The motive would be, because if and when SC becomes a finished game, it will have completely bypassed the standard hierarchy for making a game of it's size. If everyone figures out that all you need to do is have a name, some credible history in the business, and crowdfunding, in order to bypass those big money publishers, everyone would start doing it.
Wow. You do know that Star Citizen isn't the only one doing this right? Camelot Unchained and Crowfall both are doing well. Have shown a lot and are making noticeable progress. Especially if you consider the amount of development time and dollars compared to Star Citizen.
I am not sure how things work in your reality, but in mine i would have looked at the official SC homepage and forums once in a while and saw that the community specifically asked for enlarging the scope of the game. And they put their wallets where their mouths are and donated another 89 M$. Furthermore while looking i would have seen the updates on the timeline, changing dates to the 2016/2017 period instead of the initially estimated 2014/2015 for a much smaller initial project. Finally i would have understood that the original Kickstarter timeline was obsolete already by the end of 2012 and quoting it in 2015 would be futile.
But thats just my reality. It may not be yours.
Have fun
I would point out that very early in the campaign, I specifically asked CR about that very thing. His response to me was that they were "growing wide, as well as deep." He went on to say that the feature-creep concern everyone had was unjustified. That was right before he announced they weren't making their deadline for the DFM because of "netcode."
I'll see if I can find the article and link it. You may actually be amused to see how pro-SC I once was.
I dont know how things work in your reality but in mine, 11 months late with no end in site is way past due.
I am not sure how things work in your reality, but in mine i would have looked at the official SC homepage and forums once in a while and saw that the community specifically asked for enlarging the scope of the game. And they put their wallets where their mouths are and donated another 89 M$. Furthermore while looking i would have seen the updates on the timeline, changing dates to the 2016/2017 period instead of the initially estimated 2014/2015 for a much smaller initial project. Finally i would have understood that the original Kickstarter timeline was obsolete already by the end of 2012 and quoting it in 2015 would be futile.
But thats just my reality. It may not be yours.
Have fun
Apparently in your reality Mr Roberts can continue to move the release date back again and again and the game will never be considered late. Can you show me where more than half the backers asked for the release date to be pushed back? Can you show me where even 10% of the backers asked for more content at the cost of pushing back the release date another year?
I guess in your reality Derek Smart was wrong when he said feature creep was an issue but rewording it to say the original kickstarter release date was obsolete is OK. I guess Derek was wrong and it is because the backers asked for more content, isnt that the same thing as feature creep? Was Derek Smart right?
But thats just my reality, it may not be yours.
Have fun
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
The motive would be, because if and when SC becomes a finished game, it will have completely bypassed the standard hierarchy for making a game of it's size. If everyone figures out that all you need to do is have a name, some credible history in the business, and crowdfunding, in order to bypass those big money publishers, everyone would start doing it.
Wow. You do know that Star Citizen isn't the only one doing this right? Camelot Unchained and Crowfall both are doing well. Have shown a lot and are making noticeable progress. Especially if you consider the amount of development time and dollars compared to Star Citizen.
She asked a question on why the "industry" would want it to fail. I provided my answer for it. That's all, I wouldn't be surprised if I started seeing bad press if CU, or Crowfall, suddenly took in another $90 million. As it stands though, I don't think those titles have brought in enough money to be in the same category.
The motive would be, because if and when SC becomes a finished game, it will have completely bypassed the standard hierarchy for making a game of it's size. If everyone figures out that all you need to do is have a name, some credible history in the business, and crowdfunding, in order to bypass those big money publishers, everyone would start doing it.
Wow. You do know that Star Citizen isn't the only one doing this right? Camelot Unchained and Crowfall both are doing well. Have shown a lot and are making noticeable progress. Especially if you consider the amount of development time and dollars compared to Star Citizen.
She asked a question on why the "industry" would want it to fail. I provided my answer for it. That's all, I wouldn't be surprised if I started seeing bad press if CU, or Crowfall, suddenly took in another $90 million. As it stands though, I don't think those titles have brought in enough money to be in the same category.
