People have so much free time in our modern society that they need to create drama or they feel empty... I suggest to all who have that need to go on the fields and plans some potatoes.
Well, I don't know how things work in other countries, but in the US we have legally binding agreements when money is given in good faith for an expected product. The provider of that product or service is expected to provide it, or they are committing the very definition of fraud.
i.e. the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.
In this case, we're obviously talking about money. Making false promises in return for money (if they in fact don't deliver on what they have promised). Even if they have terms of service saying they can hold your money forever, or you never get it back, that's NOT legally binding. You can't create a contract that contains illegal things. It would be like making a contract that allows someone to murder you. Even if you want it to be legal, the act is still in violation of the law.
So, while there may be some grey area in terms of how much time they have to fulfill their obligations, and what the regulations for crowdfunded projects are according to the Federal Trade Commission, you have to remember that they are not saying this money is donated. You also have to remember that to accept donations in the USA you need to be a registered charity. This is a corporation, and NOT a registered tax-exempt charity.
The arguments that this money was donated, or that they can do whatever they want with the money with no accountability are completely baseless. This isn't China...
Originally posted by Phry At the moment, probably not much chance of a law suit happening, i think realistically we'd have to see 2016 in without further progress being made before even start thinking about lawsuits.
Basically this... the way folks act you'd think this game was in development for the greater part of the last 10 years. It's a little over 2 and half years into it's full development, that's hardly enough time to build one of the largest games ever created. even 2016 is pushing it.
Where is everyone getting the notion this game should be out already?
Because people have the idea that if a game hasn't launched within a year or so of them first hearing about it, it must be vaporware. Which is a problem, with Kickstarter now meaning that people hear about some games rather earlier in the development cycle than before.
In the case of SC, it's worse than that.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
Originally posted by adamlotus75 Maybe the reason CR had to crowd fund this game is because no publisher wanted to fund it given his track record?
I genuinely believe that CR thought he could deliver the Kickstarter version of the game. I think he then got hugely carried away once he realised how much money people were willing to throw his way.
I don't think he is a con man at all, but I do believe he and the SC team are now way out of their depth and struggling badly. Meanwhile, Frontier is doing a great job of building a platform that they can really flesh out into the complete universe that SC aspired to be. By the time SC arrives E:D may be well ahead.
I think CR should open up refunds and scale the game back to the original vision, and deliver SOMETHING rather than continue to shoot at unrealistic targets. Trouble is, that won't happen as he is playing (and burning) other people's money in a model that leaves him with little or no accountability to deliver anything.
He will carry on for a while, and eventually stomp off in a huff at the world that didn't 'get him' or understand his 'vision' leaving others to pick up the pieces.
I would love there to be a game as described by the plans for SC, and if it ever arrives I will buy it for sure. I just think that CR has no 'skin in the game' to make it good or deliver, and that is probably the most worrying part and why I never backed it.
Some people have dropped thousands of dollars on virtual ships... I'm guessing they will be CIGs main problem at some point in the future. If they start refunding the Space Whales you know the game is up.
Pretty much. Though I think if the pinch gets too tight, CR will go to someone big like EA for more money. Which has the advantage of having a fall guy for when things don't work out. Just like he did with Microsoft.
The fans have this mistaken impression that he's some brilliant genius because his name is displayed prominently on some boxes. And he talks a good talk.
Though if anyone expected SC to be out in a reasonable proximity to the proposed dates, they were nearly as unrealistic as Roberts.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
WRONG. 32 % (24 out of 76). Most likely goes above 50 % after GamesCom in 2 week (Multi crew ship introduction)
WRONG 8 out of 47 are feature complete according to the spreadsheet (clicky) you linked yourself. We are not counting variants of the same ship or different colors or NPC ships here. Most likely they will invent time travel and we all fly real spaceships. /smh
No Mining
True
No Trading
True
No Missions
True - soon to come with Social Module.
No Stations
Wrong. Golden Horizon Station and Battle Arena - see videos.
I have not seen stations in space, where you land and exit your spaceship.
No Planets
Wrong. Plenty of information especially on the Arc Corp landing zone which is used for the upcoming Social Module. Plenty more information on other landing zones available e.g. Terra or Nyx.
Marketing not facts, gameplay or actual implementation.
No Galaxy
Wrong. Plenty of information on Planets and Stargate Network is available. Also the map.
Marketing not facts, gameplay or actual implementation.
