look at the smile on Chris Roberts' face in that picture. Thats the smile of one happy scammer dont ya think? The face that a lot of ppl will hate when this game turns out to be the biggest scam in gaming history.
It's really funny how all the SC super supporter always say the same BS,,,,, "CIG /Chris Roberts are doing something that NO ONE has ever done before" or " CIG is doing something on a scale never done before" ..... YEAH YEAH YEAH and AOC said the world will end in 12 yrs!!!!
What was the last game CR worked on before he started SC? Answer Freelancer.
Did he finish the game. NO
Why not?
In June 2000, Microsoft started talks to buy Digital Anvil. Roberts admitted that his team required large sums of money, which only a huge company could provide, to continue developing Freelancer with its "wildly ambitious" features and unpredictable schedule; the project had overshot its original development projection of three years by 18 months. Roberts trusted that Microsoft would not compromise his vision for Freelancer, and was convinced the software giant would not attempt the takeover if it did not believe Freelancer could sell at least 500,000 copies when released.[38] Roberts left the company on completion of the deal, but assumed a creative consultant role on Freelancer until its release.[39] Microsoft instructed Digital Anvil to scale down the ambitions of the project and focus on finishing the game based on what was possible and the team's strengths.[13][19] Features such as the automated flight control, conversations that had different choices of responses, and sub-quests were abandoned.[12] Despite the reductions, several reviewers believed the resultant product was still true to Robert's vision.[5][13] (From Wikipedia)
Note the first part of the statement.
"Roberts admitted that his team required large sums of money, which only a huge company could provide, to continue developing Freelancer with its "wildly ambitious" features and unpredictable schedule;"
Then later in this statement
"Microsoft instructed Digital Anvil to scale down the ambitions of the project and focus on finishing the game based on what was possible and the team's strengths."
Now does any of the sound familiar?
Chris Roberts seems to have a problem with completing projects if there isn't anyone stepping on his toes to get it done. This is the problem we are seeing right now with SC.
Lets just look at the ships for example. They just got done redoing the i-300 for what the 3rd time? How many times has the modiclass thingie been redone? You can ever finish anything if you keep redoing it over and over again. It is a waste of man hours and it is also bad for morale as people will begin to feel that there work is not worth doing.
So yes it is mismanagement and the past history shows he has had this issue in the past, and just not in the gaming world. At some point the SC community needs stop with the excuses and hold someone accountable just as we hold EA and others accountable!
Concept-wise could be a great game, visually stunning too, but it isn't even a commercially released game yet. Will it be? From a purely business point of view why would you want to finally release any product/service if you could just keep milking people for money saying it is perpetually on its way. The personal issues pointed-out unless it can be shown to affect the business/SC I'm not sure why it is mentioned except to hype so said drama.
They need to get themselves declared a religion, get tax exempt status and a few celebrities involved then they don't have to worry about pesky questions about donations or 'accountability'.
"The number of developers working on Star Citizen and its single-player campaign Squadron 42 has grown to 475 across three nations." - dualshockers.com ( February 16, 2018)
"Last year Cloud Imperium released financials that showed its biggest expense was annual salaries of $30 million." - forbes (May 31, 2019)
$30 million divided amongst 475 employees averages out to $63,157, well below what's considered the industry standard. That $300 million figure that they seem to be focused on would support salaries for 10 years, assuming they don't grow anymore and sustain this ratio. That's before you even get into any other expenses that come with this development. Maybe there should be some actual math and unbiased research involved. This is not an example of good journalism.
I believed in the hype that others here expressed about it being a scame before, but decided to do my own research as well as actually checking the game out during the last Free Fly event (there's another going on right now). You can actually see what they're putting their money and energy into. As long as you keep in mind that the game is still in alpha, it's a pretty enlightening experience. I haven't pledged into a real copy yet, but I'm definitely planning on it. There hasn't been another game this detailed and ambitious, and I'm convinced that they will pull it off and reset the bar as I've seen and played it with my own two eyes and hands. I don't know why the hype train wants to give so much baseless hate to this venture.
LOL. "Launched an investigation". Look im not a journalist or an investgator, but i have common sense. Ill tell you where its gone. Salaries, Infastructure, R&D. A game of Star Citizens scope is not gonna be cheap to make.
The article is largely pointless. The TLDR version of it is that "yes they are making a very successful crowdfunding game... but how people chose to spend their money is up for an ethics debate".
