Guy ‘Dr DisRespect’ Beahm is no stranger to controversy. From filming in a bathroom at E3 to getting mysteriously banned from Twitch, he’s always making headlines for the wrong reasons. Despite the Twitch situation apparently being all sorted now, little is known about the legal dispute that remains one of streaming’s greatest mysteries.
The two-time’s toxic streaming persona is another controversial subject. His fans attribute his toxic rants to his ‘character’, whereas his detractors suggest that spreading toxicity - whether in character or not - is still, well, toxic. When the Doc announced he was founding a triple-A game studio, however, practically everyone was interested. Fans will be fans, but even those with only a passing knowledge of Dr DisRespect’s work turned their heads. Ninja’s been on The Masked Singer, Amouranth bought a gas station, but making games? Doc started out as a developer before moving to streaming of course, but his profile has grown significantly since then which makes his return to development even more interesting.
However, all that interest came crashing down when his studio, Midnight Society, announced it was launching NFTs. Buying an NFT for Midnight Society’s as-of-yet-unnamed-and-unannounced game grants you early access to it, whenever it releases and whatever it actually is. Bear in mind we know very little about this game yet. It’s going to be a “PvP multiplayer first-person shooter,” it will be free to play, and it’s codenamed Project Moon, but that hardly narrows it down. Maybe we’re going to shoot the moon? Shoot on the moon?
Along with your early access code and shiny, planet-killing NFT, signing up for this package also gives you access to the game’s private Discord server and the ability to “vote on key design decisions that will shape the future development of the game in both micro (reload speeds, recoil balancing, time-to-kill tweaks) and macro (maps, modes, meta) ways.”
While Dr DisRespect himself says that owning the NFTs “doesn’t change your experience” of the full game, having a cryptocurrency wallet seems to improve your chances of being accepted as a Variant (their word for early access backer [yes they really chose that name]) and therefore participating in the beta testing and development. At the moment you have to admit the $50 Founders Pass sounds like a bit of a scam.
Now I’m not saying it will be a scam, it just sure as hell sounds like one. Right now, asking fans to buy into a game that doesn’t exist sounds a lot like the Star Citizen model. Younger players may not know about Star Citizen, despite its apparently ongoing development, but it has continued to make countless headlines for years.
The Persistent Universe module of Star Citizen (an in-development section of the final game) is the most recently released in 2015, four years after development began. However, the controversy surrounding Star Citizen mostly applies to its crowdfunding practices, wherein backers were rewarded with in-game items for funding the Kickstarter. It was an effective strategy, as Star Citizen is the biggest and most successful crowdfunding endeavour ever created, but the cost of some of the ships seemed excessive. The Javelin cost $2,500 to use in-game, for instance.
Despite a reported 25 percent of players wanting refunds, the developer changing the terms of service to make refunds more difficult to procure, and the game being indefinitely delayed (it was originally due to launch in 2014), players are still buying into the sections of early access that are available. Sound familiar?
Dr DisRespect and Midnight Society need to be careful with Project Moon. The Founders Pass may well be completely legit, but with the public knowing so little about the game when they’re buying in, it’s as if the developer is sowing the seeds for future controversy. And when it comes to harvest time and the refund requests flood in, or the game isn’t exactly as described, or any of the other myriad problems that you’re asking for with such a vague crowdfunding scheme, things could go south quickly.
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I’m sure Midnight Society has watertight contracts and clear terms and conditions, but it’s still asking players to, ‘just trust us, it’ll be grand.’ Maybe players view this as a virtual Collector’s Edition or something, but how many people buy Collector’s Editions before they’ve seen any gameplay or a single trailer? Project Moon’s backers don’t even know the game’s actual name yet.
Time could prove me wrong - and I hope it does - but players need to be careful with their money. Dr DisRespect is a big name, but that doesn’t mean his game will be any good, will be what you expected, or will even release. Besides, I’m not even sure he’s a real doctor.