Recently, we reported embattled developer West Games had resurrected their Areal project as Stalker: Apocalypse and was seeking funding for its completion. Since they were suspended from Kickstarter, they had to find another web platform to raise the money on and turned to a mysterious new site called World Wide Funder.
After some digging, someone recently pointed out on an archived Reddit thread that led many to believe the funding platform may be colluding with West Games to defraud the public. Worse, it may be that the two are actually one in the same, since according to the thread, West Game’s head Eugene Kim has (Or had before the reddit reveal caused him to wipe them) several accounts there, one of which listed him as the admin himself with a project called “Areal”. An admin account that predates the actual launching of the World Wide Funder site itself.
This discovery has apparently led to West Games cancelling their Reddit AMA that was to be done on Christmas day and adds more credence to the belief that this is not a legitimate project. Considering that this new crowdfunding platform isn’t even half a year old yet and has only a smattering of small, insignificant projects with little or no backers, it’s not hard to believe.
Regardless, World Wide Funder made an announcement concerning this new info and denied they had any part in World Wide Funder’s operations:
“We are the team behind the crowd funding website, WFUNDER. We’re contacting you to clear up some confusion and to talk about the unique features of our website. One of the projects on our website, Stalker Apocalypse, has stirred up a lot of controversy lately, as well as even more speculation. We’ve had people who tried to hack our website (unsuccessfully), lots of emails, and some threats over this project.
“Some have even said that we are the same company. Well, the company West Games did not make our website. This confusion came about because Leonid Kovtun is a member of our company. He knows West Games, and showed our platform to them. Unfortunately, some people jumped to conclusions, and wrongfully associated us as one and the same.
“WFUNDER is a platform that gives people unique social options and a great degree of creative freedom. We weren’t satisfied with the rigidity and limitations that most crowd funding platforms presented, so we decided to create our own platform. In contrast to other websites, we allow people from around the world to post projects on our website, and we encourage a wide variety of different projects. The amount of financial options that we provide means that you don’t need to to be in the U.S. or Europe to post projects on our website. So for example, if you’re in Poland, India or Brazil, then you can easily post a project on our U.S. based website.
“We’ve implemented unique features like Blogs, Ask me Anythings and Videochat that make us stand out from the competition. As WFUNDER grows, we plan on implementing more features and gradually improving our website.
“Getting back to Stalker Apocalypse, many people have asked us to shut the project down. The simple answer is that we won’t unless the project creator asks us to do so (in which case all funder contributions will be refunded). We’ve reached out to West Games, and they have shown us that they have the rights to use that name for their project.
“We hope their project is successful, despite the controversy that they’ve stirred, and we think that people should lighten up on them a little. They look like a passionate team of people who want to make a spectacular game.
“WFUNDER is a unique crowd funding website that embraces projects from around the world. Discover projects, join discussions and create your own projects by visiting our website.”
We’ll keep you posted if anything new develops in the coming days.
