#Spintires mudrunner vs spintires plus
#Spintires mudrunner vs spintires simulator

Why hadn't it made things clearer to Spintires fans? 'We were dealing with a situation that, to this day, holds us under an non-disclosure agreement (NDA),' Bolton continues.

#Spintires mudrunner vs spintires plus

'It was somewhat like the 'who shot JFK?' situation, a lot of conspiracy theories but no real facts.' From left to right: Oovee's Zane Saxton, Reece Bolton and Tony Fellas, plus Pavel Zagrebelnyy. 'There was a period last year where there were no updates and everyone was putting on their tinfoil hats speculating about anything and everything,' Oovee producer Reece Bolton tells me. Updates have been sporadic - not least during the period when Oovee and Pavel fell out. Quick isn't a word many would use to describe Spintires' protracted development. 'I have to say we were not as quick to deal with this as we should have been,' he offers. Importantly, it is a company which does not yet have to declare its finances. As for Saxton & Co., Fellas states it is just a holding company, and any transferral of funds means Oovee's money still exists - 'just in a higher company'. Fellas doesn't go into detail about any of these. Fellas goes on to blame 'future plans' and 'accounting procedures', including the risk of 'double taxation', all of which 'took time to resolve'. 'It has been complex due to the release of Spintires and future plans,' Fellas says when I ask why Oovee hasn't declared its earnings. They feared Oovee would simply be left to go under, while the money Spintires made was transferred elsewhere. Spintires fans noticed the creation of this company last year, as Oovee's own accounts grew increasingly overdue. And then there's Saxton & Co., an umbrella company set up by Saxton of which Fellas is a minority shareholder. He also built the website for a company named Saxton Haulage, another business interest of Zane Saxton. His web design company, Chicsystems, built the sites for Oovee, Spintires and a Yarmouth bed and breakfast he owns, among others. Now living in Cyprus, Fellas has been involved in a half dozen small businesses back in the UK, many of which are now dissolved. But they will be filed,' Oovee's Tony Fellas explained to Eurogamer in a new interview.ДЇella's role at Oovee is as its web systems and IT manager. One year on, Oovee had far bigger problems - it was about to have all of its assets seized by the crown. Whoever was responsible had acted out of a 'combination of opportunism and jealousy,' a 'livid' Saxton said at the time. It had been splashed by paint stripper just two weeks after Saxton had purchased it. After? Well, there's this local news story from February 2015 about Saxton and his ВЈ135k Mercedes, complete with personalised Oovee number plate. Oovee's earnings before Spintires were small - in the four figure range.

How much money? Oovee hasn't said - and it is this refusal to divulge the company's finances that has left fans restless. It's fair to say Spintires has made Oovee a lot of amount of money. For a time, the plucky little offroad sim was the best-selling game on Steam. A Kickstarter campaign called for ВЈ40,000, raised ВЈ60,000, and Spintires' popularity soared. And then Oovee heard about Spintires, the work of Pavel and a few others. Reece Bolton and Zane Saxton, respectively listed as Oovee's producer and managing director, both worked for local train companies in customer service positions at the time.

#Spintires mudrunner vs spintires simulator

The outfit started life selling Train Simulator add-ons - new locomotives of varying types - through that game's Steam store. It's a small company with only a handful of employees. Publisher Oovee is registered in Gorleston, near the Norfolk coast. 'It can make precisely zero mph feel like knuckle-splintering stuff.' 'Spintires can make a set-piece out of a puddle,' Chris Donlan wrote of the game back in 2014. Spintires is a detailed driving simulation where you must haul trucks and other vehicles over rough off-road terrain, through mud and rivers and whatever else lies in your way. Now, Eurogamer has spoken to both Oovee and Pavel in a bid to find out what had happened, and to discover what future - if any - Spintires still has in store. This time, whether Oovee and Pavel suddenly became BFFs again or not, it looked like Spintires had been completely run off the road.

The UK government had served notice it would dissolve, as the company had failed to declare its finances. Then, at the beginning of February, concerned Spintires fans spotted something even more serious. The two eventually shook hands and Spintires was updated further over the course of last year, but by the end of 2015 their relationship was back on the rocks. But then development stalled and Spintires fell off the radar when British publisher Oovee and Russian programmer Pavel Zagrebelnyy had a bust up. It was one of Eurogamer's favourite games of 2014, the year it took Steam by storm. Off-road driving simulation Spintires has had a rough ride.