Any topic mention this issue is locked under rule 9.
So Massively reported on it too eh?
Sounds like the guy that claimed that Smart isn't getting his story out there was just blowing hot air, and accusing this site of... well, who knows what. Not doing their job properly I suppose?
I imagine the pressure on Roberts is going to keep building the longer his game takes to release. (Whether justified or not)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
As backers of this project, here is our list of demands:
disclose the full detailed (private jet travel? we want to see it) P&L accounting (money in off-shore bank accounts? we want to know about them) for every crowd-funded dime that has been raised and spent on this project. Allow an independent forensics accountant, hired by backers, to come and do an audit. This is standard practice in developer-publisher relationships. So you know how that works.
disclose the true state of the project in terms of what is expected to be delivered, and when. Allow an independent Executive Producer, hired by backers, to come and do a project review in order to get an accurate picture of the game state, so we know when it is likely to see the light of day – if ever
disclose the true timeline for the project’s completion. As per the above.
setup a page offering refunds to all those who REQUEST it. The TOS is going to be the first thing attacked in any lawsuit. It is not likely to survive a legal challenge. Plus, the FTC will trump all that crap anyway, so there is that.
admit, in no uncertain terms, and apologize that the scope of the project has changed since the original $2.1m kickstarter crowd-funding campaign
halt all further crowd-funding activities until a sizable part of the game – as originally pitched in 2012 – has been delivered to backers who have paid for it. In other words, STOP selling virtual items and taking money for vaporware
address the nepotism issues associated with the hiring of unqualified family members to head key parts of this crowd-funded project. In this regard, explain the benefits of a) promoting your brother to an Executive Producer position, as opposed to hiring someone (like the departed Alex Mayberry) who has the experience to match the job. Also what new benefits (pay raise, shares etc) he now has access to, for going into that position b) hiring someone, allegedly your wife, to a position that she is seemingly not qualified to hold. And why a more experienced executive wasn’t put in this position. Especially since that dept has several men, and women, with more experience and qualifications to do the job. Instead, they get to answer to her; and naturally, she gets paid more, as per the position
file the necessary SEC paperwork (Regulation A+, as per the Title IV of the JOBS Act) that fit within the guidelines for crowd-funding activities. These automatically become public, and are subject to FOI requests. It effectively makes the backers bona-fide investors, and thus gives them more oversight over this project, and where their money is going. UPDATE: Even though this regulation doesn’t quite fit within the current biz model you are using, you have setup various corporate entities around the world, for various aspects of the business, so this is not something that’s insurmountable for your officers to do
This is a reasonable short list of demands that any company acting in good faith would have no problem fulfilling. All CIG needs to do is become a bit more transparent and all of this bad press would go away. Not only would transparency make the bad press go away, but it would serve as a conduit of good will that would in turn allow CIG to raise even more money going forward. The fact that they are not even trying to squelch any of this bad press by submitting to at least some of these demands is a telling sign of an admission of guilt.
By voluntarily, and without cause, deciding to refund DSmart his backer's money, CIG is attempting to take away some of the thunder in Smart's claims. In doing so, what they are clearly attempting to do is take away any strength that Smart may have by claiming that he himself is a backer therefore giving him a vested right and interest for making these demands. They are attempting to disassociate him as an investor from the project and in doing so, in essence saying, "you are not even a backer so just go away and leave us alone." Little do they know that this will actually backfire on them because what it does is confirm the fact that CIG has received his requested "List of Demands" but has decided to not only refuse to act on them, but to act in bad faith by attempting to disassociate or create separation from him by involuntarily sending him back his contribution. This, in and of itself, is very telling because if you have nothing to hide, why not, in good faith, simply keep his contribution and provide the information requested?
Deservedly or not, CIG is being made to look very bad in this fiasco. It would do them well to start becoming a bit more transparent and begin responding to some of these demands. There should be no problem doing so if you are an honest company, acting in good faith. Their behavior has become very very shady and unless they start coming clean this is all going to start unraveling very quickly and no amount of paid dispatched shills to popular outside websites/blogs, or hired crisis management PR talking heads, are going to be able to circumvent the predictable catastrophic end result looming ahead.
Dear god, such drama. You don't get to make demands, and there is NOTHING that indicates that project is any where near at risk yet. Arm chair developers irk me.
"If you can’t innovate, (then) litigate” (or “Don’t innovate, litigate") is a popular saying, especially in computing and new technologies. The company with the older technology litigates to prevent the competition.
“If You Can’t Innovate, Then Litigate” was the title of an article by Art Wittmann in Network Computing (July 1997).
