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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

#21

Post by raesene9 »

julesnp wrote: post #18
empath75 wrote: post #3

Wrapping every purchase in a binding arbitration agreement is absurd. It completely defangs consumer protection laws.

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 into problems.

However it's not a donation.

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

#22

Post by pavel_lishin »

beaconstudios wrote: post #14
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they came to a point when they thought "This could be huge and mind blowing, and can't be done for a long time if we don't do it" and kept going. I myself went from a critic to someone shouting "Go ahead!"

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…

Is GTA V Online a good example? Most of the delivered updates have just been additional vehicles and a few more game modes. I don't mean to sound like I'm shitting on the hard work they do, but GTA V Online wasn't really an "MVP".

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

#24

Post by beaconstudios »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #22
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…

Is GTA V Online a good example? Most of the delivered updates have just been additional vehicles and a few more game modes. I don't mean to sound like I'm shitting on the hard work they do, but GTA V Online wasn't really an "MVP".

I was thinking specifically of how they originally shipped when the game first came out. I don't really play it much but my understanding is that the initial version didn't contain heists, corporations, warehouses, half the mission types, half the vehicles, and so on. It may not have evolved much recently and the initial scope may have been over 50% of the current feature set, but they're the best example I can think of for an MMO MVP. For singleplayer games, minecraft would be an obvious choice but it was also the progenitor of early access so that's more of a hit-and-miss.

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

#25

Post by sandworm101 »

It isnt freature creep. Being crowd-funded is their business model. New features, new hype, means new money. They cannot ever finish because then it all stops. The game will only be released once the cowdfumding well runs dry. Therefore, the best way to get the eventual game is to stop supporting it with money.

They lost me when they hired gillian anderson. I want to believe, but that was jumping a shark too far.

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

#26

Post by StavrosK »

Operyl wrote: post #10

I guess my biggest issue with this all is that it’s called a “pledge.” I pledge money on the condition that I get a game. In this case they’re just taking my money with a huge chance that I’ll never see anything remotely close to what I pledged for. My end was fulfilled, their end not so much.

No, you pledge money on the condition that a critical mass of people also pledges.

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

#27

Post by jrochkind1 »

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.

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

#28

Post by mickronome »

alanfalcon wrote: post #9
empath75 wrote: post #3

Wrapping every purchase in a binding arbitration agreement is absurd. It completely defangs consumer protection laws.

And how does a judge seriously decide to retroactively apply an arbitrarion agreement when none existed at the time of the transaction? Is the argument that the new ToS were accepted when Lord participated in the bug test? The article seems to be missing that detail if there even is some logic that was used in the ruling (as I assume there was, beyond not wanting to have two rulings).

It seems the argument could be that since he didn't object to the new ToS when they were changed, and kept using parts of their service, the clause forbidding arbitration towards RSI is/was still binding.

One oddity, except the usual insanity that click-through agreements should be valid for anything above, lets say $100, is that it appears the newer ToS explicitly states it doesn't apply retroactively. However, since the arbitration would always occur in the future from the later ToS, it might be a moot point.

If all of this is true, and the law correctly applied. Doesn't it create a situation where any ToS for a service - at least those you actually depend upon - are essentially worthless?

Seems like if a change the ToS to include an arbitration clause is applied this way, your only option would be immediately stop using the service, or the provider would be able to do whatever they wanted hereonafter, even completely ignore the rest of the contract/ToS?

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

#29

Post by bluetidepro »

dreen wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, No Mans Sky, the underdog-turn-most-hated-turn-underdog-again game is releasing full multiplayer free upgrade next week. They engineered a PR disaster for themselves but have been adding great features at a slow steady pace, which is exactly how it should be done.

Yeah, that should have been an "Early Access" game from the start. What they are releasing next week is more so what they ORIGINALLY advertised, which always rubbed me the wrong way. Took them almost 2 years to get it right, after that PR nightmare of theirs. Sadly, this only hurts the player base most, because most players already wrote this game off when they got burned by it 2 years ago. It's really sad to see a game with a lot of potential get ruined by their own hubris from the get go.

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

#30

Post by michaelcampbell »

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.
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