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

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

#301

Post by ajross »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #280
ajross wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the public service of justice is slow and expensive, we need to fix the public service, The public service (small claims court) was present and used. He just didn't get the result he wanted. It's not like the "public service of justice" was evaded. He got a hearing . The judge (a real judge!) said the arbitration clause was enforceable. So he lost. In court. Having exercised his constitutional right to petition…

No. The judge announced that courts of law do not apply, only arbitration psuedocourts apply. Arbitration is no longer thrown out almost ever, because of ATT Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. An unconscionable contract with arbitration is not an exception to arbitration anymore and state laws no longer apply to arbitration compelled agreements. The arbiter will decide what, if any, laws to follow. The arbiter will decide i…

> because of ATT Mobility LLC v. Concepcion

Then perhaps your ire should be directed at the politicians responsible for appointing judges with more acceptable leanings on civil liberty issues like this, and not at some random local magistrate who failed to rule for the gambling rando who lost $4500 on kickstarter.

I get what you're saying. This isn't a good example of the problem, nor a productive location to whine about it.

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

#302

Post by socceroos »

batmanthehorse wrote: post #129

I love reading about game dev/watching videos and I've watched a few Star Citizen developer updates. Seems like they were wasting a tremendous amount of time refining small details like adjusting the vents and decals and landing gear on ships that could already be considered complete. It struck me as absolutely awful time management.

There's over 500 of then working on the project. It feels like you're seeing the props department and talking like it's the whole team grinding to a halt.

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

#303

Post by socceroos »

ryandrake wrote: post #187
batmanthehorse wrote: post #129

I love reading about game dev/watching videos and I've watched a few Star Citizen developer updates. Seems like they were wasting a tremendous amount of time refining small details like adjusting the vents and decals and landing gear on ships that could already be considered complete. It struck me as absolutely awful time management.

It sounds like they might simply need a good (and empowered) project manager to crack the whip on schedule and say no to scope creep. I’d love to see what their internal estimates and work breakdown looks like! When they miss a milestone, what corrective action do they take? Do they give themselves any real deadlines? So many games would make such interesting project management case studies.

Head over to their website and take a look. They have some of the most seasoned game project managers on their books.

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

#304

Post by kart23 »

dejawu wrote: post #136
nottorp wrote: post #83

While i regularly throw $20-$50 into game kickstarters, I stayed away from both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous when I saw how hyped they were. Nothing good was going to come out of that. Personal statistics: 19 kickstarters backed, got a finished product on 9 of them so far, 2 more have builds that show everything is on track. Everything I got was acceptable, with at least 7 being good or above. Also, ALL of them w…

Your skepticism is well-founded, but I'd like to put in a good word for Elite Dangerous. I bought it for $15 on sale long after the Kickstarter had ended and it constantly impresses me with its sense of scale and level of polish. Sometimes I'm amazed that game exists at all, let alone that it successfully came out of a Kickstarter. It's not for everyone but if the idea of "Euro Truck Simulator in space" appeals to yo…

Honestly it's a great game, but they have screwed over day one supporters with their dlc pricing. I bought the game for 60 bucks early on, not knowing at the time that there would be dlc later on that I would could buy for another 20 bucks. My rage compounded when I learned that newer buyers could get the full game+dlc for 20 dollars, while I was just sitting there, feeling like a fool for the 60 I had dumped, and not even gotten the extra content, which is essential to having a good ship that is pvp viable.

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

#305

Post by wiz21c »

eximius wrote: post #180
wiz21c wrote: post #23

if I was RSI with that much money, I'd say : "let's never finish the game, we got plenty of money to live on for years, making cool tech demo's"...

Then you'd be an asshole.

when one comes to money I'm afraid some can come to super complex justifications for pretending they're not an AH when they clearly are.

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

#306

Post by simias »

slfnflctd wrote: post #213
simias wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally like games like that to some extent but I still found the original version of NMS mind numbingly dull. I think the problem is that they decided that they would just let the Random Number God decide everything through the procedural generation and they thought that gameplay would organically happen on its own. Except it doesn't work that way, the procedural generation engine in the game obviously has too f…

I'm not sure if you're aware, but they also added a central story line and some 'farming' elements & side quests in the Atlas Rises patch (which was when I picked the game up on sale), and I found it gave me plenty to look forward to, at least for a while. It still felt a tad bit unfinished in some respects (a flashier 'ending' with multiple possible outcomes would be ideal), but I was able to get a lot of great hour…

Intriguing, I guess I should give it an other try eventually.