No FPS
Wrong. See available videos. The playable FPS module is delayed by a few weeks because of a necessary improvement in the netcode, but there is PLENTY of info on all aspects of the FPS module.
Not available as of yet so i am not wrong.
No Single Player
True. See upcoming information at GamesCom in 2 weeks.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
Originally posted by Phry At the moment, probably not much chance of a law suit happening, i think realistically we'd have to see 2016 in without further progress being made before even start thinking about lawsuits.
Basically this... the way folks act you'd think this game was in development for the greater part of the last 10 years. It's a little over 2 and half years into it's full development, that's hardly enough time to build one of the largest games ever created. even 2016 is pushing it.
Where is everyone getting the notion this game should be out already?
Because people have the idea that if a game hasn't launched within a year or so of them first hearing about it, it must be vaporware. Which is a problem, with Kickstarter now meaning that people hear about some games rather earlier in the development cycle than before.
In the case of SC, it's worse than that.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Well ... we (the backers) DO know that more exists than what you mentioned.
In contrast to some people we DO read the many detailed reports and DO watch the many detailed video blogs about the ongoing work. We even **gasp** read the "Dev answer questions" part of the forum (with a few thousand dev answers).
Some of us even have access via the subscriber part of the homepage to additional information not yet available to the general public (data comes to the open homepage after a period of a few weeks).
So ... after 2.6 years, 305 staff and $85.1 Million .... there exists quite a lot of stuff that looks IMHO pretty good !
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I hate all the little guys who always think they can sue to make a quick buck. It really annoys me. Plus they never ever actually get the money in a class action suit or if they do, it's pennies and comes 3-4 years after the ruling. In a class action lawsuit the lawyer gets his 60% plus cut and then all the people get equal shares divided.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
Yet EA/Bioware secured funding and used their own money for the project unlike SC who could not secure funding hence the turn to crowdfunding.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
Yet EA/Bioware secured funding and used their own money for the project unlike SC who could not secure funding hence the turn to crowdfunding.
Lol glad you pointed that out, he obviously didnt think before he made that silly comment.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
How do you know? You been on the development team of SWTOR? Have you seen their game after 3 years? I sincerely doubt it. This is about CIG and SC not SWTOR. They have nothing to do with each other, not even the same game or concept.
Hello Strawman, nice to meet you, now move along and take that foot out of your mouth.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
Oh man thanks for this post it just opened my eyes to the industry....
I bought Blizzard/Activision stocks to help fund "Titan" and they cancelled it.... man I need to sue the crap out of them. Breach of contract right? Hey wait anyone have the TOS on the stock purchases. I think I read somewhere they have to give me everything I think they should have delivered right?
I know not everyone on here are from the US, but a good chunk of you are, and it appalls me that you don't know the basic fundamentals of your own capitalistic economy.
Invest at your own risk and Buyer Beware
See, this is where people think they are "investing" when they buy into a crowdfunded effort, when all they are doing is "donating". When you give money to SC/CIG, they do not issue you stock, a profit sharing agreement, a bond or any other financial instrument. Just some promises to give you some stuff, maybe, eventually when and if a game releases.
To answer your not quite question, companies can be sued by investors when they do not make reasonable decisions. In legal parlance, it is "breach of fiduciary responsibility", which means that a company breached their duty to the stockholder by doing one or more things that hurt the value of the company (and should have known better) and the stockholders' financial interest.
But that is not what is happening here, so there can not be an "investor lawsuit" because none of the people that backed this game or bought ships that don't exist, are actually investors (so you are completely wrong).
That said, people most likely are "customers" in the eyes of the law (or close enough to take it to court), and as such certain consumer protection rights might and probably do apply. (We have seen various US State gov'ts starting to pay attention to crowdfunded efforts and take on the "scammers".)
So, even tho you were trying to be snarky, you were almost right, but for the wrong reason.
Yes I was being snarky, but I was trying to bring a lighter side to the Idiocy that seems to be abound... and not to make a point or to even add any real value to the conversation.
If you want me to actually be serious then I would have related this to the American Red Cross or any other orginization that excepts donations and go into the effort and concepts that rule those kind of companies.
This issue with that is most of those companies are none profit or a not for profit so that won't work either as RSI is very much a profit driven entity.
