He hid something that was obvious to any third party observer. He has put his wife in charge of marketing a project that has collected a massive sum of money while she has no relevant professional experience and was claiming to have an MBA from UCLA Anderson when she apparently does not.
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Star Citizen Selling A $900 Ship
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He hid something that was obvious to any third party observer. He has put his wife in charge of marketing a project that has collected a massive sum of money while she has no relevant professional experience and was claiming to have an MBA from UCLA Anderson when she apparently does not.
Carbon_Rod
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Just wanted to point out Star Citizen isn't the only game with some horribly overpriced pixels. Here's a page from Richard Garriot's latest baby "Shroud of the Avatar".... It also completed a successful Kickstarter campaign and is currently in alpha as well.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35139
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35139
Yep. Is that the voice of a man you would trust $90 million dollars with?
There's a big difference between a husband and wife starting a business with their own money or a bank loan, and CR paying his wife a six figure salary to do something that she's likely unqualified for with OUR money.
SilverSliver
[H]F Junkie
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Apparently her qualifications are that the Kickstarter was her idea, or something? And that she's the only person in the marketing department.
Oh, that game definitely also has some expensive stuff. There's a slight difference between those and star citizen though. The in-game items are cosmetic, RP items, or homes that don't really affect anything(other than being tax free, which at least is spelled out plainly enough). What's funny, is even though he hasn't raised 1/10th of the money SC has, and he hasn't spent the past couple of years pumping out more content for people to buy(those were all rewards from the original kickstarter campaign), you can at least see that there is progress towards the completion of a game(rather than a disjointed mess of modules).
In fact, you missed a page of buyable content for SotA
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=40715
Of course it's all cosmetic pets and stuff being used to generate funds for additional features. There's a lot more if you hit the store menu up at the top right of the page(I suppose the player owned towns could be an issue depending on how the economy ends up working, which would be crappy if they effectively end up being an economic pay2win victory).
The key difference here, is that there isn't a series of stretch goals that are massively gamechanging, requiring tons of resources for their own development, and the bulk of the resources appear(I say appear because there's no solid proof of this) to be put into the BASE product that the backers wanted in the first place, with other things potentially coming later to expand upon the base game.
Don't forget that Erin Roberts, Chris' brother, is the UK studio director and in charge of Squadron 42.
Nepotism FTW?
I'd consider it unjust enrichment if the allegations in today's Escapist article are true.
Well, regardless of the article from Escapist, hiring a bunch of family members to high level positions is usually never a good thing, unless of course you can show that those people are indeed among the best actually qualified for those positions. But considering the BS surrounding his wife, I doubt that's the case.
SilverSliver
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Regardless of the article from Escapist, the tremendously ranty and unprofessional response from him is embarrassing.
I agree. I was like 14 paragraphs in and thinking "is he ever even going to mention any of the allegations, or is he just going to cry about Derek Smart and blame everything on him and former employees (largely or entirely ignoring that many complaints are purportedly from current employees) and other Twitter haters. "
Is that reply from their visionary leader posted on space rated cyber parchment? Skeuomorphic much? That alone is rather telling that the game is in the hands of a lunatic. Might as well have been in Comic Sans to put the cherry on top.
thedocta45
[H]ard|Gawd
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Been waiting for this game to come out since it was announced.
Have not spent any money, I am starting to wonder if it will ever come out.
This cycle of selling digital ships for a game that's still in Alpha, if you can even call it that is crazy.
I don't know why people keep buying shit from this guy.
Have not spent any money, I am starting to wonder if it will ever come out.
This cycle of selling digital ships for a game that's still in Alpha, if you can even call it that is crazy.
I don't know why people keep buying shit from this guy.
Derek Smart and those who parrot him just got completely destroyed in Chris Roberts' rebuttal:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist
Saturn_V
2[H]4U
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Erin Roberts is credited for creating Wing Comander: Privateer- arguably the best of WC games. Granted it was 20+ years ago.
I'm waiting for the mainstream media to pick this story up. The Escapist article by itself (9/25) won't garner much attention, but the CR rants/responses are really eye-opening. He really should've checked with a publicist or counsel before responding.
You haven't been paying attention, have you?
The issue is it calls into question Chris Roberts' ability to objectively hire and utilize the best people for a role, let alone the most critical ones. Her "loud and dumb" antics on twitter and putting her foot in her mouth do not bode well. Like I'm pretty sure that if Steve Jobs had put his wife in charge of marketing at Apple, the company as it exists today wouldn't even exist, let alone the iPhone in everyones hands. That's not a knock on women, only on nepotism.
Chris paying her six figures is also ridiculous. If he insists on letting her coast in "marketing" a game that has basically been selling itself, then both she and Chris should be drawing a $1 salary to convey their commitment that the project's success comes before everything.
Yossarian22
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Sounds like a terrible game in this case.