It's LOL ridiculous that Derek Smart has any standing whatsoever to criticize another company's business, backer (ex now) or not. Come on!
On the other hand, when it's HIM that's sounding the alarm bells - UH. OH. The principle of "Evil knows Evil" may apply...
I'm a minor backer (just me and my 315p exploring the galaxy) and I'm still okay with it, because my thought process was: "Either I get the game that sounds interesting, or an EPIC MMO disaster that's worth the money for the entertainment it will cause."
to make an incredibly large multiplayer universe is deffinately possible. Elite had done an incredible job with their game, and they had a fraction of the money/talent that RSI has. i would be plenty happy if SC used the same technology as Elite, and just made so you can also walk around your ship (instead of strapped to your seat like in Elite), and land on a few planets. So the basic idea for Star Citizen is very doable, and i'm actually surprised it's taken them this long.
having said that, i believe that at least 80% of what Robers has promised will never be in the game, and this is where the "failure" will be measured. there is simply no way he is making all his fans happy and implement everything he has talked about for the last 3 years.
Furthermore, i don't agree with his business plan: pay now to play later. he is not going to have much to sell once the game launches, as most people will already have it all. this will push the game to turn into a cash shop heavy experience. i'm almost certain this game will turn out to be very similar to Entropia Universe, where players are pretty much forced to spend real money to gain just about anything in game. if you don't pay any money you are restricted to about 10% of the gameplay. the sad part is, there are hundreds of thousand of hard core fans that will gladly pay through the nose. The Persistent Universe in SC will be a rich man's playground.
Giving money on the hopes that you will get something in return, i.e. a game is just too comical to me, and then to top it off a company and it's employees "making" the game get butt hurt over being asked where is the return on my money.
Originally posted by Gazwkd Oh deary me. Poor old Derek smart has made it his job to try and destroy anything related to Chris Roberts. He has tried to get hi'articles' out everywhere and has met little success. I expected better of this site than to publicise an individual who simply rants and raves whilst promoting his own buggy, badly designed, badly conceived games that no one really cares about. He has a massive case of jealousy, upon looking at his posting history he obviously needs professional help. That this site has fallen for the ravings and rantings of this individual does the sites credibility no favours.
Whatever one thinks of Derek, he raises some valid points in his article. And quite simply, there's a story developing here, in one way or another, which it's our duty to report.
My personal opinion is he's a washed up has been who either out of jealously or the need to get another 15 mins of fame is out to troll. Sadly MMORPG seems to be given him the attention, and spotlight he desires. What next, maybe we can get the developer of Greed Monger to weight in on EQN or some other fantasy MMORPG in development because I'm sure he would have some good points too.
Well words like Collusion should be obvious to anyone on the internet now a days.
150 million,well apparently the pitch by early developers was that 85 million would be close to the equivalent of about 150 million when you eliminate publishers and investors.
I do agree that it is not at all about being done but what is done.
As to wasting money,well Blizzard operates the same way,they outsource a lot of work and CSI last time i checked had at least 4 operations working on this game.Those added operations add a lot of overhead.
The HANGAR?Well i agree this was just more of the ONLY real content we have seen so far and that is ships and sales of ships and a place to view your ship lol.
However their stance on the ships is also one i question,they are of some oddball belief that working on several and not getting them done one at a time is a better way to operate.I see ONLY one reason to believe that nonsense,the truth is more ships further feeds that engine know as Cash Shop !!.
After all NONE of those ships had to be actually fully working with all the add ons,they just had top be a ship to sell.So if they spent all efforts on completing each ship there would be less options and likely a LOT less sales.I bet a VERY high % of those backers have bought several ships.
When i did the free showcase,the simple fly around,i was like wtf is this.It looks they rushed a couple guys to get something quickly ready that showed no effort at all.The ship we flew around didn't even have textures on it,that is the BEST they could come up with after all that time?So ya i would say there must be a LOT of money getting wasted and a lot of incompetent employees.
my final statement:I do believe there will be a game,i have no doubt of that,however not nearly the game they claim or others think.However i have never thought for one minute that Eve was any good,a pile of junk if you ask me and yet that game has made a ton of money.So if Chris goal was to simply make a ton of money,i suspect he has accomplished that but i also suspect his reputation will be tarnished.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Originally posted by Gazwkd Oh deary me. Poor old Derek smart has made it his job to try and destroy anything related to Chris Roberts. He has tried to get hi'articles' out everywhere and has met little success. I expected better of this site than to publicise an individual who simply rants and raves whilst promoting his own buggy, badly designed, badly conceived games that no one really cares about. He has a massive case of jealousy, upon looking at his posting history he obviously needs professional help. That this site has fallen for the ravings and rantings of this individual does the sites credibility no favours.
