Update: The former business partners, Tyler Monce and Devon Staley, have come forth in a interview with Gameinformer and stated that the accusations against them are untrue. They stated that they aren’t sure why Erik has made them out to be the bad guys in this situation and have insisted that no monies were in fact spent in bars or for strippers and that everything spent was within their operating budget.
“I don’t know why he’s painting that picture, but the reality is that anything that was spent in a bar or restaurant was very reasonable in nature when you look at any business, including video game companies. It was part of our operating budget, it’s not anything that was excessive. It was all reported to the IRS. The picture he’s painting about that is 100 percent bull****.”
“We were very clear when we were making this game that we were going to pay our contractors up front,” Staley said. “It was a challenge for us that we could find contractors that we could pay. We’re not a big studio, we didn’t have a huge budget. But we wanted to make sure people got paid and not just a promise. That was a key aspect of our business to pay people.”
Tyler Monce, who served as the director of finance has stated that all of the finical info was easily available for anyone to check, meaning there wasn’t anything to hide, no change for anyone to commit any embezzlement. The former also goes on to claim that it was Eric who in fact had taken all of the former companies physical assets, social media accounts and the website prior to this issue evening coming to public light.
“He took control of not only all the company’s physical property, our bank accounts, our social media accounts, our website (which he changed to just our faces for some unknown reason), that was all him. This all started to take place right after the game started to get really popular late in the summer. My personal theory is that he wanted to take it all for himself and cut us out of it. We made it clear that we weren’t going to let him do that, because we had a moral and legal right not to.”
So what really happened here? One thing for sure is that something isn’t being honest here it looks like this will eventually lead to some legal action as the parties continue to point the finger at each other.
Being a game developer and putting our your project is a dream that many aspiring game developers have. Unfortunately for Lead Programmer, Eric Tereshinski, his dream is sadly at an end. Part of a team that was developing a potential game breaking title, Ant Simulator, it seems that he was the only person really putting in any efforts, as it was reported that his other members had apparently wasted the funds they accumulated on liquor and strippers of all things. Now I’m no stranger to the project as I had caught a couple of Erik’s videos on Youtube as he talked about the project and I could tell he was extremely passionate and driven to get Ant Simulator out there.
That however is no longer the case. Now that the funds are gone, Eric
was forced to shelf the project, as he announces via a Youtube video. What’s more, due to an LLC agreement he signed, he is not even able to continue to develop the title and release it on his own as they have countered that they would sue him. He will also need to remove any content on his Youtube channel regarding Ant Simulator and that also includes all of his previous game dev tutorial series. I’m sorry, but that’s bull crap. However the kicker here is and what I feel cuts deepest is that the two business partners were also friends of his, friends of 11 years. However anyone can destroy the dreams of someone that you regarded as a friend is beyond me.
For those who contributed to the Kickstarter that helped fund the game, Eric, will be reaching out to to provide a refund.
Erik, I know this sucks, however you’ve learned some knowledge out of this and I know how hard you worked on this. Keep your head up and move past this, but never give up on your dreams.
Source: Reddit
