On a related note, why is it so easy to accept bad things about CIG? I read the initial article, and thought that this saga was finally in its conclusion. Yet if the article had a been positive, like Star Citizen is done, I would have taken the stance, “Ill believe it when I see it” rather than the quick acceptance of the negative story.
For me, it’s easier to accept bad things about CIG because of all the red flags I’ve seen so far. And it’s the reasonable thing to do, really.
You know that you’re essentially using an ad-hominem against anyone who may possibly comment on this? UK Corporate Law Experts are hardly going to post on it, and a ‘serious business journalist’ is a term that means fuck all. What quantifies as serious? Who decides who qualifies? Does the guy who does drop tests on Forbes count? I mean it’s Forbes and Forbes is serious business!
triggercut called you on your bullshit and - as usual - you used torturous logic and far too many words to try explain why you didn’t in fact have egg on your face. Though you most certainly did.
I was once involved in an economics discussion around the fairly basic effects quantitative easing had on an economy with regard to inflation. This gentleman had 30 years of experience in finance, had studied Economics at a prestigious University, and earned more in a year than I have in the last 10. He was also entirely wrong and quickly resorted to “I have 30 years of experience I know what I’m talking about”. Unfortunately, every single macroeconomic textbook and several hundred research papers stated that he was wrong.
However, in your world he’s right up until the point an ‘expert’ with ‘serious credentials’ says he is.
Where is McAffee now? he can help finish this game.
I think he’s in prison.
The biggest hurdle by far is creating 100 solar systems. They’re about to roll out their procedural tech to the Alpha, but in order to remain true to their original vision they need bespoke content in each system which could include landing zones, landmarks, unique stellar phenomenon, etc. Previously they were contracting Behaviour Interactive to create the art assets for their landing zones, but they have recently brought that pipeline in-house through new hires.
I think the creation of landing zones and landmarks will be the “critical path” of Star Citizen’s release, and it will be dependent on the speed with which that team can deliver while still maintaining a high quality bar.
Is this true? The document states that all intellectual property rights and all title, interest, and materials with respect to the video game Star Citizen are excluded as collateral.
Some people read that part as meaning that the Star Citizen IP and all material related to the distribution of the IP is excluded, not the game itself or its assets. In other words, the name “Star Citizen” is excluded, not the present implementation of the game (nor its assets). The rest of the document seems to imply something like that.
I’m not sure if that’s the correct assumption, but since the document mentions sublicensing the game to CIG while the loan agreement applies (which means the license is at least temporarily assigned to the bank), it seems to be the proper interpretation.
Then again, IANAL, and who knows the full terms of the agreement. Maybe it’s nothing like that at all. Let’s hope we never find out what it really means (by which I mean, I hope there is no default and the loan is properly paid back without issues).
Where in the rest of the document does it imply that “Excluded Collateral” only includes IP, and where in the document is it stated that Star Citizen (not Squadron 42) is being sublicensed to CIG? I apologize for spending so much time talking about this loan, but I would like to have a good understanding of where the other side is coming from.
From my experience with loan documents, when in doubt, err on the side of the bank.
There’s only one place in which “excluded collateral” is defined, but there are numerous references in the document to “game” and “game assets” as part of the collateral. If the assets for Squadron 42 and Star Citizen are shared, it seems to me like they’re part of the collateral, which, as far as Star Citizen goes, leaves only the IP rights.
As for where it mentions sublicensing the Game to CIG, it’s item 23.1 of the public document. It reads:
The Chargee hereby grants to the Chargor an exclusive license, revocable only in accordance with clause 23.2, to develop, produce, exploit and otherwise deal with the Game.
It doesn’t make any sense to have such a clause if the Game (which we assume is Squadron 42) isn’t now effectively owned by the bank, does it?
This wouldn’t really be a reasonable assumption.
If I mod Half Life, my mod shares Half Life’s assets. But those assets still exist as a severable package. Owning the rights to my mod does not mean you now own Half Life assets.
Without seeing more detail, it’s kind of impossible to know the actual terms of the loan, but I do not believe your assumption here is valid.
I seriously and truly don’t know how you guys (@Timex, @Ryan_Kelly) hold onto your faith for this project. I live and breathe space games, and I gave up caring/having faith at least year ago. My best hope is that it doesn’t bomb so badly as to take crowdfunding and space games down with it.
Please don’t think this is a criticism, I just truly don’t understand.
It doesn’t really cost me anything to do so. At this point, it’s just waiting to see what happens.
If a game comes out the other end, that’s cool. If not, it’s not really gonna break my heart.
Speaking of mods is a big red herring really, but let’s try to reason over it.
To use their assets in your mod, whoever made Half-life has to allow you to use them. If the assets to both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen belong to the bank, it could sublicense it to CIG, sure. Or it could not, in which case Star Citizen would be dead in the water, since it would be forced to create new assets from scratch.
According to the definitions in item 5.1.2, the collateral seems to include the source code for the game, including even the modifications they made in CryEngine (aka StarEngine). If they default and the bank doesn’t sublicense those to them? They have to start over.
Yet you defend the game seemingly every chance you get, so that doesn’t fully jive for me. Regardless, if you can hold onto some shred of optimism for this, I guess more power to ya.
It’s just an attempt to put something into terms that gamers here would understand easily enough.
If you want a more concrete example, I can provide one, but it may not resonate as well.
We make a bunch of different software products. Some, the government gets rights to. Some are privately developed. Sometimes, the government licensed ones leverage libraries developed privately… sometimes, even libraries which we don’t own. The government’s rights to the top level product does not necessarily extend to all of the underlying assets it uses.
No, because it would just include stuff that sat on top of the overall star citizen game. The end result would be that the collateral would indeed be useless, as it would depend upon the core start citizen game, but the inverse would not necessarily be true.
I defend it here just because I find the arguments made against it to be specious.
In terms of optimism, the stuff that is seemingly already developed and coming in 3.0 looks pretty badass to me.
