nowhat
Member
So now we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep in addition to adding new people to the project. It doesn't exactly spark my confidence.
I'm going to go out on a limb here. You're a backer, aren't you?
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Star Citizen Backer Sues To Get $4,500 Back, Loses
- Thread starter Arkage
- Start date
I'm going to go out on a limb here. You're a backer, aren't you?
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Is the fact that I put $30 into the game 6 years ago supposed to discredit my arguments? How would I know the context behind development and what the game is actually like right now if I didn't have access to the persistent universe and followed development closely? Also, they haven't done stretch goals since they hit $65 million. Yeah they've announced and shown new features that weren't in those stretch goals but the last "new features" they added were Coruscant-style city planets (which they're delivering next quarter), land ownership and farming mechanics.
I'm getting the feeling that this all fundamentally comes down to the opinion that they should've put out the game exactly as it was pitched on Kickstarter no matter how much money they made and no matter how much Chris Roberts wanted to hit market with more. I completely disagree, under these rare circumstances where development is feasible and creators are able to be unleashed with zero financial limitations, I encourage them to go wild and we're not going to change each other's minds.
Grinchy
Banned
Blaming the developers of the game for people handing their money over is like blaming those Twitch cam girls instead of blaming the thirsty idiot dudes who throw money at them.
If you're handing money over to something, you've made that choice without a gun to your head. Don't go and blame the person who collected your stupidity cash just because you finally figured out you were duped.
If you're handing money over to something, you've made that choice without a gun to your head. Don't go and blame the person who collected your stupidity cash just because you finally figured out you were duped.
RaptorGTA
Member
I was beyond hyped for SC...decided to play Elite since I was tied of waiting...Had one hell of a time in Elite for a while. It satisfied my hunger..I have no interest for SC now. Even if the game is "officially released" I don't know if Id go and play it.
Arkage
Banned
Twitch cam girls are actually providing the product they advertise.
jadedm17
Member
Sad, but the lines have always been clear and the risk has been known. Read the terms and don't donate if you can't afford it.
Why pre-order? Why pre-order a game without a release date? Why pre-order a game without a release date with no guarantee to release on a platform with terms that state that? Now why do it for $4,500? He should get his money back, I'll agree to that, but equally he should have never given that much money to such a dice roll.
Why pre-order? Why pre-order a game without a release date? Why pre-order a game without a release date with no guarantee to release on a platform with terms that state that? Now why do it for $4,500? He should get his money back, I'll agree to that, but equally he should have never given that much money to such a dice roll.
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Grinchy
Banned
They're both teasing something that the customer is never going to get.
Enygger_Tzu
Banned
$4500 are a lot of money, I wish I had so much disposable income, and I am sad to see this happening.
More and more SC seems like a massive scam, intentional or unintentional and more people are voicing their distaste for it, if this thing implodes, I fear for the safety of Mr. Robinson.
And I speak as someone who lost $30 in backing Beast's Fury.
More and more SC seems like a massive scam, intentional or unintentional and more people are voicing their distaste for it, if this thing implodes, I fear for the safety of Mr. Robinson.
And I speak as someone who lost $30 in backing Beast's Fury.
lefty1117
Gold Member
I'm not so much annoyed with all the money they've collected - good for them really - but the project is incompetently run. Way too much refactoring of code, sideways diversions, missed deadlines, and ongoing fundraising activities. With such a large and dispersed team it needs strong leadership and I don't think they're getting it. The activities seem disjointed if you read the reports they publish. Teams working pretty much on their own and then surprised when they merge code and stuff doesn't work.
Elite has the opposite problem. It was a very focused development that delivered a working game largely on time and budget. However they are limited in their ability to expand due to early design decisions that they can't escape from.
The truth is in the middle of these two approaches - an ambitious and aspirational design objective with incremental deliveries along the way. It's a hard thing to get right
Elite has the opposite problem. It was a very focused development that delivered a working game largely on time and budget. However they are limited in their ability to expand due to early design decisions that they can't escape from.
The truth is in the middle of these two approaches - an ambitious and aspirational design objective with incremental deliveries along the way. It's a hard thing to get right
Arkage
Banned
People who watch cam girls don’t expect to have sex with a cam girl. What the hell.
Petrae
Member
I’ll never donate to a crowdfund for a video game. If/when it comes out, I’ll consider buying it. Too many false/unkept promises and products that wind up failing to meet expectations.
The J. Wellington Wimpy approach to game development— “We’ll eventually maybe make a game but you have to pay me today”— isn’t for me. If I want to throw my money away for a chance at a possible payoff. I’ll play the lottery instead.
The J. Wellington Wimpy approach to game development— “We’ll eventually maybe make a game but you have to pay me today”— isn’t for me. If I want to throw my money away for a chance at a possible payoff. I’ll play the lottery instead.
