1. You often can in a certain window of time.
2. If the Red Cross said "donate $100 and get [thing]" and you don't get said thing then yes, because legally that crosses a line and isn't legally a donation despite them saying it is.
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Star Citizen Backer Successfully Gets $2550 Refund
- Thread starter wesleyshark
- Start date
1. You often can in a certain window of time.
2. If the Red Cross said "donate $100 and get [thing]" and you don't get said thing then yes, because legally that crosses a line and isn't legally a donation despite them saying it is.
Not only is legal recourse possible, we're talking about it in a thread where legal recourse was successful.
Agreed. Straight from kickstarter's website:
The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If theyre unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.
Sorcerer
Member
Perhaps he could afford to be that generous and really wanted to support the developer. Nothing wrong with that.
What are they going to add to the game next, a kart racing mode with spaceships?
As it is I bet the game wont be ready for 2020.
Just to correct you, there was no lawsuit, he wasnt entitled to anything, he was refunded by CiG and banned from their services to basically shut up and go away.
He invested a huge amount of money he clearly couldnt afford to do, way after the kickstarter, and continued to invest at the rate of a couple of hundred dollars a month right up until recently, when he realised just how fucking stupid he was.
CIG are actually very good at giving refunds if you just front up and admit to being a fucking idiot and spending more than you can afford.
This guy obviously didnt want to admit being a fucking idiot (including his conversation on R/derek_smart) and chose to try and get his money back in another way to save face.
He is also a Derek Smart crony, as evidenced in the aforementioned conversation.
I find that attitude unshovelrous. Even if a game may take an Eternity, it might well turn out to be a shining light in amongst the Wasteland that is the modern gaming environment.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
A lot more common than you'd think.
Again, scrapped elements that work in the current state of the project is also incredibly common.
It's almost like game development isn't an incredibly linear process or something. Especially not for projects like this.
We're gonna have to come up with a bingo list of false equivalences.
Legally, if they say you get a bag for donating $X, and they don't give you a bag, then yes, you are entitled to legal avenues for the situation to be resolved. I think you are likewise entitled to reimbursement if there's a serious problem with the bag that would ordinarily legally entitle you to a replacement/refund in countries where the law has "fit for purpose"-type legalese. There are also legal differences between actual non-profits (as in they are legal entities registered as such) and stuff that's on Kickstarter, which could also likely play into differences in how comparable situations would be handled.
I'm fairly certain most charities promising tote bags or whatever get them for an absolute pittance and will straight-up just mail you a 2nd bag if, say, the handle broke on the 1st one and you called to complain, because it's not worth anyone's time to drag the situation out any more compared to the likely pennies the bag cost.
adversarial
Member
Thank you. Why is that still a point of dispute?
So when a company fails to deliver on what they are legally obligated to fulfill the consumer isn't entitled to a refund? That is some dangerous logic right here.
LizardKing
Member
It doesn't matter what the ToS says. It doesn't matter what agreement he signed. The law has precedence. He agreed to pay money for an expectation to receive a certain product by a certain date. He didn't get the product he paid for by the date he agreed to.
If he paid with the expectation he was receiving a RTS and he was now receiving an MMO, the product has changed. It doesn't matter what the hopes and dreams of the other backers were either. You presented your product as such and are required to deliver as presented. By law.
It's not the backers who are in a grey area here, it's the crowd sourcers. They are trying to be able to tell people to pay for one thing and receive another. This is not legal. They cannot have you sign away this protection and any agreement conflicting with it is null.
If he paid with the expectation he was receiving a RTS and he was now receiving an MMO, the product has changed. It doesn't matter what the hopes and dreams of the other backers were either. You presented your product as such and are required to deliver as presented. By law.
It's not the backers who are in a grey area here, it's the crowd sourcers. They are trying to be able to tell people to pay for one thing and receive another. This is not legal. They cannot have you sign away this protection and any agreement conflicting with it is null.
wesleyshark
Banned
Exactly
Zalusithix
Member
Nobody outside of CIG knows exactly the state of development. At least when taken as a whole project, and not only one half of it. There's a number of reasons you wouldn't put assets or systems in the alpha though. They could be unsatisfied with the current state of them. They could be dependent on other systems that aren't complete. They could be dependent on systems that currently exist, but are being overhauled in private.
