The Fight over Star Citizen’s Production Delay Is Getting Dirty

Megalith

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That story about a Star Citizen guild getting a $45,000 refund? It was just an elaborate hoax, evidently: a representative from CIG told Polygon yesterday that the media posted was fake, and the company spent all day trying to change the narrative online. They admitted that there had been an associated return, but in the amount of $330. Many, however, remain amused at how backers can actually spend $45,000 on Star Citizen, a game that is not finished and which has no release date, in the first place.

The story began when an anonymous Redditor by the name of Mogmentum said that they spent the better part of five weeks working to get a $45,000 refund on virtual items purchased for Star Citizen. Various images and even a video were posted online as proof of the successful return. We tried to reach them for comment, but they never responded and have since deleted their account. Ars Technica was forced to issue a correction, which is still flowing down to smaller sites that picked up the story.
 
Honestly, I think paying for an incomplete game to be fucking nuts... But if I look back on my previous history, I paid for wow for almost 7 years that had continuously new content out.

In the end, let people spend their disposable income however they like. I have a project car that takes money faster than my wife, so what's the difference?
 
Honestly, I think paying for an incomplete game to be fucking nuts... But if I look back on my previous history, I paid for wow for almost 7 years that had continuously new content out.

In the end, let people spend their disposable income however they like. I have a project car that takes money faster than my wife, so what's the difference?

Ira Lee Sorkin is that you ? (the lawyer who represented Bernie Madoff) Wouldn't the world be wonderful for people like good ole Bernie though if we just let people take suckers money if said suckers are stupid enough to buy lies.

If someone lies to you and you believe them that doesn't excuse the lie.

To point out what should be obvious though... when you spend money on your project car you actually have something to show for it. If you buy parts for your project car that are mislabelled.... is it their fault from a legal standpoint, or are you at fault for believing them ?

What Chris Roberts has shown on a grand scale is that we need better laws dealing with crowd funding. Crowd funding is a open market for fraudsters.... and the "its a donation" mentality has a lot to do with that. The laws right now are terrible and there is nothing in place legally to stop Chris Roberts from taking 200+ million in crowd sourced funds... spending 10 million on a product and paying himself 190 million as a fee. (ok I am not saying those are the numbers.... but I would be shocked if Roberts and his family + handful of friend co workers haven't personally been paid 10s of millions at this point to do next to nothing) Not to mention that Roberts at some point is going to sell CIG ( a company that cost him ZERO dollars to found and run ) for millions to some sucker publishing company.
 
Videos and jpegs are easily faked. The Derek Smart goons at work I presume.
Yes Derek Smart and his goons have regularly targeted Star Citizen and CIG and post all kinds of fake, fraudulent misinformation just to stir up crap and discredit CIG, and Star Citizen.

Derek Smart literally makes shit up as he has even less than zero facts to butt hurt on
A bitter, irrelevant, hasbin that has never had anything close to relevant success.
Derek Smart is totally envious of Chris Robert's success and a waste of oxygen.

Star Citizen is like any other Alpha, Greenlight or in development game.
The difference is the amount of private funds raised and the grand scope of the single player campaign and multi player universe Star Citizen.
many cry feature creep, but almost all of these were funding goals that were offered during the crowdfunding.
The scope and depth of the project is indeed huge and will take a bit more development time to complete.
Backers understood this when backing the Star Citizen project back in 2012.
 
Ira Lee Sorkin is that you ? (the lawyer who represented Bernie Madoff) Wouldn't the world be wonderful for people like good ole Bernie though if we just let people take suckers money if said suckers are stupid enough to buy lies.

If someone lies to you and you believe them that doesn't excuse the lie.

To point out what should be obvious though... when you spend money on your project car you actually have something to show for it. If you buy parts for your project car that are mislabelled.... is it their fault from a legal standpoint, or are you at fault for believing them ?

