Midnight Works. Nintendo Switch E-shops Biggest Scammers?! WATCH AND AVOID!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- In this video we are taking a look at one of the BIGGEST scammers who are currently publishing games on the Nintendo Switch E-Shop. I've covered several of their games before, but did you know they actually publish games under two different names? Hopefully this video helps highlight them as someone to avoid buying games from and the issue of fake e-shop screenshots and game descriptions.
Join the Star Seekers Discord now! - / discord
Support me on Patreon - / starorshovelware
Like and Subscribe for future game reviews and videos.
Asset Flips - How Big is Issue? - • Nintendo Switch E-shop...
Pix Arts Asset Flipper - • Nintendo Switch E-shop...
Midnight Works Games Covered in this video.
Cop Car Police Simulator Chase - • Cop Car Police Simulat...
Horizon Midnight Sky Combat - • Horizon Midnight Sky C...
Prison Life Simulator 2022 - • Prison Life Simulator ...
Mudness Offroad Car Simulator - • Mudness Offroad Car Si...
Kanjozoku Car Racing - www.nintendo.c...
Faith & Shield: Tower Defense - www.nintendo.c...
INSTAMARKETANDGAME Games
Demolish Derby - www.nintendo.c...
#Switch #SwitchStars #Nintendo #MidnightWorks #scam #scammer
As a indie game developer that got contacted by this company, thanks a lot for the video
You're welcome, I recently received a copyright takedown for this video from Midnight Works and I believe this was primarily due to developers like yourself turning them down after watching it.
I'm glad you shared this because I've just been approached by Midnight Works about publishing my game and I couldn't find any dirt on them when researching. I'm always checking these 'offer' emails for red flags and out of most of the BS I get, this one looked more genuine and professional. A small detail to note - at a glance, it seemed personalised as the title of my game had been mentioned a few times but noticed there was a double space after each mention, meaning they just plugged the game name (mistakingly with an extra space) into a database which generates a blanket email in disguise!
They also say that "all costs associated with porting and publishing the game will be on us" which leads me to think what shady contracts/T&C's they draw up with unsuspecting game devs who spend months to years on creating their work.
Every industry is exploited in some way. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
same here, came looking for answers regarding the exact same e-mail you received. You dodged a bullet there and so did I :)
@@deathtidegame Gotta stay vigilant in this crazy online jungle 💪
Just had basically the same happen for my game (Danger Cliff). The red flag for me was when they said “stunning” visuals/animation.
Same here lol. Glad i found this vid :)
A new one to note is AI generated emails are now a thing and they seem way more personalised and 'human' - always check for subtleties and do thorough research before responding/agreeing to anything. ✌
Appreciate the work you put into alerting people to these scam publishers. I'm the type of player who enjoys the types of games these guys claim to publish, and I can see how people fall for the scam. Personally, the hot mess of listing every possible key word in each game's title warned me away from this publisher, but I've been bitten by a few others on the eshop. Wish Nintendo would do more to stop this crap.
Cheers Fenyx, I seem to be one of the only people attempting to combat the issue, it's probably a lost cause but I enjoy putting out the content on it and seeing responses from people who've dodged the shite.
I bought one of their games on sale, "real car driving and parking simulator 2022", and quickly realized it was literal garbage lol. You could not go 15 seconds doing anything without seeing some sort of bug or glitch. It was actually pretty funny, I made a video on it and I think in it's absolutely horrible quality it offered some fun, I enjoyed going through and seeing literally everything break.
Found your channel through someone on reddit from a few months ago.
Fortunately for me, I mod consoles, primarily switches, as a hobby/side business, so I can't say I have the issue of buying poor titles, but my heart goes out to you all who do as I'm guessing the big N refuses to refund any of the scam purchases made. I'm pretty sure I've played that prison sim game and it was one of the most under-finished games I've played on the switch. It's pretty sad the switch is turning into EA Steam games but worse.
I found this video by searching for Midnight works SRL because I thought there was something not quite right about them. They have several dodgy looking games on the PlayStation store. Titles such as
Urban thief simulator: The Ultimate Heist.
Prison Life Simulator.
Drift Reign.
Pigeon Simulator Survival.
Wolf Simulator: RPG Survival Animal Battle.
Buried Alive: Breathless Rescue.
