4 ms·

If you're thinking "how bad can it really be?", please treat yourself to watching a couple minutes of "gameplay". It's incredible to me that this project got a

by KuiN 5y ago

If you're thinking "how bad can it really be?", please treat yourself to watching a couple minutes of "gameplay". It's incredible to me that this project got any VC backing. 2 man team with barely any background in game-dev are going to build an exceptionally ambitious MMO? The red flags ignored are just absurd.

dumbfoundded 5y ago
VC seed stage backing is based on two things: the team (or who they know) & the addressable market. VC backing is not some meritocracy. YC is better at bridging the gap but it's certainly not perfect. uBiome is another pretty blatant YC-funded fraud
- vmception 5y ago
  Mirrortocracy describes both that and all attempted illusions of meritocracies. In this industry, at least.
austhrow743 5y ago
Slack came out of a failed attempt to build an MMO. Tech cofounder apparently has some reasonable credentials and particularly if he's known to people within Ycombinator it doesn't seem absurd at all to me that they'd invest largely on the basis of "guy we know to be reasonably competent wants to try his hand at entrepreneurship". Like its a hundred grand. They throw that at all sorts of companies. This aint softbank throwing billions at wework. I think any sort of "omg ycombinator funded that?" response has to come from people who havent ever bothered to look at the long tail of stuff ycombinator funds instead of their top few investments. It's not an elite club. It's the most throw shit at the wall and see what sticks style VC fund out of any VC fund.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  The amount of work and expertise that needs to go into this project is staggering. It is hard for me to call anyone competent, when they are either this delusional, or purposely setting up this scam. Edit: taking peoples money through kickstarter like this is the main scammy part here I guess.
- mercer 5y ago
  I'd say the 'salience' of this topic is not even primarily the idea of YC funding what is clearly a scam, but rather the particulars of WHY this one got funding. It's not that YC 'throws shit at the wall', but rather that it throws shit at very particular walls, and the reason it picks those walls are not obviously 'good'. While that shouldn't surprise us, I do understand that it's disappointing to feel that YC is not quite the nerdy, rational, investing-in-good-ideas-no-matter-the-source outfit that it's thought to be.

by KuiN 5y ago

dumbfoundded 5y ago

VC seed stage backing is based on two things: the team (or who they know) & the addressable market. VC backing is not some meritocracy. YC is better at bridging the gap but it's certainly not perfect. uBiome is another pretty blatant YC-funded fraud

vmception 5y ago
Mirrortocracy describes both that and all attempted illusions of meritocracies. In this industry, at least.

austhrow743 5y ago

Slack came out of a failed attempt to build an MMO. Tech cofounder apparently has some reasonable credentials and particularly if he's known to people within Ycombinator it doesn't seem absurd at all to me that they'd invest largely on the basis of "guy we know to be reasonably competent wants to try his hand at entrepreneurship". Like its a hundred grand. They throw that at all sorts of companies. This aint softbank throwing billions at wework. I think any sort of "omg ycombinator funded that?" response has to come from people who havent ever bothered to look at the long tail of stuff ycombinator funds instead of their top few investments. It's not an elite club. It's the most throw shit at the wall and see what sticks style VC fund out of any VC fund.

koonsolo 5y ago
The amount of work and expertise that needs to go into this project is staggering. It is hard for me to call anyone competent, when they are either this delusional, or purposely setting up this scam. Edit: taking peoples money through kickstarter like this is the main scammy part here I guess.
mercer 5y ago
I'd say the 'salience' of this topic is not even primarily the idea of YC funding what is clearly a scam, but rather the particulars of WHY this one got funding. It's not that YC 'throws shit at the wall', but rather that it throws shit at very particular walls, and the reason it picks those walls are not obviously 'good'. While that shouldn't surprise us, I do understand that it's disappointing to feel that YC is not quite the nerdy, rational, investing-in-good-ideas-no-matter-the-source outfit that it's thought to be.