What Chris Roberts has shown on a grand scale is that we need better laws dealing with crowd funding. Crowd funding is a open market for fraudsters.... and the "its a donation" mentality has a lot to do with that. The laws right now are terrible and there is nothing in place legally to stop Chris Roberts from taking 200+ million in crowd sourced funds... spending 10 million on a product and paying himself 190 million as a fee. (ok I am not saying those are the numbers.... but I would be shocked if Roberts and his family + handful of friend co workers haven't personally been paid 10s of millions at this point to do next to nothing) Not to mention that Roberts at some point is going to sell CIG ( a company that cost him ZERO dollars to found and run ) for millions to some sucker publishing company.

Truthfully, I don't know anything about the game besides the topics here. From my limited knowledge it seems that people paid some money to fund the game and because of it they get to play. On top of that they can spend more of their own money on ships, should they choose to. It is a choice.

From what you're implying, people have paid for items they have not received. Is this the case? Like, I pay for a ship and get something different? Release dates get pushed back constantly, think Duke Nukem. The issue here is instead of it being pushed back over and over in house, its getting pushed back while people are playing, so it seems worse.
 
But yet, you guys continuously bring him into the conversation and stalk every word he utters. Pretty amazing for someone so irrelevant.
Actually I don't follow anything that DS posts and makes up as it's mindless raving.
I'm referring to the OP on the $45 faked refund as DS has plenty of goons that make these fake news posts
 
many cry feature creep, but almost all of these were funding goals that were offered during the crowdfunding.

Go look at the original Kickstarter, pretty much nothing they are working on now was part of it... And they didn’t even do all the stretch goals in the Kickstarter yet! Like where is the tablet companion app?
 
Well, I've backed many games and honestly most ended up really solid. But of course, I tend to only back games from firms/people I think will deliver. It's not always bad, but yes, you should absolutely realize you're in no way assured of getting a damn thing.

The exception thus far for me personally - Star Citizen. I backed at some lowly tier a very long time ago, and other games have come, gone, made sequels which I've enjoyed. This thing is still in irrelevant steaming turd territory.

I just hope Sandi and Chris enjoyed the coke I apparently bought them.
 
Go look at the original Kickstarter, pretty much nothing they are working on now was part of it... And they didn’t even do all the stretch goals in the Kickstarter yet! Like where is the tablet companion app?
Well if you had been follow the project the Kickstarter had an original goal for funding that was much smaller indeed.
The funding allowed the project to expand it's goals and backers were asked and agreed to the expanded scope.
Yes not all of the stretch goals have been meet, but many have and you can check the goals listed here
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Some people recently had a fit over the FOIP Face over IP tech that was show as another piece of feature creep,
but this was actually a stretch goal being met and development being shown to backers.

$22,000,000 stretch goal
Facial Capture System. We’ve researched a technology that uses a series of cameras to capture real heads and import them into the game.
This will let the team more easily create a variety of realistic characters. In addition, the technology is mobile enough to allow us to take it on the road and capture select fans during special events!
You can learn more about this technology at Infinite-Realities. http://ir-ltd.net/

The tablet companion goal was at $5,000,000 and indeed is still an item to come
 
Truthfully, I don't know anything about the game besides the topics here. From my limited knowledge it seems that people paid some money to fund the game and because of it they get to play. On top of that they can spend more of their own money on ships, should they choose to. It is a choice.

From what you're implying, people have paid for items they have not received. Is this the case? Like, I pay for a ship and get something different? Release dates get pushed back constantly, think Duke Nukem. The issue here is instead of it being pushed back over and over in house, its getting pushed back while people are playing, so it seems worse.

The entire model is paying for things you have not been recieved. Unless you count JPG images of ships people have spent thousands on. Perhaps one day they will be in an actual working game. The issue is at this point the game has taken not just a lot longer then it should have.... it has taken a THIS IS CLEARLY a scam longer time. :)

Really I have typed it I don't know 1001 times by now. Chris Roberts is not a legendary game publisher in the way people think. He is legendary in the business alright... legendary for being a joke, the guy every company stays away from cause he will burn though cash and produce little to nothing.

