Someone who looks at the value of $1 very differently from you or I.
I once went to a Michelin starred restaurant (of some many of stars), which is something I only let myself indulge in every couple of years. My wife and I blew $1,000 on a single fabulously delicious and decadent dinner. A couple hours of pure enjoyment for a grand.
In the middle of our dinner I surveyed the room and listened to a couple tables. A lot of people there were certainly much more well-heeled than myself, but I don't care much about that. I did overhear on fella talking about how these dinners were a regular thing for him and his family, on the order of once or twice per week. Personally, I couldn't stomach that and would have to live in a box to support such a habit. But, this sort of guy, if he happened to be a space game fan would easily spend those thousands on a game.
BUT...there are others still, who don't necessarily have exorbitant means, who pull out their credit cards for every ship sale. These folks, I believe, are plain delusional and are similar to addicts. They are willing to limit their current and future financial freedom by boosting for a...toy (video game)
Its the financial difference in the world. There are people being born into "wealthy families" and parents doing what parents do usually make sure their offspring doesnt lack anything. These kids grow up into adults which have only a minor understanding of work and financial management spending thousands of $ on a whim without so much thinking about the effort it took to earn that money in the first place. There are of course professional private investors but these people are the ones surviving on their instinct and backing up such projects usually runs a profit for them in the end and therefore dont count. Of course the value of 1000$ is different for those people then for "regular" folks. Think of 5 year olds who WANT that candy being oblivious to the financial status of their parents. The parents might be poor and simply cannot afford that luxury article having to keep count of even pennies to get by. The kid doesnt care. It WANTS NAO and if it doesnt get what it wants..... you all know where I m going with this. A sheltered life which is bolstered by previous generations to the degree that this kid never has to work but can spend his lifetime cruising around and having fun can lead to this type of spending behaviour. And it only gets worse with following generations.
Upbringing is usually the key in how an adult person behaves. Always been that way. Its really hard to make your OWN future by cutting all ties and connections to your family completely and become a drastically different person.
I once saw an app on my smartphone which was a screensaver. It was golden in color, sparkling and had the number 100.000 moving over the screen.
Thats all it did. No other functionality. It just engaged after x seconds of inactivity and displayed that picture. It cost 100.000€ and even while I was thinking about how ridiculous that thing is I spotted the sale counter and saw that FIVE people already purchased it......I mean......
Once upon a time such people sure were rare but we life in a world of financial unfairness for generations already so you can expect to see more and more people throwing out their money.
Personally I m a bit of a cheapskate. Its not that I m poor but I make very sure that I get my moneys worth. If I ever invest into something wastefull (this includes buying a game which turns out to be not fun to me) thats something I rebuke myself continously for and make sure I dont make that mistake again. I am almost allergic to lying and while others attest me an outgoing nature which is often naive in its appearance I usually give strangers the benefit of the doubt but a single intentional lie is all it takes to put that person in my bad corner forever. I understand that others operate differently from me like.....being distrustfull to people they dont know so their trust needs to be earned (my wife is that way) but its nothing I ever was able to adopt for myself and being past 40 years I dont see myself changing anymore.
Thats why I believe that even if I WERE to be rich suddenly (maybe a lottery win or inheriting) I dont see myself changing much or at all. I would spend money sure but it would be on garantueed quality. Seeing as I am quite capable of creating excellent food for myself in the kitchen I cannot fathom throwing out THOUSANDS on diners really. I mean WHERE exactly lies the value compared to the service you get? If you break it down the food you get at such place is certainly of very high quality but I DOUBT very much that the material needed for your diner exceeds 100€. So the additional pricetag comes from brand (think Mercedes versus Volkswagen) and rarity knowing that the "elite" is dining in that place and the high cost is justified in your eyes to feeling like you are part of it. Personally I could never shake the feeling that somebody is pulling a fast one on me in such a case.
Now its hard to believe that SC is financed only by rich people or rich kids. There is of course the type of person which always were bad at managing money, gullible, naive, easy to hype etc. How much you are into something usually dictates what kind of person you are. Then comes a tipping point at which emotional or financial investment triggers your future behaviour. This counts for EVERYTHING in the world not just games.
Think about relationships you finding out your partner cheated you but you invested years of your life into that person so you keep going where others draw a line and fire said person out of their life. Think about a game that you enjoyed for a long time and suddenly a patch hits and everything is changed or outright sucks. Everybody around you says it sucks and mocks it but you had a good time so far and are willing to stick with it even if it means being ridiculed. Think about a restaurant you are a regular customer to. You know the owner well and consider him a "friend" even tho your relationship is based on money. Suddenly you fall out and dont have the necessary "disposable income" anymore to afford dining there. You ll stick around even tho you cannot afford it because you feel an obligation to that owner and justify a waste of resource convinving yourself you are doing the right thing. If anything the reasons I listed (even if not counting for you directly) are credible and are a scientifically proven occurance.
In terms of Star Citizen its becoming appearant that the breaking point has been reached a long time ago as more and more people turn away from something they were really excited about in the past allowing for delays, subpar results etc as long as Chris Roberts continuerd to pamper his herd and throw out shining jpegs from time to time. Like everything in life (yes....even sex) things become stale after a while tho and while this has been a great ride for CR and many of the backers as well some people wake up and the number grows. Seeing as high-value backers or "whales" start to leave as well I can certainly understand the notion that "the end is nigh" but I lack the personal experience with "bancrupcy" myself to evaluate any of these things professionally (thats why I enjoy reading this forum as many people OBVIOUSLY do have experience in these things and are able to transport their knowledge to people like me). The remaining crowd is either extremly blind or easily deceivable or simply so invested that they indeed sing "lalala" while closing their ears and eyes. Add the few "professionals" which indeed are protecting an investment and you end up with the core that is easily triggered, extreme in its response and allows no other opinion.