The bit about Robert's personal drama featuring his ex wife and his current one is unnecessary, borderline tabloid trash. I have yet to meat anyone with some amount of wealth that has not had stupid drama in their life, especially if you live here in California (where I also reside). The more high profile you are, the easier it is to get noticed.
Forbes is just looking for clickbait at this point with this piece. The only valid criticism Star Citizen has, based on the article, is that its taking too long to finish, yet they admit it is being made.
While long development times, with multiple set backs, is uncommon, it is also not unheard of. Look at most of Blizzard's biggest sellers, Diablo 3 started development back in 2001 and after a ton of ups and downs it came out in 2012. Starcraft 2 was in development for a bit over 7 years, same with LA Noir (Rockstar games). Maxis Games took 8 years to make Spore. Valve's Team Fortress 2 took about 9 years.
What SC is doing is in a far larger scope than any of those titles, so while it is legitimate to criticize the development time within reason, the article writers should also take into consideration that its not like this length is unheard of either. Over promising and feature creep are unfortunately more common than it should be. The only nature that changes things this time around is that previous titles were funded by big publishers, where as SC is done largely by fans (crowd funding) via a product that sells itself as in development.
I believe at some point this cluster fuck of a project will force legislation on crowd funding and hurt future projects. I will be swole AF if my precious future tabletop kickstarters start costing more money
The Forbes article is done by a guy who is paid by words. He clearly did not follow the project and add a few clik-bait sub-titles just to create buz.
FTC complain are nothing by guys who ask for refunds and did not get it. there is even US court denying a guy who spend thousands. Of course no mention of that. This journalist did made a job equal to the one at The Escapist who get fires years ago for being utterly unethical about CIG and backers.
The article is a shame for Forbes...not the project and by far.
I was expecting a real explosion but this is just partly exculpatory ("it's not fraud just gross mismanagement") details that we all already knew even if we just watch this train wreck casually.
It's more like an armpit fart kind of explosion.
I'm good with him getting some heat though. Playing the expectation blame game and his smug industry insight is totally insufferable.
The entire development hoopla and drama around this game has totally turned me off from playing it. I don't even want to play Squadron 42 at this point because it will just remind of this kind of crap, and all the arguments, and blah blah blah.
Well you will play it the day it release. You are tired of all those crap "drama". Fair enough. What gamer want is a a game. leave everything else to those naysayers and click-baits articles around until you see: SQ42 released!
Beta in 5 quarters
"Last year Cloud Imperium released financials that showed its biggest expense was annual salaries of $30 million." - forbes (May 31, 2019)
$30 million divided amongst 475 employees averages out to $63,157, well below what's considered the industry standard. That $300 million figure that they seem to be focused on would support salaries for 10 years, assuming they don't grow anymore and sustain this ratio. That's before you even get into any other expenses that come with this development. Maybe there should be some actual math and unbiased research involved. This is not an example of good journalism.
The salaries aren't their only expense.
They've released their financials up till end of 2017. At that point they had total of 207 million income, and had 14 million of that money left. Forbes included link to the financials in their article.
I think the problem is more your sloppy reading than Forbes's bad journalism.
Yeah, "GOOD" journalism, except the part where they completely over-estimated the total amount of revenue gained by 75 MILLION DOLLARS. It's actually around $225. But, yeah, other than that HUGE mistake, it's "good journalism."
p.s. I have spent a total of $0.00 on Star Citizen.
I'm not sure where Forbes gets their current numbers, but if you estimate their income has stayed the same since end of 2017 and count in the investor who invested $46 million, it looks like the numbers on that article are correct.
FTC complain are nothing by guys who ask for refunds and did not get it. there is even US court denying a guy who spend thousands. Of course no mention of that.
They already wrote about it in the article:
"Ken Lord is a 39-year-old data scientist from the Denver area, who suffers from worsening multiple sclerosis. Lord first backed Star Citizen in 2013 and eventually spent $4,500 buying spaceships. Last year, Lord unsuccessfully sued Cloud Imperium for a refund. “You take something that is bad, like spending too much money on a video game, and turn it into a socially exclusive club and make it desirable—cheers to their marketing department,” he says. (Bizarrely, Lord, who claims to have “poor impulse control,” continued to buy more spaceships after his lawsuit failed.)"
Inside, Madison Peterson, Roberts’ former common-law wife, with whom he had a long on-and-off relationship, was startled and feared her young daughter could be harmed or kidnapped. Peterson later identified the trespasser as Sandi Gardiner, who is now Roberts’ wife (for the second time) and a cofounder of Cloud Imperium.