I'm also a CU/CF backer, for disclosure.
Yes i read your response and it was a good one and i get that, but the comment i posted just seemed like a troll post to me especially when someone puts GG at the end.
99.99 % of the backers voting with their wallet, hitting stretch goal after extra stretch goal until Chris Roberts had to call "Stop" on the stretch goals (AGAINST a poll by the backers who still wanted more).
I dont know how things work in your reality but in mine, 11 months late with no end in site is way past due.
I am not sure how things work in your reality, but in mine i would have looked at the official SC homepage and forums once in a while and saw that the community specifically asked for enlarging the scope of the game. And they put their wallets where their mouths are and donated another 89 M$. Furthermore while looking i would have seen the updates on the timeline, changing dates to the 2016/2017 period instead of the initially estimated 2014/2015 for a much smaller initial project. Finally i would have understood that the original Kickstarter timeline was obsolete already by the end of 2012 and quoting it in 2015 would be futile.
But thats just my reality. It may not be yours.
Have fun
Skyrim and World of Warcraft were all completed on roughly half the budget of SC within roughly the next 6 months (if development had begun at the same time as SC). Feature complete. Alpha and Beta tested as a feature complete project. Released. I've said this multiple times on another thread. Compare that to the progress we've seen on SC.
I'm sorry, but no matter the scope you're talking about, it doesn't excuse a lack of concrete progress (We can spit out ideas all day. Ideas alone do not, a real game, make.). It's progress is sluggish at best, and it's already blown through (by any realistic budget estimates, no matter how conservative) the budgets of the two aforementioned titles (titles not lacking in quality in any way). The original release date matters very little in this comparison. I agree with Red: this project is looking mismanaged.
Specially when you say this: " We are now at 765.777 paying backers" disregarding the fact of some whales buying packages and giving them away for free to other people,
Maybe - in the distant future - you will understand the concept of guilds/organisations. Guild members working together and helping each other to achieve common goals.
Well... that has nothing to do with the point that I made. I was not questioning the reason why people give them away. I am just stating how was wrong you claim that 700k paid for it. My bet is that the majority don't.
Specially when you say this: " We are now at 765.777 paying backers" disregarding the fact of some whales buying packages and giving them away for free to other people,
Maybe - in the distant future - you will understand the concept of guilds/organisations. Guild members working together and helping each other to achieve common goals.
Well... that has nothing to do with the point that I made. I was not questioning the reason why people give them away. I am just stating how was wrong you claim that 700k paid for it. My bet is that the majority don't.
You actually believe at least 50.00001% of the accounts are multiple purchases?
Specially when you say this: " We are now at 765.777 paying backers" disregarding the fact of some whales buying packages and giving them away for free to other people,
Maybe - in the distant future - you will understand the concept of guilds/organisations. Guild members working together and helping each other to achieve common goals.
Well... that has nothing to do with the point that I made. I was not questioning the reason why people give them away. I am just stating how was wrong you claim that 700k paid for it. My bet is that the majority don't.
You actually believe at least 50.00001% of the accounts are multiple purchases?
Badly phrased so for clarity-> I mean Multiple accounts purchased by individuals that are then given away.
For a successful technology, reality must take
precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Can you draw any parallels?
"You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it
right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any
experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes
in. ...The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make
guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are
wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make
guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all
right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to
be simpler than you thought.
"
Have fun
Cccc oh Erillion. You took a generic philosophical quote about nature and applied it to this thread. We are talking about software projects not Epistemology.
It seems that with quotes like this you are bending over backward to somehow demonstrate that you can "recognize the truth" .
Understandable but ultimately your truth is pretty close to a dogma. I don't think Feynman liked dogmas very much though.
Can we stop with the fact-less articles. This is not the type of content I would expect from mmorpg.om to be apart of.
