The ambitious MMORPG project Dreamworld promised a ton of great features in its Kickstarter campaign, including a variety of genres and an open world without end. But it seems there are some issues.
What is Dreamworld? According to the description on Kickstarter, Dreamworld is said to be the “last game you will play.” The project combines nearly every genre and is supposed to offer absolute freedom. “Think of Minecraft or Roblox,” it says here.
Additionally, there are supposed to be even more great features:
- Multiplayer population on the scale of a real city
- Fully interactive environment where anything can be done
- You should be able to build anything
- 3D models from anywhere can even be incorporated
All in all, a massive game is to be created here, which is supposed to unite everything that has come before as a kind of Utopia of gaming.
The two founders, Garrison Bellack and Zachary Kaplan, raised $64,706 on Kickstarter. However, that is just a small amount to start the project. They also have the support of the investor company Y Combinator, which has helped many startups get off to a successful start.
Problems with Dreamworld – Nepotism, Stolen Assets, and Insecure Servers
What are the problems with Dreamworld? However, things are not looking particularly good for the ambitious project right now. Various MMO experts have looked into it and have come across numerous warning signs that give the impression that Dreamworld is going to be a gigantic fiasco.
Through the research of freelancer developer Callum Upton and the MMO streamers KiraTV and Josh Strife Hayes, various allegations have come to light:
- The developers are far from professionals
- Many assets were probably not developed by them
- Nepotism with the investor
- Security issues with the game server
All in all, the critics smell fraud and scam here.
What’s behind the allegations? These allegations were explained in detail by experts Upton, Kira, and Hayes. Upton and Hayes are primarily known for critically reviewing Kickstarter projects in their videos. Everything starts with the fact that the two founders Bellack and Kaplan are not necessarily well-known top developers, according to the critics.
While Bellack, who is likely responsible for the technical implementation, claims to have worked at least at Google, Facebook, and Apple, Kaplan’s game design experience extends to a few Flash games and some “work in the Unity engine.” At least the latter engine is used in many successful games, like Valheim most recently. However, what exactly Kaplan has done is not known.
What lies behind the accusation of nepotism: Additionally, there is an accusation from the freelance developer and Dreamworld skeptic Callum Upton. He claims to have found out that this project was only approved by the investor Y Combinator because developer Bellack has a very good friend in a high position there.
It is otherwise inexplicable how this project, which had hardly anything to showcase on demo day, received support so quickly. According to Upton, an employee at Y Combinator confided in him about this.
Furthermore, the code is said to have been stolen. The streamer and MMO expert Kira looked at the game and the previously shown videos and says that it is a huge mishmash of Unreal Engine assets that have been cobbled together without any effort.
Moreover, the origin of these assets was mentioned nowhere. According to critic Callum Upton, 90 percent of the utilized assets have been available for free for months and are certainly not the original work of the developers.
The currently playable alpha is also extremely poor. According to Callum Upton, only a few building blocks are present, of which only one actually has walls. Additionally, the server security is a joke. He had no problem hacking the server and doing pretty much anything he wanted.
For example, he happily placed thousands of peppers in the area or created a 3,000-meter high battle axe. In another case, he simply hacked the weather system and created clouds until the game crashed everywhere.
This is what the developers say about the allegations: According to Upton and the streamers, Dreamworld is simply a disaster and possibly a case of fraud and scam. They warn about the project.
The site PCGamer subsequently contacted the developers and questioned them about the allegations. The response was simply:
Unfortunately, these people [the critics like Upton and Kira] benefit from this calumny. We largely ignore them and focus on making Dreamworld as good as possible for our real players.
Other questions were then ignored.
Of course, these accusations cannot be fully proven, and it is quite possible that the developers are genuinely working with full dedication on completing the project. However, on the other hand, there have already been several cases where well-meaning backers invested a lot of money in projects that ultimately seemed too good to be true.
A particularly prominent example here is the MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria, which started strong and ended up completely failing, even though the CEO is still continuing.