“Ms. Gardiner has an unnatural and irrational fascination with my daughter and me,” Peterson wrote. “I constantly and continually look to make sure my daughter and I are not watched.”
In a court-filed declaration he signed at the time, Roberts said Gardiner had also visited Peterson’s San Diego home and once became violent and tried to strangle him. “I believed that if she had a gun she would have killed me,” Roberts said in the declaration. “I believe that Ms. Gardiner is not emotionally stable.”
And you'd don't think the ex-wife might be jealous and talking out of her ass? Many step-mom's attempt to overly kind to the daughter of their new husbands.
Inside, Madison Peterson, Roberts’ former common-law wife, with whom he had a long on-and-off relationship, was startled and feared her young daughter could be harmed or kidnapped. Peterson later identified the trespasser as Sandi Gardiner, who is now Roberts’ wife (for the second time) and a cofounder of Cloud Imperium.
“Ms. Gardiner has an unnatural and irrational fascination with my daughter and me,” Peterson wrote. “I constantly and continually look to make sure my daughter and I are not watched.”
In a court-filed declaration he signed at the time, Roberts said Gardiner had also visited Peterson’s San Diego home and once became violent and tried to strangle him. “I believed that if she had a gun she would have killed me,” Roberts said in the declaration. “I believe that Ms. Gardiner is not emotionally stable.”
And you'd don't think the ex-wife might be jealous and talking out of her ass? Many step-mom's attempt to overly kind to the daughter of their new husbands.
The court did not think so.
Also according to the court documents Chris Roberts did not think so.
I'm confident that the game will eventually launch. The question is whether it will eventually resemble a finished product, or if they'll run out of money and have to take what they have and push it out the door.
This is where I am at. I am surprised that some posters think it appropriate to attack Mr Roberts on the basis of issues with his ex-wife. Why are we even hearing about his marital and ex-martial issues.
I don't think we will get a finished product as expectations are too high so what launches (EA far more likely) will never match up to that. But we will get a game, after which those of us who have the sense not to CF/pre-order games can read the reviews and make up their minds as to whether they want to buy the game.
Forbes is spot on. If it is all lies and inaccuracy CIG would have came out by now like they did with the escapist. Forbes has done their due diligence and all those rumors fanboys like to call "FUD" looks as real as it ever has been.
LOL all the sci-fi fanbois Got screwed Big time lmao. 300mill? Hahahaha, Half of that fortune are in the cayman island already or the Seychelles. Fuck I would have used 100mill to save the 200mill and feed the idiot gamer cattle’s a paper game too, stalling til everyone’s emotions wears off hahaha. How stupid can you be supporting these cocaine snorting weasels
so when the FBI shows et they ofices and end this farse fraud scam ?
when this bubel blow the game industry will be in ruin no one wil be puting $ in games end it befor it too late and the damege wil be not so dramatic for all of game industry
I'm confident that the game will eventually launch. The question is whether it will eventually resemble a finished product, or if they'll run out of money and have to take what they have and push it out the door.
This is where I am at. I am surprised that some posters think it appropriate to attack Mr Roberts on the basis of issues with his ex-wife. Why are we even hearing about his marital and ex-martial issues.
I don't think we will get a finished product as expectations are too high so what launches (EA far more likely) will never match up to that. But we will get a game, after which those of us who have the sense not to CF/pre-order games can read the reviews and make up their minds as to whether they want to buy the game.
I'm afraid I disagree since those issues with his ex-wife goes towards his character and his capacity to lie. He made those declarations to obtain a restraining order and subsequently claimed he did not recall those events. That same woman is also working in his company.
This is a crowd funded project and they are taking people's money on faith that they will build a game. If this is the type of person he is with personal relationships that he has transplanted into his company I'd say those personal relationships bear scrutiny.
Elon Musk has managed with his tweets to cause damage to Tesla. I'd hate to think what damage a falling out with his wife in this case who works in the company will have on this project and I have no trust they will behave professionally because of their history.
"The number of developers working on Star Citizen and its single-player campaign Squadron 42 has grown to 475 across three nations." - dualshockers.com ( February 16, 2018)
"Last year Cloud Imperium released financials that showed its biggest expense was annual salaries of $30 million." - forbes (May 31, 2019)
$30 million divided amongst 475 employees averages out to $63,157, well below what's considered the industry standard. That $300 million figure that they seem to be focused on would support salaries for 10 years, assuming they don't grow anymore and sustain this ratio. That's before you even get into any other expenses that come with this development. Maybe there should be some actual math and unbiased research involved. This is not an example of good journalism.