That's one of the problems with the chart. It paints development in black and white like development is some binary procedure where things are either done or not. There's a huge difference between 1 out of 10 things being done where the other 9 aren't even started and 1 out of 10 things being done where the other 9 are mostly complete. Without fine data about the detailed state of everything, you're left with a view that can be horribly skewed. It can be factually correct, but reading too much into it causes problems. You can't extrapolate the overall progress of a project with such a limited data set.
Beyond that, it focuses on one half of the game. Threads like this don't contain many people that understand the nuances of the Star Citizen project and how funding is both the MMO and single player aspect where the same team (more or less) is working on both simultaneously. A chart like that plopped in here, especially with a heading like that allows people to glance at it and say "Well damn, they haven't done anything they've promised!" It's as if SQ42 doesn't exist and SC (the MMO) is made in a vacuum.
I think more than anything it highlights the downside of having no shareholders or board money men to answer to. The lack of urgency that emanates from not being beholden to anyone and still receiving free money at a staggering rate, I'm just saying its easy to see where things could off track.
In the case of PBS and getting bags and mugs and such the value of those items is removed from the donation amount. So if you pledge $100 to pbs and get a $5 shirt you will only be counted as donating $95. Also sorry Kickstarter is not a donation. It is some weird inbetween space that probably needs to be regulated. Also since it has matured most projects are closer to pre-orders and are treated as such by the companies. Pebble is a good example of this you could request a refund as any time up to a month after receiving the watch. However KS themselves said these companies are legally on the hook when it comes to delivering the pledged items and we have had successful court cases to back that up.
Easton Dark
Member
Or people that can differentiate "Crowd-Funding" with "Pre-Order" or have any idea how games get developed.
I find the Star Citizen threads are the most aggravating ones to read on all of Neogaf.
I dont know how much you know of the project, but the dumbass in question started backing 2014, when it was very much a 2 game deal, he was also declined a refund by paypal and was refunded by CIG as he wasnt worth the hassle and time of dealing with him.
Defending a spurious case against them gets them nothing, as he wouldnt have the money to pay the costs of being defeated, and it would cost CIG a lot more than $2500 even if they won the case.
So cheaper to give him his money, and fuck him off with a lifetime ban from their services as well.
FTFY
BannedEpisode
Member
I pledged 70 bucks back in 2014 I think? Shits taking forever.
The people in charge can still disagree but give the refund out of good will.
fun so that I can scratch the space travel itch... Maybe NMS will be amazing.Can you imagine if game developers treated publisher money like they treat money from crowdfunding?
"Yes, you gave us the money, but you can't reasonably have any expectation that we're going to deliver something for you when we said we're going to."
It sounds to me like the chart is accurate, but you don't like that it's not "framed" in terms of the plethora of excuses and rationalizations necessary to make the slow progress seem palatable. A straight-forward assessment of the project's status is helpful to people who don't want to spend all day reading through the onslaught of obfuscating marketing material CIG puts out, while actual game development progress languishes. CIG should be using that chart as an example for their own communication with backers. Time to start being honest.
LizardKing
Member
People will often pay people to go away if they fear they may lose in court and set a precedence. Usually if someone takes you to court on a case you think you will win, you fight it, even if it costs more than settling because it will prevent others from trying to do the same in the future. Settling will cost more in the long run, if you think you can win. Paypal's decision doesn't mean anything.
You're right I don't know the intricacies of this project though. Just what I read from the OP and occasional things over the years. My statement is more of a general one and maybe it's not applied to this case. It appeared it would apply if what this guy says is true though.
The subject does tend to bring out quite the vicious and, often willfully ignorant streaks in people.
They ignore that CiG has had to build a games studio from scratch, they disregard precedent when commenting about development time, and for some reason, take the whole thing rather personally.
I am quite happy to front up, I have given them a $1000 towards making the game, as I really like the idea, seeing as $1000 is 3 and a bit days pay, and i've spent that over 3 years, its no big deal to me.
I believe wholeheartedly that they are doing their best to make the games, yes they have fucked up along the way, but guess what?
Nobody is going to die, nobody is going to get hurt and the world isnt going to end if the fail.
Ahh, that makes sense.
But yeah, I think that's something that an actual registered non-profit can do but a for-profit entity couldn't (e.g. "you get the game if you pledge $100 but $95 of that is a donation so any problems we refund you $5" (but you can't actually buy the game for $5) is probably not going to work)
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Celebrity involvement doesn't make it not one.