Wing Commander was his first gig when he was like 19. It wasn't WC because Roberts made it great... it was great because it was produced by actual real to goodness actual legendary game developer Warren Spector (WC, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex... the guy writes game development curriculum for universities) To the Roberts story though WC wouldn't have ever happened without Spector.... the WC Origin let Roberts make almost put them under, Roberts went so far over budget that they where worried paychecks where going to bounce. The last WC got pushed out the door when the Origin owners basically told Roberts ship it this week or next week your entire staffs pay checks are going to bounce and that will be it.

After that Roberts got his name shoved on a few projects that he outsourced but retained "producer" credit on. Then he founded Digital Anvil... worked for years on investor money on a game that never got finished. He suckered MS into buying Digital Anvil as they believed they where basically buying Free Lancer and would have a game to ship in a matter of months. The deal was done when they realised next to nothing was done on the game.... they released free lancer 3 years later.

Then Roberts went on to making movies... he has been kicked out of that industry as well. He burned though TONS of investor money making movies that should have cost a few million for 50+ million. That finally ended when Kevin Costner put the nail in his movie carer winning a multi million dollar law suit against roberts... which boils down to Roberts lied through his teeth to Costner for a long time. Had him write a script block time attract other big name actors to the project... all while Roberts was raising investor funds and Fing them over.

After that list long list of a carer of fraud. Roberts shows back up a few years later talking about wanting to make a BIG EPIC space game... but no investors believe in those games anymore (which is 100% BS they don't believe in Roberts anymore). So he spins this crowd funding page and makes videos where he claims to have investors waiting on the crowd funding goals. If he can just prove there is a market they will sweep in and give him the $ he needs to finish his dream game.

Now here we are 7 years after that... NO investors. 101 "stretch" crowd funding goals. Every game/Fraudster trick in the book to part people from their cash. And what he has to show is NO WHERE AT ALL close to a 200 million dollar game, its not even close to a 20 million dollar production. He hasn't developed some fantastic new Tech Engine... he is using Cry for 3d and Amazon for network. 99% of the art is concept art used to sell funding packages.

For property based games like star trek or star wars or battlestar ect.... the rights holders will often shop a game idea around to multiple studios to see who can make what they want with the budget they have. If SC was pitched in the same way... I have no doubt there would be multiple studios that would bid a finished project price for around 50-75 million... and a 2-3 year time table. Yes I know some games take 5-6 years to develop... sure but those games involve development of new engines ect. For a game that uses 3rd party engines.... you shave 2-3 years off dev time.

OK... this feels like my thousandth Roberts is a scammer post. Really though this entire SC/Roberts thing drives me insane. Crowd Funding could be a great way for people to support great indie game development. But Roberts is putting a big greasy stain on it.
 
Well if you had been follow the project the Kickstarter had an original goal for funding that was much smaller indeed.
The funding allowed the project to expand it's goals and backers were asked and agreed to the expanded scope.
Yes not all of the stretch goals have been meet, but many have and you can check the goals listed here
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Some people recently had a fit over the FOIP Face over IP tech that was show as another piece of feature creep,
but this was actually a stretch goal being met and development being shown to backers.

$22,000,000 stretch goal
Facial Capture System. We’ve researched a technology that uses a series of cameras to capture real heads and import them into the game.
This will let the team more easily create a variety of realistic characters. In addition, the technology is mobile enough to allow us to take it on the road and capture select fans during special events!
You can learn more about this technology at Infinite-Realities. http://ir-ltd.net/

The tablet companion goal was at $5,000,000 and indeed is still an item to come

That goal page doesn’t even mark off the items that are finished, it’s useless.
 
I was one of those crazies 2 years ago that spent around $200 on ships, then a lot of red flags started popping up but fortunately there was still crazier people out there. Sold all of them except my $30 starter for about $500, feels like I got out at just the right time lol
 
Well if you had been follow the project the Kickstarter had an original goal for funding that was much smaller indeed.
The funding allowed the project to expand it's goals and backers were asked and agreed to the expanded scope.
Yes not all of the stretch goals have been meet, but many have and you can check the goals listed here
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Some people recently had a fit over the FOIP Face over IP tech that was show as another piece of feature creep,
but this was actually a stretch goal being met and development being shown to backers.