I think someone would have better luck mapping X3: Terran Conflict memory to clients in the same way people have made previous GTA games multiplayer.
MavericK
Zero Cool
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Funny you should mention Steve Jobs, I was about to mention WRT Chris Roberts "going nuts" about Derek Smart that Jobs liked to spout off a lot too, and plenty of people trusted him with thier money.
Frankly, I don't know if Chris Roberts is full of shit or not but he has a point about Derek Smart's track record versus his own.
That's a very good point, but Steve Jobs outbursts seemed to always be rooted in a neurotically perfectionist pursuit of delivering the best or at least most marketable products. I don't get the same sense from Roberts, he seems to be a little more self indulgent, like skipping off to England to "direct" the mo-cap sessions, instead of actually being a CEO and keeping his eye on all the spinning plates, the moving parts developing the game. That in itself won't be the death of the game but speaks to a certain lazy and childish (mis)management style.
Which is completely irrelevant in relation to how CIG has been managing their funds.
M76
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People throw around the "alpha" label too freely nowadays. This game is clearly in it's early stages of development, not even pre-alpha. It's just a bunch of modules floating around in a vacuum with nothing connecting them.
Alpha traditionally means the game is feature ready, that they implemented everything they wanted to. From then on they usually only do minor changes only to improve balance and gameplay. But it means that the bulk of the work is done.
While Beta means the game is completed the only thing left to do is testing and bugfixes.
It's obvious that SC (even with a competent and focused team, with no money issues) is years away from being an alpha. And SC42 seems to be just in the planning state.
Exactly. Derek Smart could be the biggest shitheel on the planet, it doesn't mean that he's wrong.
And let's stop pretending that it's just Derek Smart talking here. No less than NINE current and former employees chimed in for the Escapist article. CR's response tries to play it off as a couple bitter ex-employees. It isn't. Unless you think it's DS convincingly pretending to be all of them well enough to fool the Escapist, in which case I've got some industrial strength tinfoil to sell you.
Why would anyone (including DS) open themselves up to a practically slam dunk libel/slander lawsuit by flat out lying about the goings on at CIG?
It just seems to me that they are focusing too much on making some grand scale "Game" and they keep adding and adding to it.
Rather then focusing on their core "game" and getting it finished they keep rehauling it and adding this and that.
It's like DNF, instead of finishing the game they kept getting new engines and then retooling the game to look "newer and newer" having to constantly go back over things they had already done becuase they couldn't just lock down the engine they were using and stick with it, eventually leading to it not only hardly ever getting finished but looking really outdated when it did.
On top of this it seems like SC has too many "chefs in the kitchen" with all these studios working on this and that and then having to put it all together into one game.
Rather then focusing on their core "game" and getting it finished they keep rehauling it and adding this and that.
It's like DNF, instead of finishing the game they kept getting new engines and then retooling the game to look "newer and newer" having to constantly go back over things they had already done becuase they couldn't just lock down the engine they were using and stick with it, eventually leading to it not only hardly ever getting finished but looking really outdated when it did.
On top of this it seems like SC has too many "chefs in the kitchen" with all these studios working on this and that and then having to put it all together into one game.
This is pretty hilarious. Anyone can see that there is still no real backbone to the game yet. I would say it looks pretty bare bones but there aren't any bones. The analogies from the ex employees where they are just making wallpaper/commercials/back of the book summaries seems to be completely the case and not just words from a few disgruntled employees.
They still haven't showed the actual game part yet or how this thing is going to work at all as an MMO. At the best they have some really spotty animations with a few rooms and ships. With the feature creep and the frankly wasteful use of funds... if they ever manage to release something it's definitely not going to be anywhere near what people were hoping for.
If you put much more than 100 bucks into this, you're a fool, plain and simple. This is why producers need to exist, because people like Chris Roberts may have cool visions and shit but if you give them a lot of money they aren't actually going to get it done - especially in a certain timeframe. They need to be whipped periodically, and in the case of Chris Roberts it would seem like he just farts around incompetently and goes home to his mansion with his wife who he also has running the other side of the show. It's a fucking joke. The guy has sold an image and I would be surprised if he actually contributes to making the game itself rather than just making "decisions" on how to spend the cash and what he wants in the game (hiring a linguist for creating alien languages is absurd when the game stands where it does now).
And now the word is they are almost out of cash. This is gonna get very interesting.
They still haven't showed the actual game part yet or how this thing is going to work at all as an MMO. At the best they have some really spotty animations with a few rooms and ships. With the feature creep and the frankly wasteful use of funds... if they ever manage to release something it's definitely not going to be anywhere near what people were hoping for.
