Star Citizen Backers No Longer Able to Get Refunds

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LightsOut41 said:
This just in: after 6 years and $190M, a game should be further along than a broken, janky tech demo.
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"Should be", hmm? I assume your intimate insider knowledge is what led to such an informed opinion. Unless you're simply implying that funding and development time are inversely proportional, but that would be dumb.

I'd like it to be further along. I don't think there's anyone who wishes it wasn't. But should be is a bold claim; you'd have to account for a lot of variables that you'd only be familiar with working in the precise environment of SC's development. Could it be further along? Probably. We've seen some missteps, some setbacks, some questionable decisions. But can we honestly say that such things don't occur regularly as a mere consequence of game development, especially when spread out over multiple studios and countries? A resounding eh, perhaps. Shit does happen.

In other words, maybe we shouldn't assert certainty where it doesn't exist.

CAD4466HK said:
Came only for the SC zealots....was not disappointed.
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Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
 
04SVT said:
Much like my first experiences in Elite. Only I happened to spawn into an area held by a group of folks that called themselves raiders. And it was bad enough that I had to play E:D in solo mode until I got the hang of it.


And do you really expect an early Alpha to be even remotely glitch free?

It seems like people don't want to compare it to a released video game, but then go on to do just that...
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This is a six year early alpha!

OK so 6 years is still an early stage in development, we learned that today. Thanks to the CIG university of game development and it's disciples.

I'm trough explaining this, you go on telling yourself that everything is fine, and this development is on track, just please spare the rest of the world. And think of the children!
 
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M76 said:
This is a six year early alpha!

OK so 6 years is still an early stage in development, we learned that today. Thanks to the CIG university of game development and it's disciples.

I'm trough explaining this, you go on telling yourself that everything is fine, and this development is on track, just please spare the rest of the world. And think of the children!
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Did I say it was fine and on track?

Nope not fucking once.

Jesus fucking Christ... read the posts...
 
04SVT said:
Did I say it was fine and on track?

Nope not fucking once.

Jesus fucking Christ... read the posts...
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You're the one trying to convince me that a one hour long video of some devs talking about a game, is proof that the game is well on it's way. There was never any other argument, but this, the lot of you refusing to admit to mismanagement, and gross waste of resources and a delay of epic proportions. They can show roughly 1 year worth of progress in six years time.

There was never an argument about anything else. Talk about moving goal posts.
 
M76 said:
You're the one trying to convince me that a one hour long video of some devs talking about a game, is proof that the game is well on it's way. There was never any other argument, but this, the lot of you refusing to admit to mismanagement, and gross waste of resources and a delay of epic proportions. They can show roughly 1 year worth of progress in six years time.

There was never an argument about anything else. Talk about moving goal posts.
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Um, you were the one that said that CIG has shown nothing of SQ42. Or did you forget that?

I also never said that CIG wasn't mismanaged. In fact I said just that very thing.

Are you going to keep on attempting to put words in my mouth?
 
M76 said:
You're the one trying to convince me that a one hour long video of some devs talking about a game, is proof that the game is well on it's way. There was never any other argument, but this, the lot of you refusing to admit to mismanagement, and gross waste of resources and a delay of epic proportions. They can show roughly 1 year worth of progress in six years time.
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I think the vertical slice video was simply to show... well, the vertical slice. As in, this is a representative slice of what's been fleshed out so far, with all of the requisite game systems working in relative harmony. And, judging by the video, a lot of progress has been made. Is it as much as everyone would like? Again, eh.

As for admitting to mismanagement and delays, I think those points have been made ad nauseam, have they not? We've talked about feature creep et al and my impression was that everyone's more or less on the same page there. "Gross waste of resources" and "1 year worth of progress" are harder to quantify, but if you want to unpack the specifics I'm happy to hear you out.

04SVT said:
Um, you were the one that said that CIG has shown nothing of SQ42. Or did you forget that?
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Always re-quote so there's no ambiguity. ;) Although to be fair I think his point was that he can't play SQ42 on his own computer yet, therefor there's no proof that it's actually exists in anything approaching a functional state. Not exactly the soundest argument, but... there it is.

M76 said:
I don't know how that sequence was created, how much of it is real. Do you remember the HL2 demo that they showed, that turned out to be all staged?
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zamardii12 said:
Here is my experience with Star Citizen as someone who has no dog in this race...

I remember either last year or the year before there was a free week where you could try the game. I was super excited because way back when, I saw a video showing everything you could do and I was thinking this could be the perfect game... Like I could live in a huge galaxy and do whatever I wanted... trade, dogfight, shoot in first person, fly around planet to planet... it looked incredible and was tempted many times to just buy a basic package so I could try it out. So when the free weekend or whatever happened I created an account and downloaded it immediately.