So that leaves us with a hybrid model that no one has really thought of how it is going to impact the laws between "Investor" and "Donor". What you can probably count on right now for the limited knowledge that we have is. Everything that has been brought in "Money Wise" From the Kickstarter and the Other Crowd funding site as been labeled as "Investment Capital" from "None Classified Investors" as this allows them to easily use the money in their CAPEX budgets and won't have to immediately need to pay taxes on it upfront to the different forms of Government that would require payment. Hence lowering they amount of taxes they would have to actually by at year end.
There are so many use cases that will be coming out of this that I would love to investigate and see how it all unfolds as this has the potential to impact the overall way we invest in new projects, and at the very least how companies in the future will classify these types of new "investors" as a whole.
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
Yet EA/Bioware secured funding and used their own money for the project unlike SC who could not secure funding hence the turn to crowdfunding.
Lol glad you pointed that out, he obviously didnt think before he made that silly comment.
What does avenue of funding have to do with it? Devs don't show things off to the public (which is exactly what crowdfunding backers are) to please their investors. Real dealings with investors are handled through back channels and private meetings where unready as well as under wraps property is protected. They show things off to the public when they're ready to be shown off, to build awareness and hype...
Thinking that because they were out of the conceptual stage a couple years ago means they should have more than what they do is not even remotely fair reasoning (we don't even know what they have behind the scenes). It really shows a person has no idea what they're rambling about.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
How do you know? You been on the development team of SWTOR? Have you seen their game after 3 years? I sincerely doubt it. This is about CIG and SC not SWTOR. They have nothing to do with each other, not even the same game or concept.
Hello Strawman, nice to meet you, now move along and take that foot out of your mouth.
Have faith!
Perhaps you could link me to examples of "functional gameplay" that other major AAA MMO's demo'd at the 2-3 year mark in their development cycles ?
The origin of funding is irrelevant in this argument, what we are trying to prove here is how advanced development should be at the 2-3 year mark.
If other MMO's were showing off much more advanced demo's of gameplay at similar stages of development, then its fair to express concern about the current level of progress in SC.
I simply used SWTOR as an example because they also used a pre-built engine for their game.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
How do you know? You been on the development team of SWTOR? Have you seen their game after 3 years? I sincerely doubt it. This is about CIG and SC not SWTOR. They have nothing to do with each other, not even the same game or concept.
Hello Strawman, nice to meet you, now move along and take that foot out of your mouth.
Have faith!
Perhaps you could link me to examples of "functional gameplay" that other major AAA MMO's demo'd at the 2-3 year mark in their development cycles ?
The origin of funding is irrelevant in this argument, what we are trying to prove here is how advanced development should be at the 2-3 year mark.
If other MMO's were showing off much more advanced demo's of gameplay at similar stages of development, then its fair to express concern about the current level of progress in SC.
I simply used SWTOR as an example because they also used a pre-built engine for their game.
Honestly, you won't be able to reason with these guys because they're suffering from a major case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Oh man thanks for this post it just opened my eyes to the industry....
I bought Blizzard/Activision stocks to help fund "Titan" and they cancelled it.... man I need to sue the crap out of them. Breach of contract right? Hey wait anyone have the TOS on the stock purchases. I think I read somewhere they have to give me everything I think they should have delivered right?
I know not everyone on here are from the US, but a good chunk of you are, and it appalls me that you don't know the basic fundamentals of your own capitalistic economy.
Invest at your own risk and Buyer Beware
/snip
If you want me to actually be serious then I would have related this to the American Red Cross or any other orginization that excepts donations and go into the effort and concepts that rule those kind of companies.
Sort of funny aside that you mention the Red Cross and donating: most people don't know what happens when you donate blood at one of their blood drives.
The perception is that the blood is given to hospitals to save lives, etc etc.. Maybe that was so once, but the blood they take in (in the US at least) is SOLD to blood products companies and not for small price, either (the number I saw years ago was $284 a pint, which was then resold to hospitals for even more. A lot of the blood products are even sold/resold overseas.)
They use the money to pay salaries and fund their operations. So when people sit down and donate a pint of blood, they are really giving the Red Cross ~ $300, and not really "saving someone's life".
But the Red Cross does not want people to know that...
Honestly, you won't be able to reason with these guys because they're suffering from a major case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Did you just learn about DKE? You seem to be sprinkling it in your dismissive replies everywhere you feel SC needs championing,
Personally I still prefer Darwin's "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" version even though his observation about this phenomenon is also not original: it has been around for centuries in one form or another.
You need some new material for your one liners, bud.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Here's the problem with a class action suit. By the time it gets to be heard, RSI/CIG would most likely have ceased to exist as a going concern (management speak for: folded).
