The Star Citizen Thread v5

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1500

1500
Wotthe ens said:
Thanks for the replies guys.
Yep, I can't remember if it was TOS or KS promise either and I get it that Derek was refunded so he isn't directly able to pursue that- but surely, this whole shenanigans could be put to rest if Derek supported someone who was an appropriate KStarter with the legal action required? Is there really no-one left who gives a damn enough to do that? Or is it a none case / none starter?

It seems such an obvious point of contention and would really shine a light on the inside spending that I find it difficult to understand why it's not happened.
Personally, I don't have any stake in SC and simply enjoy the humour of it all, but I would be very interested to see the financial accounts that's for sure :-D
cheers
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As soon as someone tried CIG would just refund them their money and that would be the end of that, there is no case if CIG does not have your money.
 
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Wotthe Dickens

Wotthe Dickens
1500 said:
As soon as someone tried CIG would just refund them their money and that would be the end of that, there is no case if CIG does not have your money.
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I suppose that's fundamentally it; but is KS not caring that promises made with their company can be broken? Doesn't it paint them in a pretty bad way? If anyone can promise anything on KS and then break those promises, is there no come back? Or is this because the financial accounts promise was made within CIG's crowd funding and not KS?
Anyway! I suppose I could trawl through the info and find out more myself, but it's so much easier to post a question here :-D
cheers
 

1500

1500
Wotthe ens said:
I suppose that's fundamentally it; but is KS not caring that promises made with their company can be broken? Doesn't it paint them in a pretty bad way? If anyone can promise anything on KS and then break those promises, is there no come back? Or is this because the financial accounts promise was made within CIG's crowd funding and not KS?
Anyway! I suppose I could trawl through the info and find out more myself, but it's so much easier to post a question here :-D
cheers
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KS does not really care after a project has been funded, some of those rules have changed over time but that does not apply to SC. It is a big problem with kickstarter and crowdfunding in general, there is no accountability, so it is ripe for scams, or projects that fail due to ineptitude.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Wotthe ens said:
I suppose that's fundamentally it; but is KS not caring that promises made with their company can be broken? Doesn't it paint them in a pretty bad way? If anyone can promise anything on KS and then break those promises, is there no come back? Or is this because the financial accounts promise was made within CIG's crowd funding and not KS?
Anyway! I suppose I could trawl through the info and find out more myself, but it's so much easier to post a question here :-D
cheers
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This threads as full of non-experts theory-crafting as reddit, it's just most of the speculation is based on thinking it's more knackered than it is saving pc gaming. The most serious points made here are references to Monty Python and buckets.
 

Marak

Marak
Stigbob said:
This threads as full of non-experts theory-crafting as reddit, it's just most of the speculation is based on thinking it's more knackered than it is saving pc gaming. The most serious points made here are references to Monty Python and buckets.
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I am soooooooo tempted to post the "Dead parrot sketch" here - but I'm too scared of T.j & Yaffle for going off topic :(

(guess I'll get a warning anyway :D )
 

Dooguk

D
OK this is good.....

From this...https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15704-Monthly-Studio-Report

Comes this....
The Backend Team has been hard at work on a massive project to refactor our entire backend infrastructure to a new architecture we’re calling Diffusion. Diffusion will be a truly cloud-oriented service architecture that will help improve high scalability and availability for our services. It will be powered by a top level “coordination” layer written in a proprietary language developed by our Lead Server Engineer, Jason Ely.
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Then from SA Scruffpuff says this...
Every single claim in this statement is false.
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Still at SA MinorInconvenience says... No. I just think they maybe stole it? https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00LZYYF6A

To which Scruffpuff replies....
didn't think anyone would find that, let alone that fast.

The Star Citizen project proper has been cancelled internally since early 2017. Star Citizen is now being treated as a wrapper of sorts - an amorphous concept within which people are "encouraged" to continue experimenting with technology, art, AI, animation, whatever can be shown to the public to give the illusion that some day it can be leveraged in a way that might help make a game. Kind of a space-themed technological brainstorming session for new ideas - a company dedicated to "innovation" first and a product second, like, say, Tesla, or perhaps Apple to a lesser degree.

Considering the quality of the talent currently working for CIG, I'll give you one guess how "new" most of these ideas are turning out to be.
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jcrg99

Banned
J
Wotthe ens said:
I suppose that's fundamentally it; but is KS not caring that promises made with their company can be broken? Doesn't it paint them in a pretty bad way? If anyone can promise anything on KS and then break those promises, is there no come back? Or is this because the financial accounts promise was made within CIG's crowd funding and not KS?
Anyway! I suppose I could trawl through the info and find out more myself, but it's so much easier to post a question here :-D
cheers
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Ks is not responsible for funded campaigns. They keep involved while the project is not funded, making sure backers do not be charged in case a project does not achieve its funding goal. In case the goal is achieved they make sure to freeze the advertising page and prevent the crowdfunder to edit/change his advertising material.
That can help a consumer in a case against the company behind the project. After funded, the project MUST be delivered. There is no other option. If the company fails to deliver, and consumers sue them (or consumer authorities), they will be charged with fines and refunds (that was always obvious to me, but at this point, the legal precedents already exist).
In the case of Star Citizen, the situation is simple. Nobody have a case if refunded. But people refunded still can report to the authorities., hopefully, not asking for refunds, but alerting them for the possibility of more defrauded consumers due the continuous abuse of ad/marketing laws from RSI. If that case would lead to RSI opening their financials, that is another history.
Or, someone could simply ask to have the financials presented as promissed, instead refund, showing enough evidences that could lead to the need of that (and they exist, including the own instances of deceptive marketing).
But there is not too much objectivity on asking that, when a refund was given.
People like Derek and gamers in general, wont go beyond asking their refunds. I guess Derek wouldn't do anything legally, because the game will colapse anyway. There is nothing that could be saved at this point. Just remains to watch this crashing and burning and laugh of the people that still are capable to believe on them after so many times been fooled and defending then like if it was their family. And after colapsing, authorities will do something. So, nobody needs to spend their money, time etc in a lawsuit against them.
If nothing happening against this project, certainly this is a good lesson to be followed by other scammers using Kickstarter.
But if someone decides that the trouble is valid, certainly all the disappointed people would appreciate their efforts. We could even set a crowdfunding campaigm to help the guy or guys (that would be hilarious).
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
Osmanthus said:
Here's what I think, for what it's worth:

