Where you worked .... Were people able to get a refund for three (!) years ?
Software is often not refundable at all in shops (fear of software piracy and illegal copying). Hardware usually has a one year warranty/refund period. Three years was an unusually long period!
And compared to a typical ZERO hours from ZERO players (as almost no one is doing public Alphas) the 1.5 million hours and 300.000 players is "not bad" ;-) for an Alpha test.
Have fun
I was not able to get a refund because Amy in support told me my pledge was past the statutory 14 day grace period. I don't know where you are getting the 3 year refund period from... Was Amy lying to me?
I was not able to get a refund because Amy in support told me my pledge was past the statutory 14 day grace period. I don't know where you are getting the 3 year refund period from... Was Amy lying to me?
For the first three years of the project refunds were easy to get. They asked you for your reason for their internal statistics and then proceeded to refund. One of my friends lost his job and asked for (and got) a refund.
A few months ago CIG announced that they will stop to give these voluntary refunds (except for the 14 day period mentioned in their TOS).
I guess that all this information you can get from customer support on request.
I was not able to get a refund because Amy in support told me my pledge was past the statutory 14 day grace period. I don't know where you are getting the 3 year refund period from... Was Amy lying to me?
There are other ways to get a refund. If you are in the UK, log a case in the small claims court and provide CIG with a case number afterwards. CIG has relented in those cases.
Otherwise, tell CIG you are going to do a charge back. You'll get an email from them saying either 'it is illegal to do a charge back' OR 'according to the ToS you agreed to, you are legally not allowed to do a charge back'. File the charge back, include CIG's email and evidence of non-delivery and wait for VISA to reverse the charges.
I would be happy to help for anything you need on this.
As others have said "beta tests" these days are usually part of the pre-launch campaign.
Destiny had a stress test that people bought a disc to enter and GW1 also had a "buy a box" series of weekend tests in its development - the first was "cool" but "garrish and crude" (don't think that needed the box either).
I think the last "big test" might have been WoW back in 2004 - 600k in the US followed with an overlapping EU beta. Very much a beta though following on from the internal alpha.
All of the above - Destiny, GW1, WoW - benefitted from the testing. WoW especially I believe since the testing - and people knowing that there was a finished game - protected it from the day 1 meltdown issues.
RSI possibly didn't want to enter alpha as soon as they did; it is potentially a lot of extra work with no payback and huge pressure. They have adopted the right policy though imo by not setting hard deadlines for stuff. And now the Issues Council is providing "good" as opposed to "casual" (but also good of course) feedback that can only benefit the game going forward.
Launching the alpha though has shifted the landscape. Things have gone from no employees / islands in the sun; through its all just jpegs show me the code to when if ever will it launch / will all the features be delivered.
Having a refund policy for the last 3 years is irrelevant, there hasn't been a proper testing stage for people to get an idea of the larger game until 7 months ago. Perhaps people have waited patiently for 3 years and then tried for 2.1, 2.2 or whatever and just been disappointed that this is what they've got after all this time.
If they have $51 million past the $65 million they need then I'm sure they can grant refunds without running into problems.
But you forgot the last two milestones: -
$100m milestone will allow us to pay for abortive work as a result of scope changes and a backwards development programme, and to adjust our original woefully inadequate budgets . $110m milestone will enable us to fund increased remuneration packages for senior staff.
You received 25 LOLs. You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
Not to argue for or against it, but given they still called the game alpha it's weird to have that many consumers "playing" any of it yet in the first place.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You guys are a trip!! However, let me give you a different perspective...
As someone who is a huge fan of crowdfunding and the freedom it provides for indie devs to create their games without the soul-sucking interference of corporate conglomerates like EA,who used to be the sole gatekeepers of game development and all of its regurgitated franchiseconsole ports (man those were bleak times)....this does not automatically mean that I'm also an avid alpha/beta tester.
After many a year of being a beta tester, I've come to find that ultimately, it tends to have more of a negative impact for me when the same game is finally official launched. It more often than not resulted in major burn out for me, basically.
So now, I set aside monies to help support projects I find to be exciting and some times, I'll donate to a tier where I have alpha access. It's nice to know that I have it but at the same time, I'm more than content to watch Let's Play vids (not many at all, I admit) and follow development on the main website.
