Not a fan of Apple fandom myself, but i think these comparisons are unjustified. Apple delivers, they hype everything (look, we invented a stylus!), but there are tangible products to show. Also Steve Jobs did innovate things!
The Star Citizen Thread v5
- Thread starter Brett C
- Start date
- Status
Not a fan of Apple fandom myself, but i think these comparisons are unjustified. Apple delivers, they hype everything (look, we invented a stylus!), but there are tangible products to show. Also Steve Jobs did innovate things!
I've lost count of how many different HUD versions that SC have tried. I seem to remember one where everything zoomed past your head for some unknown reason, and someone saying that every panel on-screen was a real asset and fully functional, and that they had hired the guy from Ironman to design the HUD, or a real-life HUD designer to do them - or maybe both. It's all lost in the fidelity soup 
Mu77ley
Volunteer Moderator
I've lost count of how many different HUD versions that SC have tried. I seem to remember one where everything zoomed past your head for some unknown reason, and someone saying that every panel on-screen was a real asset and fully functional, and that they had hired the guy from Ironman to design the HUD, or a real-life HUD designer to do them - or maybe both. It's all lost in the fidelity soup
I didn't mind the "everything zoomed past one's head" version - because that was when headtracking actually worked!
In fact, I used to lean forward and reset my TrackIR so all those useless elements were behind my ingame head.
Apple innovated putting things together and make them work as whole experience. That is no small feat and thus they should be commended for that. They however didn't "innovate" lot of things they claimed to do. Funny is how Apple taunted to be smartphone first innovator, while for example ignoring lot of PC standards which were actually driven by Apple (like USB or Firewire).
Where CIG and Apple and Jobs and Chris comparison lies is messaging and marketing - it is all about infallible creator with every tool at his disposal to do anything he can imagine about. That's what Jobs reality distortion field means. No one disputes Apple design, integration and thus business success which resulted for offering unified experience. However in it's roots it was deeply flawed approach which actually cost Jobs his life (he ignored advice of doctors and took upon himself to decide how to cure himself), and despite being incredibly successful, Apple now struggles to find ideas of further growth and their current major markets are faltering (though yet very far from any warning of failure).
I view creation of space game like SC or ED a much more complex venture than smart phone at this point. Yes, hardware design takes some balls, but so much of it is very standardized at this point. Also you can't sell stuff over and over. Anyway, Jobs was successful salesman because he actually had stuff to sell. Chris have issue to sell anything but dream at this point.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Where CIG and Apple and Jobs and Chris comparison lies is messaging and marketing - it is all about infallible creator with every tool at his disposal to do anything he can imagine about. That's what Jobs reality distortion field means. No one disputes Apple design, integration and thus business success which resulted for offering unified experience. However in it's roots it was deeply flawed approach which actually cost Jobs his life (he ignored advice of doctors and took upon himself to decide how to cure himself), and despite being incredibly successful, Apple now struggles to find ideas of further growth and their current major markets are faltering (though yet very far from any warning of failure).
I view creation of space game like SC or ED a much more complex venture than smart phone at this point. Yes, hardware design takes some balls, but so much of it is very standardized at this point. Also you can't sell stuff over and over. Anyway, Jobs was successful salesman because he actually had stuff to sell. Chris have issue to sell anything but dream at this point.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
To be fair current one using arm could work. A bit gimmicky, but I can see where they go with it. There are some warnings that it will change again too. Which is frustrating and most likely very expensive.I've lost count of how many different HUD versions that SC have tried. I seem to remember one where everything zoomed past your head for some unknown reason, and someone saying that every panel on-screen was a real asset and fully functional, and that they had hired the guy from Ironman to design the HUD, or a real-life HUD designer to do them - or maybe both. It's all lost in the fidelity soup
Apple is the company which does everything behind closed doors, then the CEO gives a keynote and in the second after that, you can order the finished products.
Ohh yeah, CIG really can't even shadow Apple at this point - they actually deliver stuff very close to announcing them. For all things Apple can be blamed for, deceptive and hyped up marketing prior product shipping is not one of them. They just release stuff and they surely can be viewed as positive example for that. It is not even normal between PC vendors.
Distortion field however have different meaning there. In Apple case it is more nuanced because they have actually delivered high quality products for years.
Last edited:
This is what i meant with innovate, too. De facto they did innovate the smartphone because nobody except few individuals was using stuff like that before Jobs showed the iPhone. Same story with the iPad. Where they really did innovate is touchpad technology and OS control with gestures, they nailed that part.
Prior iPhone Nokia experimented with their N800/810 and there were few other experiments with touch screen. However yes, full experience was delivered by iPhone and iPad first. While Android was a thing during iPhone launch, it was nowhere near experience Apple offered.
