Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[Stepsongrapes]

The Escapist may have been duped. Not that the excuse clears them of doing a poor job of investigation. It remains to be seen if the story’s author was in on it, or if she was fooled as well.

The whole ID card thing seems like a red herring to me. At most, it is evidence of the shoddy quality of the Escapist’s investigation.

Even if the CIs turn out to have been actual former employees, there’s still a ton of issues with the story. Focusing too much on the ID card leaves room for the Escapist to claim vindication if it can be shown that the CIs were employees, when the issues just start, not end, there.

[Telefrog]

I don’t know if it’s a red herring. As you said it’s pretty damning evidence that The Escapist did little to no investigation.

[LMN8R]

From my reading, it seems this has kind of blown up in The Escapists face as far as the legitimacy of their sources. Their big piece of physical evidence, the blacked-out “ID card” for the CIG employee, turns out to be a generic security card common to millions of businesses. Notably, current employees of the Star Citizen studio showed that their security cards do not have names printed on them, so the blacked-out part was a bit of theater on the part of the person supplying it.

Also, it seems other sites were approached by these same, or similar sources, with the same CIG horror stories, but those journalists either refused to go any further, or they’re still investigating.

The Escapist may have been duped. Not that the excuse clears them of doing a poor job of investigation. It remains to be seen if the story’s author was in on it, or if she was fooled as well.

Yup.

I have no personal investment in Star Citizen - never contributed, was never really looking forward to the game either. And the business model has always turned me off. So I don’t really care if they “win”, and Chris Roberts’ unhinged behavior isn’t really helping either.

BUT

If the net result of all this is that more people finally understand how shitty The Escapist is, I’d consider that a win.

For those not aware, here’s a look back to their initial involvement with GamerGate - about a year ago they ran a horribly misguided attempt at interviewing GamerGate supporters who are developers. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
[ul][li]Titles of the articles are “game developers” and “female game developers”. Um. What?
[/li][li]None of the female game developers felt safe to share their actual identities
[/li][li]The questions are ridiculously loaded
[/li][li]The male game developers were sourced straight from 4chan…you’ll never guess what happened next
[/li][*]One of the male developers interviewed was directly involved in coordinated attacks against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and others including baseless accusations like tax fraud. [/ul]

[TimJames]

How did I know this post would be about GamerGate?

I saw that LMN8R had made it.

Also, the Dobby the House Elf line made me finally realize why you nerds geek out about Popehat so much.

[Telefrog]

Yeah, I’m not quite ready to put this all down to a GG conspiracy quite yet. Like I said, it’s looking more and more like someone, or a group of people, tricked The Escapist’s editorial staff. The author of the piece may have been in on it, or she may have just turned a blind eye, or she was just straight up too excited about having a 38 Studios style blowout article on her desk to do any actually investigation.

At the same time, Chris Roberts’ and Ortwin Freyermuth’s ranty rambling responses look nuts.

Plus, throughout it all, is Derek Smart - who may or may not have been the ringleader of The Escapists’ sources.

The whole thing is crazy.

[Stepsongrapes]

The whole thing is crazy.

There’s no doubt of that. Both sides are crazy/unprofessional/both.

As to the Escapist in particular, I put this thing on editorial staff more than the writer (assuming no intentional deception).

For the SC side, I can just imagine Chris Roberts thinking he’s Denzel from Training Day.

[triggercut]

How did I know this post would be about GamerGate?

I saw that LMN8R had made it.

Also, the Dobby the House Elf line made me finally realize why you nerds geek out about Popehat so much.

“You nerds” says the guy with 23,000 posts on Qt3…

…and most of us geek out about Popehat because we’ve known the folks behind it since the days of GoneGold and Octopus Overlords, because that group blog was spun off by forum regulars at those places.

[LMN8R]

I’m not saying this is a GamerGate conspiracy, I’m saying that The Escapist has a proven track record of awful journalistic practices that they were never really held accountable for.

[triggercut]

There’s no doubt of that. Both sides are crazy/unprofessional/both.

As to the Escapist in particular, I put this thing on editorial staff more than the writer (assuming no intentional deception).

For the SC side, I can just imagine Chris Roberts thinking he’s Denzel from Training Day.

It’s definitely on the editorial staff, in big ways.

The problem with the Escapist is also one of its assets: they’re willing to pay for good, quality content. That attracts the interest of a lot of writers. The problem is that they have editors there who are sloppy and lazy with how they utilize that asset.

[TimJames]

“You nerds” says the guy with 23,000 posts on Qt3.

Guess I need a few more so the out-of-the loop folks know when I’m being endearing and doing a little grab-assing.

Not sure where I’ll find the time though.

[MiquelRamirez]

All of the criticism about their VP of Marketing’s “lack of experience” is also fairly dumb. The big secret about marketing is that no one knows what the hell they are doing. The majority of people I’ve dealt with in marketing don’t actually have marketing degrees. They have degrees in English, or Psychology, or whatever, and often fell ass-backward into marketing despite any direct experience. Common sense is the #1 prerequisite. Also, I’d say that the fact that Star Citizen managed to generate ten-gazillion dollars post-kickstarter means their marketing department is apparently doing pretty well (heh, better than the actual game development, right?)