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
It seems like this guy was one of their biggest fans at a certain point. It's a shame really.
There is a leadership issue, and it seems he bit off more than he could chew. I would find it amusing if Star Citizen ended up a port to next-gen consoles by the time it finally releases.
There is a leadership issue, and it seems he bit off more than he could chew. I would find it amusing if Star Citizen ended up a port to next-gen consoles by the time it finally releases.
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Many people are blaming the crowdfunding method here and they are wrong. without it Obsidian would be probably dead and the C-RPG with it...
Some game genre just can't be produced with the usual scheme anymore, simly because this isn't developpers who make game nowadays but publishers and shareholders.
As a sandbox warfare MMORPG fan, my only chance to get a game like this again is with a crowdfunding campaign, because it's a niche and also because the new 'gamer' generation have no idea of what it is.
So thanks to crowdfunding and the independant dev who manage to create something else than BattleRoyal and mobile games.
Some game genre just can't be produced with the usual scheme anymore, simly because this isn't developpers who make game nowadays but publishers and shareholders.
As a sandbox warfare MMORPG fan, my only chance to get a game like this again is with a crowdfunding campaign, because it's a niche and also because the new 'gamer' generation have no idea of what it is.
So thanks to crowdfunding and the independant dev who manage to create something else than BattleRoyal and mobile games.
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Fox Mulder
Member
This.
I never have and never will dump money into Kickstarter. I even bought an Ouya at GameStop and could have actually returned it.
KevinKeene
Banned
I'm on the developer's side here. Star Citizen is THE most ambitious video game of all times. I don't care if it takes another 10 years - whas promised sounds too awesome. The ultimare space exploration adventure.
nowhat
Member
So... like No Man's Sky?
(Don't get me wrong, NMS has improved a lot since release, and the upcoming update seems great. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So far, Star Citizen hasn't shown much outside good intentions.)
Helios
Member
I wish I had your enthusiasm and optimism.
ShadowNate
Member
What discredits your arguments is that you have been 6 years in this, closely following development and still believe this is actually a viable product that will deliver something playable and close to what is promised.
Also that's really funny. The bit about the last "new features".
KevinKeene
Banned
I mean, the videos I saw looked much more impressive. Like an open-universe Mass Effect. NMS was always cheap in concept.
michaelius
Banned
You know what is one of first things you learn on video game developer faculty ? That feature creep is one the worst things that can happen to the project.
And Star Citizen has biggest feature creep ever seen written all over it.
The kickstart for SC started slightly before David Braben Elite kickstarter. Now look at them now - Elite has been released years ago and keep adding things to full game, SC is just adding things but without actually playable game.
bitbydeath
Gold Member
Does it exist right now in the latest build or are the fundamentals still lacking?
nowhat
Member
Not just video game developer, this is CS101. Also adding more people to an already delayed project, aka "Brooks's law" which I referenced earlier.
One may argue that this is 60s/70s stuff, what relevance it has today? But the truth is, it's as much relevant today as it was then. There may be trendy ways to develop things nowadays, and I'm not a fan of the waterfall model myself, things don't need to be so rigid always; but the fundamentals remain the same. As an example, if someone really wants to get into algorithms, Knuth is what you study. Someone could come up with better books than him, but so far, there's no competition.
jadedm17
Member
I don't blame crowdfunding, I blame the person who gambled $4500 and the company who is clearly doing far from the best job with that money. Kickstarter is a great tool but it should have been clear from start there were no promises; On the flip side I think the people making the game could be doing better too.
Tumle
Member
I’m sorry to hear he can’t get all that money back.. and if they did change up the formula from what they first advertised it to be, I think it only fair..
One thing I don’t understand is why it’s taking this long to get the game out the door.. what are they making in this game that is so special that there apparently isn’t any other game out there they could borrow ideas for implementation for?
I know no man sky released like a train wreck.. but they are releasing there 4th update on the 24th and it’s looking even better than what was promised at the beginning..
Why can’t a team with 50x the staf not get anything out the door other than small snippets of a game? :/
One thing I don’t understand is why it’s taking this long to get the game out the door.. what are they making in this game that is so special that there apparently isn’t any other game out there they could borrow ideas for implementation for?
I know no man sky released like a train wreck.. but they are releasing there 4th update on the 24th and it’s looking even better than what was promised at the beginning..
Why can’t a team with 50x the staf not get anything out the door other than small snippets of a game? :/
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newtypepilot
Member
It's amazing that some people still don't understand that if you pledge any money to a project on any crowd funding site, your money is as good as gone. You are better off playing blackjack in a casino. They have no obligation to fulfill their promises. It's too easy for people with malicious intent to turn it into a scam.