It isn't a scam in the usual sense. What happened though was sometime in late 2015 or early 2016 Chris Roberts himself came to the realization that Derek Smart Was Right. But to admit this would destroy him in a way that his prior failure with Freelancer, and his failure in the film industry, hadn't, because this time he ultimately has no excuse. He had to realize that the excuse that others had failed him would this time ring hollow even to himself, and that wouldn't do. But Derek Smart Is Still Right, so success is only a very remote option. And it must hurt to lose to someone like Derek, no offence. Failure would destroy him, and success was nearly impossible.

But a partial success would save him some face. This would be a failure in a fundamental sense, because the bestcase scenario was the release of a game which was only a BDSSE in marketing-speak, and not in any honestly realistic evaluation. And he had promised the be-all and end-all of space games. But a partial success, where they produced a mediocre or even moderately decent game, was a way out. To accomplish this they needed money and time, and it didn't matter how they got it because in the end what mattered was the release. If they lost faith from a lot of their backers during the process it would be fine as long as they could release something, because in that case they had some justification in downplaying the loss of faith on the backers' side, and could dismiss Derek as a loudmouth. They'd take a hit from not meeting most of their promises, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

But up to that point they had failed to produce even this because (a) they'd spent the money extremely unwisely, and (b) Chris's own obsessive interference inhibited progress. So:
1. Fundraise to get an actual game out, no matter how.
2. Hold off the backers' ire long enough to get it out.
3. Scale back the unnecessary spending.

I think 1. explains the terrible referral video from last Friday. I think 2. explains the attempt (and I do mean attempt) at a schedule for 3.0. And 3. is largely conjecture but I do get the impression we see a whole lot less of Chris going on boating holidays in Majorca or whatever, and they've stopped with the extravagant furniture/decoration rubbish in their studios.

But 1. is the scammiest part. "Get money to keep the charade going for long enough to get something out, and use every trick we can to do it." Doing this includes making promises they have no intention of keeping, hence the June 2016 TOS; in this way they get free money without the associated engineering debt. Besides, they weren't going to meet all their 'expanded scope' promises of 2013 anyway, what do a few more broken promises matter? Point 2. is thus meant to offset the irritation that 1. would introduce into the community. And 3. makes the 1. count for all it's worth.

tldr; I dont' think it's a scam in the sense that they're taking money with no intent on delivering at all, but that it is in the sense that they're taking money with the intent of delivering a scaled back product.

They'll fail even at this not because the development team itself sucks (it doesn't, by all accounts), but rather because Mr Roberts shouldn't be let anywhere near projects of any description. ...but that's another discussion.
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^this

ps: no offense taken, because I know exactly what you mean.
 

dsmart

Banned
D
Jezzah said:
Haha true. I hadn't forgotten personally. As soon as I heard the Great Salesman utter the letters M...V....P last year I ditched as a backer and got my 300 dolla back pronto after some interesting bullsquid emails. I should post it here. It was full of things like "we are nearing the full release" begging...this was in May last year. What an g joke.
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For the record, this is the part where any backer with more than two brain cells, should've figured out that something was wrong, and subsequently bailed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJoHlCc4Y7E&feature=youtu.be&t=1388 <--- April 18, 2016, after getting $112 million.

ps: It only seemed like yesterday when I wrote this, right here on FDev
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
Wotthe ens said:
excuse my ignorance, but the original TOS which included the promise to release accounts if failing to release at that initial date - why hasn't anyone gone to court for that?
@Derek? Surely, you've already spent a fair amount of money/time on this whole saga, why haven't you paid for a summons to release the accounts?
'pologies if it's obvious :-D
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As an ex-backer, I have no legal standing to sue them for that. Only a backer - a whale most likely - will be able to do that. Of course if the State|Fed officials get involved at some point, they too can enforce it.

I could still sue if I wanted to, but the probability of them winning a motion to dismiss due to "lack of standing", is high. And then it would be a wasted effort, and also give them a "win"

Also, I already spent my own money on legal bills to get them to do 3 things. They've done 2 (refunds, schedule), but the 3rd is outside my responsibility as per the above.
 
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dsmart

Banned
D
1500 said:
As soon as someone tried CIG would just refund them their money and that would be the end of that, there is no case if CIG does not have your money.
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This is true in a sense. The issue is that they refunded me without my asking for it. Anyone - right now - with even $60 in the game - can sue for those financials under the original pre-June 2016 ToS. Even if CIG refunded them, the case stands a higher chance of going forward as long as you were a backer at the time of the filing.

They figured that I was the one voted most likely to sue - especially given their imagined "dsmart vs croberts" feud; that's why Ortwin refunded me right away; then they lied in order to vilify me in case I started making noise. Which is precisely what I did anyway. The rest is history.
 
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Rolan

Rolan
Star Citizen: Bugsmashers! - Floating into Oblivion
[video=youtube;hMcLjNW8-SA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMcLjNW8-SA[/video]
 
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