It’s not the same as selling smack to kids, but it’s along the same vein. It’s not isolated to cig obviously, but companies using base human bias to sell their product is unethical. FOMO, sunk cost, etc similarly to gambling is exploiting vulnerable people. If you read hard core sc fans justification for their expenditure, it’s the same as a hard core gambler or addict.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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Something else being wrong doesn't absolve the first things from being wrong.
As consumers we should hold them all to what they sell vs what they deliver.
And there is a difference in that FD never said we would get everything we were sold at start or even soon. FD released and went through a couple of DLCs and failed to deliver on some of the things, but we've also been delivered a good portion of what was sold.
Whereas with CIG they repeatedly made claims year after year, while remaining hidden behind its alpha. Making claims of still delivering a majority of functionality before release, Chris saying (in 2015) that by the end of the year backers would get everything they pledged for (and more), and when they tried to walk back on 100 systems at launch and the subsequent outrage, they backpedaled on that and tried to make out there would still be plenty of systems at launch... and here we are many years later. still only 1 system and maybe a part of a second.
I think you might agree there are differences in scale here.
As for "when is it ever", Baldur's Gate 3 pretty much lived up to its promises. Solasta delivered 100% in my opinion. The Manor Lords dev is trying his best to temper expectations despite fans getting carried away dreamcrafting. ETS2, Snowrunner, Wreckfest all lived up to their expectations.
Plenty of devs do deliver.
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ok fair enough some games do fully deliver, maybe i just backed the wrong ones!, and i am not excusing CIG........ i havent played (or heard of) all the games you mention and i am not doubting you.
however BG3 took many years to launch, and it does appear to be the game most hoped for. isnt there still hope SC could do the same?
Also the snowrunner series had a really interesting history as well, one i do not know 100% but i do remember Spintires, the 1st game in the franchise had a load of controversy of its own and that didnt get the future expansions which were talked about when the game was on sale, instead it went into the next game in the series.
Wreckfest passed me by...... but is still on my list of games to pick up one day (though number 2 is coming i think so may just get that)
I think the idea of waiting for the game to come out/finish to be justified either way is not going to work, and probably what CIG is hoping for. Keep waiting until you die, that way you can't sue them.
I can't see CIG ever finishing their game, not realease, "finish". Currently anyone and everyone who's interested in Star Citizen or SQ42 have already paid into it. Anyone not impressed by the free fly wouldn't be buying it. Once the game release, these paid backers will get their game without anymore $$ spent. CIG will get a tiny fraction of what they've made thus far from new customers and if the game is buggy or review came out its less than great in some way, they will get even less. Finishing the game means little to no future income for the company. Forget about any idea of fund/profit in the bank to develope the next game.
I don't think CIG will be able to survive/continue to operate without continued funding. Their entire business model relies on leeching off fans with false hope of a product some time in the future. It's detrimental to their business to even hint development progressing to any stage other than adding and developing more features. They've designed their company into a corner where they have to keep on Alphaing or go bust.
The moment CIG announce the game is feature complete and moving to Beta, or everything is set in stone and being polished for release, funding will stop. They might not even survive long enough to actually finish the polishing phase. There will be no more new ships to sell, no more hope of dream features and most will close their wallet in preparation for release. The whole point of calling it an Alpha is everything can be explored as a feature and nothing is set, so what you see now might get dropped but you can hope for something new like a powerloader in the future. They're always coming out with something new to catch attention, but also not obligated on taking it to the end. Everything is Tier 0, a test, a taste of what's possible to encourage backers to come up with their own head canon, but never progress to Tier 2 or Tier 9.
Four paragraphs and a senctence to say "CIG will never release their game and we'll never know if they'll ever achieve their goal."
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I dont expect SC to be "finished" any time soon either....... however what i am waiting for is for (most) of the bugs to be ironed out as well as the game be stable, both in terms of crashes but also in terms of an end to account wipes.
Once those things happen, that is my point where i will jump in and properly commit to the game. That does not mean all the planets have to be in the game, and that CIG cant continue to sell ships and what not....
I guess finished is a nebulous term and in terms of live service games, doesnt mean what it used to mean in more traditional games.