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
How much additional money are you willing to give Star Citizen while you wait and sit on your already purchased game package?
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
I'd trade all those nice numbers for a working time table that doesn't get delayed.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
How much additional money are you willing to give Star Citizen while you wait and sit on your already purchased game package?
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
They're going through rougly 40 million a year. I'm not sure how much they make on jpeg sales or how much they have from investors though. I'd say they have 3-4 years left in them, 2 years if they're going to buy more doors.
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
How much additional money are you willing to give Star Citizen while you wait and sit on your already purchased game package?
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
They're going through rougly 40 million a year. I'm not sure how much they make on jpeg sales or how much they have from investors though. I'd say they have 3-4 years left in them, 2 years if they're going to buy more doors.
40 million! wow that is some figure, could you break down how you arrived at that figure? On a side note, why are you suggesting that if they buy new doors they will spend 80 million on them, doors are not really all that expensive, they could probably buy 100,000 new high grade doors for that kind of money. It is always nice to plan in a bit of contingency but I think perhaps 99,980 extra doors might be taking it a bit extreme, I think if they are a little more conservative they could probably make a saving of around 79,984,000 and still get all the new doors they need. Now I am starting to doubt your 40 million figure , it is almost like you are just making wild guesses based on nothing but fantasy.
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
How much additional money are you willing to give Star Citizen while you wait and sit on your already purchased game package?
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
They're going through rougly 40 million a year. I'm not sure how much they make on jpeg sales or how much they have from investors though. I'd say they have 3-4 years left in them, 2 years if they're going to buy more doors.
40 million! wow that is some figure, could you break down how you arrived at that figure? On a side note, why are you suggesting that if they buy new doors they will spend 80 million on them, doors are not really all that expensive, they could probably buy 100,000 new high grade doors for that kind of money. It is always nice to plan in a bit of contingency but I think perhaps 99,980 extra doors might be taking it a bit extreme, I think if they are a little more conservative they could probably make a saving of around 79,984,000 and still get all the new doors they need. Now I am starting to doubt your 40 million figure , it is almost like you are just making wild guesses based on nothing but fantasy.
It was speculated. F42's annual spending is now known to be around 22 mil with an average number of employees at 132. Now, we also know that F42's spends the largest amount of money, so the rest pull a bit less. Let's assume 60k bucks a year per employee (fairly concervative imo, so it's 60k*190=11.4 mil) plus overhead (y'know, simple wooden garage doors and all) and 40 million sounds about right.
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
How much additional money are you willing to give Star Citizen while you wait and sit on your already purchased game package?
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
They're going through rougly 40 million a year. I'm not sure how much they make on jpeg sales or how much they have from investors though. I'd say they have 3-4 years left in them, 2 years if they're going to buy more doors.
40 million! wow that is some figure, could you break down how you arrived at that figure? On a side note, why are you suggesting that if they buy new doors they will spend 80 million on them, doors are not really all that expensive, they could probably buy 100,000 new high grade doors for that kind of money. It is always nice to plan in a bit of contingency but I think perhaps 99,980 extra doors might be taking it a bit extreme, I think if they are a little more conservative they could probably make a saving of around 79,984,000 and still get all the new doors they need. Now I am starting to doubt your 40 million figure , it is almost like you are just making wild guesses based on nothing but fantasy.
F42's annual spending is now known to be around 22 mil
Where from? was also hoping for a nice breakdown, the reason for that is one year i might invest money in something i don't need to purchase again making figures for the year not a typical annual outgoing.
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
F42's annual spending is now known to be around 22 mil
Where from? was also hoping for a nice breakdown, the reason for that is one year i might invest money in something i don't need to purchase again making figures for the year not a typical annual outgoing.
the first time I've seen any remotely useful numbers of how much they're spending
@Vrika. There have been around ten threads in this subforum alone with spending estimates. Most of them quite close to the numbers given in this Foundry42 financial statement. I would even call many of those estimates more conservative and somewhat higher (taking mocap filming cost, actors fees and external contractors into account).
Have you missed all those posts and threads? Or did you not consider them valid estimates? If the later - why did you consider the previous estimates not even "remotely useful"?