This is the same reason why, as much as most of us "know" about what's going on, we can't post something that will immediately put us on the defensive, in a long, drawn, legal fight. Because once that happens, by the time it gets anywhere, again RSI/CIG would have ceased to be going concern. And so, in the event of any win in the suit, there would be no recourse to collect anything, let alone legal fees. So it would have all been a waste of time and money.
So, framing what we know in specific language so that it falls outside the realms of defamation (even if true), is what most of us are doing. Because if they file a complaint, your response with the facts, will pretty much get the whole thing tossed immediately and within a month or so. Then you get to recoup legal costs.
As soon as person A says "this" about person B, and Person B sues, all person A has to do is show that it's true. And person A can do that either with indisputable sourced material (because the truth is 100% defense against defamation suit) or by deposing person B, asking for records in discovery etc. It's up to person B to "prove" that what person A said is false. If they can't do that, case is closed.
And this is why the impending FTC investigation is so vital to all of this, because only they will have unfettered access to everything.
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.
Here's the problem with a class action suit. By the time it gets to be heard, RSI/CIG would most likely have ceased to exist as a going concern (management speak for: folded).
So, the next plan of attack is to simply try and burn down the entire project because you have some 'instinct' when you yourself have yet to produce anything AAA, let alone a full-scale MMO. Or, for that matter, even a critically acclaimed single-player game.
Plus, you're already starting the 'condescending' attitude towards people here.
This is the same reason why, as much as most of us "know" about what's going on, we can't post something that will immediately put us on the defensive, in a long, drawn, legal fight. Because once that happens, by the time it gets anywhere, again RSI/CIG would have ceased to be going concern. And so, in the event of any win in the suit, there would be no recourse to collect anything, let alone legal fees. So it would have all been a waste of time and money.So, framing what we know in specific language so that it falls outside the realms of defamation (even if true), is what most of us are doing. Because if they file a complaint, your response with the facts, will pretty much get the whole thing tossed immediately and within a month or so. Then you get to recoup legal costs. As soon as person A says "this" about person B, and Person B sues, all person A has to do is show that it's true. And person A can do that either with indisputable sourced material (because the truth is 100% defense against defamation suit) or by deposing person B, asking for records in discovery etc. It's up to person B to "prove" that what person A said is false. If they can't do that, case is closed. And this is why the impending FTC investigation is so vital to all of this, because only they will have unfettered access to everything.
Here it is, folks. The reality of Derek Smart's 'legal' position on the whole thing. Please tell me something, Derek. How do you know the FTC is 'looking' into this? Do you have evidence to back up this claim or are you banking on people that won't ask the real questions to simply to follow you at your word?
PROVE that Star Citizen is vaporware. You've leveled this claim at Star Citizen, but you haven't backed it up.
Do you honestly think you're going to step in and take over the Star Citizen project and the funding? From my perspective, this appears to be your intentions (or endgame) here.
You need to get over the fact that other people are more successful and have more talent than you do in the gaming industry. You do not own the vision nor are you entitled to be the person that builds the biggest sci-fi/space combat/fps MMO. Chris Roberts found the way to generate the funds for a reason; he has a proven track record. You don't.
Just an FYI to all those people who try to claim it's not possible to sue. It is actually. We are already talking about it with the Att Gen from illinois, CA, and Iowa.
The company has falsified uses of funds in relation to the kickstarter marketing. They also broke the rules on kickstarter for using the funds from one game, to fund a completely separate project, that wasn't mentioned or included in the first campaign. Kickstarter has complaints already and they have refunded a LOT of people for complaints directed towards Star Citizen. (last response shown over 600 people were refunded, nearly $14,000). That doesn't include the hundreds of people who reversed the charges within the year ACH consumer protection way..
Let alone the aspects that the player base was wanting a space exploration game with multiple worlds and galaxies. The game fell short of its time frame several times and we are now.. what. 5 years behind schedule on almost all of the development. Because they chose to do other projects and focus on the squadron42. Which is what they used Star Citizen funds to create. Which is against Kickstarter policies and against the law for "investment" related objections to consumer crowd funding.
Any investment or donation in relation to development in a private organization is subject to legal arbitration and no related "anti-arbitrtion clause" will or can stop it.
Those anti-arbitrtion clauses are if and when the company fulfills heir agreement, when they have failed to do so since they created the crowd funding.