You need to have the courage of your convictions. If the article's author is incorrect, nothing will come of it. No need to shut down opinions you don't agree with.
The fate of the game is in CR's hands, it's up to him to deliver or not.
Besides, I enjoyed the article, and clearly my preferences outweigh yours.
the entire games industry wants SC to fail , to make sure kickstarter for games dies.
They have used a social media campaign so elaborate, a lot of you got suckered into it
GG
Two people agreed to that post. lol
Why would the whole gaming industry want the game to fail i do not know.
The motive would be, because if and when SC becomes a finished game, it will have completely bypassed the standard hierarchy for making a game of it's size. If everyone figures out that all you need to do is have a name, some credible history in the business, and crowdfunding, in order to bypass those big money publishers, everyone would start doing it.
That may be good for the little man, in this case CIG, but it takes potential business from companies like NcSoft, and EA. There are quite a few people I know who work for said big companies, and there's a reason why "crowdfunded" is a hush term among them. I don't blame them for it, it hurts their bottom line, but it's good for gaming overall.
For the love of Captain Obvious, the only ones who can make SC fail is CR, RSI and CIG. No one and I mean NO ONE else has the power to stop the game from being made as it was intended. We aren't even talking about SC failing. We are talking about the fact that CR defies all reason of legit development by refusing to show financial reports. I don't care if SC gets made. I don't care if they only spent $30 million out of the $100 million doing it. All I want to know is, whether or not every penny went into developing the game or will be used for future expansions. That is all it's ever been.
It's only been said ad-nauseam, they won't release those reports, because if they do, you'll see people freaking out over things like tables, chairs, and coffee machines. There is no slot to insert cash and receive a game. You are paying for peoples salaries, and equipment they use for developing.
I can see the threads now, SC pays 5k for a table in meeting room, ect. Stuff is expensive, and if you don't have these things, you won't find quality people to build your game.
Skyrim and World of Warcraft were all completed on roughly half the budget of SC within roughly the next 6 months (if development had begun at the same time as SC).
You may want to check your numbers on both cost and time:
If we add 4-5 years to the 2012 start date of SC we get *** drum roll *** 2016/2017.
And if you check out the numbers its 63 M$ for the development phase of WoW and another 200 M$ after that. And purely from a grafical point of view WoW is intended to run on the lowest end machines - so on the technical side it was not a huge step forward. SC is in the very edge of what is possible, sometimes beyond it.
Skyrim was an inflation corrected 88ish M$ development cost.
Skyrim and World of Warcraft were all completed on roughly half the budget of SC within roughly the next 6 months (if development had begun at the same time as SC).
You may want to check your numbers on both cost and time:
If we add 4-5 years to the 2012 start date of SC we get *** drum roll *** 2016/2017.
And if you check out the numbers its 63 M$ for the development phase of WoW and another 200 M$ after that. And purely from a grafical point of view WoW is intended to run on the lowest end machines - so on the technical side it was not a huge step forward. SC is in the very edge of what is possible, sometimes beyond it.
Have fun
The $200 million was ongoing costs over the next four years to maintain and continue expansion development on a studio's flagship game. To include it in initial development costs before the release servers were even switched on is fallacious.
My point still stands. If CR creates the entire game universe (which as far as I know, doesn't even completely exist in any form whatsoever right now, including just a simple 3D star map), the economy and ruleset for the universe, the entirety of the Squadron 42 universe of planetary environments (as i'm assuming it will not just be a FPS on ships, correct me if i'm wrong), and the netcode, alpha and beta tests it (squashing bugs and optimizing the network and performance) all within one calendar year... I'll eat my words. Wanna bet that he doesn't make that deadline, even with damn near twice the budget Blizzard used (or are they freezing ship sales and donations now that they've hit ~$90 million)?
EDIT- Check your sources on when CR started development. He was quoted in October of 2012 as spending the past year working on the very first demos of SC. He showed this demo to PC Gamer on October 9th of 2012.
