For real, where did you saw the project is dead ? Have you some secret infos to give us ?
It progress slowly, but it gets more and more alive patch after patch. Player base growing, funding growing, gameplay growing, techs growing... like it or not, it's the opposite of death.
He means he believes the project is as good as dead (if i may presume to speak for him).
The game promised over the years is never going to be made and its questionable whether CIG can even make a half decent game that can be released to the public. But from what we see from CIG, they have been backing off on making a hard release for years, and it may never even reach the point of a release. I mean, why make a release that means you can no longer hide behind ITS ALPHA! to defend every misstep and delay? CIG don't even need to do the defending. Backers will do that for them and then throw them another few million.
This has to be the first game ever developed where those invested give the developer more money the worse they do. Your statement that it gets more "alive" (whatever you mean by that) is bizarre when patches have been getting more and more gutted each time round and release just seems to become more and more a distant dream.
You can excuse those who jumped in early, they perhaps had a rose tinted view of CR's ability to deliver, had never heard of what happened with Freelancer or just assumed CR had learned his lessons in project management (turns out, he just blamed evil publisher for not giving him as much time and money as he wanted). Those who came later had no excuse for not seeing that CR was not a good lead for the project, even though he was good at selling dreams... and that in itself should have been a big warning sign. Those who sell the biggest dreams tend to be those who have no idea on how to actually deliver on those dreams. For every dream merchant who has succeeded, history is littered with those who have failed.
Some say "Its my money, i think he can do it, so ill give him money" and that is fine, but there seems to be an unshakable belief that CR will succeed despite any warning signs. All problems are waved away, CIG's statements are accepted without question, and anyone who dares to say CIG are not doing well are lablled as haters and FUDsters.
Sorry, i don't think Chris has learned anything over the years, and he's making all the same mistakes he made in the past, with Strike Commander and Freelancer. Just backers think if they keep throwing money at him, it will all somehow come together.