Chris Roberts is a fraud. He always has been. He didn't create anything years ago, he stole ideas and then profited from other peoples ideas. Just as now. They can't even hire real developers to finish a mock game with 200 mil in revenue? That's not raising any flags to anyone? Red dead took 100 mil to make. The Witcher 3, wild hunt took 85 mil to make.
If they want to be taken seriously, then they need to have transparency, which they refused to do each and every time they were asked to. So now they will get hit eventually with the Consumer protection scam depts. I personally have a game dev background and a Masters of Arts in Animation. Yet when I applied to work for them for EXTREMELY low costs and provide my 14 years of game consulting input. Which I have done mods for Arma 2 &3, consutled Crysis 3, COD, BF3, Medal of Honor. Just to name a few. I wasn't even called back. While they "lead developers" are floating time by and having fun in their studios letting the low tiers take all the work and blame, while leadership literally has no direction.
Class action is up to the people who want to join it. So if you want to. Then speak up. Otherwise, the govt can take the lead and get the money back and disperse it, as they are wanting to do now. (same people who got CTU online for 500 mil). I think they would be pretty successful. JS.
Nice necromancy skills there Beleg13 and on your first post no less!
Agree.
Shall I'm pm my social security # and address to join in the lawsuit?
You understand how class actions work? Real lawyers get a list from the company of potentially injured parties (legally)... and contact them directly and/or make a public notice.
Just an FYI to all those people who try to claim it's not possible to sue. It is actually. We are already talking about it with the Att Gen from illinois, CA, and Iowa.
The company has falsified uses of funds in relation to the kickstarter marketing. They also broke the rules on kickstarter for using the funds from one game, to fund a completely separate project, that wasn't mentioned or included in the first campaign. Kickstarter has complaints already and they have refunded a LOT of people for complaints directed towards Star Citizen. (last response shown over 600 people were refunded, nearly $14,000). That doesn't include the hundreds of people who reversed the charges within the year ACH consumer protection way..
Let alone the aspects that the player base was wanting a space exploration game with multiple worlds and galaxies. The game fell short of its time frame several times and we are now.. what. 5 years behind schedule on almost all of the development. Because they chose to do other projects and focus on the squadron42. Which is what they used Star Citizen funds to create. Which is against Kickstarter policies and against the law for "investment" related objections to consumer crowd funding.
Any investment or donation in relation to development in a private organization is subject to legal arbitration and no related "anti-arbitrtion clause" will or can stop it.
Those anti-arbitrtion clauses are if and when the company fulfills heir agreement, when they have failed to do so since they created the crowd funding.
Chris Roberts is a fraud. He always has been. He didn't create anything years ago, he stole ideas and then profited from other peoples ideas. Just as now. They can't even hire real developers to finish a mock game with 200 mil in revenue? That's not raising any flags to anyone? Red dead took 100 mil to make. The Witcher 3, wild hunt took 85 mil to make.
If they want to be taken seriously, then they need to have transparency, which they refused to do each and every time they were asked to. So now they will get hit eventually with the Consumer protection scam depts. I personally have a game dev background and a Masters of Arts in Animation. Yet when I applied to work for them for EXTREMELY low costs and provide my 14 years of game consulting input. Which I have done mods for Arma 2 &3, consutled Crysis 3, COD, BF3, Medal of Honor. Just to name a few. I wasn't even called back. While they "lead developers" are floating time by and having fun in their studios letting the low tiers take all the work and blame, while leadership literally has no direction.
Class action is up to the people who want to join it. So if you want to. Then speak up. Otherwise, the govt can take the lead and get the money back and disperse it, as they are wanting to do now. (same people who got CTU online for 500 mil). I think they would be pretty successful. JS.
Something people should realize is that kickstarter itself is fully on the side of the developer and really offers NOTHING to aid the backers. Kickstarter is VERY careful in it's use of terms to make sure they are also not held liable.
So they ClaIm they have a TRUST and Safety team. So if you go and look at their so called RULES you will see some very laughable use of words.
1 Kickstarter is not a store:You are helping to buy new things.Except you are buying ships but of course not too difficult to get around this by just calling those purchases "pledge packages".They are VERY careful to make note of this because purchasing a product goes under certain laws that might come back on KS'r.
2 Kickstarter doesn't evaluate a project's claims, resolve disputes, or offer refunds — backers decide what's worth funding and what's not.