LordPezix
Member
He knew what he was buying when he bought it.
I would say his case would be stronger in the sense that had they never released a game, than the pledge ideology dies. But he can't because, the game has yet to be released, doesn't equal, it has never.
People don't understand the magnitude in which this game aspires. Star Citizen is the Sistine Chapel of games, it will be the Magnum Opus of games, of our age.
It will be unlike anything we have ever seen before. WoW level of madness and beyond. Mark my words.
I would say his case would be stronger in the sense that had they never released a game, than the pledge ideology dies. But he can't because, the game has yet to be released, doesn't equal, it has never.
People don't understand the magnitude in which this game aspires. Star Citizen is the Sistine Chapel of games, it will be the Magnum Opus of games, of our age.
It will be unlike anything we have ever seen before. WoW level of madness and beyond. Mark my words.
PrinnyBomb
Member
Poor guy, glad I steered away from that mess of a crowdfunding project
Mr Hyde
Gold Member
I don´t feel bad the slightest for this person. If you spend 4.5k on a Kickstarter game you are a dumbass. No matter how much you love the previous games from (insert creators name), a rule of thumb should always be: Support the game when it´s finished, not before.
Why spend that much cash on a prototype, an idea or a concept? It´s just baffling how stupid some people are.
Why spend that much cash on a prototype, an idea or a concept? It´s just baffling how stupid some people are.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Throwing $30 into a project six years ago is what discredits me? Do you even remember what the gaming climate was like back in 2012? We had just gotten off half a decade of extremely mediocre AAA offerings. These development tools were either in their infancy (Unity3D) or was inaccessible to the average independent developer. This game wouldn't have existed without crowdfunding, even Elite Dangerous had difficulty getting funded and they were an established company that had major contracts still coming their way. I wanted this type of game. I put my money where my mouth is.
I don't know if what they promised is feasible when it comes to "content" and if it isn't, I urge them to come out and say so. Honestly I don't know if it's feasible or not. Their procedural tech is promising, they're making the most out of their modular assets and it's clear they're limited by technical limitations being removed next quarter (3.3 update) and the updates become more content-heavy after that release. They've also demonstrated time and again that they don't show everything they have. On the flip side playing devil's advocate, as I mentioned earlier those stretch goals were $6,000,000 in back when the game was still a space sim. Now it's a galactic scale immersive sim. Those are two very different types of games. Star Citizen's Kickstarter has zero reference to planetary gameplay, the stretch goals don't make mention of it until $20,000,000
Even if there's 10-15 systems at launch, I'd rather have that game than a space sim with a hundred because as Elite Dangerous has shown, physical size means fuck all. I won't excuse it, it will deserve criticism and the developers should have made sure that it was feasible that later stretch goals were compatible with the previous stretch goals but it will only be a slight disappointment for me and I think it will be the same case for other backers. The game is far more detailed and ambitious than it was so it's a fair trade off.
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Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
This game is the biggest scam in the history of gaming.
Helios
Member
Zambayoshi
Member
The most deceitful thing that CIG has done is this: revised the TOS to remove (a) the delivery date; (b) financial accountability and (c) right to refund.
In the beginning, Chris Roberts set a delivery date. Yes, that was before all the stretch goals. Here's the thing: they stopped doing stretch goals at $65 million. They are now at $190 million and counting. Back when they reached the last stretch goal, it would have been reasonable for Chris Roberts to sit down and review the delivery date and update it. He could have been extremely conservative. He could have said 2020. But no, instead, CIG have quietly removed any mention of a date by which the project has to be delivered by.
Chris Roberts promised, in the original TOS, that if the project hadn't been delivered by 18 months after the delivery date, backers would received a refund of the unused pledges and would also receive an accounting of where that money had been used. Again, this could have been kept, had a revised delivery date been inserted in the TOS. Instead, Chris Roberts quietly removed any real possibility of your average backer knowing where and how his/her money was spent, should the project go belly-up.
The estimated delivery date and financial accountability are two things that any publisher - *any publisher* - would demand before agreeing to fund a game. Now, Chris Roberts knew this, which is why he put those two things in the original TOS. Chris Roberts even made *the pledge* which promised to respect backers and treat them as if they were the publisher. I hope people can see that Chris Roberts is now not treating backers with anything even remotely resembling the respect he would be required to show a publisher. In short, Chris Roberts is taking the backers for granted and is treating them as a cash cow to fund his deluded fantasy.
So yeah, the most significant thing here is not the backer's failure to win a refund, but the fact that Chris Roberts has quietly and deceitfully *altered the deal* such that backers are now completely in the dark without any remedies if the project fails. Why do I say deceitfully? Because the TOS alterations have come down as gateways to updated versions of the 'game'. Backers who wish to play the game *have no choice* but to click on 'I agree' to the revised TOS. Don't want to agree? That's OK. Chris Roberts will just withhold the very work in progress of the project you funded.
