While comparing Space Resident to these other titles that had rough development cycles or lengthy delays these cultists never seem to mention the fact that regardless of the length of development the game still costs the same to the consumer, and the creator is not asking you to pay for the product sight unseen years before the product is finished. I think this is a key element when looking at why Space Resident has been so highly criticized.
I know that the typical comeback is I only paid $45 so I don't care what happens, or
Regardless of the price I paid I am proud to have supported Chris and this groundbreaking project ( the worst kind of cultist. They cannot be reached. I think they are the Kamakaze cultists, true believers, unflappable)
Yes, some games take a long time to complete and have multiple setbacks but we can just look at the history of HOW MANY delays there have been, HOW MANY TIMES have they announced release dates and then changed them. It clearly shows a pattern. Only two conclusions can be drawn here.
Either Chris Roberts is a complete fabricator of his "truth". He just makes up dates to suit his needs regardless of what the evidence would indicate. I'm sure he has lots of meetings, with lots of doughnuts to pass around where they will tell him truthfully where he is in the project but because he likes to keep the whales and other cultists wallets wide open he tells them whatever he thinks will keep the donations flowing. To this end he will make videos and feed information and stock internal footage to various You Tube content creators (and feed them a steady diet of JPEGS for them to sell on the side as payment). With a consumate bullshit artist at the head of a corporation that is wholly and completely dependent on the good will and trust of its supporters, there is a great deal to be concerned with. Should the Cultists realize that they are being lead about by the Pied Piper they will withdraw support, and the project would grind to a close in short order.
Or Chris Roberts is an incompetent boob who has no business tying his own shoes, let alone managing $157 million dollar video game project. If this is the case and I were still a backer I would be very concerned that the project cannot reach a positive conclusion.
As the truth would have it, one condition does not necessarily exclude the other. Chris Roberts may be an incompetent project manager lacking the ability to tie his own shoes or manage this project, there is sufficient evidence to support this conclusion by looking back at the problematic and mismanaged development of Freelancer/ the production of the abysmal Wing Commander movie. Two failures proving that he is incapable of multi tasking and getting good results.
We can also look at the Freelancer project and Space Resident and see that he has no problem with fabricating schedules when it suits his needs. Surely we cannot actually believe that there was sufficient internal feedback from his separate department leads to merit his overly optimistic assessments that would justify claiming he would release 3.0 in December. Then he claimed it would be released early summer, and several times after that. He had to know, but he also knew that donations were way down, and that he was about to take out a second loan(with no more loans available).
So CIG fabricates schedules to keep donations coming in and maintain some hope that the game might come out one day, if they keep feeding him cash. It amazes me how people actually believe that CIG took 2 loans but did not need the money. How can we believe they don't need the money when Roberts told a recent interviewer that he lacks the funds to build the servers once the game is finished. Somehow ample reserves and lacking funds do not fit together in the same corporation. Fit that with we didn't need that loan, or the second loan and you have to wonder what fantasy land the cultists live in.
As always, time will tell. If he pulls the rabbit from the hat. makes 3.0 somehow work smoothly enough, if he can overcome his own self created negative image he might survive another year. That does not guarantee he will deliver what hew initially promised. It simply buys him time, to collect more money and fabricate more schedules.