Whatever one thinks of Derek, he raises some valid points in his article. And quite simply, there's a story developing here, in one way or another, which it's our duty to report.
Bill.. will be interested to see if you hold Pathfinder Online to the same level of scrutiny regarding their Crowdfunding and hold them to the same list of demands shown above. That would obviously also apply to other Crowdfunded games as well.
Pathfinder, while it may be shallow, it's not even remotely the same thing as SC, they have released a product, it may not be enjoyable to you, but at least you can physically play the game, not just modules of it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Gazwkd Oh deary me. Poor old Derek smart has made it his job to try and destroy anything related to Chris Roberts. He has tried to get hi'articles' out everywhere and has met little success. I expected better of this site than to publicise an individual who simply rants and raves whilst promoting his own buggy, badly designed, badly conceived games that no one really cares about. He has a massive case of jealousy, upon looking at his posting history he obviously needs professional help. That this site has fallen for the ravings and rantings of this individual does the sites credibility no favours.
Whatever one thinks of Derek, he raises some valid points in his article. And quite simply, there's a story developing here, in one way or another, which it's our duty to report.
My personal opinion is he's a washed up has been who either out of jealously or the need to get another 15 mins of fame is out to troll. Sadly MMORPG seems to be given him the attention, and spotlight he desires. What next, maybe we can get the developer of Greed Monger to weight in on EQN or some other fantasy MMORPG in development because I'm sure he would have some good points too.
Regardless of how anyone feels about DSmart, the issues he is bringing to light are valid ones. How about supporting the need for a bit more transparency from CIG rather than attempting to vilify or demonize the messenger. History is ripe with similar scenarios of attempts to silence the credible warnings of a tainted source, only for the tainted source to be proven righteous in the end. There is no harm in putting a little pressure on CIG to be a bit more transparent in return for the more than $85 million dollars it has received in contributions. It is the least they should be able to do for their backers. I, for one, am thankful and join DSmart in an effort to get a little more transparency from what appears to be very shady dealings by this company.
Originally posted by chilliz I think he has some very valid concerns and questions. Its one thing just being a hater, but really questioning and asking whats going on with this game should be anyones right. Everything about this game just seems dubious, they are getting funds that tentpole Hollywood movies might get, and its only right to be asking the questions
YES people SHOULD have concerns,if you are simply a pacifist that just sits there like some rabid fanbois and says EVERYTHING about this operation is great,then you deserve to be playing bad games.
When you have that kind of people's money,your darn skippy people should be questioning the operation.If this was an investor,you think they wouldn't want to know,of course they would.
I have never stood by and said ok that's good enough,i want better,i want my game to be better,there is always room for improvement.The problem is developers like pacifists and fanbois because they can pitch them anything and they buy it.Every single person that had a vision for this game should be asking questions about their concerns and they SHOULD have concerns.
Truth is that i feel a lot of people just toss money around blindly with no clue what they are doing,i see it in the thousands everyday on twitch.Why do you think Amazon paid 970 million for Twitch .tv?A LOT of easy money out there it seems.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Being a Kickstarter Jockey is a great job that pays very well. All you need to do is come up with a concept and wait for the money! Nothing can go wrong.
Should we question? Not me. It falls under the category of "don't know, don't care".
I believe in free market. That means vote with your wallet. The votes say it's going to be fantastic. Fine with me. Good-luck.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
all Robers has to do is give you your money back and then make a new ship for sale....get all his money back with interest.
i don't believe there should be any refunds. it was very well explained how a kickstarter donation works. nothing is guaranteed. you get what you get, when you get it.
Man... just imagine if Bioware did this. Imagine if they crowdraised a crapton of money, but still kept building ingame items and selling them for real money, all while not having an actual game to use those items in, over 3 years on. It would be a great day for investors of torches and pitchforks.
Whether you think Robert's intentions are genuine or not, ya gotta concede that something smells fishy. If you don't, I suspect the desire for the pitched game may be clouding your judgement.
Take AA. People were pretty upset about the $150 Founder's Pack. What if, before launch, they sold high resource super awesome lakefront plots for 500 bucks? A guaranteed plot for 300? And imagine doing that before there's even a game world to walk on? All despite having more than adequate funding?
If you don't think that smells like a Nevada pig farm in August, then I've got some investments I'd like to go over with you.
I guess I'm getting off lucky. My only investment is a free ship I got when I bought a new video card. To lose that would be less of a setback than the 2 hours of life I wasted watching Wing Commander.