This is hilarious,they DO NOT evaluate project claims,then wtf good are they?They are basically saying that a developer can say whatever the hell he wants there are NO rules at all. KS'r also states they do not resolve disputes yet they state you can as a backer complain about about project.So in essence they are saying you can complain but that is all you get,some anger off your chest lol.
3 Some projects won't go as planned:Well this is a VERY obvious statement but how does that deserve to be under a RULES and TRUST section?Where is the rule,where is the TRUST guidelines that KS'r is holding the developers to?
So bottom line is that KS'r is a scummy business like most in the gaming business,they get their cut from each project and that is all they care about.You see if KS'r really did have regulations once the KS'r funding period is over they would be liable in all lawsuits.Instead they were so gracious to post actual illegal stuff that is already illegal in real life like offering weapons or acting as a hate crime etc etc,so KS'r is not adding anything on top.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
Well, I don't know how things work in other countries, but in the US we have legally binding agreements when money is given in good faith for an expected product. The provider of that product or service is expected to provide it, or they are committing the very definition of fraud.
i.e. the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.
In this case, we're obviously talking about money. Making false promises in return for money (if they in fact don't deliver on what they have promised). Even if they have terms of service saying they can hold your money forever, or you never get it back, that's NOT legally binding. You can't create a contract that contains illegal things. It would be like making a contract that allows someone to murder you. Even if you want it to be legal, the act is still in violation of the law.
So, while there may be some grey area in terms of how much time they have to fulfill their obligations, and what the regulations for crowdfunded projects are according to the Federal Trade Commission, you have to remember that they are not saying this money is donated. You also have to remember that to accept donations in the USA you need to be a registered charity. This is a corporation, and NOT a registered tax-exempt charity.
The arguments that this money was donated, or that they can do whatever they want with the money with no accountability are completely baseless. This isn't China...
In the case of SC, it's worse than that.
The perception in many cases is that the $85M of upfront funding must obviously dramatically accelerate the development speed of the project. The old man-month fallacy applies: "If it takes 1 programmer 30 days to create an application, then 30 programmers should be able to get it done in 1 day". The ironic thing is that with 30 programmers it will probably take 1.5 months to finish the app, lol
The long delay between concept and launch of the typical AAA MMO is waaaay beyond the attention span of the average gamer. I always suspected that it would cause problems for the bigger Kickstarter projects, seems I was not wrong. Gamers have become used to the idea that crowdfunding and paid early access gets them into the game almost instantly.
Pretty much. Though I think if the pinch gets too tight, CR will go to someone big like EA for more money. Which has the advantage of having a fall guy for when things don't work out. Just like he did with Microsoft.
The fans have this mistaken impression that he's some brilliant genius because his name is displayed prominently on some boxes. And he talks a good talk.
Though if anyone expected SC to be out in a reasonable proximity to the proposed dates, they were nearly as unrealistic as Roberts.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Have faith!
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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According to CR the game was way out of concept stage when the Kickstarter began. Your silly arguments are laughable.
We all know that after 3 years, 300 staff and $85 Million there should be more than a buggy Alpha test bed for a handful of spaceships and a Hangar to showcase the ships they sell of which only 8 are feature complete to date out of 47 they sold to the public.
Have faith!
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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Well ... we (the backers) DO know that more exists than what you mentioned.
In contrast to some people we DO read the many detailed reports and DO watch the many detailed video blogs about the ongoing work. We even **gasp** read the "Dev answer questions" part of the forum (with a few thousand dev answers).
Some of us even have access via the subscriber part of the homepage to additional information not yet available to the general public (data comes to the open homepage after a period of a few weeks).
So ... after 2.6 years, 305 staff and $85.1 Million .... there exists quite a lot of stuff that looks IMHO pretty good !
Have fun
SC has waaaay more to show after 3 years, $85M and 300 staff, than SWTOR did after 3 years, $100M and 700 staff.
I see no problem here, move along...
Yet EA/Bioware secured funding and used their own money for the project unlike SC who could not secure funding hence the turn to crowdfunding.
Lol glad you pointed that out, he obviously didnt think before he made that silly comment.
How do you know? You been on the development team of SWTOR? Have you seen their game after 3 years? I sincerely doubt it. This is about CIG and SC not SWTOR. They have nothing to do with each other, not even the same game or concept.
Hello Strawman, nice to meet you, now move along and take that foot out of your mouth.
Have faith!
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Yes I was being snarky, but I was trying to bring a lighter side to the Idiocy that seems to be abound... and not to make a point or to even add any real value to the conversation.