"notacult"
Gullilbe is a nasty word and even tho its correct according to my dictionary always has the taste of negativity especially when used in anything SC related. I ve been gullible regarding SC as well but when I got drawn in the kickstarter sum was easily reached and there were more money pouring in that CR ever wanted. I therefor was able to sit back and let him do his thing "believing" in Chris Roberts as so many here did. The first delay was okay with me and things taking time was something I was used to. Then came Derek Smart and he asked a lot of interesting questions. I wasnt worried about the project then but I observed the exchange with Mr.Smart and the SC fanbase and CIG attentively. The first thing that shocked me was the prime reaction of the SC fanbase to the formulated concerns of Mr.Smart. It was disgusting to see haters and trolls (yes folks....its not this forum being full of haters) going down on him and trying to DROWN him out with quantity even tho they hardly did anything else then shout and taunt. It was like watching an anghry mob from the dark ages. I was trying to find any reasonable answer in that pool of filth and was unable to find any. Then his post was moderated for a non-reason, he got kicked out as a backer and Chris Roberts even incriminated him publicly. That was my turning point. No professional company can afford to behave like this. No forum should be allowed to be run like that. If my concerns and questions are met with mockery and hate then I simply turn my back on said person or community and dont aggrevate myself further. I shared a lot of his observations and would ve liked an answer to the questions as well but seeing as he got attacked for nothing but curiosity I knew my own reaction already and didnt even bother posting anything. I continued to watch Mr.Smarts blog and tried to collect more information. Pretty much EVERYTHING since 2013 confirmed my initial impression to that DS fiasco and hardened my opinion about CR running a scam. I stumbled across this forum and others and continued to watch the battle raging between sceptics, fans, white knights, shills and haters (on both sides) and beside learning a LOT about forum posting in the process have seen more and more people opening their eyes if not to the lacking success of SC then to the abomination which the SC community at large represented. Not every SC fan is so but the entities majority dictates the label in this case. And in this case its the vocal majority.
I remember Mr.Smarts own game coming under flak suddenly. A game I never heard anything about before a SC fan brought it up. I reviewed it and found it lacking result and progress so it wasnt interesting to me. That doesnt make Mr.Smarts points any LESS valid tho...something many SC fans tried to present as being proof he is a hater or jelly. If anything that behaviour only hardened my belief that Mr.Smart is on to something. His steam game which was living a dormant life until then suddenly got review bombed to the very ground and even game magazines mocked him openly while admitting that the author is invested into SC. This repellent behaviour made me look even harder into available proof and I had to agree with Mr.Smart on many points.
Reflecting all this brings me to the conclusion that SCs failure is based on the very same thing from start to end. Incompetence. Pure and simple. The leadership acting like little kids rather then experienced business people (throwing a tantrum, not listening to advice, trying to "force" success). I doubt Chris Roberts EVER had a business plan. It was all smoke and mirrors from the start. Not having to rely on investors was a god send for him as he knew he could do and act as he liked without being accountable to anybody but a few thousand "gamers" and their value in the project has been sufficiantly demonstrated in recent years (think special snowflake debacle, general customer service attitude, CiGs silence to critical issues and the rightout lying about so many things).
Yes my negativity is hardened but that doesnt make me a hater. I just look at anything CiG releases or anounces with a cold hard stare and evaluate what he "promises" (because...lack of actual physical results) under hindsight of past actions and results. And I find absolutely NOTHING that would encourage any hope for a successfull ending for Star Citizen. In the past 2 years the "squirming" has started where Chris Roberts began to mumble openly in interviews and makes very sure to be as elusive and vague as possible. Maybe people dont notice and are being distracted by flashy things but if you look out for those things you ll find plenty whenever you see CR on camera. CiG being able to release demos and staged presentations selling them as "live ingame footage" and "coming soon" while so many turned a blind eye and continued their crusade was an annoyance. I was outright disappointed in all the game magazines REFUSING to do their job and ask the hard questions. But that has been a conclusion which was triggered a loing time ago already just in SCs case things were so obvious and practically screaming in your face. I was expecting a professional gaming journalist to be able to see cold hard facts and evaluate a game under that light which would ve been crushing in any case. But maybe the SC swarm has something to do with that.
Now it seems that the ability to manufacture high quality demos and high fidelity concepts has suffered so much due to various reasons that whatever they do show is worrying and not up to the standard we were used to over the first few years. Concept designs are more and more technical in nature and less flashy resembling a "bare-bone" characteristica which might be suitable for some games but in SCs case only underlines the sudden change of quality. Streams showing "lets have fun" content instead of anything tangible regarding the game. Continuing this kind of streams even after the communities uproar of disappointment.
Yes its mockery and teasing at this point but then.....theres so much to tease and mock and regarding the behaviour of CiG and the SC community over the first couple of years I can only say.....they brought this over themselves/they got it coming. And different to the open hate and belittlement that I saw on RIS forums in the past whatever is dicussed on this forum can only really be seen as "respectfull ribbing" really.
But the ugly truth hurts I guess.
Thats it for my monthly recap, thanks for sticking to the end if you did
/cheers