I believed in the hype that others here expressed about it being a scame before, but decided to do my own research as well as actually checking the game out during the last Free Fly event (there's another going on right now). You can actually see what they're putting their money and energy into. As long as you keep in mind that the game is still in alpha, it's a pretty enlightening experience. I haven't pledged into a real copy yet, but I'm definitely planning on it. There hasn't been another game this detailed and ambitious, and I'm convinced that they will pull it off and reset the bar as I've seen and played it with my own two eyes and hands. I don't know why the hype train wants to give so much baseless hate to this venture.
I do love when people try to explain away issues by stating the average.
Here lets throw out some other numbers and the average.
Erin Roberts, arguably someone who is qualified for the role he is in, took a salary of 230k pounds which is about double that of the average salary for the region he’s in and the job he does.
If Erin is taking double the average then I wonder what Chris is paying himself seeing as he probably considers himself gods gift to gaming. Or how much Sandi is being paid cause she’s “a brilliant marketing genius” or how much Ortwin is being paid.
"The number of developers working on Star Citizen and its single-player campaign Squadron 42 has grown to 475 across three nations." - dualshockers.com ( February 16, 2018)
"Last year Cloud Imperium released financials that showed its biggest expense was annual salaries of $30 million." - forbes (May 31, 2019)
$30 million divided amongst 475 employees averages out to $63,157, well below what's considered the industry standard. That $300 million figure that they seem to be focused on would support salaries for 10 years, assuming they don't grow anymore and sustain this ratio. That's before you even get into any other expenses that come with this development. Maybe there should be some actual math and unbiased research involved. This is not an example of good journalism.
I believed in the hype that others here expressed about it being a scame before, but decided to do my own research as well as actually checking the game out during the last Free Fly event (there's another going on right now). You can actually see what they're putting their money and energy into. As long as you keep in mind that the game is still in alpha, it's a pretty enlightening experience. I haven't pledged into a real copy yet, but I'm definitely planning on it. There hasn't been another game this detailed and ambitious, and I'm convinced that they will pull it off and reset the bar as I've seen and played it with my own two eyes and hands. I don't know why the hype train wants to give so much baseless hate to this venture.
I do love when people try to explain away issues by stating the average.
Here lets throw out some other numbers and the average.
Erin Roberts, arguably someone who is qualified for the role he is in, took a salary of 230k pounds which is about double that of the average salary for the region he’s in and the job he does.
If Erin is taking double the average then I wonder what Chris is paying himself seeing as he probably considers himself gods gift to gaming. Or how much Sandi is being paid cause she’s “a brilliant marketing genius” or how much Ortwin is being paid.
Wow I never knew that. I’m pretty sure Jacobs from Camelot Unchained is not drawing a salary. Isn’t their payout supposed to be their ownership stake?
Are they really paying themselves?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Comments
Fans would be happy buying thousand dollars ships , keeping their faith that one day they will play their perfect game.
Haters will be happy continuing to have something to bash.
What was the last game CR worked on before he started SC? Answer Freelancer.
Did he finish the game. NO
Why not?
In June 2000, Microsoft started talks to buy Digital Anvil. Roberts admitted that his team required large sums of money, which only a huge company could provide, to continue developing Freelancer with its "wildly ambitious" features and unpredictable schedule; the project had overshot its original development projection of three years by 18 months. Roberts trusted that Microsoft would not compromise his vision for Freelancer, and was convinced the software giant would not attempt the takeover if it did not believe Freelancer could sell at least 500,000 copies when released.[38] Roberts left the company on completion of the deal, but assumed a creative consultant role on Freelancer until its release.[39] Microsoft instructed Digital Anvil to scale down the ambitions of the project and focus on finishing the game based on what was possible and the team's strengths.[13][19] Features such as the automated flight control, conversations that had different choices of responses, and sub-quests were abandoned.[12] Despite the reductions, several reviewers believed the resultant product was still true to Robert's vision.[5][13] (From Wikipedia)
Note the first part of the statement.
"Roberts admitted that his team required large sums of money, which only a huge company could provide, to continue developing Freelancer with its "wildly ambitious" features and unpredictable schedule;"
Then later in this statement
"Microsoft instructed Digital Anvil to scale down the ambitions of the project and focus on finishing the game based on what was possible and the team's strengths."
Now does any of the sound familiar?
Chris Roberts seems to have a problem with completing projects if there isn't anyone stepping on his toes to get it done. This is the problem we are seeing right now with SC.
