Steam’s Most-Wishlisted Game Is Being Built By Unpaid Volunteers

Image via The Day Before

Exposure and freebies aren’t going to pay the bills, but one gaming developer is promising its workers this much for their efforts in building post-apocalyptic game The Day Before.

While this compensation model sounds like something that comes from a rookie studio with little awareness about paying employees, what’s surprising is that The Day Before is currently the most-wishlisted title on gaming distribution service Steam.

Fntastic, the game’s creator, has delayed its release on a few occasions, most recently chalking up the holdup to a migration to Unreal Engine 5. The Day Before was supposed to launch on June 21 this year but its debut has since been pushed back to March 1, 2023.

It has now come to the community’s knowledge that the title is being developed by “volunteers” who are being compensated in “cool rewards,” participation certificates, and game codes. This is notable, considering the impressive graphics and gameplay being touted.

Following an outcry, Fntastic edited the text on its website to share that The Day Before is being worked on by both paid and unpaid volunteers.

Fntastic, developers of Steam's most wishlisted game The Day Before, has updated their website to say that they are an organisation comprised of both paid and unpaid 'volunteers'. You can apply to work for them for free to help them deliver their projectshttps://t.co/8Vf5Xy3w4b pic.twitter.com/KogvTALpTN

— Zach Jackson (@tightinthejorts) June 27, 2022

According to Fntastic, full-time volunteers get actual income, while part-time volunteers focus on tasks like translation and community moderation, though they’re also encouraged to impart “useful skills” to help develop “new special features.”

The studio assured Well Played that unpaid volunteers don’t get involved in things like “code writing or development.”

Fntastic, a fully-remote company headquartered in Singapore, says on its website that volunteers around the world form the backbone of its work.

“Whatever you do in life, you do it willingly or unwillingly,” Fntastic’s teammates declared in a months-old video with comments switched off. “If you do it willingly, it becomes a heaven. If you do it unwillingly, it becomes a hell. Fntastic culture is based on the idea of volunteering. Being a volunteer means that you willingly take part in working for a common cause.”

[via Kotaku, PCGamesN, Well Played, cover image via The Day Before]