$22,000,000 stretch goal
Facial Capture System. We’ve researched a technology that uses a series of cameras to capture real heads and import them into the game.
This will let the team more easily create a variety of realistic characters. In addition, the technology is mobile enough to allow us to take it on the road and capture select fans during special events!
You can learn more about this technology at Infinite-Realities. http://ir-ltd.net/

The tablet companion goal was at $5,000,000 and indeed is still an item to come

You don't make stretch goals before the ACTUAL GOAL. If it were a music pack or something, sure. But they have distracted all the core development team with everything under the sun, except making the game most people backed.

The one thing you can never see in any of their presentations? Exciting space combat. It's always a bad FPS, or face sync, or 5 minutes parking a rover, or a really cool towel in a hanger, etc.

It's either a completely mismanaged space combat game, or a fascinating scam. Either way, I'm not thrilled.
 
You don't make stretch goals before the ACTUAL GOAL. If it were a music pack or something, sure. But they have distracted all the core development team with everything under the sun, except making the game most people backed.

The one thing you can never see in any of their presentations? Exciting space combat. It's always a bad FPS, or face sync, or 5 minutes parking a rover, or a really cool towel in a hanger, etc.

It's either a completely mismanaged space combat game, or a fascinating scam. Either way, I'm not thrilled.

Whoa whoa whoa, when did they ever say the game would have exciting space combat? :p
 
This is not true.
The idea that was pitched in the original campaign, required a budget of around $23 million, where the money from crowd funding would serve to convince outside investors to provide the remaining funds.
As the campaign continued to be successful, outside investors were no longer required. When this seemed inevitable, the community was asked again, what to do when the campaign reached that $23 million mark.
That original game would probably have been out by now if the community would have wanted that. But a comfortable majority of 88% out of the (20791) people who voted, wanted the scope of the game expanded with any additional funds that could be gathered.
This particular vote, was done on the new (current) website, and is as far as I know still active, so the million people who didn’t originally vote could alter the results in the future:

Source
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13266-Letter-From-The-Chairman-19-Million

J7KLO8D.jpg
 
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LOL, love it... Trolling just makes Star Citizen look better now, keep it up trolls. So sorry, for those who are gonna be upset when their predictions of doom are dispelled. It's looking to be an awesome game, Soon™. Plenty of other great games to play while waiting, anyone check out DOS2 yet?
 
The article has a valid point here.....

_____

But for someone to go to the trouble to concoct such a story represents the kind of lengths Star Citizen’s haters will go to in order to discredit the team at CIG. That there is an entire community on Reddit dedicated to helping people pull as much money as they can out of the project as quickly as possible should come as no surprise. That it is filled with hateful imagery depicting members of the Star Citizen team is, frankly, disgusting. So, to, is Reddit’s abdication of any responsibility to police the communities that it hosts, but I digress.

_____
 
The idea that was pitched in the original campaign, required a budget of around $23 million, where the money from crowd funding would serve to convince outside investors to provide the remaining funds.
As the campaign continued to be successful, outside investors were no longer required. When this seemed inevitable, the community was asked again, what to do when the campaign reached that $23 million mark.
That original game would probably have been out by now if the community would have wanted that. But a comfortable majority of 88% out of the (20791) people who voted, wanted the scope of the game expanded with any additional funds that could be gathered.
This particular vote, was done on the new (current) website, and is as far as I know still active, so the million people who didn’t originally vote could alter the results in the future:

Source
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13266-Letter-From-The-Chairman-19-Million
You may want to take a closer look at that Poll.
It's only asking what to do with the funding counter, not about who wanted the scope of the game expanded.

cc
LightsOut41
 
The entire model is paying for things you have not been recieved. Unless you count JPG images of ships people have spent thousands on. Perhaps one day they will be in an actual working game. The issue is at this point the game has taken not just a lot longer then it should have.... it has taken a THIS IS CLEARLY a scam longer time. :)

Really I have typed it I don't know 1001 times by now. Chris Roberts is not a legendary game publisher in the way people think. He is legendary in the business alright... legendary for being a joke, the guy every company stays away from cause he will burn though cash and produce little to nothing.

