#Areal är en slags spirituell uppföljare till Stalker-spelen, som utvecklas av några av människorna bakom spelen. 50 000 dollar behövde de för att säkra utvecklingen, varpå de vände sig till Kickstarter för att samla in pengarna. De lyckades med bedriften och fick dessutom mejl av självaste Vladimir Putin (eller mer troligt: någon som var på skojfriskt humör). Det konstiga mejlet var dock inte allt som var suspekt med kampanjen.

För det första blev folk, inklusive före detta Stalker-utvecklarna hos #Vostok Games, skeptiska när utvecklarna #West Games visade upp konceptbilder från just #S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl för att marknadsföra kampanjen. 50 000 dollar ansågs också vara en alldeles för blygsam summa för ett projekt som ska utvecklas till Windows, Mac, Linux, Playstation 4, Wii U och Xbox One. Många har ropat "fejk!" och West Games har i sin tur anklagat medier för vinklad rapportering. En riktigt mustig soppa att glufsa i sig så här i högsommarvärmen.

Efter påtryckningar har Kickstarter själva gått in och granskat kampanjen och tagit beslutet att stänga ner den. De uppger inte någon annan anledning än att den bryter mot reglerna. West Games hävdar i sin tur att de är oskyldiga och har kommit med ett utförligt uttalande på sin Facebook-sida. Kampanjen fortsätter på den officiella hemsidan och uttalandet kan ni läsa nedanför.

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Our Kickstarter was suspended without any warning. As per Kickstarter's policy, we cannot contact them to find out why. Areal is the spiritual successor to STALKER, in terms of our vision for it and in terms of the team that we have (which includes Alexey Sytyanov, the lead game designer and screenwriter for STALKER). You can find out more about us and our team on our website: http://areal.west-games.com/
From the very beginning, we showed what we have accomplished, and showed the atmosphere for what we want to accomplish (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTMtpViPhhc&list=UU7j5-kx3Mk4rtG6q_SfsOYQ).

The fact is that there are a lot of companies that make their livelihood on STALKER, so when we showed up on the scene, they saw us as a threat and did everything that they could to stop us.

People also need to take into account that Ukrainians and Russians are in an information war right now, and as a Ukrainian developer, we were subject to constant hostility from Russian Kickstarter accounts (we even got death threats). There are over 16,000 comments on our Kickstarter, which is unprecedented for the amount of supporters that we have, and a lot of our comments are hate filled. Some sites, in light of this, chose to report based on sources from direct competitors or from the myriad of comments based on lies. Others chose a neutral ground, because of the confusing situation around us, and still others wrote positively about us. All in all, more than a 1,000 news results come up when you type in "Areal Kickstarter" on Google.

After vice news wrote an article about us, people started contributing every minute, but Kickstarter was afraid of the controversy surrounding our project, so they suspended funding. We set our base goal at 50K; even with 2 days left, we raised more than 64 thousand dollars, and our competitors were doing everything that they could to stop that. Kickstarter is a business, and that was their decision. We were not warned, we do not have a say in the matter, we cannot notify our backers, we cannot message our backers, and we can't post updates anymore. That is how Kickstarter chose to act.

We are the creators of STALKER, and we know that we can make Areal even better than that series, because of advances in technology, gameplay mechanics, and story. We need your support to make that happen, so we have opened up a website wherein we will continue to raise funds. We ask all supporters of Areal who read this, to please head over to our site and contribute there. PayPal is used for safe checkout, but you do not need a PayPal account to donate. Thank you for your understanding.