If you want me to actually be serious then I would have related this to the American Red Cross or any other orginization that excepts donations and go into the effort and concepts that rule those kind of companies.
This issue with that is most of those companies are none profit or a not for profit so that won't work either as RSI is very much a profit driven entity.
So that leaves us with a hybrid model that no one has really thought of how it is going to impact the laws between "Investor" and "Donor". What you can probably count on right now for the limited knowledge that we have is. Everything that has been brought in "Money Wise" From the Kickstarter and the Other Crowd funding site as been labeled as "Investment Capital" from "None Classified Investors" as this allows them to easily use the money in their CAPEX budgets and won't have to immediately need to pay taxes on it upfront to the different forms of Government that would require payment. Hence lowering they amount of taxes they would have to actually by at year end.
There are so many use cases that will be coming out of this that I would love to investigate and see how it all unfolds as this has the potential to impact the overall way we invest in new projects, and at the very least how companies in the future will classify these types of new "investors" as a whole.
What does avenue of funding have to do with it? Devs don't show things off to the public (which is exactly what crowdfunding backers are) to please their investors. Real dealings with investors are handled through back channels and private meetings where unready as well as under wraps property is protected. They show things off to the public when they're ready to be shown off, to build awareness and hype...
Thinking that because they were out of the conceptual stage a couple years ago means they should have more than what they do is not even remotely fair reasoning (we don't even know what they have behind the scenes). It really shows a person has no idea what they're rambling about.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Perhaps you could link me to examples of "functional gameplay" that other major AAA MMO's demo'd at the 2-3 year mark in their development cycles ?
The origin of funding is irrelevant in this argument, what we are trying to prove here is how advanced development should be at the 2-3 year mark.
If other MMO's were showing off much more advanced demo's of gameplay at similar stages of development, then its fair to express concern about the current level of progress in SC.
I simply used SWTOR as an example because they also used a pre-built engine for their game.
Honestly, you won't be able to reason with these guys because they're suffering from a major case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Sort of funny aside that you mention the Red Cross and donating: most people don't know what happens when you donate blood at one of their blood drives.
The perception is that the blood is given to hospitals to save lives, etc etc.. Maybe that was so once, but the blood they take in (in the US at least) is SOLD to blood products companies and not for small price, either (the number I saw years ago was $284 a pint, which was then resold to hospitals for even more. A lot of the blood products are even sold/resold overseas.)
They use the money to pay salaries and fund their operations. So when people sit down and donate a pint of blood, they are really giving the Red Cross ~ $300, and not really "saving someone's life".
But the Red Cross does not want people to know that...
Can't trust anyone these day, I guess.
Did you just learn about DKE? You seem to be sprinkling it in your dismissive replies everywhere you feel SC needs championing,
Personally I still prefer Darwin's "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" version even though his observation about this phenomenon is also not original: it has been around for centuries in one form or another.
You need some new material for your one liners, bud.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Here's the problem with a class action suit. By the time it gets to be heard, RSI/CIG would most likely have ceased to exist as a going concern (management speak for: folded).
This is the same reason why, as much as most of us "know" about what's going on, we can't post something that will immediately put us on the defensive, in a long, drawn, legal fight. Because once that happens, by the time it gets anywhere, again RSI/CIG would have ceased to be going concern. And so, in the event of any win in the suit, there would be no recourse to collect anything, let alone legal fees. So it would have all been a waste of time and money.
So, framing what we know in specific language so that it falls outside the realms of defamation (even if true), is what most of us are doing. Because if they file a complaint, your response with the facts, will pretty much get the whole thing tossed immediately and within a month or so. Then you get to recoup legal costs.
As soon as person A says "this" about person B, and Person B sues, all person A has to do is show that it's true. And person A can do that either with indisputable sourced material (because the truth is 100% defense against defamation suit) or by deposing person B, asking for records in discovery etc. It's up to person B to "prove" that what person A said is false. If they can't do that, case is closed.
And this is why the impending FTC investigation is so vital to all of this, because only they will have unfettered access to everything.
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.
So, the next plan of attack is to simply try and burn down the entire project because you have some 'instinct' when you yourself have yet to produce anything AAA, let alone a full-scale MMO. Or, for that matter, even a critically acclaimed single-player game.
Plus, you're already starting the 'condescending' attitude towards people here.
Here it is, folks. The reality of Derek Smart's 'legal' position on the whole thing. Please tell me something, Derek. How do you know the FTC is 'looking' into this? Do you have evidence to back up this claim or are you banking on people that won't ask the real questions to simply to follow you at your word?
