get them some of their money back and the dev gets the money he hasn't spent and told no one type of thing ?
That can happen yep. But also more generally investment is fundamentally risk. You're putting money in; you might not get money out. "Venture" capital literally means risky ventures.
Very experienced investors will only invest once they see lots of high quality evidence as to why the proposition isn't risky. They might still absolutely lose money. That's just how investment works. But they are controlling for that risk with clear, strong evidence for the product being a success. I'm aware of several failed games which had loads and loads of investors who bought in based on great evidence - market research, dev team quality - but for whatever reason the game just wasn't a success and they made a loss. It is what it is.
Less experienced investors (in this field or generally) might not understand the quality of evidence being offered. As in, not see that it's BS or high risk.
These are the kinds of people someone like Hasan would target. People with more money than experience or sense. He'd wow them with apparently great compelling info and get their money. However experienced and serious investors would ask extremely hard questions about his past work, the market, and plans for the game. He would probably fail to answer those questions sufficiently and the investors would probably walk.
Add to this governments who are often simply trying to seed economic growth however they can, and you have a recipe for investor scams.
There are probably a ton of contract-related details i'm not aware of, like how he can get out of contracts he doesn't want to be in. But this is about the extent of my knowledge.
Wow. An actual pathological liar. Wild. Thanks for this.FYI here is proof Hasan lied to IGN.
1) That image went around twitter (that's in this thread) talking about his past scam games, one of them being an Android "game" called The Whisperer
2) Hasan gets IGN to interview him with a woe is me article "explaining" none of his games were scams: https://www.ign.com/articles/abandoned-blue-box-history-free-game-the-haunting
3) IGN prints this: " The Whisperer did see release on mobile ā as a free-to-play game with a $0.99 purchase to turn off ads ā but was quickly pulled. Kahraman says the game was removed because it had been made for PC and didn't run well enough on phones. To Kahraman's knowledge, all those who bought the game received refunds, but he says anyone who didn't can email blue box with proof of purchase to claim one."
4) The reality? The game was on Android Play store for upwards of 3 years, and he actually increased the price several times over the years. He actually scrubbed that game, and others, from the internet right before doing the Sony blog post.. here is a link to an archive.org page showing that his 2018 game "The Whisperer" was still on sale, for quite a bit more than .99 cents in 2021:
THE WHISPERER: A PARANORMAL INVESTIGATION GAME - Apps on Google Play
THE WHISPERER is a paranormal investigation game played in First Person. Explore, investigate and communicate with ghosts via EVP ( Electronic Voice Phenomena). Capture entities on camera and defeat evil spirits. This game is viewed through the camera's infrared nightvisionmode. -High...
He's just a pathological liar.. he's been lying about his games online for 6 years, making bad attempts to "fake people out" that he's Kojima doing another fake dev gag.. he lies to cover up his lies.. he plays victim when confronted with his lies.. and he's so brazen people in games media just aren't really equipped to call this guy out.
Stop giving him attention.
also, most of these investors / funds / whatever have many horses in the race. They might invest in 10 projects and are betting on that 1 of them will be a slamdunk succes; recouping the other 9 'failed' investments as well. I know a few of these people; usually people who sold their own company for a nice amount of money and now have some cash lying around to "play with". Some of them end up buying a big boat or another house or a classic expensive car; others like the invest in other small startups and indies who have a proposition they might find to be interesting.
Alright thanks for the explanations
Well I'm curious to see what is happening in this case, hope we get to find out someday
Haha yeah and even some said it was Joakim Mogren made using Fox Engine. XD
Now Hasan could be just a very well done Metahuman. No one can deny that by ,now. :p
I swear to god, if Lance deleting his tweets spurs any "see, it was real all along" takes, I'm going to go berserk.
I'd posted this in April in the Blue Box thread. The reasoning still applies:
I think he's fake, a way to promote some game, not a con artist.
I don't have a wall map with red strings pointing to the truth behind the conspiracy.
I do see how he has a platform to market something which doesn't exist.
And that platform is not so easily reached without meaningful cooperation.
There's a reason Hasan is the ONLY full of shite "developer" with NOTHING to show who somehow gets promoted/mentioned/work with Sony/Geoff Keighley/pod casters.
Think of how many self promoting, attention seeking fools would be flooding gaming media if it was this easy to do. I watched both recent interviews, there is no way any interviewer would let these slow, meandering non answers just spool out for 30/60 minutes.
Yes, I'm saying some people in the the gamer enthusiast media are in on it.
Does anyone have any thoughts on why he's doing a "press tour" right now?(From April)
He has NOTHING to say, but now there's more stuff to debate regarding his legitimacy.
So many chances to ask substantive questions by these interviewers, questions which could help clear things up are completely absent. They just let him ramble non answers: "um,uh,well yadda yadda", it's pointless.
I guess I'm team So Fake It's Real lol
I think he's fake, a way to promote some game, not a con artist.
I don't have a wall map with red strings pointing to the truth behind the conspiracy.
I do see how he has a platform to market something which doesn't exist.
And that platform is not so easily reached without meaningful cooperation.
There's a reason Hasan is the ONLY full of shite "developer" with NOTHING to show who somehow gets promoted/mentioned/work with Sony/Geoff Keighley/pod casters.
Think of how many self promoting, attention seeking fools would be flooding gaming media if it was this easy to do. I watched both recent interviews, there is no way any interviewer would let these slow, meandering non answers just spool out for 30/60 minutes.
Yes, I'm saying some people in the the gamer enthusiast media are in on it.
Does anyone have any thoughts on why he's doing a "press tour" right now?(From April)
He has NOTHING to say, but now there's more stuff to debate regarding his legitimacy.
So many chances to ask substantive questions by these interviewers, questions which could help clear things up are completely absent. They just let him ramble non answers: "um,uh,well yadda yadda", it's pointless.
I guess I'm team So Fake It's Real lol
I'm sorry but in this case that seems highly unlikely. Like how would he account for the amounts he would be courting in an "eenmanszaak"? If he's doing that than he is truly, genuinely being an idiot.
So correct me if I'm wrong, is there any explanation on why Lance deleted his tweets? Did he do the typical social media move and just put someone on blast and then got in trouble himself with something involving him aka backtrack or there another reason? I've seen Lance in multiple twitter replies especially those who covered the situation with Hasan in multiple interviews and Lance came off as some guy trying to get Hasan in trouble no matter where I looked even though Hasan himself didn't do himself any favors doing those interviews especially with how he replies. Just curious why this thread didn't get closed yet if Lance already deleted his tweets, I just find it funny he just tweets out something then just randomly deletes it.