Starlancer and Freelancer both notoriously ran over-budget and behind-schedule with Roberts at the helm.
And Freelancer was supposed to evolve into some kind of MMO environment, but never did. The rumor was that Microsoft, after purchasing Digital Anvil for a lot of money, kicked Roberts after he spent a chunk of that money earmarked for game development on the Wing Commander movie, which didn’t pay back.
I was disappointed that a Car Wars-ish game called Loose Cannon with Crusader No Remorse lead Tony Zurovec was a cancelled Digital Anvil game as part of the fallout. Zurovec may be working on Star Citizen now.
I’d love for Star Citizen to be a game. If they release something and the reaction is decent I may buy it. I’m wait and watch at this point. Freelancer was a good game. Not sure about Starlancer. I think I spent an hour or two in it.
Sun morning, and someone on the CIG team poured gas into the already blazing 5 alarm dumpster fire which I wrote about yesterday.
Old money backers are second class citizens now. lol!
404’d
Synopsis please? it’s gone.
So do I have this right?
Backers are willing participants in a scam.
“Willing” because it makes them feel like part of an exclusive club. Those who give more money are made to feel special, and even get to go to sit-down dinners and chat up the scammer in person.
Sort of like getting to have a reassuring meeting with Bernie Madoff.
The “game” those people are currently playing (buying and selling jpg’s) is more important to them than the actual game is at this point…
…because it’s an “exclusive” club game only open to those willing to invest the most in it.
What got me is from one of Derek’s links up there, where one of the “players” posted this:
This guy is righteously pissed off at CIG, and yet sincerely wishes them all the best as a parting shot?!?
Sort of like a gambler who has reached his financial limit, and is leaving the table as a good sport.
People were abusing it, it was meant to have happened a long time ago, and as we’re moving to the end game, it’s time to do it.
Followed by someone saying it’s a shame because prices also went up, and there’s no more “reasonably” priced ships, and plenty of people calling the complainers entitled.
Interesting point. When I briefly worked in commercial lending many years ago, there was an emphasis of our customers making sure they had their own money in any new project that needed funding. In other words, if the bank was lending 80 cents, we’d expect the company (or owners) to kick in 20 cents. Owners that didn’t have “skin in the game” were seen as less likely to care about the result and were not likely to assess risks seriously.
For SC, it sounds like CIG has zero own money in the game.
Yep, that’s a huge problem and rife for abuse, corruption and skimming funds. I bet there is all kinds of embezzlement going on over there.
I can’t believe they have the audacity to take all that money and then never deliver a finished game, and on top of that charge money for DLC… that they haven’t even delivered! They didn’t deliver the base product and are selling add ons already.
Man, I always thought gamers, specifically space sim and flight sim gamers, were of above average intelligence. This is like a snake oil salesmen walking into a barn full of half wit cowhands and taking all the money for his elixirs then skipping town. Except no one is skipping town, the snake oil salesman has set up a permanent shop.
Chris Roberts and his fellow den of thieves need to get their asses sued.
Actually, the greatest cons get perpetrated on the most intelligent people.
The guy who bought the Eiffel tower was an intelligent, successful businessman.
Most of Madoff’s victims were pretty smart.
And imho, sunk cost fallacy works better the more intelligent you re, as you can use that intelligence to justify it better.
Yup. This is why we tend to screen cap such things.
Not that they were abusing it. More like they were using - against CIG - the very system that CIG created to fleece them repeatedly. Between CCU melting and LTI, these were incentives for original money. When those same backers decided that they already had enough new money in the game, they were using what they already paid for, to get new things. Which meant less new money. Now that CIG is desperate for new money, they have now put in new restrictions to curb and/or eliminate this sort of thing completely. The result? Additional new money.
Yes, it’s despicable. Imagine if EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc, pulled a stunt like this.
Read this excellent post for more context.
The JPEG life cycle in pictures.
They are being sued… for breach of contract with Crytek. The court documents are rather fascinating to read.
I think his response was to me. I want to see them receive a class action suit from all their backers. Everyone should demand a refund en masse (like, pony up $50 million or more in refunds, you’ve got 30 days) or sue the crap outta them. Chris Roberts has singlehandedly ruined crowdsourcing and the space sim genre.
Ah thanks. I didn’t notice that, due to how threading (<— lol!) works on this forum.
As I have said in numerous blogs and articles, there is ZERO chance of there ever being a class action lawsuit. The TOS has an iron-clad arbitration clause.
This guy (apparently he works in FINCEN) explains it best.
My favorite part so far is during mediation when Crytek asks to see “revenue, profits, and crowdfunding obtained by [CIG] […] contracts and communications between [CIG internally] […] ownership, management, and structure of [CIG] […] for all the obvious reasons”.
Oh that already happened during the discovery meeting. CIG immediately filed a protection order with the order. See my thread above for the meltdown. It’s in the 1st post where I have everything in chrono order.
I should’ve been more clear that I was paraphrasing from memory. My actual opinion is that both sides knew what they were doing.