‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#41

Post by ghaff » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

xoa wrote: post #13

Crowdfunding can clearly serve a useful role as part of the modern mix of societal funding sources, but it's definitely still more wild west when it comes to uniformity of terms and regulations. It's not "investing" in the classic sense but it's also certainly not "donating" either, nor is it a preorder. "Backing" involves its own set of concerns and scale and rules should reflect that, and by design it primarily inv…

>Crowdfunding can clearly serve a useful role as part of the modern mix of societal funding sources, but it's definitely still more wild west when it comes to uniformity of terms and regulations. It's not "investing" in the classic sense but it's also certainly not "donating" either, nor is it a preorder.

Furthermore kickstarting also has these secondary effects of promotion and market research. If this thing existed would anyone actually be interested in it?

The confusion wasn't helped by the fact that some rules have shifted on these platforms over time. As I recall, kickstarter originally had a requirement of [ADDED: a hard requirement for] giving money back if you couldn't deliver--which was never very practical. Getting money from a stone sort of thing.

Backers also differ. Plenty are fine with spending a little money to be involved in something and offer encouragement. Others obviously really do view it as a preorder and get very angry if things go south.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#42

Post by izuchukwu » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #30

ramblerman wrote: post #19

I was 25 when I backed this game. Not only am I hugely disappointed in the waterfall approach, and feature creep that pushed this over the edge. But I am 33 today! My desire to play MMOs has also slowly evaporated.

Wait, that's 8 years. Article says they didn't start the kickstarter till 2012; 6 years ago.

If they began backing before their birthday in 2012, today’s birthday would make an 8 year age difference.

Happy birthday gp!

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#43

Post by raesene9 » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #37

raesene9 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I see that argument many times relating to crowd funding and it just isn't the case. When you pledge to a kickstarter, they're committing to providing the rewards stated for the money provided. The difference between that and a standard purchase is that the product generally doesn't exist yet, which is why there is a risks section attached to every campaign, so that backers are aware that the product could run…

You’re not committing to a purchase though, there is some inherent risk in a kickstarter that they won’t deliver. And there is very little mechanism to chase them (usually they have either done a runner or gone belly up) So this is an interesting case, because the company is still around, and especially so as the poor guy is suffering MS and so has a more time limited domain to see a reward

indeed in most cases where kickstarters don't deliver by such wide margins the company is long gone.

This one is probably on older Kickstarter T&Cs so it'd be harder to get money back. In more recent times Kickstarter have tried to toughen up a little after early failures like ZioneyeZ

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#44

Post by yifanl » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #17

lykr0n wrote: post #11

I've dumped about a grand into Star Citizen over the course of 4 years. I've followed updates and developments with mild interest, and ever once and a while I jump back into it to see what's changed. It's always amazing to see the progress they have made, wither it be the engine tech or just the game play. Do I think it will come out in the next year or two? No, but I think it will. Development is on going and active…

When you say "expectations have been met", did you expect the game to take this long to develop? Looking at the original kickstarter from 2012 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen?ref=na... it looks like the original ship date was Nov 2014, so it seems that at least some people's expectations aren't likely to have been met.

My understanding is that Star Citizen ran into an insane amount of both feature and scope creep.

Of course, at its core, it's a game about space exploration, so I can understand just how vast that would be at an abstract level, but trying to implement a 1-to-1 of that is just absurd to me.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#45

Post by matte_black » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #30

ramblerman wrote: post #19

I was 25 when I backed this game. Not only am I hugely disappointed in the waterfall approach, and feature creep that pushed this over the edge. But I am 33 today! My desire to play MMOs has also slowly evaporated.

Wait, that's 8 years. Article says they didn't start the kickstarter till 2012; 6 years ago.

Memory also evaporates. :(

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#46

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #27

xoa wrote: post #13

Crowdfunding can clearly serve a useful role as part of the modern mix of societal funding sources, but it's definitely still more wild west when it comes to uniformity of terms and regulations. It's not "investing" in the classic sense but it's also certainly not "donating" either, nor is it a preorder. "Backing" involves its own set of concerns and scale and rules should reflect that, and by design it primarily inv…

PACER only has federal court documents. Small claims court decisions probably don't end up anywhere. I doubt there is an "opinion" even written, just a judgement.

> Small claims court decisions probably don't end up anywhere.

I would think in the usual case they would at a minimum be public records held by the court and subject to the usual mechanisms for accessing public records.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#47

Post by raesene9 » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

zinckiwi wrote: post #2

I pledged a fraction of this fellow's total in Star Citizen, probably the lowest tier that would result in a digital copy of the game once complete. I was after a modern Privateer reboot, essentially, and figured it was worth the gamble. I haven't followed the development with anything more than a casual, occasional glance and accompanying eye-roll. I doubt I'll ever see anything come of it. A shame, not necessarily…

For me, Elite:Dangerous had a better model (although still not without it's troubles).

They delivered the base game in reasonable order and have been iterating and adding content since then.

Whilst the early game was pretty sparse in terms of content, at least it was delivered and reasonably complete.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#48

Post by shusson » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #20

beaconstudios wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, in the process they seem to have fully embraced the waterfall method which seems to me to be the root cause of the problem. They could have delivered the original concept as an MVP and continued to build towards their long-term vision through patches and incremental updates, much like rockstar did with GTA V online. Instead they're working slowly towards shipping a gigantic monolith where all that's playable…

Compare the process for "Star Citizen" to "Rimworld", another kickstarted project which is nearing a 1.0 release after years of development. Rimworld had a public beta and has been iterating and incorporating feedback and while the end-result might not be as ambitious as someone with $200m might care to dream up (rimworld raised ~$250k) but it's a very fun game which most importantly actually exists . In fact existin…

I think a closer comparison is Elite Dangerous.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#49

Post by ghaff » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #21

julesnp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not purchasing anything on Kickstarter though, you're making a donation.

Nope. I see that argument many times relating to crowd funding and it just isn't the case. When you pledge to a kickstarter, they're committing to providing the rewards stated for the money provided. The difference between that and a standard purchase is that the product generally doesn't exist yet, which is why there is a risks section attached to every campaign, so that backers are aware that the product could run…

It's not a donation but I'd argue that even most donations carry the implication that you'll use the money for the purpose the donation was solicited for and not just have a big party for your friends.

The difference is that you're usually not expecting anything physical in return.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#50

Post by pageald » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

Has there ever been a high profile early access game that crossed the finish line? It seems like studios usually take the money and run, like Bohemia Interactive with DayZ. Five years and tens/hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and the game is abandonware.

I guess Minecraft is one notable exception.