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

#307

Post by pas »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #280
ajross wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the public service of justice is slow and expensive, we need to fix the public service, The public service (small claims court) was present and used. He just didn't get the result he wanted. It's not like the "public service of justice" was evaded. He got a hearing . The judge (a real judge!) said the arbitration clause was enforceable. So he lost. In court. Having exercised his constitutional right to petition…

No. The judge announced that courts of law do not apply, only arbitration psuedocourts apply. Arbitration is no longer thrown out almost ever, because of ATT Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. An unconscionable contract with arbitration is not an exception to arbitration anymore and state laws no longer apply to arbitration compelled agreements. The arbiter will decide what, if any, laws to follow. The arbiter will decide i…

You have a say in who gets to arbitrate your case. Are arbitration tribunals more biased than the regular courts?

Also, "An unconscionable contract with arbitration is not an exception to arbitration anymore" then isn't the problem deceptive business conduct? Can't people form a class and sue for that? (Or is that a process only the FTC can initiate?)

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

#308

Post by benjaminsuch »

Laforet wrote: post #300
benjaminsuch wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They switched 2 years ago from CryEngine to Lumberyard from Amazon which have an integrated feature for using AWS. They also stated that they completely rewrote the network part and still working on it to date. They call it Object Container Streaming and Network Bind Culling (I'm not a network developer, so I have no idea about the technical side of it). I don't know how far along they are (they postponed the feature…

You do realise that Lumberyard is just an licensed build of CryEngine with AWS related APIs added on top, right? As of alpha 3.2 there is still a very noticable network latency correlated to the number of active players per server. I will gladly change my opinion when CIG do manage to fix it. Still, none of this would help to explain why SQ42 was postponed to 2019 and beyond.

  You do realise that Lumberyard is just an licensed build of CryEngine with AWS related APIs added on top, right?
Yes I know this, but it doesn't change anything on my point that they are still working on the network part which isn't finished.

And thats why you still have huge network latencys. Wait until they finished their network module and then we can judge.

  Still, none of this would help to explain why SQ42 was postponed to 2019 and beyond.
CIG stated that a lot of things used in SQ42 is based on SC technology.

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

#309

Post by CryptoPunk »

cornholio wrote: post #66

He lost because of a forced arbitration clause. This massive privatization of justice where any boilerplate service or product now comes with forced arbitration is making my blood boil. The justice system should always be an option when arbitration fails, and arbitration should take no more than a reasonable time to fail (say, two weeks for this $5000 amount). The whole point of a small claims court is to handle such…

No one is forcing you to use forced arbitration. You're not entitled to someone else's service. If you don't want to accept forced arbitration, then don't use their service.

What you're really saying is that you want to prevent me from offering a service on the condition that contract disputes are handled by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

This desire to impose restrictions on other people's free action is immoral, and doesn't become okay due to your anti-free-market ideology.

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

#310

Post by acdha »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #309
cornholio wrote: post #66

He lost because of a forced arbitration clause. This massive privatization of justice where any boilerplate service or product now comes with forced arbitration is making my blood boil. The justice system should always be an option when arbitration fails, and arbitration should take no more than a reasonable time to fail (say, two weeks for this $5000 amount). The whole point of a small claims court is to handle such…

No one is forcing you to use forced arbitration. You're not entitled to someone else's service. If you don't want to accept forced arbitration, then don't use their service. What you're really saying is that you want to prevent me from offering a service on the condition that contract disputes are handled by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. This desire to impose restrictions on other people's free action is…

This is a rather naive position which ignores the information and power disparities. The average person doesn’t have time to review every contract for everything they use, nor is it clear why this should be unlike every other thing you buy simply because it involves software, and there are whole sectors where the only option is not to have e.g. mobile phone service.

It’s especially sad to see you trying to spin blocking someone’s ability to exercise their right to use the legal system as a pro-liberty move. At the least you can be honest and acknowledge that it’s about saving money.

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