All valid points. They need to stop trying to raise money and build the game. If they still need to raise money then they were wasting money and lots of it which means they would never be able to build and finish proper game. Then they need to start releasing gameplay videos and being honest about what is done and what isnt.
Work and release the game they said they would last year and THEN add all that other stuff over time as it gets finished.
Comments
Oh my lord, if (yes note the word IF) this bubble collapses, we are in for a shitstorm of drama.
Would it be appropriate to post some image of Michael Jackson eating popcorn?
Latest statement of trading says in excess of 640,000. I'm pretty certain these numbers don't include Steam sales as they fall in the 2015/2016 fiscal year although I could be wrong http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/12402020.html
I would get it ready , you know , just in case.
This could end up being very interesting.
And this is the reply of the moderators at CIG
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/271826/more-star-citizen-drama-from-massively
Any topic mention this issue is locked under rule 9.
want 7 free days of playing? Try this
http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
So Massively reported on it too eh?
Sounds like the guy that claimed that Smart isn't getting his story out there was just blowing hot air, and accusing this site of... well, who knows what. Not doing their job properly I suppose?
I imagine the pressure on Roberts is going to keep building the longer his game takes to release. (Whether justified or not)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Dear god, such drama. You don't get to make demands, and there is NOTHING that indicates that project is any where near at risk yet. Arm chair developers irk me.
DEAR CHRIS ROBERTS, RSI, STAR CITIZEN....
PLEASE, PUT UP OR SHUT UP!
WISH I COULD GET MY $250 BACK LIKE DEREK SMART DID.
CHRIS ROBERTS WILL RETIRE 10x RICHER AND CAN RETIRE NOW THAT HE PULLED THE WOOL OVER OUR EYES.
The Derek Smart Masterplan:
If You Can't Innovate, Litigate!
"If you can’t innovate, (then) litigate” (or “Don’t innovate, litigate") is a popular saying, especially in computing and new technologies. The company with the older technology litigates to prevent the competition.
“If You Can’t Innovate, Then Litigate” was the title of an article by Art Wittmann in Network Computing (July 1997).
Have fun
It's LOL ridiculous that Derek Smart has any standing whatsoever to criticize another company's business, backer (ex now) or not. Come on!
On the other hand, when it's HIM that's sounding the alarm bells - UH. OH. The principle of "Evil knows Evil" may apply...
I'm a minor backer (just me and my 315p exploring the galaxy) and I'm still okay with it, because my thought process was: "Either I get the game that sounds interesting, or an EPIC MMO disaster that's worth the money for the entertainment it will cause."
Status Quo for that one.
Avatars are people too
to make an incredibly large multiplayer universe is deffinately possible. Elite had done an incredible job with their game, and they had a fraction of the money/talent that RSI has. i would be plenty happy if SC used the same technology as Elite, and just made so you can also walk around your ship (instead of strapped to your seat like in Elite), and land on a few planets. So the basic idea for Star Citizen is very doable, and i'm actually surprised it's taken them this long.
having said that, i believe that at least 80% of what Robers has promised will never be in the game, and this is where the "failure" will be measured. there is simply no way he is making all his fans happy and implement everything he has talked about for the last 3 years.
Furthermore, i don't agree with his business plan: pay now to play later. he is not going to have much to sell once the game launches, as most people will already have it all. this will push the game to turn into a cash shop heavy experience. i'm almost certain this game will turn out to be very similar to Entropia Universe, where players are pretty much forced to spend real money to gain just about anything in game. if you don't pay any money you are restricted to about 10% of the gameplay. the sad part is, there are hundreds of thousand of hard core fans that will gladly pay through the nose. The Persistent Universe in SC will be a rich man's playground.
Giving money on the hopes that you will get something in return, i.e. a game is just too comical to me, and then to top it off a company and it's employees "making" the game get butt hurt over being asked where is the return on my money.
What a scam.
My personal opinion is he's a washed up has been who either out of jealously or the need to get another 15 mins of fame is out to troll. Sadly MMORPG seems to be given him the attention, and spotlight he desires. What next, maybe we can get the developer of Greed Monger to weight in on EQN or some other fantasy MMORPG in development because I'm sure he would have some good points too.
Well words like Collusion should be obvious to anyone on the internet now a days.
150 million,well apparently the pitch by early developers was that 85 million would be close to the equivalent of about 150 million when you eliminate publishers and investors.
I do agree that it is not at all about being done but what is done.
As to wasting money,well Blizzard operates the same way,they outsource a lot of work and CSI last time i checked had at least 4 operations working on this game.Those added operations add a lot of overhead.
