The Star Citizen Thread v8

[Cobra1984]

Havent checked yet, but do the current purchase/pledge ToS etc really point to a company that does not exist anymore? Surely that can´t be.

Yes, the tos on the RSI store which you buy your spaceship jpegs under are for the exact corporation in LA that filed a 'Surrender' notice in March - which means in British vernacular that it has ceased trading.

This is why the latest BBB complaints from backers trying to get refunds (not for trivial amounts it has to be said) literally say 'complaint is directed at the wrong company'.

That company is also one of the two CIG entities listed as a defendant in the Crytek lawsuit.

This is a small part of a bigger picture that's been unfolding in the background for months and I think the financials are going to come out soon.

Elon Musk will need to mine the entire asteroid belt for raw materials to build a lulzbucket big enough if/when that happens.

 

[Viajero]

It sounds awful when put like this, akin to those fly-by-nighter sales scams.

- The company stated as recently surrendered (I presume this means shut down, correct?) is Roberts Space Industries Corp.
- The company that appears in the ToS and EULA as main interface with buyers is a different one, Robert Space Industries International Ltd.

Now, according to the Eula, the Corp. is just one of the various parent companies of the Ltd.

Not an expert in (in)corporation engineering but it seems to me there is in principle no conflict here? Someone please help me understand.

 

[frostypaw]

Still going with the mass negativity & conspiracy theory stuff in this thread are we?

Its always worth a laugh to pop in here.

SC already has better multiplayer mechanics in place than ED with player made missions now being a thing.

That's a very generous way of describing the beacon mechanic. I can put a call out to "LOCAL" too.

Last time i was here it was the conspiracy that 3.0 videos were "fake" and they cant possibly get more than a few players in an instance.
Making out the screen caps were all photoshopped was pretty embarrassing to read , surely now people will admit that was all a bit silly.

Well that was true. On release it was shocking and it turned out all the smooth vids were people playing offline. CIG had to make an announcement about how doing that was against the T&C's. Are you suggesting that didn't happen?

So whats this new one? The company is about to be dissolved? haha niceone

It has been. Are you suggesting they are faking legal documents?

 

[Cobra1984]

That plan relied upon S42 being sold to generate funds. S42 is not ready for release either.

That's the current Plan B they're running with right now. Downsize and maximise sales to get them to a release of SQ42, which Chris expects will generate not only revenue to complete SC but will create a highly lucrative franchise.

The difficulty is the timescale they've been given to do this, rush job doesn't even begin to describe it.

Another difficulty is the sheer lack of interest and penetration of SQ42, 33,000 signups for the newsletter (their target was 250,000 which meant everyone got a free t-shirt) was such an embarrassing number they removed it from the website and replaced it with their forum account number of 2m.

They're trying to grow that number by including it in their GDPR opt in emails, which honestly is embarrassing at this point.

On top of that the Mark Hamill gameplay trailer was broken and mediocre, again because it was a rush job created under Chris Roberts direction.

The most complete and working builds that exist are the 2 PU demos they showed to backers who visited the LA studio. The Levski demo and something else.

 

[Cobra1984]

- The company stated as recently surrendered (I presume this means shut down, correct?) is Roberts Space Industries Corp.
- The company that appears in the ToS and EULA as main interface with buyers is a different one, Robert Space Industries International Ltd.

Now, according to the Eula, the Corp. is just one of the various parent companies of the Ltd.

Not an expert in (in)corporation engineering but it seems to me there is in principle no conflict here? Someone please help me understand.

Oh my god they've changed it overnight

They literally just switcherooed the company in the tos and eula. Here's an archive of the tos from Jan

https://web.archive.org/web/20180131145958/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/tos

Here's a list of all the companies including the TWO that were just dissolved

STAR CITIZEN CORPORATE ENTITIES
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Cloud Imperium Games Corp CA (2013)
Cloud Imperium Games LLC CA (2012)
Cloud Imperium Rights LLC CA (2017)
Cloud Imperium US, LLC DE (2017)
Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC TX (2013)
Cloud Imperium Games LLC TX (2012) <- dissolved
Roberts Space Industries Corp CA (2013 <- dissolved 03/2018
Roberts Space Industries, LLC CA (2017) <- dissolved 03/2018
Roberts Space Industries, LLC TX (2018)

OTHERS
Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC CA (2013)
Gemini 42 Productions LLC CA (2014)
Twin Brothers Production Inc CA (1995) <- owned by Ortwin Freyermuth. Has been used in sales & refunds in US & EU
Twin Bros. Productions Inc CA (1991) <- see above

UNITED KINGDOM
Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited (2013)
Cloud Imperium Rights UK Limited (2017)
Foundry 42 Limited (2013)
Roberts Space Industries International Limited (2014)

GERMANY
Roberts Space Industries Germany GMBH
Foundry 42 <- ex-CryTek engineers hired to setup shop here
Twin Bros GmBH <- see above

 

[Dooguk]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/264873047?t=19m04s

No "community" in his title. Empty shelves. Moving boxes?

 

[Cobra1984]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/264873047?t=19m04s

No "community" in his title. Empty shelves. Moving boxes?

He said on a previous stream he's moving out. Ask him who his landlord was, specifically which corporate entity was leasing his building.

