That long? The face-tracking was the final nail in the coffin for me.
Good point. There’s a line, beyond which mistakes and mismanagement become fraud. It may be hard to notice when you’re crossing that line, but it should be clearly visible in Roberts’ rear-view by now. If he’s looking.
I remember your reaction to that announcement. That was when I stopped believing they’d ever release anything, but it didn’t feel like them getting the last money out of the marks. Asking for $27k at this point in the dev cycle feels like the last cash grab before fleeing the jurisdiction.
(Not that I really expect the leaders to flee to a country without an extradition treaty, but if I were in their shoes I’d be looking at options.)
Yeah, the face-tracking thing was just a parent dangling shiny keys to distract a baby. Not outright fleecing like the Legatus thing.
So are you guys thinking that Roberts and crew are sitting on big piles of money, or have they rolled that $200 million back into this big money pit?
He IS a professional con-man, at this point. He likely didn’t start out that way, but he’s clearly in that territory, now. He obviously has enough industry knowledge to know that what he previously promised, and what he continues to add to, is not possible. And yet, rather than admitting that and backing off on scope, he keeps digging in deeper.
If you remove the additional promises and feature creep, then there’s a small possibility that he is still working in good faith. But the additional promises do put him in con territory.
EDIT: what Wyndwraith said.
I think he and his friends and family have been living on a very cushy salary but I in no way think he’s pocketing the money directly. With the number of employees they have, the burn rate has to be insane. I’m sure @dsmart has the numbers worked out somewhere. :)
Yep, pretty much this. Not outright skimming that money, but paying some very uh, “competitive” salaries to himself and some executives, and the ponzi scheme part of this is necessary cash flow generation to keep this thing afloat, because even setting aside those exec salaries, their burn rate is absurd.
It’s the old tale of riding the tiger. Once you’re on, it’s hard to jump off without being eaten.
I’m side tracking somewhat here, but I came upon a Indiegogo project for a revolutionary breast pump a little while back. It took ~ $150,000USD initially and was going to produce something in 2017. Then late 2017. Then June 2018. Now… I think it’s aimed for late 2018.
The comments from the people who backed it remind me of the SC situation:
“By the time this thing comes out, my babies will be like 5 years old!”
“I planned for this back in September and my baby is already 3 months old now”
I have to then agree with @dsmart that bad crowdfunding/project owners hurt the good ones.
That’s why people get prosecuted and sent to jail for fraud, and with Unjust Enrichment thrown in for good measure. It’s not so much that they’re pocketing the money and not making a game. It’s that they are profiting (salaries, benefits, incentives etc) from the money coming in. e.g. consider this :
- backer funds project
- croberts uses money to build a studio (F42-UK) for brother Erin in UK
- later, parent company buys Erin’s shares from F42-UK at premium
That was over $500K taken OUT of backer money. Now ponder that.
And we only know this because corp filings in the UK are public. We have NO idea what they’ve done in the US, though sources told me back in 2015 that the first thing croberts did with backer money, was pay himself back millions for his “investment” into the project. Then he moved into a mansion, bought a new car etc. So they are MANY ways that they have, through unjust enrichment, benefited from this project. All without ever shipping a game. And the money they have extracted, were it still in the project, they wouldn’t need to be using all these dirty scammy tricks to keep raising money.
And it’s not like they stand a chance of EVER delivering either of these two games. So they have every incentive to keeping faking it until the money well completely dries up.
Eron, Madoff, Theranos, and all the smaller companies the FTC and SEC go after, all were legit businesses too.
Going to say it again. Someone is going to jail over Star Citizen’s development and funding. It’s only a matter of time.
At this point the best course of action would be for Chris Roberts to open up a “Friendship Software Development Center” somewhere in Guyana, and then relocate there. All of his whales can follow him.
Once done, I can recommend a bunch of junior teabagger Representatives to go there and check it out.
If you can dig it
If things are as bad as they seem, I surely hope so.
That’s…horrible. Ok, funny, in a dark way, but terrible. But points for a People’s Temple reference.
Reading about the seemingly Uber, this blog post talks about something that rang some bells:
There are at least two layers of crazy here. First, hype and next-big-thingism push Uber’s value far beyond any defensible level, then, as reality sets in and investors realize that the original business model, though sound, can never possibly justify the money that’s been put into the company, Uber’s management responds with a series of more and more improbable proposals in order to keep the buzz going.
Precisely. That’s basically Star Citizen in a nutshell; and is the reason why I’ve been calling it a Ponzi scheme for years now.
John Pritchett who recently exited the Star Citizen project, appears to have posted his Glassdoor review. He was there since 2013.
You left out the next line:
Key words being decade or so!
…and “original dream”…