PROVE that Star Citizen is vaporware. You've leveled this claim at Star Citizen, but you haven't backed it up.
Do you honestly think you're going to step in and take over the Star Citizen project and the funding? From my perspective, this appears to be your intentions (or endgame) here.
You need to get over the fact that other people are more successful and have more talent than you do in the gaming industry. You do not own the vision nor are you entitled to be the person that builds the biggest sci-fi/space combat/fps MMO. Chris Roberts found the way to generate the funds for a reason; he has a proven track record. You don't.
GET OVER IT.
The company has falsified uses of funds in relation to the kickstarter marketing. They also broke the rules on kickstarter for using the funds from one game, to fund a completely separate project, that wasn't mentioned or included in the first campaign. Kickstarter has complaints already and they have refunded a LOT of people for complaints directed towards Star Citizen. (last response shown over 600 people were refunded, nearly $14,000). That doesn't include the hundreds of people who reversed the charges within the year ACH consumer protection way..
Let alone the aspects that the player base was wanting a space exploration game with multiple worlds and galaxies. The game fell short of its time frame several times and we are now.. what. 5 years behind schedule on almost all of the development. Because they chose to do other projects and focus on the squadron42. Which is what they used Star Citizen funds to create. Which is against Kickstarter policies and against the law for "investment" related objections to consumer crowd funding.
Any investment or donation in relation to development in a private organization is subject to legal arbitration and no related "anti-arbitrtion clause" will or can stop it.
Those anti-arbitrtion clauses are if and when the company fulfills heir agreement, when they have failed to do so since they created the crowd funding.
Chris Roberts is a fraud. He always has been. He didn't create anything years ago, he stole ideas and then profited from other peoples ideas. Just as now. They can't even hire real developers to finish a mock game with 200 mil in revenue? That's not raising any flags to anyone? Red dead took 100 mil to make. The Witcher 3, wild hunt took 85 mil to make.
If they want to be taken seriously, then they need to have transparency, which they refused to do each and every time they were asked to. So now they will get hit eventually with the Consumer protection scam depts. I personally have a game dev background and a Masters of Arts in Animation. Yet when I applied to work for them for EXTREMELY low costs and provide my 14 years of game consulting input. Which I have done mods for Arma 2 &3, consutled Crysis 3, COD, BF3, Medal of Honor. Just to name a few. I wasn't even called back. While they "lead developers" are floating time by and having fun in their studios letting the low tiers take all the work and blame, while leadership literally has no direction.
Class action is up to the people who want to join it. So if you want to. Then speak up. Otherwise, the govt can take the lead and get the money back and disperse it, as they are wanting to do now. (same people who got CTU online for 500 mil). I think they would be pretty successful. JS.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Shall I'm pm my social security # and address to join in the lawsuit?
You understand how class actions work? Real lawyers get a list from the company of potentially injured parties (legally)... and contact them directly and/or make a public notice.
Kickstarter is VERY careful in it's use of terms to make sure they are also not held liable.
So they ClaIm they have a TRUST and Safety team.
So if you go and look at their so called RULES you will see some very laughable use of words.
1 Kickstarter is not a store:You are helping to buy new things.Except you are buying ships but of course not too difficult to get around this by just calling those purchases "pledge packages".They are VERY careful to make note of this because purchasing a product goes under certain laws that might come back on KS'r.
2 Kickstarter doesn't evaluate a project's claims, resolve disputes, or offer refunds — backers decide what's worth funding and what's not.
This is hilarious,they DO NOT evaluate project claims,then wtf good are they?They are basically saying that a developer can say whatever the hell he wants there are NO rules at all.
KS'r also states they do not resolve disputes yet they state you can as a backer complain about about project.So in essence they are saying you can complain but that is all you get,some anger off your chest lol.
3 Some projects won't go as planned:Well this is a VERY obvious statement but how does that deserve to be under a RULES and TRUST section?Where is the rule,where is the TRUST guidelines that KS'r is holding the developers to?
So bottom line is that KS'r is a scummy business like most in the gaming business,they get their cut from each project and that is all they care about.You see if KS'r really did have regulations once the KS'r funding period is over they would be liable in all lawsuits.Instead they were so gracious to post actual illegal stuff that is already illegal in real life like offering weapons or acting as a hate crime etc etc,so KS'r is not adding anything on top.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.