Glad to hear people are searching for info on them, check out my scam games playlist for more about them and the other publishers they are cahoots with.
Nintendo needs to fix this problem
I agree, I can only keep highlighting issues like this and warning people, only Nintendo can take action.
@@SwitchStars Hate to be the one to call it but I don't think Nintendo even cares enough to warrant doing anything. You remember the nintendo seal of quality? Yeah they basically got paid for it quality of the game be damned. Nintendo doesn't care if a game is outright bad or if its a lazy asset flip as its money in their pocket. Quality is subjective and can always be argued. Its only when outright copyright theft infringement etc and deception that they are obligated to take action.
They care about as much as Valve does. Every e-shop has basically opened the floodgates for this total garbage.
You may be right but we can always hold out hope
You're not wrong, but Nintendo don't NEED to follow suit, they could do something but I suspect money is the only thing on their mind.
Thanks for sharing all this information.
No problem dude.
Sigh. I think people asked for the Nintendo eShop to be more open and allow more people the chance to sell on it. This is the result. It is fast heading the way of Steam. Again, another reason why I just can't even be bothered with these online things anymore. It's just so depressing.
The problem is, its not more open unless Nintendo see profit, its open to big publishers who are able to drop anything regardless of quality, while smaller ones cant get published. Sure its allowed for smaller indie games to make their way to the store and for the most part that's what the store is surviving off, but being more open doesn't mean compromising on at least some level of quality and customers shouldn't have to roll the dice with each purchase not knowing whether or not the game they are buying is actually as described.
What a scummy group!
The stealing of screenshots piss me off, and I'm surprised Nintendo doesn't have a 3-strike (or some sort) policy.
There was a publisher with a tile puzzle game using one of my favourite illustrator's illustration, and I reported that asap. Not only are they lazy, but they're stealing from another creative!!
Thank you for covering, SwitchStars
Yep I'm pursuing enquiries on how to report these fucking scams to Nintendo but they're making it extremely difficult. Yw dude.
@@SwitchStars Yep, the only way to make it more obvious is to make Nintendo (via video, memes, tweet etc.) publicly admit they dont have a QA or 3-strikes youre out, or revoking developer kits for, especially, copyright infringing decisions, like stealing screenshots/illustrator's works etc., without actually paying the creatives.
I can do illustrations I just have to compile evidence.
They don't have QA as such, they have something called the Nintendo Partnership Team who work with 3rd party publishers to avoid the green lighting process and "certify " that games pass legal requirements.
And Nintendo won't do a single thing about this issue because they don't care.
Well, they do care, just not about their customers 😂
Was considering buying one of their games as it looked like it was so bad that it could be fun again. But luckily I googled it first and came across this video. They're not getting any money from me now. lol
Aye, avoid dude, like the plague.
I know the advice here is to avoid these games, but I sincerely hope you can still continue exposing their shite games with your dedicated gameplay/reviews and funny commentaries 😂😄
Love watching your small indie reviews as well, but I can't lie, the scam games you reviewed are what got me hooked 😁
Unless Nintendo step in, I don't think I'll have any shortage of shite to review 😁
Kanjozokou game looked so good, and the game concept would be great for an indie game if it were real. Like a double A racing game with some tracks and a few cars with an arcadey handling model and some sort of campaign could be neat.
Thank you for all the effort you put into making people aware of these fraudsters. 🌹
You're welcome Ruth 😊
i am bit wondering about that. I mean not the asset flit itself - this seems to be easy. But there are plenty of bugs in the games.
And the nintendo "check" team normally play the game and check if it has any bugs - i got some rejected until i fixed the bugs.
And if it has some bugs you dont pass.
Maybe these bugs are just coming very late (but prison simulator seems to be buggy as hell).
Going by the ammount of shite games and the ammount of bugs I've encountered, the "Check" team clearly aren't doing their job, either that or they're doing like a 5% chdck and missing most of the worst ones lol. I suppose it depends what they consider to be in a playable enough state.
Rocket Car is such a scam.
They've recently started adding 0 or 01 to the beginning of the title so they show up first on searches
I just got an email from these guys offering to port my Steam game to all consoles. As much as I could use the money (which is probably a laughable cut) I'll be promptly turning them down thanks to your video.
