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Curiosity winner promised life changing prize but has gotten nothing instead. Devolver Digital steps in on God making duties.

Many of you may remember 22Can’s rather interesting social gaming experiment called Curiosity which essentially had thousands and thousands of mobile gamers tapping away at a giant cube in the hopes of being the person who gets the last tap to reveal the very center of the cube. This person was promised a life changing reward for getting that last tap. 18-year-old Bryan Henderson happen to be that person and when he accessed the center of the cube, he was greeted with a video congratulating him, giving him a contact email address to use in order to claim his life changing prize.

That was back in May 2013 and as it turns out the life changing prize was to become the God of Gods in 22Cans’ next game called Godus. Bryan was also to receive 1% of the game’s profits from the start of the game’s release till the end of his reign as the God of Gods. That could be a year, 5 years, the entire game’s life. On top of that, he also won an all expenses paid trip to the 22Cans studio to sign the contract, take a tour, play an early build of Godus, and meet Molyneux. Not too shabby of a prize to win.

Bryan went on the trip, briefly met Molyneux, signed his contract, and flew back home. At first communication between 22Cans and Bryan was pretty good but after the trip there was less and less communication between the two of them. Eventually it would cease altogether and it wasn’t because of Bryan not trying. 22Cans stopped communicating back whenever Bryan asked when they game would be released, and subsequently him making his promised money. Basically 22Cans began ignoring Bryan. When they did used to answer him, they would give him brief generic answers such as the game would be done when it is done.

Finally Bryan just gave up. The life changing prizes promised to him having not turned into a reality. In fact there is a possibility that they never will due to development problems with Godus, especially the multiplayer part. Unfortunately for Bryan, being the God of Gods in Godus requires multiplayer. Even without the multiplayer, Godus’ development is still shaky at best.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Bryan describes the entire situation:

All I wanted to know was, when will it happen? They couldn’t really tell me. They said it would happen when the game was finished. I would have to email them first. After a month or two of winning, I would email them every month, purely because I expected more communication from them, but it wasn’t happening.

I would ask, so, what’s happening? When am I going to find out more stuff? What’s going to happen, specifically? They were taking their time to answer. They would say, we need to do this first and tell you afterwards. Since I won and a year after, I would email them as a ritual thing, every month, just to get some kind of update. Eventually, communication [was] non-existent, so I’m not even going to try any more

So I was like fuck it, I’m not going to try if you’re not going to try. You’re the one who’s supposed to be professional. I’m just this kid who won this thing. And you’re this game company. You’re supposed to do everything and be the professional one out of me and you. It was a shoddy operation in terms of communication. I was like, fair enough. I suppose I’ll speak to you when you speak to me.

After media attention began popping up, Molyneux issued an apology:

I totally and absolutely and categorically apologize. That isn’t good enough and I’ll take it on my own shoulders that I should have made sure he was communicated with. We will from today onwards do that. It’s just on a list. The trouble is, it’s very easy to forget about things that are further down the list when you’re so busy with things at the top of the list. I think it’s unfair on him. We should keep him posted. I will speak to him myself. – Peter Molyneux

Unfortunately for Bryan though his prize may never happen unless 22Cans fixes the issues with the multiplayer, specifically the hubworld feature, and actually releases the bloody game  in full on all platforms. They shouldn’t have promised a ‘life changing prize’ if they were unable to deliver it with some sort of assurance. It’s not all lost for Bryans though. Other game developers have stepped in to give him special prizes for winning Curiosity and to help make the current sting of getting nothing for winning Curiosity a little less painful.

Devolver Digital and Roll7 (developer of OlliOlli) have stepped up to the plate, making Bryan a character in the company’s upcoming game Not A Hero who has God-like powers.

We had been keeping up with the story for a while. We just kept seeing stuff on social media and it made us feel worse and worse for Bryan so we reached out to him in Twitter and talked about the idea that we had with Roll7. It call came together in a few hours. – Devolver’s Nigel Lowrie

Not A Hero is a sort of 2D Vanquished, it is a godless place, that much is certain, but the next best thing is BunnyLord – an anthropomorphic rabbit from the future running for mayor. So Bryans character won’t be playable, at least not at launch. The developers are going to put Bryan in the sort of ’employees lounge’ where BunnyLord stashes his heroes / henchmen as an NPC. He won’t be getting a slice of the profits but at least it is something.

Not A Hero isn’t going to be a mobile game as far as we know in terms of iOS and Android. It is launching on Steam, PS4, and the PS Vita later this year. Godus is still under development even though a version for mobile has been out for a bit now but it needs some serious work still.

Websites Referenced: Eurogamer | VG 24/7

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