Anyone surprised? This is apparently not the first time. These people should be prosecuted for scamming people.
Not defending their practices, but I don’t think it’s scamming when it’s just openly a really shit deal and both parties agree
I had a boss who was like this once. Every time someone would hire him as the VP of marketing for their company, he would immediately say they need to rebrand. But would he hire someone or some company to do the necessary research and create a brand based on market needs? No! Every single time he would go to some website where you post a design contest and have people submit entries for the new logo. No other thought went into it. Then the company would be stuck with a new but poorly thought out brand that would require loads of bandaid fixes for years to come. I only worked for him twice, but it was twice too many and this always made my blood boil.
The lesson here is, pay professionals appropriately who know what they’re doing.
Obligatory Mike Montiero talk: Fuck You, Pay Me.
Obligatory shoutout to Digital Extremes for their Tennogen program.
A game with maps that were assembled at random from what some lead/executive thought was the best submissions out of a random assortment of amateur designs sounds like it is going to be crap.