Lets just look at the ships for example. They just got done redoing the i-300 for what the 3rd time? How many times has the modiclass thingie been redone? You can ever finish anything if you keep redoing it over and over again. It is a waste of man hours and it is also bad for morale as people will begin to feel that there work is not worth doing.
So yes it is mismanagement and the past history shows he has had this issue in the past, and just not in the gaming world. At some point the SC community needs stop with the excuses and hold someone accountable just as we hold EA and others accountable!
I'm in the same boat.
They won't get my money till it releases, if it releases, and after enough time has passed that I can confirm SQ42 isn't total trash.
I don't care about the drama, I just hope they at least get that part right.
"Last year Cloud Imperium released financials that showed its biggest expense was annual salaries of $30 million." - forbes (May 31, 2019)
$30 million divided amongst 475 employees averages out to $63,157, well below what's considered the industry standard. That $300 million figure that they seem to be focused on would support salaries for 10 years, assuming they don't grow anymore and sustain this ratio. That's before you even get into any other expenses that come with this development. Maybe there should be some actual math and unbiased research involved. This is not an example of good journalism.
I believed in the hype that others here expressed about it being a scame before, but decided to do my own research as well as actually checking the game out during the last Free Fly event (there's another going on right now). You can actually see what they're putting their money and energy into. As long as you keep in mind that the game is still in alpha, it's a pretty enlightening experience. I haven't pledged into a real copy yet, but I'm definitely planning on it. There hasn't been another game this detailed and ambitious, and I'm convinced that they will pull it off and reset the bar as I've seen and played it with my own two eyes and hands. I don't know why the hype train wants to give so much baseless hate to this venture.
The Forbes article is done by a guy who is paid by words. He clearly did not follow the project and add a few clik-bait sub-titles just to create buz.
FTC complain are nothing by guys who ask for refunds and did not get it. there is even US court denying a guy who spend thousands. Of course no mention of that. This journalist did made a job equal to the one at The Escapist who get fires years ago for being utterly unethical about CIG and backers.
The article is a shame for Forbes...not the project and by far.
Well you will play it the day it release. You are tired of all those crap "drama". Fair enough. What gamer want is a a game. leave everything else to those naysayers and click-baits articles around until you see: SQ42 released!
Beta in 5 quarters
They've released their financials up till end of 2017. At that point they had total of 207 million income, and had 14 million of that money left. Forbes included link to the financials in their article.
I think the problem is more your sloppy reading than Forbes's bad journalism.
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cfo-comment-2012-2017-financials
I'm not sure where Forbes gets their current numbers, but if you estimate their income has stayed the same since end of 2017 and count in the investor who invested $46 million, it looks like the numbers on that article are correct.
"Ken Lord is a 39-year-old data scientist from the Denver area, who suffers from worsening multiple sclerosis. Lord first backed Star Citizen in 2013 and eventually spent $4,500 buying spaceships. Last year, Lord unsuccessfully sued Cloud Imperium for a refund. “You take something that is bad, like spending too much money on a video game, and turn it into a socially exclusive club and make it desirable—cheers to their marketing department,” he says. (Bizarrely, Lord, who claims to have “poor impulse control,” continued to buy more spaceships after his lawsuit failed.)"
mmorpg junkie since 1999
Also according to the court documents Chris Roberts did not think so.
I don't think we will get a finished product as expectations are too high so what launches (EA far more likely) will never match up to that. But we will get a game, after which those of us who have the sense not to CF/pre-order games can read the reviews and make up their minds as to whether they want to buy the game.
mmorpg junkie since 1999
mmorpg junkie since 1999
when this bubel blow the game industry will be in ruin no one wil be puting $ in games end it befor it too late and the damege wil be not so dramatic for all of game industry
This is a crowd funded project and they are taking people's money on faith that they will build a game. If this is the type of person he is with personal relationships that he has transplanted into his company I'd say those personal relationships bear scrutiny.
Elon Musk has managed with his tweets to cause damage to Tesla. I'd hate to think what damage a falling out with his wife in this case who works in the company will have on this project and I have no trust they will behave professionally because of their history.
I'd say it has every bearing on the project.
Here lets throw out some other numbers and the average.
Erin Roberts, arguably someone who is qualified for the role he is in, took a salary of 230k pounds which is about double that of the average salary for the region he’s in and the job he does.
If Erin is taking double the average then I wonder what Chris is paying himself seeing as he probably considers himself gods gift to gaming. Or how much Sandi is being paid cause she’s “a brilliant marketing genius” or how much Ortwin is being paid.
Are they really paying themselves?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018