I think everyone now recognises that unless Star Citizen can be monetized (not just ship sales) soon, it is highly likely that even the stretch goals ending at $65 million will not be met, there will be no Squadron 42 (essentially just Star Citizen in a single-player campaign) and the project will likely grind to a halt.
In the beginning, Chris Roberts set a delivery date. Yes, that was before all the stretch goals. Here's the thing: they stopped doing stretch goals at $65 million. They are now at $190 million and counting. Back when they reached the last stretch goal, it would have been reasonable for Chris Roberts to sit down and review the delivery date and update it. He could have been extremely conservative. He could have said 2020. But no, instead, CIG have quietly removed any mention of a date by which the project has to be delivered by.
Chris Roberts promised, in the original TOS, that if the project hadn't been delivered by 18 months after the delivery date, backers would received a refund of the unused pledges and would also receive an accounting of where that money had been used. Again, this could have been kept, had a revised delivery date been inserted in the TOS. Instead, Chris Roberts quietly removed any real possibility of your average backer knowing where and how his/her money was spent, should the project go belly-up.
The estimated delivery date and financial accountability are two things that any publisher - *any publisher* - would demand before agreeing to fund a game. Now, Chris Roberts knew this, which is why he put those two things in the original TOS. Chris Roberts even made *the pledge* which promised to respect backers and treat them as if they were the publisher. I hope people can see that Chris Roberts is now not treating backers with anything even remotely resembling the respect he would be required to show a publisher. In short, Chris Roberts is taking the backers for granted and is treating them as a cash cow to fund his deluded fantasy.
So yeah, the most significant thing here is not the backer's failure to win a refund, but the fact that Chris Roberts has quietly and deceitfully *altered the deal* such that backers are now completely in the dark without any remedies if the project fails. Why do I say deceitfully? Because the TOS alterations have come down as gateways to updated versions of the 'game'. Backers who wish to play the game *have no choice* but to click on 'I agree' to the revised TOS. Don't want to agree? That's OK. Chris Roberts will just withhold the very work in progress of the project you funded.
I think everyone now recognises that unless Star Citizen can be monetized (not just ship sales) soon, it is highly likely that even the stretch goals ending at $65 million will not be met, there will be no Squadron 42 (essentially just Star Citizen in a single-player campaign) and the project will likely grind to a halt.
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This is pretty much not true since squadron will come out first anyway they did not hire Gillian Anderson and co for nothing. They have no multiple studios they also had to create for this whole project and they always looking for people.
Zambayoshi
Member
That was the idea, but you must realise that pretty much the entirety of the fundamental 'game play' mechanics of Star Citizen are to be used in Squadron 42. They can't release Squadron 42 without having Star Citizen in a polished state. Granted, the scale of Star Citizen including the 100 systems, all the NPCs etc will not be in Squadron 42, but the idea is that Squadron 42 will be like a gateway to Star Citizen, so the two games must share a majority of tech.
The gameplay mechanics are there. What do you need for a . Wing Commander like game anyway? It was never thought of some open world like Privateer game. It was always in the spirit of Wing Commander. Otherwise I would not have backed it.^^
nowhat
Member
Completely offtopic, but I still have that cloth map. One of my prized gaming-related posessions. It's a shame games don't ship with merch like that anymore, outside ridiculously expensive collector's editions.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
I don't know about you but if I were running a scam, I'd just make a decent looking mobile game and monetize the shit out of it instead of staffing up five studios with hundreds of employees.
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Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
No, it's much better to prey on nostalgia and monetize the shit out of a game that doesn't exist.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
But it does exist. I was playing it last night. I don't see the problem with whales pledging more than others. It's all obtainable through gameplay and a skilled pilot will always beat an unskilled pilot in a bigger ship so even the competitive aspect isn't unfair. This isn't a scummy loot box situation, people know exactly what they're buying and most of what they're buying is accessible right now.
Have you actually played the game? No excuse not to really, free weekends every couple weeks.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
As do I. From the C64 version!
God of War had a decent cloth map.
I didn't even know the map had the location of their secret treasure! Neat touch.
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Paracelsus
Member
Star Citizen sounds like one of the biggest scams-not scams of all time. Space Sims fans ask for the impossible, but you're not ripping them off if you never actually release the game. Just keep the game in alpha/beta stage forever, give them a few features every now and then and have that money coming in.
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I'm curious, why didn't you go to the other site
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
What other site?
Halo is Back
Member
His fault
nowhat
Member
Ditto! But played on a C128, you got in-game music too, which the C64 version lacked (due to memory constraints, I'm assuming).