If we add 4-5 years to the 2012 start date of SC we get *** drum roll *** 2016/2017.
And if you check out the numbers its 63 M$ for the development phase of WoW and another 200 M$ after that. And purely from a grafical point of view WoW is intended to run on the lowest end machines - so on the technical side it was not a huge step forward. SC is in the very edge of what is possible, sometimes beyond it.
Have fun
I would add that CR stated early in the campaign that he, and I believe a couple other folks were involved as well, had been developing on the concept for about a year. Thus, why they had in-game footage for the start of the campaign. That impacts your timeline.
Also, as @MadFrenchie pointed out, most of what you're talking about was continuing support for the game. Games get a lot more expensive post-launch (at least MMOs do). Not only do you maintain developers to work on future content, but you now need additional development support for maintaining/patching the existing release, admins for the servers, customer support, GMs, and hardware costs.
So, you really do need to sort out the cost of the development from the continuing support of a game. That's a very valid point.
EDIT- Check your sources on when CR started development. He was quoted in October of 2012 as spending the past year working on the very first demos of SC. He showed this demo to PC Gamer on October 9th of 2012.
I checked those sources many times in the last years. It can be interpreted in various ways - depending on what part of the source texts you quote - which some claim as evidence that it all started in 2011 (if "past year" equals "one full year" to you) and others that it all started sometime in 2012 (if "spend the past year" means "spend time in 2012 to create the demo" to you). It also depends if you consider one man working on an idea as an official start date ... or a team of 2,3,5, XXX.... (in October 2012 it was a team of 5, working for free).
I also don't want to say anyone lied about anything. That's not really a fair statement. Things change and new priorities force you to change things.
Right. So let me say you something here...
Chris Roberts wrote a long missive recently, which was part of the basis of your article, accusing all kinds of ridiculous conspiracies and people lying about his project, management, etc. etc. Then, while accusing others of lying and committing fraud and crimes against him, he lied himself.
He claimed, for the 2nd time, that - Squadron 42 - community updates - alpha dogfighting was "the game-as-described" to justify this message of his advertising:
"The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period."
So, now, please, I ask you. These are the original descriptions of Star Citizen. You don't need to read them both. Just the Kickstarter one is enough, but if you prefer read them both:
Seriously. After reading all that, the game-as-described is just those 3 bullets?
And he went further. To show you how shady and liar that guy is. Knowing that people in general forget, or just want to support, or press follows superficially, to "prove" that those 3 bullets were "the game as described" he wrote this on this letter:
"The original crowd funding goal was to raise enough money to deliver
regular community updates, access to the multiplayer dogfighting alpha
and a single player campaign called Squadron 42. You can see the first
goal, which was achieved on 25th of October 2012 here. "
As you can see, he is referring to the 3 bullets that are described in the 2 million dollars "Stretch goal".
And now you say: - See! You are wrong. Roberts just prove you wrong. Indeed, the game-as-described, below the 2 million dollars mark was just those 3 bullets! Uhu! You are a liar! Troll! Hater lol (ok, I know that you are not going so far )
And then I answer you: - Ok man! So here is the problem. That page that Roberts linked did not exist when he described his game and put that statement that the higher stretch goals would guarantee the game-as-described released in the 2 year time period. That page did not exist one week after he publicized that description, Did not exist two weeks later. Did not exist 6 months later. lol But he is bringing that now, as was part of the description lol They created that page and publicized only after the new website in the format that you know today, was publicized. And if you tell that that reading the original descriptions you can figure out that those 3 bullets are the "game-as-described", without the "information" of that "future page" that appeared months later, I will laugh in your face.
