Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam • Hacker News Board

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#171

Post by austhrow743 » Sat, May 29, 2021, 3:34 AM UTC

KuiN wrote: post #7

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.

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.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#172

Post by avisser » Sat, May 29, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #52

aeturnum wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see why you would say that other investors should do their own research, but many people view a YC investment as a vote of confidence in the company in question. Your view makes me curious about how you think about the role of an incubator. Like...are there any lines YC could cross? Does their investment in a company reflect on them at all? What value do they provide other than seed money to companies?

YC provides seed money. No one should rely on YC for due diligence.

> JobCompany (YC W20) Is Hiring and you want to join!

This website trains people to rely on the YC endorsement.

I understand if you don't think people should, but I agree with the sentiment YC has some responsibility to do a better job vetting.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#173

Post by RapidFire » Sat, May 29, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #64

serf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a company promises more than they can deliver, is it a scam? I think I can squeeze water out of rocks. Pay me now to do it, and i'll figure it out. Everyone around tells me I can't, but I know I can. >What if they believe that they actually can deliver it? I absolutely believe I can do it if I set my mind to it. Fund my company so we can find out. Do you see any possible issues with this style of transaction?

Do you plan to license the technology or build water plants yourself? What is your advantage relative to desalination?

The minerals of course! Squeezing water from rock means its natural organic Mineral Water™ and it's sustainable too!

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#174

Post by Manuel_D » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

angrais wrote: post #67

coldcode wrote: post #58

I know what building an MMO is like, having worked on one 10 years ago that was already 10 years old and still exists today (small audience though). Building something like these people are talking about requires more $ than a Marvel superhero movie to get anywhere. We could manage about 100 simultaneous players visible to each other in a reasonable time but no more; the internet is not fast enough to manage more tha…

Could you explain how world of Warcraft works then? You can certainly have more than 200 in one place at once... Are they doing some tricks to make this appear as if it's working but in reality it is not? Would love to hear your opinion.

In WoW players don't collide with each other. Every player is really just a point and a facing. There's no collision detection with spell shots. Of you're within range and LOS, you can cast the spell. And once the spell is cast it doesn't collide with objects.

Basically, WoW gets around it by vastly simplifying player interaction.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#175

Post by pyuser583 » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #58

I know what building an MMO is like, having worked on one 10 years ago that was already 10 years old and still exists today (small audience though). Building something like these people are talking about requires more $ than a Marvel superhero movie to get anywhere. We could manage about 100 simultaneous players visible to each other in a reasonable time but no more; the internet is not fast enough to manage more tha…

Which MMO did you work at?

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#176

Post by rasz » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

zolland wrote: post #80

MattieTK wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was part of the exciting suggestion of the original Stadia trailers: with the entire game and all the interactions happening in Google datacentres, you would only need to receive a rendered version, and suddenly all this would be possible. Of course none of that has happened and Google folded their games studio, which is par for them, but does go some way to reinforcing this point that there's a reason this stuf…

Isn't that how multiplayer games work today? You receive a rendering of the server's source of truth, and send actions you'd like to perform. The current implementation just sends a lot less data to the client by sending deltas and positional data rather than full screen renderings right? It seems like that wouldn't fix any of the issues above, and might just introduce the complexity of streaming video to all the cli…

In modern multiplayer games "server" is just a thin layer passing packets around with zero validation, then you have a rootkit installed on clients trying to sniff for known cheat signatures, again not doing any packet validation.

No true server source of truth, no common sense packet parsing, just sand castles and cheats allowing you to fly around and spawn items.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#177

Post by codycraven » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #160

angrais wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open world game, but let's assume you mean local map. In that case, let's assume that each player waves (/wave). I've done this before with >50 players and took a screenshot and we were all in sync. It's also possible to have 50 players in the same area fighting in real time, e.g., in a battleground. This was back in 2010 when I played ... So I am not sure if it's any fabrication at all, otherwise everyone wo…

Ultima Online could do 100+ visible people back in 1997. But I don't believe WoW could do it now, the last time I played WoW, early last year, in a large raid, there would be spells cast from invisible people because the characters wouldn't even load.

The lag around the Britain bank when busy (even sometimes Moonglow bank) made it nearly unplayable though, and the game was only 2D.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#178

Post by 0xy » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #55

ffhhj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Favoritism shown or patronage granted to relatives and friends. But I think this is just an example that shows investment is merely gambling.

Not necessarily, the article mentions that YC allegedly never even vetted the project: > According to Upton, a senior employee at Y Combinator claims that Bellack has a friend in the accelerator who helped greenlight DreamWorld without the appropriate due diligence. "Originally, I thought this was a bit of a joke, but they called me and validated all their information and their sources. This person is actually higher…

It's actually a good thing, because it destroys confidence in YC and their reputation is deservedly diminished. This results in actually successful companies not bothering to apply for YC, which hurts their performance.

This debacle will cost them a LOT more than the cash they gave to the scam.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#179

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

RapidFire wrote: post #164

wearywanderer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Invest in the team" makes some sense when you're talking about bright people with a lame idea (RSS search engine, or whatever.) But in this case the idea isn't merely lame; it's a scam, and the team being invested in are a team of con-artists. What might they pivot to, if not another scam?

"Invest in the team" gets you Juicero. Great ambition; they raised a bunch of money. Great production; watch a tear down of the Juicero product itself, it is a mechanical work of art. Great potential; a SaaS for a fruit drink? Lots of people love fruit drinks! They can buy our packets of delicious pre-made juice, people drinking juice is a huge Billion Dollar Market™! Stupid Idea! You can just squeeze the juice out o…

YCombinator doesn't put in that much money though. I'm sure they don't intentionally fund scams or juiceros, but if they do, that's not the end of the world. It's a bigger deal to miss the dumb thing that turns out to be good then to accidentally fund a few dumb things.

Re: Y Combinator backed MMO metaverse game is a blatant scam

#180

Post by dang » Sat, May 29, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

lvs wrote: post #151

dang wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a strange thing to hear. Even I can tell you that many more than "two" YC companies have become profitable, and I'm pretty removed from the business side of YC.

Which ones? There are only two public companies that currently make a profit that I'm aware of: dropbox and coinbase. I don't really pay much attention, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

Well, here's one: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/03/08/zapier-bo.... Sorry I don't have a list for you, but HN seems to have warped my memory in strange ways. I'm sure that YC has funded at least dozens, probably hundreds of profitable companies, including many that people wouldn't remember, because they found a lucrative niche for the founders and a small team (or maybe even just the one or two founders), and opted out of the fundraising track and are happily making a good living. That's not the preferred outcome from a venture investor's point of view, of course, but YC has always supported what founders want to do. Also, Zapier's an outlier - there are others that have followed a more conventional fundraising path.