That was one of the red flags for me on Smart’s allegations. The man with two PhD’s cannot conceive that sometimes you don’t need the titles to do a job well…

But indeed, SC marketing seems to be much more sound that SC project management…

Yeah, I’m not quite ready to put this all down to a GG conspiracy quite yet. Like I said, it’s looking more and more like someone, or a group of people, tricked The Escapist’s editorial staff. The author of the piece may have been in on it, or she may have just turned a blind eye, or she was just straight up too excited about having a 38 Studios style blowout article on her desk to do any actually investigation.

At the same time, Chris Roberts’ and Ortwin Freyermuth’s ranty rambling responses look nuts.

Plus, throughout it all, is Derek Smart - who may or may not have been the ringleader of The Escapists’ sources.

The whole thing is crazy.

Well, I may be paranoid myself, but if this was an attempt to troll Star Citizen it was pretty well organised and insidious. There aren’t many groups out there capable of pull this off. Let’s remember Smart statement that he was “funding” an “independent investigation”… just wondering about what did that exactly mean.

On the other hand, seeing how crazy CIG has got, it looks a bit like this - highly likely to be - trolling campaign has become a shot in the dark… and somehow, it has hit something. Some of the allegations have hit a raw nerve. It could be the allegations about Chris Robert’s wife (personal attacks unhinge people easily), or it could be the stuff about the actual financials of Star Citizen (what the Escapist article claims makes SC look like a Ponzi scheme, but to be honest, most high-risk markets out there do feel like a Ponzi scheme) or the thing about SC being more about the campaign than actually delivering a game.

[Quaro]

I can’t imagine Derek Smart happier right now. He’s just thriving off all the drama. CIG’s hyberbolic response just made his year.

[Quaro]

I pointed this out before… the one thing that you can’t criticize is Star Citizen’s marketing. They pulled in bazillions of dollars. The one thing which functioned better than anyone could have possibly expected, was their marketing.

Haha, so true. It’s literally the one thing they executed perfectly on and I don’t see how anyone could have hoped they’d do better in that area.

[porousnapkin]

Assuming The Escapist is incompetent, not malicious, what’s the motivation for someone else to fake this? Just plain ol’ trolling? I guess the implication with Derek Smart is that he felt spurned so he’s trying to drag the company through the mud for vengeance? I read one of CR’s letters and it sounded like the sort of paranoid ramblings usually reserved for novels. Is it actually reasonable that Derek Smart is involved? If it’s not him, this is some seriously next-level trolling.

[triggercut]

Assuming The Escapist is incompetent, not malicious, what’s the motivation for someone else to fake this? Just plain ol’ trolling? I guess the implication with Derek Smart is that he felt spurned so he’s trying to drag the company through the mud for vengeance? I read one of CR’s letters and it sounded like the sort of paranoid ramblings usually reserved for novels. Is it actually reasonable that Derek Smart is involved? If it’s not him, this is some seriously next-level trolling.

Dude. It’s a space sim. While our own QT3 section of space sim enthusiasts are a nice group of folks, and I’m sure most fans are perfectly wonderful people, there are some real whack-a-doodles who seem to gravitate to this genre.

[Stepsongrapes]

Assuming The Escapist is incompetent, not malicious, what’s the motivation for someone else to fake this?

Anger, resentment, vindictiveness, pettiness, and/or gossipmongering.

My suspicion is that the CIs were actual former employees who knew each other and they worked themselves into a froth about their old job/boss. Like everything, I suspect there is a some truth to their story (e.g., Roberts more focused on making movies than the day-to-day mechanics of the game), but that they’ve blurred the lines between what they know and what they suspect/heard/hope is going over on over there.

Hell, they could even be 100% correct. What seems to be clear is that the Escapist did nothing to competitently verify the truth.

[BadSport]

It’s a meta-troll, a statement regarding the invidious nature of modern/social media.

My money is on CR realizing he can’t deliver, shutting the project down and giving millions to charity.

That way everyone gets to feel nice and a lesson is learned.

[krayzkrok]

I doubt many backers would be happy if that happened, I certainly wouldn’t be. I’m not sure why so many people want to see this project crash and burn, other than jealousy perhaps, or that inexplicable human desire to cheer on failure for things that are successful. I’d certainly feel uncomfortable being on Smart’s side anyway, especially given his history here. There’s no doubt that CIG have mishandled this whole thing in a spectacular fashion, but as human nature goes its understandable (even if not professional). As is nearly always the case the truth undoubtedly lies somewhere between the two extreme versions of events. Given what I know of each side, and my investment in SC, I’m more likely to believe that it’s a case of a few disgruntled employees and an example of poor journalism. I guess we’ll find out at some point.

[BrianRubin]

…there are some real whack-a-doodles who seem to gravitate to this genre.

Hay, I resemble that remark, sir!

[mok]

And I am glad I bought those Orville Reddenbocker shares. The Escapist is doubling down yet again:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company