So, the thing is, if you come now and claim that Roberts did not lie, there is no such thing about liars. They don't exist. Its fruit of the imagination of humanity. And I am sorry, but its too blindness, its too forgiveness and I doubt that you would have the same level of naivety if was any other player in this game industry, specially when its a repetitive trend that happened along this entire project. Do you really think that a veteran like Roberts does not know that he only will release the game that will accomplish with the original pitch (the original pitch, not this one that he now decided to invent, or claim that did not promise anything like that) long after 2016? Do you really think that, considering the status of Star Marine in April, he would come to public in a trade show where tons of ships were been sold and said that it was just two weeks away and then, slip that date in months, and yet today, without any definition when it is going to come out? Really? He just want people to be tied to the project, visiting his website constantly to see his offers and buy them all. How hard is to see that?
So he lies. Is that simple. Don't see who is with their heads buried in the sand.
The original release date given during its kickstarter was: "Star Citizen will launch in November 2014 for backers, and for the public in 2015." While the kickstarter is no longer available the original release date
What? The original release date was Nov/2014. There was no mention about release for backers in 2014 and for public in 2015 originally:
What their TOS implied is that in the worst case scenario, the game would come out by 2015. It did not say in the exact words, but was ambiguous enough to make people believe on that and been mislead to believe on that. And while they think that they were smart doing that, they were not counting with the possibility of any person, ever, pursuiting a lawsuit against a game, or a crowdfunding of a game. So, they thought that would be a great idea, just be a little shady, since they know, that the general public is unaware about advertising laws.
They treat everyone like idiots and have no shame to treat everyone like idiots in public. To the point of Swofford coming from example, and claiming in an answer to the press that their change in the TOS is ok, because its standard practice, because Amazon do, stuff like that, which was easily debunked by Lizzy when he mentioned about the fact that are changes that simply would not be acceptable because are removing the rights of the consumer, obligating to him to ignore the deal made earlier, having to sign a new deal, to still have the services provided by the company. Their change basically throw that TOS to the garbage, because it was a bad faith change and the good faith is the whole principle of this deal. And at the same time that they breach the contract in their side, they want to enforce that contract to deny refunds. Its bad faith on the top of the bad faith on the top of more bad faith. That's why any consumer that went against them in a court of law, or any authority that decide that they deserve to be used as an example, CIG is screwed. Again, ALL that they did was assuming the risk, the idea that "hey, its just a game, nobody will bother and gamers are dumb and will just believe on whatever we do or say, they will asume that we wouldn't dare to do something wrong, so its right"... that is their mindset... and they are wrong, as you will all learn in the next months (at least the people who insist on giving a free pass or think that what they did is 'ok', treating them as special snow-flake and refusing to see what is in front of them).
I didn't back SC early on because I was weary of crowdfunding, I didn't back it after the KS because I didn't (and still don't) think that selling yet to be created in game assets for a yet to be created game is an ethical business model, and I'm not backing it now because apparently 2 years and 90 million isn't enough to make much beyond a tech demo and some fancy posters.
I know Chris, and probably everyone else involved, wants SC to be this massive persistent universe, but anyone who has run, or worked on, a successful project should know that you start with what is achievable and expand on it from there... which in the case of SC would be to get S42 out (even if it is just a modern day WC) and then, possibly even as a separate / follow up project (with shared assets), start making the persistent universe.
Comments
/pointfinger
/cryfoul
I guess in your reality Derek Smart was wrong when he said feature creep was an issue but rewording it to say the original kickstarter release date was obsolete is OK. I guess Derek was wrong and it is because the backers asked for more content, isnt that the same thing as feature creep? Was Derek Smart right?
But thats just my reality, it may not be yours.
Have fun
I'm also a CU/CF backer, for disclosure.
99.99 % of the backers voting with their wallet, hitting stretch goal after extra stretch goal until Chris Roberts had to call "Stop" on the stretch goals (AGAINST a poll by the backers who still wanted more).
Have fun
I'm sorry, but no matter the scope you're talking about, it doesn't excuse a lack of concrete progress (We can spit out ideas all day. Ideas alone do not, a real game, make.). It's progress is sluggish at best, and it's already blown through (by any realistic budget estimates, no matter how conservative) the budgets of the two aforementioned titles (titles not lacking in quality in any way). The original release date matters very little in this comparison. I agree with Red: this project is looking mismanaged.