I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them, they have attempted a copyright takedown on this video due to it apparently tarnishing their reputation as others like yourself have watched it and turned down their offerings.
@@SwitchStars Well I seriously appreciate you fighting to keep it up to save indie devs and players alike a lot of headache.
Another great one man. I can't help but feel that with a little more money and effort they could quickly become "The Platform" known for a highly curated and cared for eshop, since noone else seems willing to step up to the plate. Even giga-platform steam has a massive shovelware/dishonesty problem, and they've cornered that entire side of the market. Feels like a lost opportunity, but then again not being privy to a companies internal structures and budgets it's hard to say exactly what Nintendo are and aren't focusing on.
Yea, I don't think it needs to go the way of Steam but something needs to be done at an early enough point to stop it. What really gets me is smaller solo devs and publishers are getting turned away due to their games not being adequate, yet big publishers like Pix Arts are able to drop whatever shite they like onto the store. There's a bit of an imbalance.
I was actually caught by this developer with Kanjozoku Game on Steam of all places, but funnily enough the keywords are completely absent from the title,presumably because of their policy on clickbait titles. What I did fall for however was the "very positive" rating on its store page which, upon check specifically right now feature positive reviews such as "car" and "rly niceee". Either the Steam player base is much more forgiving because of the price or there's even more nefarious practices going on beyond the Nintendo eShop.
I did head on over and check out the game on there, I was surprised to see the positive reviews. Most of them are commenting on the Multiplayer aspect being its saving grace, which is entirely absent from the Switch version.
@@SwitchStars Which is ironic, because if it was populated when it first came out, it's certainly a ghost town now, even when buying it at a deep discount on the October Sale like I did. In about 30 minutes of play I saw around 3 active players on the open world map and a few seemingly perpetual AFK cars parked around one of the three available tracks.
Also of note is that the PC version was also victim to a crypto mining hack during the Summer that led to the developers actually having to work with players in order to fix the vulnerability; the hacker was using the game's powershell command (which had virtually zero protection) as an exploit to inject trojan data into the game's live chat, essentially infecting everyone who played it in July who used its online functionality. Just goes to show how bare bones the development of these games really is!
Is it interesting how even though the netcode has since been fixed they decided to remove multiplayer features altogether from the Switch release though, perhaps to ensure a similar attack is an impossibility on Nintendo's servers?
😂 Wow. Well I would assume its more out of sheer lazyness than anything else. They even used the pc trailer and screenshots showing other players and left the Car Meets in the description, so...
Pixar? Huh? Ohhh....Pix Arts....I feel like that's intentional.
Pigs Arse.
What about the publisher, instint marketing? They do similar games
Did you watch the video all the way through Vince? 😁
Nudity got banned, well there goes Princess Peach's Onlyfans career.
She will have to go underground now to the Mushroom Kingdoms sleazy black market.
I wish I found your video a few minutes earlier because I bought the Kanjozoku one today, I’m just glad I didn’t buy any of the other ones by them
These scummy devs makes decent amount of money and it pisses me off
They do indeed which is probably why Nintendo continue to allow them to operate.
You did a nice investigation work in this to spot them using 2 company names and all the stuff they are doing. I have one question, maybe you can answer, I remember me and a friend tried to publish a game with Nintendo like some years back, and they refused both of us because they only allowed known companies, again i dont know what this exactly means but they rejected games presented to them with better quality than some of these scams you show us, do you know if they started to allow all kind of companies there maybe? because else makes no sense that they allow this pile of s*** from companies they dont know as nobody knows them
As far as I am aware you are able to self publish games on the Switch, but from what I hear they still reject a lot of people. The easiest way is probably to approach an established publisher and pitch your game to them.
@@SwitchStars thanks for explaining, well, they rejected companies under the excuse they dont know them, or that was the case, maybe they accept more companies these days because we see these you have mentioned several times that are allowed to spread their s*** in the eshop. I also think that maybe through publisher is a lot easier because they can pick anything from individuals, not like Nintendo was doing before (as said dont know if Nintendo still filters company due to popularity)
1:44 Why does that pink buggy look like an Ariel Nomad?
