Highly unlikely that he will get that far. He’s promised so many clearly defined goals that there is no way he’s going to ignore/bypass any of them and still claim victory.
The last five years have been - on so many levels of my life - watching people in some position of power and responsibility make grand, sweeping claims about what can be done; fail to bring things even close to that outcome; claim victory on the crappy results anyway - and sometimes get a handsome reward in the process.
I see no reason this will be different, but I will cross my fingers.
Yeah, we were talking about “golden parachutes” in an International Business seminar I am co-teaching, and most of the students were sort of appalled and fascinated by the idea. But that’s the apex of business in the USA–game the system so well that you get paid to fail. Pretty much every high-powered exec contract has guarantees that make it impossible for the individual to suffer no matter what idiocies they inflict on the stockholders, as long as they don’t go to jail (and even then, depending on how the contract is written, people can still collect). So in this climate, I’d fully expect Roberts to have a good chance of walking away richer than before. I’m sure he wrote his own golden parachute into his contract (with himself?).
Mankind has used money on worse, this isn’t even close. I think the Iraqi war cost one expedition to Mars every day…
And in return you got nothing good.
During WW1 a single UK Dreadnaught could end starvation in Russia and elsewhere at the time…and they built a hundred of em.
He will, and then get away with it. Unless of course there is a fraud investigation, then all bets are off.
Nepotism aside, the get rich quick scheme is already full steam ahead. I mean, his brother is the highest paid videogame exec in the Manchester area. And in 2017, he doubled his pension.
They’re all getting rich off this project, while still not delivering on any promises made.
Damn. I’m in the wrong business.
Not at all, you just need to partner with the DeVos clan.
Eeew. Can’t stoop that low. Fleecing gamers is one thing, but…
All his family and top friends from back in the day, are getting rich off the project. And ALL of them are from the Gizmondo debacle which I wrote about a few years back.
So no matter what happens in the end, they all gain financially.
It’s nostalgic to go back and read posts where it was simply incredible that they had raised a whopping $94million! and still hadn’t made a game.
Tell me about it. Back in July 2015 when I wrote my first blog saying it was all bollocks that he was never - ever - going to build the over-scoped game he was now promising, they had raised only $85m. Over 3.5 years and $115m later, they have yet to deliver a single game - of any kind. It’s amazing to me.
You could be playing Fallout 76. Just sayin’
Tales from behind enemy lines:
Come on people. What do you expect for 7 years and $200M?! :P
Well, I’m definitely getting my money’s worth out of this!
I just watched the entire one hour and forty minute 2018 CitizenCon Keynote video from a few weeks ago, and I actually had fun watching it. I thought, “Hey, this actually looks pretty great!”
Afterward, something kept nagging at me.
Something about the whole gameplay video seemed so familiar to me.
I then realized that everything they showed reminded me heavily of any of the “Crysis” games, and that’s probably why I liked it (I was a fan of Crysis). It’s been so long since I’ve played a Crysis game, that it took me that long to catch it.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that everything they demonstrated in that gameplay had already been done in a Crysis game years ago.
Had Crysis not existed, this was an impressive video.
I still say that with another $800,000 and with someone else taking charge of the project, this game could be completed with all features implemented. One Saudi prince (that happens to be a space sim fan) could make this happen!
800,000 or 8,000,000 or 80,000,000? 😅😅
The zeros don’t matter, they can’t build it. Period.
Nobody is doing it because they know that what they have promised, simply cannot be done . Period. End of story.
That he has had 7 years and a reported (no independent verification) $200M+ , and still not even in alpha, is probably clear evidence of that.
As I wrote earlier this week, right now, 6 years of active development later, they have yet to build (let alone deliver) a single one of the 106 star systems promised (and paid for up to $40m). And by their own dev schedule, the 1st one won’t even be completed until around the end of 2019. Aside from the fact that over 80% of what they promised is still not delivered in any way, shape, or form.
It’s even more startling when you consider that 6 yrs following the 2012 pitch for a $5m game, then $65m in Nov 2014 (the same month they promised two games to be released), they still don’t have anything resembling the original, smaller, and more sane game pitch.
They couldn’t do it with $2.1m. Then $5m. Then all the way to $65m of increased scope. And they still haven’t done even 50% of it with $200m. But don’t worry though, it’s totally doable. Pledge more!
The much touted and recently released 3.3 build is a mess in every conceivable way. Then they immediately lumped 3.3.5 on top of that because they wanted to show off the first planet, Lorville, which, as I wrote here, isn’t even a representation of what they pitched – a year ago. And you can’t fly over it because they had to restrict access by surrounding it with no fly zones – contrary to what they were showing and touting a year ago.
But hey, it’s still pre-Alpha. So 6 yrs of active dev, and $200m later, this is all perfectly normal because nobody else is doing what they do .
ps: Right now, the 3.3.5 build which they are likely going to be using for the free-fly event instead of the live 3.3, is an absolute mess. In every way seemingly possible.
Sometimes, there’s a good reason why no one else is doing it…
Or at least doing it that way.