I mean Multiple accounts purchased by individuals that are then given away.
It seems that with quotes like this you are bending over backward to somehow demonstrate that you can "recognize the truth" .
Understandable but ultimately your truth is pretty close to a dogma. I don't think Feynman liked dogmas very much though.
I can see the threads now, SC pays 5k for a table in meeting room, ect. Stuff is expensive, and if you don't have these things, you won't find quality people to build your game.
http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread978561/pg1
"Released in 2004, development of the game took roughly 4–5 years, including extensive testing. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft
If we add 4-5 years to the 2012 start date of SC we get *** drum roll *** 2016/2017.
And if you check out the numbers its 63 M$ for the development phase of WoW and another 200 M$ after that. And purely from a grafical point of view WoW is intended to run on the lowest end machines - so on the technical side it was not a huge step forward. SC is in the very edge of what is possible, sometimes beyond it.
Skyrim was an inflation corrected 88ish M$ development cost.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_video_games
Development time was (depending on what source you use) 2006 (or 2008) til 11Nov2011.
Have fun
Have fun
My point still stands. If CR creates the entire game universe (which as far as I know, doesn't even completely exist in any form whatsoever right now, including just a simple 3D star map), the economy and ruleset for the universe, the entirety of the Squadron 42 universe of planetary environments (as i'm assuming it will not just be a FPS on ships, correct me if i'm wrong), and the netcode, alpha and beta tests it (squashing bugs and optimizing the network and performance) all within one calendar year... I'll eat my words. Wanna bet that he doesn't make that deadline, even with damn near twice the budget Blizzard used (or are they freezing ship sales and donations now that they've hit ~$90 million)?
EDIT- Check your sources on when CR started development. He was quoted in October of 2012 as spending the past year working on the very first demos of SC. He showed this demo to PC Gamer on October 9th of 2012.
Also, as @MadFrenchie pointed out, most of what you're talking about was continuing support for the game. Games get a lot more expensive post-launch (at least MMOs do). Not only do you maintain developers to work on future content, but you now need additional development support for maintaining/patching the existing release, admins for the servers, customer support, GMs, and hardware costs.
So, you really do need to sort out the cost of the development from the continuing support of a game. That's a very valid point.
Have fun
Chris Roberts wrote a long missive recently, which was part of the basis of your article, accusing all kinds of ridiculous conspiracies and people lying about his project, management, etc. etc. Then, while accusing others of lying and committing fraud and crimes against him, he lied himself.
He claimed, for the 2nd time, that
- Squadron 42
- community updates
- alpha dogfighting
was "the game-as-described" to justify this message of his advertising:
"The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period."
So, now, please, I ask you. These are the original descriptions of Star Citizen. You don't need to read them both. Just the Kickstarter one is enough, but if you prefer read them both:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description
http://web.archive.org/web/20121015042706/http://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/
Seriously. After reading all that, the game-as-described is just those 3 bullets?
And he went further. To show you how shady and liar that guy is. Knowing that people in general forget, or just want to support, or press follows superficially, to "prove" that those 3 bullets were "the game as described" he wrote this on this letter:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14839-Letter-From-The-Chairman
"The original crowd funding goal was to raise enough money to deliver regular community updates, access to the multiplayer dogfighting alpha and a single player campaign called Squadron 42. You can see the first goal, which was achieved on 25th of October 2012 here. "
As you can see, he is referring to the 3 bullets that are described in the 2 million dollars "Stretch goal".
And now you say:
- See! You are wrong. Roberts just prove you wrong. Indeed, the game-as-described, below the 2 million dollars mark was just those 3 bullets! Uhu! You are a liar! Troll! Hater lol (ok, I know that you are not going so far
And then I answer you:
- Ok man! So here is the problem. That page that Roberts linked did not exist when he described his game and put that statement that the higher stretch goals would guarantee the game-as-described released in the 2 year time period. That page did not exist one week after he publicized that description, Did not exist two weeks later. Did not exist 6 months later. lol But he is bringing that now, as was part of the description lol
They created that page and publicized only after the new website in the format that you know today, was publicized.
