Written by AndrewH

Many individuals 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 one who has got the last tap to show the very center of the cube. This person was promised a life enhancing reward for getting that last tap. 18-year-old Bryan Henderson are actually that individual so when he accessed the middle of the cube, he was greeted with a video congratulating him, giving him a message email address to use in order to claim his life changing prize.

That was in May 2013 and as it turns out the life changing prize ended up being to end up being 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 because the God of Gods. That could be a year, Five years, the whole game’s life. In addition, he also won an all expenses paid trip to the 22Cans studio to sign the contract, take a tour, play an earlier build of Godus, and meet Molyneux. Much less shabby of a prize to win.

Bryan continued the trip, briefly met Molyneux, signed his contract, and flew home. Initially communication between 22Cans and Bryan was very good but following the trip there was less and less communication between the two of these. Eventually it might cease altogether and it wasn’t due to 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. Once they did accustomed to answer him, they would provide him brief generic answers like the game could be done when it’s done.

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

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

All I wanted to understand was, when will it happen? They couldn’t really tell me. They said it might happen when the game was finished. I would need to send them an email first. Following a couple of months 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 is going to happen, specifically? They were taking their time for you to answer. They would say, we need to do this first and tell you afterwards. Since i have won along with a year after, I would email them as a ritual thing, each month, simply to acquire some kind of update. Eventually, communication [was] non-existent, so I am not even going to try any more

So I was like fuck it, I’m not likely to try if you’re not likely to try. You are the one who’s supposed to be professional. I’m this kid who won this thing. And you’re this game company. You’re designed to try everything and become the professional one inch all of us. It was a shoddy operation when it comes to communication. I was like, fair enough. I guess I’ll speak to you when you speak to me.

After media attention began appearing, Molyneux issued an apology:

I totally and absolutely and categorically apologize. That’s not good enough and I’ll take it on my own shoulders which i should have ensured he was communicated with. We’ll from today onwards do this. It is simply on a list. The trouble is, it is easy to ignore things that are further down the list when you are so busy with things towards the top of their email list. I think it’s unfair on him. We ought to keep him posted. I will speak to him myself. – Peter Molyneux

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

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

We had been checking up on the story for a while. We simply kept seeing stuff on social networking also it made us feel even worse for Bryan so we reached to him in Twitter and talked about the concept that we had with Roll7. It call joined together in several hours. – Devolver’s Nigel Lowrie

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

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

Websites Referenced: Eurogamer | VG 24/7