The game Ant Simulator is going to be cancelled. One of the team members, Eric Tereshinski, said the cancellation is due to his business partners using all of the developer’s money on “liquor, restaurants, bars, and even strippers.” Calling these activities extracurricular would be a generous understatement.
In his video statement, Tereshinski claims that his former partners, Tyler Monce and Devon Staley, embezzled the company’s money for purposes already stated. The money came from Kickstarter funds and investment money. Tereshinski says that his partners told him if he released Ant Simulator without them, they would sue. “I really don’t have any options,” he said.
He explained how this was both a personal and financial betrayal of trust: “A year and a half ago, I signed an LLC agreement with them. I trusted them. And they had been my friends for 11 years. I made the mistake of trusting them.”
Tereshinski also said he would soon be contacting anyone who had paid for the beta or per-ordered the game about refunds.
Any Simulator originated as Tereshinksi’s 48-hour game jam project. Afterwards, it quickly evolved into a full game and gained some popularity. To many who were into Ant-based strategy titles, the project looked promising. The team had even been recently releasing gameplay footage.
He ended the video on a hopeful note, looking towards the future: “So this is obviously a huge and disappointing setback, but I am going to continue forward and continue to develop games.”
Hopefully, once this ordeal is over Tereshinski will be able to work on another Ant-related project that won’t be destroyed by irresponsible business partners.
Via Kotaku.