And if you tell that that reading the original descriptions you can figure out that those 3 bullets are the "game-as-described", without the "information" of that "future page" that appeared months later, I will laugh in your face.
So, the thing is, if you come now and claim that Roberts did not lie, there is no such thing about liars. They don't exist. Its fruit of the imagination of humanity. And I am sorry, but its too blindness, its too forgiveness and I doubt that you would have the same level of naivety if was any other player in this game industry, specially when its a repetitive trend that happened along this entire project. Do you really think that a veteran like Roberts does not know that he only will release the game that will accomplish with the original pitch (the original pitch, not this one that he now decided to invent, or claim that did not promise anything like that) long after 2016? Do you really think that, considering the status of Star Marine in April, he would come to public in a trade show where tons of ships were been sold and said that it was just two weeks away and then, slip that date in months, and yet today, without any definition when it is going to come out? Really? He just want people to be tied to the project, visiting his website constantly to see his offers and buy them all. How hard is to see that?
So he lies. Is that simple. Don't see who is with their heads buried in the sand.
http://web.archive.org/web/20121015042706/http://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description
Check the packages.
What their TOS implied is that in the worst case scenario, the game would come out by 2015. It did not say in the exact words, but was ambiguous enough to make people believe on that and been mislead to believe on that. And while they think that they were smart doing that, they were not counting with the possibility of any person, ever, pursuiting a lawsuit against a game, or a crowdfunding of a game. So, they thought that would be a great idea, just be a little shady, since they know, that the general public is unaware about advertising laws.
They treat everyone like idiots and have no shame to treat everyone like idiots in public. To the point of Swofford coming from example, and claiming in an answer to the press that their change in the TOS is ok, because its standard practice, because Amazon do, stuff like that, which was easily debunked by Lizzy when he mentioned about the fact that are changes that simply would not be acceptable because are removing the rights of the consumer, obligating to him to ignore the deal made earlier, having to sign a new deal, to still have the services provided by the company. Their change basically throw that TOS to the garbage, because it was a bad faith change and the good faith is the whole principle of this deal. And at the same time that they breach the contract in their side, they want to enforce that contract to deny refunds. Its bad faith on the top of the bad faith on the top of more bad faith. That's why any consumer that went against them in a court of law, or any authority that decide that they deserve to be used as an example, CIG is screwed.
Again, ALL that they did was assuming the risk, the idea that "hey, its just a game, nobody will bother and gamers are dumb and will just believe on whatever we do or say, they will asume that we wouldn't dare to do something wrong, so its right"... that is their mindset... and they are wrong, as you will all learn in the next months (at least the people who insist on giving a free pass or think that what they did is 'ok', treating them as special snow-flake and refusing to see what is in front of them).
I didn't back SC early on because I was weary of crowdfunding, I didn't back it after the KS because I didn't (and still don't) think that selling yet to be created in game assets for a yet to be created game is an ethical business model, and I'm not backing it now because apparently 2 years and 90 million isn't enough to make much beyond a tech demo and some fancy posters.
I know Chris, and probably everyone else involved, wants SC to be this massive persistent universe, but anyone who has run, or worked on, a successful project should know that you start with what is achievable and expand on it from there... which in the case of SC would be to get S42 out (even if it is just a modern day WC) and then, possibly even as a separate / follow up project (with shared assets), start making the persistent universe.
... and this is probably the main point of all "haters" here on this forum. Well said sir.
Have fun
But let me ask you then: who is here advocating the unknown factor and who likes the safe well-known side for 90 mil $$?
Have fun
PS:
Hmm .. for the Trekkies amongst you ... "To boldly go ...."