What happened was this:

  • I had no idea what to do. I was immediately dropped onto a space station of some kind.
  • I asked people in the chat what to do and they were all really rude telling me I had to go and read the tutorials online at CIG's website or look at youtube videos. Well, that ridiculous b/c I can't learn how to play the game by watching explanations of it. I need some hands-on time. So I spent a fair amount of time reading and watching videos, writing notes, and developing a cheat-sheet for basic controls so I knew what to do. I go back in the game and I am still utterly lost. I don't know what objective I have, no idea who to talk to about getting a quest or something to do, and so I start aimlessly running around the space station. Lot of glitchy weird things at the time with opening doors I can remember. Anyway, I find a ship and get in it and have no idea what i'm doing. I start flying but I don't know where to go or what to do and I just start to get frustrated so I fly back to the station and land. Another large ship is docked next to me and it starts glitching out like crazy... like a typical Bethesda-type glitch... it looks like one of the landing gears up front got stuck under the landing pad texture and the ship was doing fast somersaults like it was a feather-weight. And then at one point I got too close and the ship in it's glitching state hit me very hard and I died. It was actually quite funny. In any case after messing around for about 45 minutes I gave up. What I saw at that point in the development cycle turned me off to the game for forever. I told myself i'll give it another look if and when it releases and is a complete game because this was phenomenally fucked up thus far. Now granted this was about 2 years ago so I am sure it changed a bunch since then, but how could anyone blame me for not liking what I personally experienced? Doesn't make me want to invest any money whatsoever in the title. I would love to possibly buy it once it's done, but I won't be supporting it until then.
  • The biggest thing that really turned me off aside from the weird glitches were the complete lack of help. The Reddit SC fans and other people through the game I asked for help were super rude and just kept linking me to the online manual which is waaaay too complicated and long. I did read it, but that shouldn't be how a game starts. Throwing me into an environment and not telling me AT ALL what to do or how to do it. That was very frustrating and would definitely scare away a lot of new people into playing the game let-alone committing to the project.
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I did the same exact thing, I jacked around for like a hour had to figure out a number of things on my own and was left feeling empty and unfulfilled by the lack of any quality gameplay rather felt like it was a giant tech demo. YES it was PLAYABLE but with no clear direction of what to do or any sort of mission I just kinda left it at that. The game still has a TON of holes to be filled to be cohesive enough. I'm not going to pay a few hundred bucks to play a game that's a perpetual money suck. It sounds more like a time waster than anything tangable.
---End of my response to your quote---

My thoughts....
Then these are these arguments about it being pre-alpha versus games that had long release schedules but ACTUALLY RELEASED a product. The difference between a Publisher and this is that the publisher FORCES the product to be delivered instead of just asking more people to pay into this project that may or may not be released. I think so of these guys who are dug in are so far into it they are in denial that it could actually fail. No one is saying it has failed but the trajectory is showing that its headed that way. When they stop giving refunds......it either means they are close to being finished and ready for release, or that they have burned through the money and now are in trouble. This is what it looks like. Mut1ny is in full troll mode at this point and denies any such possibility and I laugh at how much he angerly posts on peoples comments about how dumb they are for not fully believing its on track when clearly people have pointed out that its on a scary track that seemingly has a dead end attached to it.

We will see what the future holds for SC.......for Mut1ny's sake I hope it does complete. All his vitriol will be validated....otherwise ...yikes....
 
M76 said:
This is a six year early alpha!

OK so 6 years is still an early stage in development, we learned that today. Thanks to the CIG university of game development and it's disciples.

I'm trough explaining this, you go on telling yourself that everything is fine, and this development is on track, just please spare the rest of the world. And think of the children!
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I may "think of the children" and buy in. My daughter was 1 when development started, perhaps it'll be out before she's drinking age, and I can hook her on a game instead of horny teenage boys!

Oh, it's not as inflammatory as it looks. Drinking age in Canada is 18.

Okay, it's still slight flame bait, but still deliciously grounded in reality, timeline wise. :LOL:
 
SomeoneElse said:
The game still has a TON of holes to be filled to be cohesive enough. I'm not going to pay a few hundred bucks to play a game that's a perpetual money suck.
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Except that it's not. Why would you keep spending money on it? There's no reason to if you already own it.