I am not saying you are wrong............ but i do hope you are! (mainly because i do want to have a proper go at the game and there is enough in there already for me to like a lot of what they are offering...... but i am not a fan of playing for x number of hrs and it all being for nothing as my character gets reset...... esp when at the same time those who opened their wallet for ships get to keep theirs!.
Once those things happen, that is my point where i will jump in and properly commit to the game. That does not mean all the planets have to be in the game, and that CIG cant continue to sell ships and what not....
I guess finished is a nebulous term and in terms of live service games, doesnt mean what it used to mean in more traditional games.
I am not saying you are wrong............ but i do hope you are! (mainly because i do want to have a proper go at the game and there is enough in there already for me to like a lot of what they are offering...... but i am not a fan of playing for x number of hrs and it all being for nothing as my character gets reset...... esp when at the same time those who opened their wallet for ships get to keep theirs!.
OK, so given the game is still very buggy, very variable on the stability front, and still in the wipes stage. And given that all the tests of their new server architecture suffer even more greatly from those same aspects...
(And given that they've been trying to deploy a live release of that server architecture since 2018...)
What are you basing the 'coming together now' conceit on?
(Genuine question. I'm just confused as to why you think that is the case.)
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
You don't ask that kind of question in this thread. While I do make fun of SC and my attitude is mostly sarcastic and comedy, I consider myself rather reasonable, compared to the Citizens (lol) of this thread
When SC actually works - it's a lot of fun. The problem is that it doesn't work much more often than it does.
Comparing what it offers now to say 5 years ago, the progress is clearly visible. But there's still only 1 system, it still wastes literal hours of a player's time due to game breaking bugs and it still has a VERY long way to go to become even a glimpse of an actual game.
I lost hope for it to become an actual game long time ago.
Not a snowball's chance in hell.
Yeah, Spintires had lots of issues. Then they did Mudrunner then Snowrunner. Took them time to get things right.
Wreckfest is a blast.
its a fair question, and i certainly respect those who do not think it will ever work properly.......... i guess it is just that sometimes it does work properly and when it does there is a lot to like about the game.
Also i am biased as i am funnily enough the opposite kind of gamer that the game is actually selling to. IMO the main reason the servers are strugging is because they are trying to have so many players playing together.
IF push came to shove CIG had to give it up and lower the game to (taking it to the extreme) 8 players max in an instance... there would be hell to pay and most of the hardcore fans would consider that a failure. i do believe if that happened however the game would likely work a lot better... end of the day if it isnt trying to track so many players then those weird desyncs etc would happen a lot less.
however if that happened me personally, i woudl be fine with it. the fewer players i see in these kind of games - unless they are actual friends of mine - then the better.
It won't.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
If the last 10 years of SC development can be used as reference we could safely conclude that is highly unlikely.
CIG has already formally realeased a product and have zero obligations going forward. A product that is utterly broken and incomplete still. And buyers are allegedly still buying. Things are are as good as they are going to get for CIG.
I have no doubt they will continue “adding” new features and content for as long as money flows, but it all points out to all those being equally broken and incomplete.
If a broken and incomplete thing is making them to go through alleged record breaking sales, why do any extra effort to fix stuff? And that assumes all the main issues are fixable, which given the history may actually not be, unless drastic simplification and reduction of scope and features.
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Wait, am I remembering things wrong or making things up thinking the original pitch for Star Citizen was supposed to NOT be a live service game? Chris Roberts said something about it not needing patch and be a complete game right? What I remembered sounded completely opposite of live service. Even the poll to expand scope didn't say it'll be a live service model?
Hmm, have there been any real wipe recently? I guess the database diapers are so messy no one is willing to wipe the tables' bums even with a barge pole, and take responsibility for backers rage.
i cant remember.... so much was said back then they may have said anything... however as i remember it, S42 was a stand alone game, either single player or P2P coop with a friend (the coop i believe has now been canned) and then Star Citizen a live service MMO
the next wipe is scheduled to be 4.0 (I think), which may be coming sometime end of this year
Cool yep. But you see how your proposed solution is the opposite to what they're currently doing right? (Trying to expand the player count per location etc).
And when we take into account how that's going (IE interaction delays of 40secs+ for target player counts) I still don't get where the 'things are coming together' idea comes from.
Feature additions continue of course, but feature additions aren't steps to completion if the underlying architecture can't support them. (They're the paving stones to dev hell instead
)