Zalusithix
Member
If a person doesn't want to spend time to understand the state of the game and the complexities of development, they shouldn't be backing. Boiling down a complex system into a black and white "for dummies" explanation isn't going to help anybody. Giving full data of the state of every last thing for both SQ42 and SC isn't even realistically an option, and has never been done for any game. Crowdfunded or otherwise.
I mean, it's great what you do with your own money, but others might not (and do not) feel the same as you.
I firmly believe that if you, as a create of a project, do not deliver on the rewards you have set for the money you asked for, then the option for a refund in the least should be available.
There is that, but in this particular case you have to understand that the person in question has had Smart in his ear for quite some time, and he has fallen for the FUD bullshit he has been spreading.
Its not a clear case of the little guy taking on a nasty software company and winning, its a case of a guy massively over stretching himself, and being used by someone else to further their hate campaign and basically being sent packing.
A hate campaign by the way fuelled by the fact they wouldn't give him a job, turned down his consultancy offer, and refunded and banned him from their services.
Smart was crowing about this before the media even got a sniff of it, its prime bullshit and all part of one mans hate agenda.
Yeah at some point the FTC is going to have to get involved since KS is neither a donation or purchase. It is some nebulous thing in between since you are generally spending more then the value of the item which would be the donation portion but you are still getting promised an item of value as compensation which is the purchase portion. The only legal cases that have occurred are compensation for backers of a failed project stating that the project is required to deliver the goods they have listed as a reward.
And Matsuno was involved in Unsung Story just because you have known people doesn't really mean anything.
boviscopophobic
Member
Measuring quantitative progress towards a goal is not some revolutionary concept that has never been tried before. Competently managed projects, even in software, do this all the time. Why is it so unfathomably hard and incredibly nuanced in the particular case of CIG and Star Citizen?
boviscopophobic
Member
This is untrue. StreetRoller has said that he pursued his refund without being prompted by Derek Smart.
"gam development" = leg day.
No you are defintely not a customer buying a product in the shop here. We've been through this so many times since crowd funding got popular. How is it even possible that we're still discussing this.
Lovely Salsa
Banned
What happened to yogscast kickstarter? Didnt they take the money and ran?
Zalusithix
Member
Because one half of the project is a black box to the public for purposes of not spoiling everything. And there's a difference between internal progress management, and external reports. Backers are technically not investors, and are not required to be presented with every nitty gritty detail. Star Citizen as a whole is already one of the more open crowdfunded projects.
LizardKing
Member
Where is the donation? You are receiving goods, or the promise of them, at a higher price than retail in order for the devs to have funds early. Despite the labels there are no donations here. This is a contract. It doesn't matter that the value is higher than what retail would normally be as that is arbitrary as well. If I buy a ps4 from you for $1,000, I didn't just give you a donation. I agreed upon a price I was willing to pay for the product.
These aren't nonprofit organizations either.
Be fair in that a very very small amount of people are not happy.
The reddit and forums sometimes have people who buy accounts and ships without reading anything at all on the website first and have no idea what they are doing or buying and they often complain and get refunded straight away.
One particular group in are unhappy and extremely vocal as they were prevented from hijacking the project to their own ends and have made it their mission to rubbish it at every turn since.
Almost every single hit piece, nonsense article, expression of dismay or FUD can be traced back to either Derek Smart or SA.
Star citizen, despite its huge funding had a small supporter base, there are not millions of people buying accounts, there are around 650,000 actual backers, the general gaming public either have not heard of it or are not interested, or don't care for it.
There are not thousands of people crying for refunds, as there are not that many people who do not know exactly what they were getting into.
wesleyshark
Banned
Because you are a consumer.
Zalusithix
Member
Not mutually exclusive statements, as much as you'd like them to be.
When I donate, I am not promised anything in return.
When I invest, I am not promised anything in return.
When I become a backer, I am promised something in return.
Why people are ignoring the ToS that KS has in place to protect backers is beyond me.
Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.
Just to be fair, here is the thread with the guys own words, and the actual facts of the case.
Including where he admits to dealing with Smart and the SA forums.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/4sjhcn/new_ds_rant_boom_there_it_is_if_your_browser/
I also advise anyone who has any doubts about the project to read that reddit for 10 minutes or so, and just get an understanding of where most of the Star Citizen bullshit comes from.
wait.... you want this to be a scam?
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