You make an excellent point about the role a publisher plays in development and it's something I think is sorely missing from this scenario: accountability. Say what you want about the special relationship of backers as financiers, but they'll never have the clout of a publisher to throw their weight around--in a unified, meaningful way--to suspend funding or demand milestones be met. Roberts is the kind of developer who needs that influence; he's got his head in the clouds and left to his own devices he'll keep adding more and more onto the original vision--exactly as we've seen with SC.

SomeoneElse said:
No one is saying it has failed but the trajectory is showing that its headed that way. When they stop giving refunds......it either means they are close to being finished and ready for release, or that they have burned through the money and now are in trouble.
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I don't think there's sufficient evidence to claim SC is headed for failure. Everything I've seen suggests they're actually making a game that'll deliver on most of its promises. It'll be years late, but I don't see how people can look at what they've built so far and think it won't result in a playable game. Your argument about refunds, though, is a direct-to-garbage-pile false dichotomy. As I understand the story, recent purchases are still being refunded; it's older purchases (months/years) that are getting stuck in refund limbo with no resolution. That could mean a few things--they've decided not to refund people who've put too much time into playing the game and have failed utterly to relay that policy to the community, there's been mass abuse of refunds and they're working out a solution for all parties (although, after seven months...), etc., etc. Point being you can't reasonably assert that either the game is almost done or they've run out of money based on the available evidence.

Unreasonably, you can assert anything you want. This is, after all, a Star Citizen thread. /rimshot
 
motomonkey said:
careful, the Faithful will make sure you don't speak Heresy about the Church of Roberts.
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I remember the first time I was screwed over by Chris Roberts: Strike Commander. A game that was years late with what were reportedly a ton of production failures, and when it finally did come out only absolute top-of-the-line PCs could run it decently...and even owners of such systems didn't get a great experience.
 
Korrd said:
Except that it's not. Why would you keep spending money on it? There's no reason to if you already own it.

You make an excellent point about the role a publisher plays in development and it's something I think is sorely missing from this scenario: accountability. Say what you want about the special relationship of backers as financiers, but they'll never have the clout of a publisher to throw their weight around--in a unified, meaningful way--to suspend funding or demand milestones be met. Roberts is the kind of developer who needs that influence; he's got his head in the clouds and left to his own devices
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You are right CIG took that away from the backers when they changed their TOS so that you cannot request/demand a refund for their failure to deliver on their promises and original timeline. Which is what a Producer or VC would do.

/rimshot
 
Babbster said:
I remember the first time I was screwed over by Chris Roberts: Strike Commander. A game that was years late with what were reportedly a ton of production failures, and when it finally did come out only absolute top-of-the-line PCs could run it decently...and even owners of such systems didn't get a great experience.
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StrikeCommander was awesome. Once I updated my computer to run it. It was the first game I ever did that for. Mostly because I was just commissioned and finished SUPT.
 
04SVT said:
You CLAIM it is a scam, but then fall back into "its my opinion". You honestly sound just like Derek Smart does. He too claims to know something about game development...

Its my opinion that you simply don't know what you are talking about.


Yep, the game is late. We all know that. Anyone who denies its late is full of shit.

But anyone who says there hasn't been progress, and quite a bit of it, is full of shit, or simply hasn't bothered to look. Hell just look at 3.0 to 3.2.


I'm also not going to disagree that it isn't mismanaged. It is, and from what I have seen, CIG is trying to fix that mismanagement.
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I actually do know something about game development. I have known many people in the game industry over the years. Hell I worked at an Art School that fucking taught that as course work. Many students went on to work in the game industry with some of them coming back for recruiting other students etc. You only have to look at what little content there is and how much money has been raised to know that the project has been mismanaged. Gross mismanagement on that level usually means that the higher ups are lining their pockets and not all the money has been spent on the development. And again, CIG has similar behavior to that of a company engaged in a Ponzi-Scheme. Go watch some episodes of American Greed and tell me again how CIG doesn't remind you of that.

I also never said there hasn't been progress. However, there is suspiciously very little game to play after 6 years of fucking development.
 
Korrd said:
Except that it's not. Why would you keep spending money on it? There's no reason to if you already own it.
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In order to get new ships and such you have to buy capital ships and what not. This game doesn't have a "I now outright own the game" purchase option....you get a "Starter pack" There is no official purchase price because its not finished. I'm curious what that is going to look like once its finished and stamped for distribution as a finished product.
 
Korrd said:
I think the vertical slice video was simply to show... well, the vertical slice. As in, this is a representative slice of what's been fleshed out so far, with all of the requisite game systems working in relative harmony. And, judging by the video, a lot of progress has been made. Is it as much as everyone would like? Again, eh.

