The Day Before Developers Fntastic Needs “Volunteers” To Finish The Game For Them

Fntastic, developers of Steam’s most wishlisted game The Day Before has called for “volunteers” to help finish their game, according to a post on their website.

The Fntastic website (via well-played) recently updated to have a new volunteers section, describing how they want the community to help get their game out with vital services like translating and community management.

“Fntastic’s culture is based on the idea of volunteering. This means that every Fntastic member is a volunteer”, the website reads, alongside a video that stresses  the virtues of volunteering.

“Volunteering means that in every action you take, you bring a certain pleasantness”, the developers say.

It’s unclear how much you can chalk this up to translation errors- no matter how you try to spin it, trying to get someone to do important work like translation or community management for free is pretty low, and offering them “participation certificates” is bordering on insulting.

However, the website calls its own salaried employees “Full-time Volunteers”- which anyone with a dictionary would tell you that paying your volunteers kind of disqualifies them from being volunteers, so it could always just be a case of not realizing what the word volunteer is supposed to mean.

It should be noted that as of this writing, the website isn’t accepting any more Full-Time Volunteer options.

The site also doesn’t specifically name drop The Day Before as the title they want volunteers working on- but considering the game’s history of being delayed and triple-A scope, it’s almost certain that they’re looking for people to help get the game out the door.

It’s no surprise that developers might be looking for a way to get their games out at reduced costs- big scale ideas have been said to be very expensive to develop.

But considering the industry is constantly dealing with issues of developers being worked too much and paid too little, maybe trying to bait them with “volunteer” work wasn’t the best idea.