If you put much more than 100 bucks into this, you're a fool, plain and simple. This is why producers need to exist, because people like Chris Roberts may have cool visions and shit but if you give them a lot of money they aren't actually going to get it done - especially in a certain timeframe. They need to be whipped periodically, and in the case of Chris Roberts it would seem like he just farts around incompetently and goes home to his mansion with his wife who he also has running the other side of the show. It's a fucking joke. The guy has sold an image and I would be surprised if he actually contributes to making the game itself rather than just making "decisions" on how to spend the cash and what he wants in the game (hiring a linguist for creating alien languages is absurd when the game stands where it does now).
And now the word is they are almost out of cash. This is gonna get very interesting.
MavericK
Zero Cool
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It's relevant in that he may be full of shit and spouting unsubstantiated rumors that people are now treating as facts.
I think modulizing the development is fine, the issue here in my opinion, to keep your analogy... is the main chef keeps adding garnish to a dish that doesn't actually have any food on it.
So.......????? The nine current/former employees that the Escapist talked to are what? Not real? Made up by The Escapist to support DS? All Derek Smart? Lying? Alien lizards sent to earth to spread FUD about SC?
Erin was involved in one (both?) of the Privateer games as a Producer. I could be wrong, but I think he's qualified.
MavericK
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Who knows? As far as I can tell no one has CONFIRMED anything regarding these rumors.
Forbes ran an article on the Escapist thing, and the author said he was basically attacked en masse by SC apologists or suckers - whichever way you want to look at it - people have hundreds or even thousands on rendered pictures or perhaps, if they were prudent, a 3D render where they can walk around it and open doors and stuff.
So they're going to go down with the ship guns blazing, no matter what anyone says. People aren't going to change their mind. I've seen it happen so many times when white knights defend some failing game from the past, usually MMOs. It's no different here really.
And don't take me wrong, I'm not really a hater. I don't think too many people actually dislike the idea of Star Citizen as it is promised. The difference is some people are willing to pay for something that doesn't exist, without any real insurance on delivery (or even delivery as promised, to say nothing of a concrete actual delivery date), and others aren't.
It looks to me like the former are probably going to end up learning a valuable life lesson here in the next year or so.
If there were some kind of monetary advantage to spreading FUD about SC, that would have some merit, but there isn't really.
I know Derek Smart is the moustached villain for SC fans/"investors", and while he seems to have an axe to grind, I severely doubt every single rumor is fabricated. Even only half or a quarter are true...
So you just think they're lying? And how do you expect them to be confirmed? CR to admit that they're true?
CS1: Told to check dates of education so they avoid hiring anyone over 40.
CS4: She [Gardiner] would write emails with so much profanity. She would call people stupid, retard, faggot. Accuse men of not having balls. And she was incredibly hostile to other female employees
CS3: the default reaction to everything was blame and yelling and emails with all capital letters and curse words. It was incredibly toxic, I had to get out.
What's your plausible explanation for none of that being true?
MavericK
Zero Cool
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All I'm saying is that there is no proof given here. Things like profane emails could potentially be leaked (though it's probably part of some NDA), but everything else seems to just be hearsay.
I'm not really defending CR or Star Citizen, but I find it hilarious that people are all of a sudden jumping on the Derek Smart bandwagon after all the shit he has pulled. As to a motive...DS was fading into obscurity and wanted the limelight back on him. If you read his tweets it's obvious he's a narcissist of the highest order.
These rumors may very well be true, but let's treat them as what they are...rumors.
I love it. I backed it. Probably backed it a hell of a lot more than the vast majority of [H] users (though, undoubtedly, not as much as the biggest proponents of it). Privateer 2 is one of my top 10 GOAT, probably. I played every WC and have multiple WC CDs sitting about 4' away from me as I type.
I just don't like the direction things have gone. And regardless of the direction things have gone, I think it is likely that CR has seriously fucked up. Has mismanaged funds. Has promised things that are simply not possible to deliver without a significantly larger budget. Possibly done things of questionable integrity.
How CR responded to those rumors lets me know exactly who's telling to truth and who has something to hide
When an employee of a company tells about something that happened to them, or their opinion about a situation, and a news organization reports it, that isn't quantified as hearsay. That's what is called news.
Again, even though I just said this, this isn't the Derek Smart bandwagon. It isn't just Derek Smart saying these things. It's The Escapist reporting on what nine different people told them. It's also a resignation letter that (from what I've seen) NO ONE has denied as being real.
He wasn't fading. He had faded. He is a narcissist. He's likely an asshole. He absolutely has an axe to grind. He's quite likely jealous and bitter. None of that means he's wrong. It's all ad hominem. DS didn't write The Escapist article. DS didn't write (it would appear) the resignation letter. Forget about DS completely, and you still have those two things, and if even 1/4 of it is true, you still have massive problems.
I wouldn't really call it a rumor when a current or ex employee reports something to a news organization. It might be the truth, or it might be a lie, or it might be their erroneous opinion about something, but it isn't really a rumor. If that's the case then virtually all news is just a rumor.
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