Your channel's name may have changed, but your dedication to fighting the good fight against shovelware has not! 👍
That's right matey lol, can't give up the good fight :D
Have you bought any of the games mentioned in this video and how did you feel after playing them? Do you think publishers like Midnight Works should be allowed to keep publishing or should Nintendo step up and take action? Leave your thoughts and opinions and thanks for watching! Check out the Scam Games playlist here - ruclips.net/p/PLV2-rnSQP2GscJ7xbyrStSsge7X8MEr5j
Sorry I'm late to the review! I was listening to Mega Man music using Banjos. Did I miss anything?
That sounds like a very unique rendition 😂 just missed more shite tbh.
midnight works is very good and reliable publisher for indie games
They may be reliable, but that doesn't make them good.
yeah cant say i have made publishing deal with them
@@SwitchStars
Well, i think your videos of these games are funny, so at least there's a positive thing about them.
Aye, I do try to entertain with them, otherwise I'd just be regretting my life 😂
Nudity got banned on the Switch? Oh no! How will the poor slide puzzle fans ever get their fix now? 😂
I know, the one I reviewed never got published lol.
I have just recently gotten a switch lite and I do spend a lot of time combing the sale area. These games do show up a lot and I have had the idea to try some, but I do look up reviews and glad I found your channel to ward off people from buying from these people. Thank you
Just got to be careful, especially with the really cheap ones. Glad I could help you out though dude and if you haven't already, check out my Dollar Deals videos, there are some decent games featured in them.
I bought Midnight Works' Skateboard Drifting with Maxwell Cat and I am not sorry, the game is legit good.
I saw Faith & Shield, and I figured it was essentially shovelware, but I was curious nonetheless.
It certainly was shovelware, but I can say after going through about 9 or so levels that the game is really quite easy. You spam one tower (out of the 3) and only upgrade that tower, and you will always win.
My only criticism is that I figured this out after about 20 minutes of playing the game. Your criticism of “I couldn’t finish one level” really rings hollow, as the game has three towers, so the strategy I used wasn’t exactly mind blowing.
I don’t mind criticizing bad games for being bad, but being bad at the game is not a particular good criticism.
PixArse more like……………
😂 What did I say?
Mudnes is a mobile game and it's really good which is the sad thing they take mobile games and unity assets and transfers then to switch as an ass backwards port.
Many of their games are ports of free mobile games and as freebies they would be pretty decent. As it is though they're flogging them for cash on the Switch using fake screenshots and descriptions.
@@SwitchStars Yeah. The descriptions are taken from the mobile games actual listing Muddness has multiplayer and all that stuff that was just removed cause they probably have no idea how to make multiplayer work with the official servers lol. Same with Kan that game is actually a PC game that was ported to switch.... And what do you know they broke most of the core features in that to.
The fact that all these games are for mobile will undoubtedly reinforce the Tencent lineup with quality titles like PUBG mobile compared to the kind of crap that looks like it was made in North Korea
If It Ain’t A Turn Based RPG, Adventure, Simulator With Cute Pixel Graphics, I Ain’t Buying 😂
True this is a lie. The Prison Battle simulator really? I spent time in prison it is not like that simulator at all, your not running around the prison how you want 😅
Bet you didn't go to a floating prison in the sky though did you? 😉
Any possibility AI could be producing this shovelware with stolen assets? I don't suppose Andrew Tate has been working on games in Romania
I wish I saw this before buying one of these games
Midnight Works are the keyword king. When I see one your videos covering a Midnight Works "game" it's just sad to see that a company can sell these on the Switch. Nintendo has 0 moderation for the E-Shop.
I plan on covering their other games as and when I can just to warn people, they are undoubtedly the most deceiving games on the eshop.
@@SwitchStars I hope people are able to see the biggest red flag which is the keyword spam.
I think they have cut a few words out of some of their titles, like GTA our of Prison Simulator. Not sure if this was by choice or force.
@@SwitchStars by force my guess.
Awww don't be so unfair to Nintendo! They're doing their job, which is obviously rejecting small indie developers who would not scam customers to get in their shop and letting anyone who can convince them somehow in no matter how much of scammer/asset flipper they are :)
so at 2:49 would you say the dogfighting feels more like dogshiteing? 😂
That would be an accurate description.
This is illegal. How is this happening
Forever entertainment gota be in second place
Was planning on getting Kanjozoku on switch since I love Japanese touge and wangan racing games but you just saved me a couple of bucks so thank you. Love the honesty in your videos.
