Man, am I confused

[darkpen]

The only way to get Star Citizen made, is by starting all over. There is almost nothing from SC that can be re-used. The total costs for the game as pitched are estimated around 200 to 300 million dollar and the whole fanbase of SC is about 750K. No publisher will try to take on that project with those numbers. And by taking over CIG, there is always a risk that the new owner will be held accountable for everything that has happened under the previous owner. No company is going to take that risk. Even though we suspect know the 160 million is a lie, just by looking at offices and staff size over a couple of years, it can be deducted that a lot of millions have been spent. No, Star Citizen will only survive as the biggest failure in crowdfunding history. Nothing more.

Not to mention that, in essence, the entire fanbase has already purchased the game, so there's nothing left to sell.

Let's say the game is actually finished in some form or other (let's be somewhat realistic, meaning it can't ever be released as pitched now)--who would sign up for this game that hasn't already paid? And of those, how many were funding a pay-once game, not a monthly subscription?

Buying CIG would just be buying a huge liability.

[darkpen]

Has anyone filed a class action anywhere? There are a lot of jurisdictions where you can't change the TOS on the fly like that, especially in this case where the product you initially signed up for has not been delivered yet (would be different if they had delivered and then changed the TOS).

You can't because the ToS has a specific arbitration clause. So any such legal action would need to go through arbitration, with no way to get into an open lawsuit (thus class action) without getting around that. Usually only things like malfeasance and fraud are enough to bypass arbitration. Of course legal action by State or Fed authorities are different.

Do you have a link/copy of the *original* TOS? I'm wondering if that arbitration clause is even valid.

I have an entire section devoted to all the various TOS versions.

Sweet, got my bedtime reading for a while. :)

[darkpen]

I will disagree with this.  I am fully expecting basically another Digital Anvil situation. 

Under what circumstance do you see ANY company taking on a $160+ million (that we know of, and assuming it's true - and not including the loans and other financial liabilities the public doesn't know about) liability tied to a highly toxic community involved in a project that's an industry joke? Are you serious?

I have been around for over 30 years and seen all kinds of industry deals come and go; so believe me when I tell you this: it's never - ever - going to happen. For one thing, any such deal would mean Chris admitting that he has failed. Then he has to deal with the professional and personal legal liabilities tied to that failure, and any such deal.

No, I don't see that happening. They will continue to limp along, people will continue to leave as they have been doing, until the whole thing is no more.

And I do believe the game can be made (minus all the feature creep beyond the stretch goals) under the right leadership.

Then it won't be the "game" promised, will it? :colbert:

Plus, they simply DO NOT have the tech required to build the game they promised. And even if they did have the tech, they DO NOT have the experience team capable of pulling it off. They've had 6 years + $160 million + 500 (at some point or another) so far, and they aren't even 15% of the way there.

Did you happen to catch my live stream of UCCE from this past week? If not, you should watch it. It's rather long (6+ hours), and didn't even cover 50% of the game's features and tech; which is why I said that I am going to be covering other parts this weekend. So, if you did watch it, at which point did it occur to you that pretty much everything CIG promised with Star Citizen, aside from the fps inside station & ship (which Line Of Defense already has), is already implemented in a custom game engine that's almost 20 years old?

That's why I said they can't do it. It goes beyond having the tech. That's why all kinds of games from leading devs and publishers, fail. Look at the recent Lawbreakers fps action game as an example. Or the likes of COD:IW, MA:E. A lot goes into a game other than just the engine.

I also don't think what is obviously a cash cow can be ignored.

OK, so how do you turn a $160+ million liability into a "cash cow"? You don't own a business do you? If you did, you would know that the math will never work.

Sorry, late night posting, I missed some details in my post.

What I am saying is the dissolution of the company, where the assets would be sold off, like auctioned by court order, where a company would buy that stuff and not have any of the liabilities of CIG at all.  Then the company would finish off the games to a reasonable state, finds ways to keep on monetizing the people who bought the games.  Now in my opinion what ever company that buys the assets to finish the games in a reasonable state, they would want to avoid further PR drama and would most likely still give the games to the backers though they would not be obligated to since the company did not buy the liabilities but only the assets.