As for admitting to mismanagement and delays, I think those points have been made ad nauseam, have they not? We've talked about feature creep et al and my impression was that everyone's more or less on the same page there. "Gross waste of resources" and "1 year worth of progress" are harder to quantify, but if you want to unpack the specifics I'm happy to hear you out.
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It was said over and over again, What we see in 3.2 is too far from a game, it's basically a sandbox where they thrown in a few features to test. It's not a coherent experience. You spawn at a random spot, no thought was given to exposition or goals, or any sort of narrative. That's exactly how a development starts. Hell that's how I started my own project, took an engine, thrown a few assets in it, implemented features like physics and basic controls and then started tweaking it until it got to a state where I was satisfied with the core mechanics. That's how development starts. The fact that they're still fiddling with the most basic game mechanics is what shows the state of the project. 6 years and what they have is a tech demo,

They should've finalized the mechanics ages ago, and the actual building of the world should have been well under way, on a close to final game code by year 3 at the latest. How much more specifics do you need? Meh, why do I even bother, whatever I write you can counter with an assertion like this one:
Always re-quote so there's no ambiguity. ;) Although to be fair I think his point was that he can't play SQ42 on his own computer yet, therefor there's no proof that it's actually exists in anything approaching a functional state. Not exactly the soundest argument, but... there it is.
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You have to demonstrate that the argument is invalid, it's not enough to assert it. What is not sound with it? I even cited examples that were proven fakes. The fact is that it is entirely possible that SQ42 is much farther ahead in development that SC is, but it is not likely.

Believe me I'd be the happiest if they released a demo of SQ42 tomorrow that'd prove me wrong
 
M76 said:
It was said over and over again, What we see in 3.2 is too far from a game, it's basically a sandbox where they thrown in a few features to test. It's not a coherent experience. You spawn at a random spot, no thought was given to exposition or goals, or any sort of narrative. That's exactly how a development starts. Hell that's how I started my own project, took an engine, thrown a few assets in it, implemented features like physics and basic controls and then started tweaking it until it got to a state where I was satisfied with the core mechanics. That's how development starts. The fact that they're still fiddling with the most basic game mechanics is what shows the state of the project. 6 years and what they have is a tech demo,

They should've finalized the mechanics ages ago, and the actual building of the world should have been well under way, on a close to final game code by year 3 at the latest. How much more specifics do you need? Meh, why do I even bother, whatever I write you can counter with an assertion like this one:

You have to demonstrate that the argument is invalid, it's not enough to assert it. What is not sound with it? I even cited examples that were proven fakes. The fact is that it is entirely possible that SQ42 is much farther ahead in development that SC is, but it is not likely.

Believe me I'd be the happiest if they released a demo of SQ42 tomorrow that'd prove me wrong
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Bingo. I know we don't always agree on things but I think this post is 100% spot on.
 
Korrd said:
That could mean a few things--they've decided not to refund people who've put too much time into playing the game and have failed utterly to relay that policy to the community, there's been mass abuse of refunds and they're working out a solution for all parties (although, after seven months...), etc., etc.
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How can you have an abuse of refunds for a game that is not even out? Please explain that one? Who cares when someone bought into it, there is no game. There should be no reason to refuse refunds, especially for those that bought packages involving Squadron42, which was supposed to be built and released first. There is still no release date or real playable aspect released to the public for Squadron42.
 
M76 said:
What we see in 3.2 is too far from a game, it's basically a sandbox where they thrown in a few features to test. It's not a coherent experience.
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I'm confused now. We were talking about the SQ42 vertical slice, but now you're talking about the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. I think we need to be clear about which we're discussing if this is going to make any kind of sense. The PU (colloquially, Star Citizen) is basically a sandbox in the same way that Elite: Dangerous or EVE Online could be called sandboxes. SQ42 is a scripted narrative campaign. Naturally, one's going to have more guidance and structure than the other.

M76 said:
They should've finalized the mechanics ages ago, and the actual building of the world should have been well under way, on a close to final game code by year 3 at the latest.
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Says who, though? You? Why three years and not four? Or six? Doesn't the time required to finalize the mechanics or the world or the release code scale with the scope of the project? It always seems strange to me that people seem to know how long certain aspects of the project should take. How long is an appropriate time to develop their procedurally-assisted planetary tech? Rotating planetary bodies? Ship destruction, damage, repair, salvage, refueling, etc.? Where do you get those numbers? Even if you have experience with the engine, does that necessarily imply that you know how long it would take to code the systems they've been building?