Go see for yourself - ruclips.net/video/1IjupC7QsXA/видео.html You're welcome dude.
lol I work here
That's nice to know, how do you feel about the games being listed on the e-shop? Do you believe the screenshots and descriptions accurately represent the games being sold? Do you think its morally right to sell these kind of games or does it just pay the bills? Care to comment?
@@SwitchStars To begin with, I must admit that I have been working here relatively recently and it is still difficult for me to associate myself with this studio and speak on its behalf, but my personal opinion is that posting fake screenshots is very common among low-budget mobile studios, and if a person has so much money that he didn’t even bother to look at some review of the game before buying it, then it’s hard to call him deceived in this case, he just doesn't care, I guess. And to be honest, I haven't played any of my studio's games, I'm just doing my job (I'm a 3D modeler so I don't even work much in the game engine, I just make models (but I know that most of their games suck)).
I appreciate your response. I personally think regardless of how much money a game costs, false advertising is not acceptable, I agree people should watch reviews before buying but only because the e-shop is a minefield of Shovelware and low quality games and customers can't put trust in what's being sold to them. A lot of the blame is to be put on Nintendo for allowing such a thing to happen and I'm glad you agree about the games sucking 😂 thank you for your honesty.
@@SwitchStars Speaking of the Nintendo E-shop, you are right and I agree that you are doing a good job, but be aware that the Nintendo E-Shop is not the main platform for Midnight. Check out their games in the App Store, the same Mudness has collected about 45k reviews with an average rating of about 4.5 and Kanjozoku has collected 86% positive reviews on Steam. I guess they're just milking the Nintendo E-shop for as long as they can by uploading stripped-down versions of games there (because a full port of the game would take a long time). I should also say that the company has several teams that work on different games and some teams are more experienced, while others consist of beginners, so sometimes objectively terrible games appear and you shouldn’t judge the whole studio by them.
Yea I'm fully aware they are primarily a mobile publisher and their games on other platforms are no doubt better versions. I cover Switch exclusively as a platform which is why the video is solely warning people from buying their games on the Switch E-shop. The issue with ratings and reviews on other platforms is its easy to buy positive ratings and Midnight Works has a company called InstaShop where you can do exactly that, buy Instagram views and likes, so I'm reluctant to trust any ratings for their games when they themselves condone and promote the practice. Regardless of whether their games are great on other platforms though, it doesn't excuse the fact that on the Switch they are using fake screenshots and descriptions advertising games when the features and visuals don't reflect what the game delivers. I've also reviewed Mudness BTW, it's also not great on the Switch.
Lol recently bought prison life simulator for ps5. Literally the description describes features not even in the game, how is that even legal. Be better sony... felt like a ps2 game but worse and 0 content. Such a cashgrab.
Specifically "Accumulate money to bribe the vigilant policeman and plan your escape" theres no money and theres no escaping or planning.
I asked that question to Nintendo because every one of their games and the games of their co companies have false information or features not present in the game.
I really hope they will finally add a report system
Yea good luck with that :(
Midnight Worse?
Midnight Wankers.
Wait. Switch has banned nudity in all switch games??? Japanese games???? All nudity? I can’t stand censorship. This is why I refuse to buy a PS5 because Sony and the woke morons have gone insane. Don’t tell me Nintendo has now started censoring stuff.
I believe its full frontal nudity in most games, which predominantly means Lude titles will not be getting published on the Switch anymore.
I'm glad you shared this because I've just been approached by Midnight Works about publishing my game and I couldn't find any dirt on them when researching. I'm always checking these 'offer' emails for red flags and out of most of the BS I get, this one looked more genuine and professional. A small detail to note - at a glance, it seemed personalised as the title of my game had been mentioned a few times but noticed there was a double space after each mention, meaning they just plugged the game name (mistakingly with an extra space) into a database which generates a blanket email in disguise!
They also say that "all costs associated with porting and publishing the game will be on us" which leads me to think what shady contracts/T&C's they draw up with unsuspecting game devs who spend months to years on creating their work.
Every industry is exploited in some way. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
I can only speak from the experience of someone who has played most of their back catalogue and spoken directly with one of their ex-employees, but I recommend steering clear of them and their less than stellar reputation.
And Nintendo won't do a single thing about this issue because they don't care.
This is about right.