My knowledge of making games at this level is limited, so bear with me on this.

What are their assets right now? I'm going to assume:

- Trademarks and names
- Art assets (models, textures)
- Game levels
- Game engine
- Code

The trademarks and names are only worth something if the buyer has a desire to continue the project as is.

The art assets are worth something if the buyer is either continuing the project or is making something that could use them, which would cut down on the work. Same goes for game levels.

Game engine: they've modified an existing engine, I think? I don't even know if that's marketable, it would depend on the original engine's TOS.

Code: only worth something if they've gotten a software patent, or if they've figured out something special. Which only applies to the US.

The truth is, unless you're making Star Citizen, I think their assets are worthless. Except for the workstations, furniture, software licenses, etc., which would be auctioned off separately.

[Motto]

There is no engine or code to sell as they don't have a license to sell CryEngine or Lumberyard. And why would anyone buy that heavily modded engine in the first place as Cryengine and Lumberyard have newer versions themselves you can license directly. It would make no sense. There is only one conclusion and that is this game will never be made.

[Spunky Munkee]

The only asset they have is a willing mob of cultists who continue to send them cash for" continued development". Now that very asset is their liability as well so they have been carefully attempting to not scare them away by refusing refunds and alerting them to their dire financial situation.

I wonder, have they repaid any of those two loans yet? No? They must be close to hand to mouth mode.

I don't see them having anything marketable here. They have a huge liability in that the game is supposed to be made and a dwindling source of income that is leaking out the back end in refunds. This won't be the last game in development that fails for one reason or another. This failure is due entirely to Chris Roberts being in charge. If it was due to the poor engine choice, his pissing off his key staff and not having the people who wrote the modified engine on hand any longer, his insistence that every single choice be his alone, his foolish overpromising and overhyping the game, his pushing to show his ass in public (a NY saying) where his staff knew the game was not ready for prime time and he was actually surprised that it sucked as bad as it did.  Does this man live in a bubble of his own creation? Does he believe that because he declares it to be so that it will be done?

In any case I decided to quickly look at Spektrum and found this gem where a student asks if 2.5 million a month is enough to keep the doors open, Amazing answers. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/average-2-59-million-in-pledges-a-month-is-it-enou

Some think there will be 10 million new buyers, other think there is some secret tech they can sell, or SWTOR mad 150 million soio this can too, or Chris has a contingency plan, the next guy, yeah I wonder what it could be...

All kinds of gems in there but there is a link in there that suposedly shows the UK financials https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/filing-history

Then again I'm sure it does not account for the international shell game they play with the money.

[dsmart]

You're right. Having a legal background, I don't see a class action as a way to cash in, but as a way for people to get together and obtain a resolution. My idea for the class action had nothing to do with getting money, but really to force the company to open up its books as promised and show what they've been doing. What happens from there is too speculative.

Yeah, I've written about that several times, pointing out that backers who keep giving them money, really don't fully understand that a ToS is legally binding, and that they would never be able to get past the bind arbitration in the ToS, to engage in a class action. Each backer will have to take action against CIG independently. The only way that anything major (in terms of legal action) comes from this, is if State and/or Fed authorities get involved, seeing as it is a crowd-funded project, and there is already precedent for their involvement in those.

[darkpen]

Yeah, I've written about that several times, pointing out that backers who keep giving them money, really don't fully understand that a ToS is legally binding, and that they would never be able to get past the bind arbitration in the ToS, to engage in a class action. Each backer will have to take action against CIG independently. The only way that anything major (in terms of legal action) comes from this, is if State and/or Fed authorities get involved, seeing as it is a crowd-funded project, and there is already precedent for their involvement in those.

Let's set up a crowdfund to challenge the arbitration clause itself, then. :)

[Motto]

Good idea, but I really don't trust Derek to handle the money. Let's ask Chris if he wants to do that.

[dsmart]

Good idea, but I really don't trust Derek to handle the money. Let's ask Chris if he wants to do that.

:lol: