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

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31–40 of 335 posts

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

#31
post #3

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

I agree. But binding arbitration isn't written into the constitution. If we want to change it, you and I should take the matter up with Congress. (Unfortunately, that body appears to be largely ineffective these days, but that's a BIGGER problem.)

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

#32
There’s a crowdsourced tracker of all of the promises made to backers of Star Citizen over the years thoroughly documented with links to the proof.

https://starcitizentracker.github.io/

Since posting this always gets a lot of hatred from the koolaid drinkers, I’m going to pre-emptively suggest that, if you have a problem with something on the tracker, you should submit a correction. You should not attack me or the people who contributed to it.

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

#34
In my opinion the game looks great so far and I hope they take their time to finish it.

Should they manage to match their own high expectations, the game will be played for years to come, like WoW, and it'd better have a good base then.

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

#35
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.

Thank you for clarifying that. Guess we just have to go by reports from the plaintiff then unless RSI chooses to give details (and presumably their lawyers would advise them to either not do so at all or to make something extremely bland and minimal).

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

#36
post #6
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.

How does it compare to Elite Dangerous?

Elite has deeper combat and PvP.

NMS has base building and much better world exploration.

Both games are a grind until you come across a strategy that gives you a bunch of currency and then it's just a sandbox because you can buy everything (NMS less so because you sometimes have to find the thing to buy).

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

#37
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…

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

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

#38
I'm a backer and I have no problem with this. Many AAA titles take a decade or more from start to finish. For example, between Diablo 2 and 3. I want the best space sim and I like what RSI is doing. I'm not holding my breath, just living my life and when the game is finished I will be happy to play it. Although, I also did not drop 5 grand on this game.

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

#39
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.

That's not too bad, it's only like 0.25 Valves late, could be worse!

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

#40

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…

Part of the problem is that they're hacking MP into an engine that hasn't really been proven out for MP so until they get that sorted MP is gonna be rough.
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