Anyway, if people understand what 'innovate' here means, I am totally ok with Apple being spotlighted as good innovator. Returning back to topic - this is what CIG lacks, because they haven't delivered anything full at this point. Truth to be told, ED hasn't yet either. As I said it is more complex and I don't expect feeling it for long time in both projects. Just one project claims to be 'Apple of space games' and another one just tries to make it work.
I agree, Apple do push out high quality gear, have done for years.
I still think it's overpriced and over-hyped, and rabid Apple evangelists have some similarity in their blind loyalty with SC evangelists, in that anything "apple" is so cool and innovative, anything else is just "meh" - sound familiar?
I'm in two minds about apple kit. Sure it's nice and shiny, and for some people it does exactly what they need. However, a lot of it is just like Star Citizen - poorly thought out, cheap commodity components wrapped up in an effort to make it look desirable, and when you've had a peek inside it's guts, all that is left is a twisted pile of metal and hot glue
Yeah, I think it is more about what Apple fan base conveys - "can't do wrong" messaging, etc. But as I said with Apple it is shades of gray, as they actually do release products. I also view them as nice, but not as Earth shaking as many Apple fans position them. In that sense it is even worse with SC cultists. They don't have actual products to use so they just dream it up. And as we have talked before, 'dream game' will beat of real one every day and every hour.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
It wasn't always like that in the past. However, chasing even bigger profit margins (and numbers of sales) Apple have sacrificed lots of it quality. At this point many of it's tech is just marginally better than regular PC counterparts, but they still charge serious extra for them.I'm in two minds about apple kit. Sure it's nice and shiny, and for some people it does exactly what they need. However, a lot of it is just like Star Citizen - poorly thought out, cheap commodity components wrapped up in an effort to make it look desirable, and when you've had a peek inside it's guts, all that is left is a twisted pile of metal and hot glue
It's worse than that now. In fact, here is Ben Lesnick in a recent interview (20:29) claiming that they need these ship sales to continue raising money. For a game that back in Sept 2014, Roberts claimed was already fully funded, and that if the funding stopped, they had money in reserves to finish the game.
The irony is that at less than $3m per month, they're operating at a loss. The hilarious part is that we're even talking about losses, when in fact the game was supposedly fully funded many times over, three years ago.
And it all goes back to the money.
Issue here is that, just like Roberts' Oct 2015 diatribe to myself and The Escapist, which he thought was a really good (hint: it wasn't; it hurt them more than it helped) idea, he thought that putting out this "Road To CitizenCon" video was somehow a good idea. It was purely damage control because they knew they had messed up. That's why this is the first time they've ever done that. All it shows is a project out of scope, a leader out of his depths and out of control, hard-working devs completely frazzled and frustrated, and a damaging look at why this project (as reported by sources, seen in the schedules etc) is a train-wreck that's completely out of control.
In the end, it did more harm than good.
Yet there are those touting it as "open development" (the new rubbish), even though there is nothing "open" about the development when in fact backers have to show outrage (e.g. the CitizenCon fiasco) in order to get a video like this which gives a glimpse into the clusterfrack that went into creating tech-demos designed only to raise money.
It's open development, but somehow backers have
i) no idea the current state of the project
ii) no idea how the money is being spent; though they were promised financial accountability right from the start. even as they continue to raising money and asking backers to believe that it's not being wasted
Last edited:
Last edited:
This is why they are doing damage control over CitizenCon. Even though they made money, they realize that the coming months of funding are going to be detrimental due to lack of progress.
Here is the fun part. Remember how most of us have said over and over that most backers didn't put all this money for the SQ42 single player experience? Well, there's now a heavily sampled poll which I'm sure is causing them even more concern now. No matter what form SQ42 takes, there is no way it makes money beyond the backers who are already entitled to it. Not to mention that if it is sub-par, seeing as it is going to compete directly with the likes of COD:IW and Mass Effect: A, then it's pretty much DOA.
And Star Citizen has been pushed to the END of 2017 now. Note that it's not even the completed game; which, by my calculation won't see the light of day until sometime around the end of 2020 if they were to deliver 100% of what was promised. They can't. So the project is already well on its way to failing.
Yes, they do that. That's their payback for writing bad stuff. Pretty much the same tactic used to try and silence dissenters across the web. Aside from failing - spectacularly - they still wonder why they are derided and chased off once they show up.
I wrote this missive about this, over on an mmorpg thread where they do the same thing they try to do here - and get banned regularly.
Last edited:
Altered your quote a bit.
As Derek stated, it's a means of silencing dissent. They only want *their* narrative. That's why INN is so notorious for putting their own misleading spin on the transcripts of ATV and 10FTSalesman or whatever. You might as well be listening to Lord HawHaw during the London Raids.
- Status