 

[Viajero]

Oh my god they've changed it overnight

They literally just switcherooed the company in the tos and eula. Here's an archive of the tos from Jan

https://web.archive.org/web/20180131145958/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/tos

Here's a list of all the companies including the TWO that were just dissolved

STAR CITIZEN CORPORATE ENTITIES
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Cloud Imperium Games Corp CA (2013)
Cloud Imperium Games LLC CA (2012)
Cloud Imperium Rights LLC CA (2017)
Cloud Imperium US, LLC DE (2017)
Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC TX (2013)
Cloud Imperium Games LLC TX (2012) <- dissolved
Roberts Space Industries Corp CA (2013 <- dissolved 03/2018
Roberts Space Industries, LLC CA (2017) <- dissolved 03/2018
Roberts Space Industries, LLC TX (2018)

OTHERS
Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC CA (2013)
Gemini 42 Productions LLC CA (2014)
Twin Brothers Production Inc CA (1995) <- owned by Ortwin Freyermuth. Has been used in sales & refunds in US & EU
Twin Bros. Productions Inc CA (1991) <- see above

UNITED KINGDOM
Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited (2013)
Cloud Imperium Rights UK Limited (2017)
Foundry 42 Limited (2013)
Roberts Space Industries International Limited (2014)

GERMANY
Roberts Space Industries Germany GMBH
Foundry 42 <- ex-CryTek engineers hired to setup shop here
Twin Bros GmBH <- see above

If your Jan 2018 archive mirror is correct the company in the ToS at time was Robert Space Industries Corp. Whereas the current counterparty in the ToS, the Ltd., is a child company of that Corp.

As far as I know there hasn´t been an official ToS update this year. Has anyone had to press "accept" at any time this year for a ToS change?

 

[VidarSnipes]

That's the current Plan B they're running with right now. Downsize and maximise sales to get them to a release of SQ42, which Chris expects will generate not only revenue to complete SC but will create a highly lucrative franchise.

I wonder what sale figures does he have in mind, the closest equivalent to what SQ42 aims to be is Infinite Warfare, and it has around 500,000 owners on Steam, IIRC, and soon after the release of the previous game in the series, only 1% of physical sales was attributed to PC.

 

[Cobra1984]

If your Jan 2018 archive mirror is correct the company in the ToS at time was Robert Space Industries Corp. Whereas the current counterparty in the ToS, the Ltd., is a child company of that Corp.

As far as I know there hasn´t been an official ToS update this year. Has anyone had to press "accept" at any time this year for a ToS change?

The child company in the tos is not the child company that used to be there holding the liability.

CIG in Delaware is the parent company.

That's my understanding, I'm happy to be corrected but both of these companies in the tos were to my understanding child companies of the CIG parent.

Regardless, the one holding the liability was just dissolved, the liability goes with it, it does not transfer to the parent without court action.

Edit - you don't need to press 'accept', if you read the tos simply "using the RSI services" for 30 days means you accept any changes.

 

[Backer42]

CIG in Delaware is the parent company.

If you give your money to a Delaware company, it's your own fault.

 

[PiLhEaD]

Apart from Derek's tweet suggesting a few people have moved on, is there any actual firm evidence of downsizing?

Given 4-500 employees and contractors, it's reasonable to see an amount of 'churn' pretty much all the time, even including senior people. Downsizing for me would be when they start letting go of decent numbers of employees/contractors in tranches, and sorry but no, internet 'rumours' aren't evidence.

tbh my 'storm in a teacup' meme is on standby and my spidey sense tingling.... or it might be wind....

 

[Viajero]

Edit - you don't need to press 'accept', if you read the tos simply "using the RSI services" for 30 days means you accept any changes.

Well I guess then that CIG/RSI is well within their rights to change the company in the ToS correct?

 

[Dooguk]

The best way to get people to go without actually sacking them, is by messing them around. That way they leave of their own accord.

 

[Cobra1984]

Well I guess then that CIG/RSI is well within their rights to change the company in the ToS correct?

Of course they are, they can change whatever they want, that isn't the issue.

In fact they haven't changed it at all if you live in the US. Fire up a US proxy and go to the same RSI TOS page - it still reads 'RSI Corp', the corp they just dissolved.

 

[Backer42]

Given 4-500 employees and contractors, it's reasonable to see an amount of 'churn' pretty much all the time, even including senior people.

Is it reasonable to burn through hundreds of people for seven years without any product?

Were these employee numbers verified independently? If they aren't, these numbers are as believable as anything else the conglomerate of 20 shell companies publishes.

 

[Cobra1984]

Elon Musk is now taking preorders for carbon fibre lulzbuckets reinforced with titanium alloy, get them while they're hot, you're going to need at least two.

 

[dayrth]

...Regardless, the one holding the liability was just dissolved, the liability goes with it, it does not transfer to the parent without court action....

So if I have this right, anyone who paid money before today can't even ask for a refund (without going to court) because the company who took your money no longer exists. But don't worry. If you want to give CIG some money after today, there is a shiny new company who will take it from you.

 

[PiLhEaD]

Is it reasonable to burn through hundreds of people for seven years without any product? Were these employee numbers verified independently? If they aren't, these numbers are as believable as anything else the conglomerate of 20 shell companies publishes.

I'm not sure I understand, sorry. The question I was asking is, is there any firm evidence for the talk of downsizing?

Downsizing is not churn, no matter how high the rate. To me, downsizing is when you get rid of large number of employees in a short period of time, and don't replace them. E.g total headcount goes from 500 to 400 in a month.

I'm guessing I already know the answer, but I just wondered.

 

[Tippis]

Definitely not a scammy scam run by scammers.