Wing Commander was his first gig when he was like 19. It wasn't WC because Roberts made it great... it was great because it was produced by actual real to goodness actual legendary game developer Warren Spector (WC, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex... the guy writes game development curriculum for universities) To the Roberts story though WC wouldn't have ever happened without Spector.... the WC Origin let Roberts make almost put them under, Roberts went so far over budget that they where worried paychecks where going to bounce. The last WC got pushed out the door when the Origin owners basically told Roberts ship it this week or next week your entire staffs pay checks are going to bounce and that will be it.

After that Roberts got his name shoved on a few projects that he outsourced but retained "producer" credit on. Then he founded Digital Anvil... worked for years on investor money on a game that never got finished. He suckered MS into buying Digital Anvil as they believed they where basically buying Free Lancer and would have a game to ship in a matter of months. The deal was done when they realised next to nothing was done on the game.... they released free lancer 3 years later.

Then Roberts went on to making movies... he has been kicked out of that industry as well. He burned though TONS of investor money making movies that should have cost a few million for 50+ million. That finally ended when Kevin Costner put the nail in his movie carer winning a multi million dollar law suit against roberts... which boils down to Roberts lied through his teeth to Costner for a long time. Had him write a script block time attract other big name actors to the project... all while Roberts was raising investor funds and Fing them over.

After that list long list of a carer of fraud. Roberts shows back up a few years later talking about wanting to make a BIG EPIC space game... but no investors believe in those games anymore (which is 100% BS they don't believe in Roberts anymore). So he spins this crowd funding page and makes videos where he claims to have investors waiting on the crowd funding goals. If he can just prove there is a market they will sweep in and give him the $ he needs to finish his dream game.

Now here we are 7 years after that... NO investors. 101 "stretch" crowd funding goals. Every game/Fraudster trick in the book to part people from their cash. And what he has to show is NO WHERE AT ALL close to a 200 million dollar game, its not even close to a 20 million dollar production. He hasn't developed some fantastic new Tech Engine... he is using Cry for 3d and Amazon for network. 99% of the art is concept art used to sell funding packages.

For property based games like star trek or star wars or battlestar ect.... the rights holders will often shop a game idea around to multiple studios to see who can make what they want with the budget they have. If SC was pitched in the same way... I have no doubt there would be multiple studios that would bid a finished project price for around 50-75 million... and a 2-3 year time table. Yes I know some games take 5-6 years to develop... sure but those games involve development of new engines ect. For a game that uses 3rd party engines.... you shave 2-3 years off dev time.

OK... this feels like my thousandth Roberts is a scammer post. Really though this entire SC/Roberts thing drives me insane. Crowd Funding could be a great way for people to support great indie game development. But Roberts is putting a big greasy stain on it.

No shit eh.. well, I won't comment without investigating, but I understand your side of the issue.
 
Go to the Kickstarter page and click random projects and probably half of them have super expensive stuff you can buy that are objectively not worth it. "Meet the development team and get a signed copy of the game for a $5000 pledge!" is typical. And for none of them are you guaranteed to get something in a timely fashion like you are when you buy off Amazon. Star Citizen is not special in this regard. You pledge more than you have to only because you really want the project to have enough money to finish.

Hell, in the pretend refund story, they were buying three $15k packs of ~40 ships (or whatever it is) and splitting them amongst a bunch of people, so on a per-person basis, the $45k wasn't even that bad. And it was pretend.

Idiots who don't understand how much money fifteen thousand dollars is and what the cost of a game usually is, and how long games take to make, and the risks that it might take longer than they hope, are parted with their money well before they can blow it on Star Citizen. The rest of everyone who isn't an idiot understand and understood when they pledged.
 