M76 said:
You have to demonstrate that the argument is invalid, it's not enough to assert it. What is not sound with it?
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Have you played [game x that hasn't been released yet and has no demo]? Do you believe it exists? If you believe Shadow of the Tomb Raider exists, or RDR2, or BG&E2, without having played them on your own hardware, aren't you being hypocritical? Would you say of them that there's no proof they actually exist?
 
Dan_D said:
I actually do know something about game development. I have known many people in the game industry over the years. Hell I worked at an Art School that fucking taught that as course work. Many students went on to work in the game industry with some of them coming back for recruiting other students etc. You only have to look at what little content there is and how much money has been raised to know that the project has been mismanaged. Gross mismanagement on that level usually means that the higher ups are lining their pockets and not all the money has been spent on the development. And again, CIG has similar behavior to that of a company engaged in a Ponzi-Scheme. Go watch some episodes of American Greed and tell me again how CIG doesn't remind you of that.

I also never said there hasn't been progress. However, there is suspiciously very little game to play after 6 years of fucking development.
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I've known a lot of people in the industry over the years too. Hell I recommended armour to Garriott many years ago when he started looking for the real stuff.

We all know teaching artists isn't working inside the industry. I teach people how to fly. I'm not dropping the bombs (anymore).

You have still provided zero proof other than your opinion that there is any type of scam going on. Why the fuck would an industry veteran, and a rather well known one at that, attempt to rip off the community that made him a well known person in first place, let alone having formed a company (a few companies) that employ over 500 people?

There are a lot more efficient ways of scamming folks.
 
Korrd said:
Buy, refund, buy, refund, buy, refund. Abuse.
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How is that abuse? If they keep making promises and don't deliver, you should still be entitled to refunds. Also, is there actual proof that abuse is happening on a large scale?

There are far more people not abusing, and they just removed their rights to refunds.
 
NoOther said:
How is that abuse? If they keep making promises and don't deliver, you should still be entitled to refunds. Also, is there actual proof that abuse is happening on a large scale?
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Fucking Christ, dude, I mentioned it as a hypothetical explanation for their recent refund fuckery. I didn't say that's what's actually happening. And "how is it abuse?" Really? You don't think having to process multiple, repeated refund requests from the same user would constitute an abuse of the system? Fine. Imagine some other scenario that fits the bill and pretend I suggested that. The point remains the same.
 
Korrd said:
Fucking Christ, dude, I mentioned it as a hypothetical explanation for their recent refund fuckery. I didn't say that's what's actually happening. And "how is it abuse?" Really? You don't think having to process multiple, repeated refund requests from the same user would constitute an abuse of the system? Fine. Imagine some other scenario that fits the bill and pretend I suggested that. The point remains the same.
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So hypothetically there is abuse, so obviously it makes sense to deny real honest customers refunds... Got it.

So essentially what you are saying is that because the almighty Church of Roberts did something, there must be a very good explanation for it and is in no way fucking over a lot of people for no good reason...
 
Korrd said:
Have you played [game x that hasn't been released yet and has no demo]? Do you believe it exists? If you believe Shadow of the Tomb Raider exists, or RDR2, or BG&E2, without having played them on your own hardware, aren't you being hypocritical? Would you say of them that there's no proof they actually exist?
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I'm just here for the comments, but isn't that a little different? I mean Chris Roberts from what I know is not the best manager according to multiple sources, and Square Enix has a stellar track record as does Rockstar... so I am not sure what you're trying to prove. I would say the argument lies in whether the developer/publisher has any good faith left with the community. By reading all the comments here there seem to be actual backers who have played the game and want for it to succeed, but are frustrated at the constant goal post moving. I don't think that's a reason to get defensive because it's completely understandable especially for someone who REALLY wants the game to succeed... for them to see the lack of progress (not saying there hasn't been any) that was promised is understandably frustrating.

And good will is the reason why folks like CD Project Red get a pass for development time because they have established an incredibly high amount of goodwill with their customers. They don't show anything until there is anything to show, they aren't asking us to fund their development, and they give us our monies worth when it came to their previous titles.
 
NoOther said:
Lol, how am I the one being obtuse? You are the one defending a shitty move with a completely hypothetical situation to defend it...
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OMG.

Okay. We'll unpack this is in baby steps.
  1. Dude claimed lack of refunds means one of two things.
  2. I pointed out that this claim is a false dichotomy and there could actually be other possibilities. I suggested a few alternatives to prove the point.
  3. You got confused and thought the alternatives were actual reasons.
For the love of everything holy please tell me we're on the same page now because I feel like I'm having a stroke.
 
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