New developments have arisen in the issues regarding Areal devs West Games and their claims of being former S.T.A.L.K.E.R. devs. Both West Games and Vostok Games affirm their earlier claims, but according to Vostok, they will no longer be involved in the issue.
As you may recall, West Games explained in a Kickstarter update that they contacted Vostok, who disavowed of the earlier claims found in the forum. However, Vostok has contacted PC Gamer to reiterate their earlier assertion that West Games’ earlier claims to being S.T.A.L.K.E.R. devs, or at least being part of the main team, are misleading. They apparently tried to convince the West Games people of letting go of this claim and failed to do so.
However, Vostok has explained that they will not take any legal action, or any other action in this matter, simply because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. itself is still owned by GSC GameWorld. This is easily confirmed by checking the game’s pages on Steam or GOGcom. It is up to GSC if they have any interest in suing West Games people for making this claim, but they themselves recommend that people do not donate to the Kickstarter.
West Games has not been taking this lying down, of course. In their latest update, they have come out with the video for the simple purpose of proving they are who they say they are. On the corresponding text post, they once again cite Misery LTD’s continuing flaming campaign against them, and how they have gotten news outlets to report on Misery’s claims. There are also apparent threads in places like 4chan and anandtech, the former of which has already been taken offline. In response, West Games employees are trying to get in contact with these sites.
I found one of these messages myself on Facebook, addressed to Kotaku’s page. As I already did, this employee suggested that Kotaku check some of the staff members’ profiles on LinkedIn. She also explained the alleged issue regarding Eugene Kim and Pete Dushynski’s Shutterstock photos, which were put forward as proof that they were frauds. In fact, the pictures were taken by one of their former colleagues, Dmitry Panchenko. Dmitry was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.Online’s art director, and Eugene and Pete apparently signed releases to use them for stock photos. She also explained another member of their team, Ievgeniia Lakosnyk, is an actor as well as a dev. It was earlier alleged that she was acting as part of this scam.
It’s a little harder to reaffirm West Games’ legitimacy when they continue to face scrutiny, but as they indicated, West Games is saddened and disappointed by how other people connected to S.T.A.L.K.E.R .have reacted to their campaign. In spite of what some backers say in other outlets, however, the crowdfund is past the halfway mark and may very well complete their Kickstarter.
It’s hard to ascertain for sure why Vostok’s devs are squabbling with them on this issue, but like I mentioned earlier, there’s enough reason to believe that they are who they say they are. You can reacquaint yourself with prior coverage on this issue here and see their video message below.
