Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

There is no “technically”. They don’t have it. They haven’t even built a single starsystem yet.

It’s all lies and rubbish. He won’t be doing ANY of that - even if the game supported it - because that’s not a combat ship. He couldn’t stop a cold with it. That’s the thing with these guys, they’re building all these things in their collective brains, this despite the fact that NONE of those dreams have materialized in 7 yrs of development.

Remember how we’ve been saying the funding chart is a load of bs and it’s just [fraudulently] used as a marketing gimmick to show interest in the project, and keep whales sending money?

Well take a look at the latest.

Well, I guess since it’s a research ship, technically he could …

Those spikes are interesting. Are there timed sales/releases/etc to suggest that is anything more than a somewhat regularly timed injection of “revenue”?

These are the effect of the 7 “waves” of sales of the amazingly scarce jpg images of a render of a spaceship that isn’t actually in the game and with no plan to add it.

Similar sized ship pictures were sold in 2013 and 2014 and are still not in the game.

These art buyers would get more for their money by checking out a few actual art galleries. You know, like actual canvas you can frame and put up on a wall. Do people still do that? I admit to not having visited an actual art gallery in several years, so I don’t know if that’s still a thing.

Yes45

LOL!! Well done, man - well done. :clap:

Yeah. Also, because the waves weren’t selling as expected, they started a new "flash sale (Sun spike): with heavily discounted ships. e.g.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Standalone-Ships/RSI-Constellation-Phoenix-33-Flyable

They have limited numbers. The hilarious part? They always create this artificial supply and demand metric by putting “limited” quantity (on digital assets!) and doing these sort of sales time and time again. They have morons for backers, so it works pretty well.

Regardless, as history of the project has shown, no matter how much money they raised this month, all it does is pay for ShitizenCon, and possibly a portion of their Oct burn rate.

I am going to say this again - you know, on the off chance than someone missed the other hundred times - through this cash grab, what’s coming next, and the ultimate fate of the project is going to be downright hilarious - and sad. Just wait.

Correct. And that’s why, scope creep aside, they have to keep creating new game assets (latest being Valkyrie sold at ShitizenCon) and now a new JPEG, the Kraken (also sold at ShitizenCon).

It’s a blatant Ponzi scheme that includes both financial and engineering debt.

Feels to me the same in general though the particulars are fairly different. Perhaps in 10 years it’ll be known as a Roberts scheme.

Have they started selling watercraft yet?

You know something, if they had a working universe then selling stuff like this would be, surely, more of a moneymaker?

Seems like they put the cart before the horse…

Nah. Even if they technically could pull it off (which is very much in doubt), people would play it and realize that it’s just a game. Who wants to spend $1400 for a spaceship in just a regular game with all its bugs, dubious design decisions, etc.

It’s much more effective (and cheaper) to sell to people’s imaginations. Just look at all the talk from fans about what they think they’re going to be doing with these ships in-game. They’re making up entire feature sets that RSI has never even spoken about.

Yet.
5

^this is what most of us have been saying for years now. As I said in my latest Twitter rant (scroll up) from Sat, it’s amazing how they managed to tap in a specific mindset of gamers. It’s all about timing. Once people get invested in the “idea”, the rest was easy. That’s how con jobs work. It’s all about running a confidence scam - which is precisely what this has turned into.

Well Eve Online has people spending some serious money…not SC levels ofcourse but still.

Of course it doesn’t work. That’s why they have to create new ships to sell, while throwing caution to the wind in terms of scope creep. But if they don’t intend on releasing anything resembling a final product, and they have people willing to fund them month after month, they have zero incentive to change course.

In contrast, read this article about the fate of Dreadnought. They had over 200 people and are said to have been burning through $80K per day - which sounds about right if you have a large team with experienced people on it. Now imagine 450 people worldwide, all getting a paycheck, benefits etc - including contractors.

And I actually played Dreadnaught.