I m not even sure they could be brought before court on criminal charges.
I am not talking about criminal charges. But, that could be uncovered during a lawsuit (maybe). But probably an usual consumer case would do a lot of harm to them, regardless supposed "criminal" activities.
As late as they are its still "in development" and as far as progress goes, thats subjective, depending on who you listen to.
That is a theory very simple to destroy. It's easy to prove that RSI makes more money by false advertising and not delivering or under-delivering. All that you need is to argue this.
People can apply for refunds which CiG grants thats about the maximum they can do.
Actually, people are been persistent to get their refunds. It's not like RSI give the refunds at the first moment. They pretend that they don't need to. A lawsuit could be put in place considering that the company has this standard that does not affect only you, as a consumer "asking for a refund" but many other consumers... meaning... the risk of a continuous consumer scam (which actually is what has been happening).
In order for a court trial to become possible Star Citizen needs to be released and fail on all accounts or collapse and stop development.
And it looks like this scenario is some time away depending on how much more money is thrown into the flames. Even then, the only thing that a trial could possible achieve is to proof its been a since 2014 and (hopefully) releasing more information to the public. There wont be any money to get back at that point so you ll have a lot of heartbroken people who are tuff out of luck as far as compensation goes and all the people pointing fingers laughing "I told you so".
This is the same sort of ignorance that has been wide-spread just as was spread that RSI/CIG shouldn't need to give to people refunds, or the notion that they did not promise to share their books.
Its a false and wrong notion and I am impressed to see that people really believe on this, because, seriously... with a little of logic and basic argument you destroy this notion very very easily.
The argument that I already brought previusly, already kills this idea that they need to "stop" and only then, a court trial would become possible. Once again, it's very easy to demosntrate that by NOT releasing the product and keeping a "show", they made and make more money of what could be expected if launching a playable/working/originally promised game (specially because they repeatedly demonstrated not been capable of releasing anything "working").
At the moment that they claim "but.. but... we are good because we share information, we are not letting people without communication", the half-brain trainee lawyer simply say: "Ok, but do you know, your honor, that all this information is not shared "for free" and actually, besides the constant propaganda presented - and here's the proof that it was just propaganda - for example, fake demos tied to strong ship sales that never realized, promises of 'soon' releases never coming out or just years later - these shows are actually PAID by backers to exist by what they call subscriptions, here is the confirmation of themselves, saying all that time that such shows of what they call "sharing information", but its more like bogus info to keep people busy and watching what the news things they are selling, are only possible due these subscriptions"... see?
In fact, even if they deliver the game (already a certainty that will be missing many many features, as we know today, because THEY already have been saying this), a court trial not just IS possible but have ALL chances to lead them to pay strong penalties (yes, because, basically, they went too far and have no SERIOUS defense... judges are not idiots like gamers and don't care with 'vision'.
tl;dr The point is... the scam going here is EXACTLY this one of "pretending" that is advancing focused to deliver the promised product, but in fact, doing everything possible to delay that point.... and this EXTREMELY EASY to prove today!
To be fair you just need to say: "Ok judge... here's this project. They got money from people and it has a estimated delivery date. Now, the project has NO estimated delivery date"... end of story. The rest is just putting more "scamming" elements to the cake to make the judge ask for more things, like they been required to share the books, etc. Actually, some people could also go to a court, NOT asking for refunds, for example, but requiring them to share the books, as promised, and because there are a lot of evidences that lead people to believe, with reason, that something strange is going on. There are enough evidences out there that would make a judge to require them to share. Some of us know how this industry works, and shady companies like RSI behave and act... and basically, in the end of the day, that would be the end of this project.
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