Why can I kill cupboards but not marry them?
Lantz long ago realized that the greatest comedy possibilities stemming from Star Citizen revolved around just restating pieces of their own info releases verbatim. You just can’t improve on the perfect absurdity of reality.
Let’s not sell short Mr Lantz’s ability to pick and choose choice elements of each communique. I get those in my email too, and even when I first glance at them, there’s usually an element or two I pick out and laugh at, but they are also so long and full of boring gobbledygook that it’s tough to pick out the choice stuff like Mr Lantz does.
Oh yeah, for sure. There is wide scope for editorial elan, and he exercises it to the fullest. Just, he doesn’t ever make stuff up. Straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
So you’re saying there’s actual non-deck-chair-rearranging content in the updates?
I glanced at the notes and nothing jumped out at me.
This is how Veep became untenable.
Happy Belated June Blog Day to all my Star Citizen friends and haters.
ICYMI yesterday was JBD. I wrote an anniversary thread yesterday, but Elon’s new Tweet Deck chewed it up and spat out gibberish. So, I just said screw it; and went back to my debugger.
Back in 06/06/2015, three years after I funded the game on Kickstarter and it missed it’s 2014 release date, I wrote a highly controversial blog that Star Citizen was never going to be made due to scope creep.
I specifically said:
Without disrespect to anyone, I’m just going to say it: it is my opinion that, this game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever.
There isn’t a single publisher or developer on this planet who could build this game as pitched, let alone for anything less than $150 million.
The original vision which I backed in 2012? Yes, that was totally doable. This new vision? Not a chance.
The technical scope of this game surpasses GTAV, not to mention the likes of Halo.
Do you have any idea what those games cost to make and how long they took?
Do you know how many games which cost $50 million to make took almost five years to release? And they were nowhere in scope as Star Citizen?
It was a shit storm of epic proportions. To the extent that gamers and game media started picking sides, while matching me up against Chris Roberts.
Then it all went to shit when PC Gamer got in on the act and wrote the single article that ignited a full scale skirmish between myself, Chris’s gang, and the Shitizens.
With that, I subsequently decided to write and write and write. Then Kotaku, once again faning the flamers of discourse, did a 5-part series on the fiasco. And again, made it a dsmart v croberts thing.
By 2018, once they were found to be insolvent, then went out and got external investment, it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that I was right and that it was never getting made. I then decided that there nothing further to write about. I did however write a short piece in 2019 after Forbes did their bombshell article on the project.
It’s now…
- 11 years (2012-2023) since the project was kickstarted
- 9 years (2014-2023) since it missed its 2014 release date
- 8 yrs (2015-2023) since I wrote the July Blog
Aside from the fact that Squadron 42 was recently removed from the store (it still features in their mailing list), leading me to believe that they’re probably no longer going to offer it as a stand-alone project, but instead roll it into Star Citizen now that TOW has been shit-canned, the haven’t even completed even 20% of the game they promised to make for $85M (scope creep stretch goal).
They have since raised over $550m via crowd-funding, plus an additional $46M (that we know of) in investor funding.
Oh, and Ortwin resigned from the UK office board of directors last year.
Sunk Cost Fallacy is still keeping it afloat. And it beggars belief.
Hey, you’ve been away for a while. I missed your contributions here.
Oh, interesting information. What do you think it could mean?
Yeah, I have been busy with a project and some of life’s challenges. I decided to pop in here at the fountain to see if you guys were still following this train wreck as I once did.
I have no clue what it means that Ortwin bailed, but at the very least he’s no longer double-dipping.
Oh, I hope the “life’s challenges” bit wasn’t too serious, or at least lead to new opportunities.
Anyway, glad to have you back!
Oh yeah, nothing serious or anything like that. Sold house, moved, daughter went off to college (Masters deg), created a new startup with some friends, re-booted dev on Alganon (a game I bought back in 2017 and have been sitting on it ever since) etc. The usual stuff that takes up too much time and doesn’t leave enough time to shit-posting. Thanks for your concern. You guys are the best.
Oh dang! Congrats to that!
Thanks! :)
Congrats on all that and good luck with Alganon and your new startup!
If star Citizen gets to 800 million raised, people are going to meme it to a billion in record time. Expect that hilarity in 2026, based on the chart.
Congratulations/best wishes on all that! Nice to see you.
Life sim about going to meetings for a nori-addicts support group?
Thanks. We’re still in shock tbh. And she’s out of State now and back in NYC.
Thanks. I’ve been sitting on that game since I bought it back in 2018. I was planning to sell it, but only shitty deals came along. Then the pandemic happened, and the world went to shit.
I also went back to resume work on the Line Of Defense port. I actually finished the game last year and I had made good progress on the UE4; but then transitioned over to UE5 - because, why not? It’s probably my last game (not including Alganon ofc) before I retire (again).
Yeah, I did an update back in March after spending the whole of 2022 working on, bringing it back online, migrating to a new datacenter etc. Right now, I am working on a plan to upgrade the graphics kernel from TrueVision3D to UE5 because I don’t want to release it with those lo-fi legacy graphics.