This doesnt smell good.
I've been waiting since early days to see how this game develops and it hasnt.
 
donations do not require VAT in the EU the moment they started collecting tax on it it was no longer a donation

Well then people can still get the spaceships they bought, they just won’t have a complete game to use them in ;)
 
Go to the Kickstarter page and click random projects and probably half of them have super expensive stuff you can buy that are objectively not worth it. "Meet the development team and get a signed copy of the game for a $5000 pledge!" is typical. And for none of them are you guaranteed to get something in a timely fashion like you are when you buy off Amazon. Star Citizen is not special in this regard. You pledge more than you have to only because you really want the project to have enough money to finish.

Hell, in the pretend refund story, they were buying three $15k packs of ~40 ships (or whatever it is) and splitting them amongst a bunch of people, so on a per-person basis, the $45k wasn't even that bad. And it was pretend.

Idiots who don't understand how much money fifteen thousand dollars is and what the cost of a game usually is, and how long games take to make, and the risks that it might take longer than they hope, are parted with their money well before they can blow it on Star Citizen. The rest of everyone who isn't an idiot understand and understood when they pledged.

And there it is, the "you don't understand game development/cost/time" bullshit.

Considering the serious lack of actual development and progress on SC I am pretty sure Chris Roberts is the top of the list when it comes to people who don't know how to develop a game.

Wait, let me guess, it's normal for a MMO to only be able to have half a dozen people on a server after 5 years of development right?

As it has been pointed out, Chris Roberts has never succeeded at making games or movies, he has only succeeded at coming up with ideas.

P.s. how is it playing update 3.0 that was released a year ago? Or how about sq42 that was supposed to be released by now?
 
Game isnt ready, and they are taking the time to do it right. This line of thinking angers the autist quite a bit though. Now watch as they point themselves out.
 
Game isnt ready, and they are taking the time to do it right. This line of thinking angers the autist quite a bit though. Now watch as they point themselves out.

Having worked in the Software Business now for double decades, I can say with some experience the situation you have described has all the signs of a train-wreck coming. Developers should never, ever be allowed to be the only people in the room.
I can't predict the future and Star Citizen may be the "Elite" or "Privateer" game we all envisioned when we played..well..>Elite and Privateer< back in ye olden days, but this smells like a bunch of Devs burning money. Eventually people will
want to deploy something, they'll get bored with working on "nothing" for years, and move on. Then, you'll see a rush-job to bring in some project management...and those people won't GAF and will publish, and then it's Battlecruiser 2000 all over again.

"It's ready when its ready" only works in a restaurant, and usually if you order a steak you have a reasonable expectation they aren't birthing the fucking cow when you're choosing Medium Rare or Medium. (and if you're choosing anything else, seriously, just order the chicken).
 
And there it is, the "you don't understand game development/cost/time" bullshit.

Considering the serious lack of actual development and progress on SC I am pretty sure Chris Roberts is the top of the list when it comes to people who don't know how to develop a game.

Wait, let me guess, it's normal for a MMO to only be able to have half a dozen people on a server after 5 years of development right?

As it has been pointed out, Chris Roberts has never succeeded at making games or movies, he has only succeeded at coming up with ideas.

P.s. how is it playing update 3.0 that was released a year ago? Or how about sq42 that was supposed to be released by now?

You didn't read what I wrote, you just responded to what you hoped I wrote so you could add to your 6000-plus post count.
 
Take all the time you need, make the game right. Don't give in to the "I want it now" generation. It's the most ambitious game ever even attempted to be made, and its being made from scratch. There is no copy/paste going on.

This is thinking with logic and reason, so i'm sure it will upset some of you :)
 
Take all the time you need, make the game right. Don't give in to the "I want it now" generation. It's the most ambitious game ever even attempted to be made, and its being made from scratch. There is no copy/paste going on.

This is thinking with logic and reason, so i'm sure it will upset some of you :)
You dont see any danger signs with this particular project?
 
You dont see any danger signs with this particular project?
Nope, because there is absolutely nothing to compare it to. Again, what game even comes close to being this large/ambitious? No Mans Sky? That game was a real hit, exactly what was promised, LOL.

I rather play a great game later, than a shit game right now. Its as easy as that.
 
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