Comments
Log in for a few minutes and didn't come back for 6 month.
Some people are willing to support a game but not play it early on.
I am not picking a side, just noting what some players might do sometimes.
I don't know where you are getting the 3 year refund period from...
Was Amy lying to me?
A few months ago CIG announced that they will stop to give these voluntary refunds (except for the 14 day period mentioned in their TOS).
I guess that all this information you can get from customer support on request.
Have fun
Otherwise, tell CIG you are going to do a charge back. You'll get an email from them saying either 'it is illegal to do a charge back' OR 'according to the ToS you agreed to, you are legally not allowed to do a charge back'.
File the charge back, include CIG's email and evidence of non-delivery and wait for VISA to reverse the charges.
I would be happy to help for anything you need on this.
Original - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3748466&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=4551#post462019951 (paywall)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-15-through-gritted-teeth-star-citizen-developer-gives-player-whopping-usd2500-refund
CIG is sued by Crytek
https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/14/16776300/crytek-star-citizen-lawsuit-cig-rsi
EX-Backer StreetRoller sues Chris Roberts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojx7VcbowYQ
As others have said "beta tests" these days are usually part of the pre-launch campaign.
Destiny had a stress test that people bought a disc to enter and GW1 also had a "buy a box" series of weekend tests in its development - the first was "cool" but "garrish and crude" (don't think that needed the box either).
I think the last "big test" might have been WoW back in 2004 - 600k in the US followed with an overlapping EU beta. Very much a beta though following on from the internal alpha.
All of the above - Destiny, GW1, WoW - benefitted from the testing. WoW especially I believe since the testing - and people knowing that there was a finished game - protected it from the day 1 meltdown issues.
RSI possibly didn't want to enter alpha as soon as they did; it is potentially a lot of extra work with no payback and huge pressure. They have adopted the right policy though imo by not setting hard deadlines for stuff. And now the Issues Council is providing "good" as opposed to "casual" (but also good of course) feedback that can only benefit the game going forward.
Launching the alpha though has shifted the landscape. Things have gone from no employees / islands in the sun; through its all just jpegs show me the code to when if ever will it launch / will all the features be delivered.
$100m milestone will allow us to pay for abortive work as a result of scope changes and a backwards development programme, and to adjust our original woefully inadequate budgets .
$110m milestone will enable us to fund increased remuneration packages for senior staff.
You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
117 M$ milestone ;-)
Have fun
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
1,500,000 / 300,000 = 5
I mean did they not think people could do math?
Nobody is playing this. Call me when there's a game. /yawn
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/As someone who is a huge fan of crowdfunding and the freedom it provides for indie devs to create their games without the soul-sucking interference of corporate conglomerates like EA,who used to be the sole gatekeepers of game development and all of its regurgitated franchiseconsole ports (man those were bleak times)....this does not automatically mean that I'm also an avid alpha/beta tester.
After many a year of being a beta tester, I've come to find that ultimately, it tends to have more of a negative impact for me when the same game is finally official launched. It more often than not resulted in major burn out for me, basically.
So now, I set aside monies to help support projects I find to be exciting and some times, I'll donate to a tier where I have alpha access. It's nice to know that I have it but at the same time, I'm more than content to watch Let's Play vids (not many at all, I admit) and follow development on the main website.
So, to all of you chicken little's who are gleefully giggling over the number of testers and what that means in your world, just keep in mind that backers like me are not few and far between, we're just willing to back/support and wait for the official launch day so the experience is new and fresh for us.
Their numbers are really impressive for an alpha, but those numbers are nowhere near enough to support 200+ dev studio. Will they be able to make their game popular to play before they run out of money they can make through promises?
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
@Shinimas
Ty for that info. It's the first time I've seen any remotely useful numbers of how much they're spending
Have you missed all those posts and threads? Or did you not consider them valid estimates? If the later - why did you consider the previous estimates not even "remotely useful"?
Have fun
PS:
If you want to see numbers .. try these:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/filing-history
or more specifically these
@Erillion
Shinimas' post was the first time I found official data, and not just estimates.
I wanted to thank him for that. I did not really want to end up questioning the validity of past estimates. Sorry I phrased my message badly.
Have fun