Did you get burned by Alex Bernhardt?

Disclaimer: This exposé is not meant to antagonize or defame anyone, it is just a warning to anyone who has dealt with this individual in the past, or may deal with him in the future. It’s purpose is not to influence anyone’s outlook on the individual, nor is it a commentary on morality.

To many people, the name Alex Bernhardt may not mean a thing; however, to many of those involved in smaller community blogs, the name is of a supposed developer. On a well-known podcast, he is the resident game developer and would answer queries about gaming hardware and the development cycle. His friends viewed him as a man who talked of a storied past that included: a tour of military duty, time at the CIA, a job for one of the biggest video game companies in the world, as well as experience as a game developer. He claimed to be the owner of Postal Studios, — an independent game development house, at which he promised many people jobs.

At 26, Alex had a resume that seemed uncharacteristically sophisticated for someone his age. Also, when inspected, there were several apparent discrepancies. One being that if he joined the service at the age of 18 and spent 4 years in active duty, then spent 4 years in college, he would be 26. This wouldn’t leave time for him to work for the CIA, for a large game company, or start an independent development house. Another discrepancy was that he claimed to live in San Jose, CA, but through slip ups on his part, it was found out that he resided in New Mexico full time. A last discrepancy was the he claimed his identity had to be changed due to the Wikileaks incident that took place in 2010, due to his name being included on confidential government documents. However, he claimed that his age was changed, but they kept his birth name the same. This doesn’t check out since his name would have been the incriminating content, not his age. Lastly, Postal Studios is not a game development house, it is the following:

Postal Studios, LLC. – Founder 11/06-Present
Created and developed Postal Studios, LLC, a video production and animation company
focused on animation, documentary video production, photography and design. Specific
responsibilities include:
- Generating clients and developing new production ideas
- Producing, scripting, shooting, editing, designing and creating motion graphics, sound
mixing and authoring to DVD
- Creating original animated shorts

Postal Studios is owned by Moki Goyal, not Alex Bernhardt.

After receiving a full confession and apology from Alex Bernhardt, this much is known: he is 20 years old, he is not enlisted, he has some self-taught development experience, he has never worked for the government, nor has he worked for any development house. Those are the facts. In his apology Alex stated, “All I can say, is that I’m sorry I hurt people with this. I never meant for it to get this out of hand.”

Although reactions may be different, it is unfortunate to see so much effort go into building a fake persona only for the reason of fitting into the gaming industry. At an enthusiast level, it isn’t a possibility to run a background check, especially since the position isn’t usually paid. However, it is up to site owners and writers to keep a sharp eye, so that events like this don’t happen. Events like this aren’t only embarrassing to the parties involved, they also affect the way that readers, as well as the rest of the industry, view the community sites. It takes away from our credibility and gives readers more reason to visit the bigger sites — IGN, Gamespot, or Kotaku.

About the Author

Evan Velez Evan is a Los Angeles native who is one of the founders of CtrlAltKill. In his free time he loves to play games, write short stories, read, and play guitar. His gamertag is tomarcus, make sure you add him if you want to game.