The HANGAR?Well i agree this was just more of the ONLY real content we have seen so far and that is ships and sales of ships and a place to view your ship lol.
However their stance on the ships is also one i question,they are of some oddball belief that working on several and not getting them done one at a time is a better way to operate.I see ONLY one reason to believe that nonsense,the truth is more ships further feeds that engine know as Cash Shop !!.
After all NONE of those ships had to be actually fully working with all the add ons,they just had top be a ship to sell.So if they spent all efforts on completing each ship there would be less options and likely a LOT less sales.I bet a VERY high % of those backers have bought several ships.
When i did the free showcase,the simple fly around,i was like wtf is this.It looks they rushed a couple guys to get something quickly ready that showed no effort at all.The ship we flew around didn't even have textures on it,that is the BEST they could come up with after all that time?So ya i would say there must be a LOT of money getting wasted and a lot of incompetent employees.
my final statement:I do believe there will be a game,i have no doubt of that,however not nearly the game they claim or others think.However i have never thought for one minute that Eve was any good,a pile of junk if you ask me and yet that game has made a ton of money.So if Chris goal was to simply make a ton of money,i suspect he has accomplished that but i also suspect his reputation will be tarnished.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Pathfinder, while it may be shallow, it's not even remotely the same thing as SC, they have released a product, it may not be enjoyable to you, but at least you can physically play the game, not just modules of it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Regardless of how anyone feels about DSmart, the issues he is bringing to light are valid ones. How about supporting the need for a bit more transparency from CIG rather than attempting to vilify or demonize the messenger. History is ripe with similar scenarios of attempts to silence the credible warnings of a tainted source, only for the tainted source to be proven righteous in the end. There is no harm in putting a little pressure on CIG to be a bit more transparent in return for the more than $85 million dollars it has received in contributions. It is the least they should be able to do for their backers. I, for one, am thankful and join DSmart in an effort to get a little more transparency from what appears to be very shady dealings by this company.
YES people SHOULD have concerns,if you are simply a pacifist that just sits there like some rabid fanbois and says EVERYTHING about this operation is great,then you deserve to be playing bad games.
When you have that kind of people's money,your darn skippy people should be questioning the operation.If this was an investor,you think they wouldn't want to know,of course they would.
I have never stood by and said ok that's good enough,i want better,i want my game to be better,there is always room for improvement.The problem is developers like pacifists and fanbois because they can pitch them anything and they buy it.Every single person that had a vision for this game should be asking questions about their concerns and they SHOULD have concerns.
Truth is that i feel a lot of people just toss money around blindly with no clue what they are doing,i see it in the thousands everyday on twitch.Why do you think Amazon paid 970 million for Twitch .tv?A LOT of easy money out there it seems.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Should we question? Not me. It falls under the category of "don't know, don't care".
I believe in free market. That means vote with your wallet. The votes say it's going to be fantastic. Fine with me. Good-luck.
According to this poll, as of now, 30% want their money back. That's how you start a revolution.
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/271799/are-refunds-for-our-packages-ships-from-cig-now-okay-to-be-requested
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
revolution of the gullible nerds.
all Robers has to do is give you your money back and then make a new ship for sale....get all his money back with interest.
i don't believe there should be any refunds. it was very well explained how a kickstarter donation works. nothing is guaranteed. you get what you get, when you get it.
Man... just imagine if Bioware did this. Imagine if they crowdraised a crapton of money, but still kept building ingame items and selling them for real money, all while not having an actual game to use those items in, over 3 years on. It would be a great day for investors of torches and pitchforks.
Whether you think Robert's intentions are genuine or not, ya gotta concede that something smells fishy. If you don't, I suspect the desire for the pitched game may be clouding your judgement.
Take AA. People were pretty upset about the $150 Founder's Pack. What if, before launch, they sold high resource super awesome lakefront plots for 500 bucks? A guaranteed plot for 300? And imagine doing that before there's even a game world to walk on? All despite having more than adequate funding?
If you don't think that smells like a Nevada pig farm in August, then I've got some investments I'd like to go over with you.
I guess I'm getting off lucky. My only investment is a free ship I got when I bought a new video card. To lose that would be less of a setback than the 2 hours of life I wasted watching Wing Commander.
Maybe us consumer's should get our money back from all the POS's we've been shoveled over the years.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
All valid points. They need to stop trying to raise money and build the game. If they still need to raise money then they were wasting money and lots of it which means they would never be able to build and finish proper game. Then they need to start releasing gameplay videos and being honest about what is done and what isnt.
Work and release the game they said they would last year and THEN add all that other stuff over time as it gets finished.