Star Citizen General BS

[jwh1701]

let's be fair; that game in the video didn't have the premium features that only a $185m+ star citizen can bring you like face over IP, pets and changeable uniforms which I think we all agree is exactly we expect from a spaceship sim.

LOL so true, but you forgot fidelity over gameplay, guy posted in reddit it was the greatest game ever because riding towards the sunset was so pretty.

[dsmart]

Star Citizen is saved!

[krylite]

The SC "roadmap" is too similar by "3.x" to Elite: Dangerous' "Beyond" season numbering where there are supposedly going to be further "3.1","3.2" etc. updates by 2018 end . I wonder if it was just coincidence , or actually intentional on CIG's part to try to fool ED players who have not been following the SC debacle closely. So they hear about "3.2" is coming and erroneously think 'oh, SC has some "season 3" or third year something, out already' like ED and Beyond. Occasionally there are still shillizen(probably) threads that pop up in the ED forum out of nowhere trying to subtly bring some attention back to SC.

[Scruffpuff]

The SC "roadmap" is too similar by "3.x" to Elite: Dangerous' "Beyond" season numbering where there are supposedly going to be further "3.1","3.2" etc. updates by 2018 end . I wonder if it was just coincidence , or actually intentional on CIG's part to try to fool ED players who have not been following the SC debacle closely. So they hear about "3.2" is coming and erroneously think 'oh, SC has some "season 3" or third year something, out already' like ED and Beyond. Occasionally there are still shillizen(probably) threads that pop up in the ED forum out of nowhere trying to subtly bring some attention back to SC.

CIG has been doing this from the beginning.  Their version numbers mirror Elite's, and CIG even goes so far as to make sure their "releases" (which never work and have none of the promised features) always come out a few days ahead of Elite's.  Even their Friday newsletters mirror Elite's and go out within hours of theirs.

Of course a 3.0 and beyond moniker would imply Star Citizen is on its second expansion, or third major revision, or such.  When cornered with this info, Chris Roberts basically said "that's the old way of thinking" making it sound like he was ahead of the curve.  Except it's not "the old way of thinking" just because his ignorant ass says so - the industry is rock-solid on the overall concept of what build versions are, if they can't necessarily agree on what a point release is - and a pre-alpha certainly can't be in "3.0".  CIG calls it 3.0 because that's what Elite is actually in.

They do it so they can make it look like Star Citizen and Elite are both peer space games, competing in a friendly way with each other in the same product space - a wild mischaracterisation of the state of the project.  It's been like this since the beginning - CIG's lies aren't overt, they just put little subtle things out there and let the players soak in the lie.  It's one of the reasons Chris Roberts put out that letter a couple of years ago "acknowledging" Elite as a competing space game and recommending players enjoy them both.  A sly wink to his audience "yes Elite and Star Citizen are both similar games with similar amounts of playability and they're both completely legitimate and not at all a catastrophic failure."

To my mind, this "how do you do, fellow kids" bullshit is worse than just straight-out lying.

[Meowz]

Every time I look at their funding chart I just think there is NO WAY it can be real or accurate. How can CIG with such bad press, low player stats, and overall no progress rake in 2mil a month on their low months? It has to be padded for sure, since refunds are out no way people are still using it for money laundering if they did unless the laundering is coming from inside CIG.

[N0mad]

With all the controversy about Russians owning game studios - I was wondering what sort of mechanism would allow you to launder cash through Star Citizen. Derek's Money Laundromat blog discussed using the grey market to get clean cash out, but I don't see that working on a huge scale, especially since there could still be a paper trail for the authorities.

So how would you go about Laundering a few million? Please note - I know nothing about how money laundering works except from what I learnt watching Breaking Bad and I'm not accusing CIG of any wrongdoing, this is just a thought exercise.

I had a few thoughts: Consider the situation where you're a Russian "businessman" who wants to throw some money around in the USA but can't disclose your source of income to any US authorities. You could get money into CIG through your Russian "employees" buying large value items, probably via multiple accounts. Although this would be your "dirty" money in Russian roubles, this would be perfectly legal.

The hard part would be getting money out from CIG. You could take control of the account and either refund it or sell it on the grey market, but this would lead to an inexplicable source of income if you do it repeatedly. Far safer would be to have a source inside CIG allowing you to get your cash out safely. This is where I'm less certain about how this would work, but one mechanism would be this: you (the now legitimate US based Russian businessman) own a small software studio which doesn't seem to do very much, but you win a contract from CIG to produce some software for them and get paid a huge sum for doing so (which is your dirty money in the first place). At the end of the contract, your one real employee has done a little bit of work, and you get to keep the rest of the cash.

Please let me know where I'm going wrong with this.

[dsmart]

Every time I look at their funding chart I just think there is NO WAY it can be real or accurate. How can CIG with such bad press, low player stats, and overall no progress rake in 2mil a month on their low months? It has to be padded for sure, since refunds are out no way people are still using it for money laundering if they did unless the laundering is coming from inside CIG.

It's not accurate by any stretch of the imagination. It's all bs. And I have proof.

[dsmart]

With all the controversy about Russians owning game studios - I was wondering what sort of mechanism would allow you to launder cash through Star Citizen. Derek's Money Laundromat blog discussed using the grey market to get clean cash out, but I don't see that working on a huge scale, especially since there could still be a paper trail for the authorities.

So how would you go about Laundering a few million? Please note - I know nothing about how money laundering works except from what I learnt watching Breaking Bad and I'm not accusing CIG of any wrongdoing, this is just a thought exercise.

Money laundering doesn't have a value cap. Whether it's a few hundred from stolen credit cards, drug money or whatever, it's still money laundering if it's ill-gotten gains. The whole idea is to turn dirty money into clean money; so the amount is irrelevant.

[N0mad]

Money laundering doesn't have a value cap. Whether it's a few hundred from stolen credit cards, drug money or whatever, it's still money laundering if it's ill-gotten gains. The whole idea is to turn dirty money into clean money; so the amount is irrelevant.

Sure, but it's the possible mechanism I was wondering about. I'm not saying CIG have done anything dodgy, but didn't they do a lot of outsourcing at one point with relatively little too show for it?

[StanTheMan]

Sure, but it's the possible mechanism I was wondering about. I'm not saying CIG have done anything dodgy, but didn't they do a lot of outsourcing at one point with relatively little too show for it?

Sure but idiots in companies wasting money on ill thought out or poorly managed projects is nothing new.

Chris and his pals taking cash out of the company is also one thing, other people using Star Citizen as a way to launder money is obviously another.

There was a lot of Grey Market activity for a number of years and there were quite a few people advertising large inventories of ships whicvh you had to wonder where they were getting them from and why...

[dsmart]

Sure, but it's the possible mechanism I was wondering about. I'm not saying CIG have done anything dodgy, but didn't they do a lot of outsourcing at one point with relatively little too show for it?

I don't have any reason to believe that CIG has been involved any such activities. I don't see how outsourcing could be used for money laundering when they would still have to account for it and use that info in their tax filings.

Third party backers are the ones who would use their lax CIG policies to do such things. It also explains one of the reasons why CIG asked for ID in some refund cases, which companies like Blizzard also tend to do depending on circumstances.

[dsmart]

Sure but idiots in companies wasting money on ill thought out or poorly managed projects is nothing new.

Chris and his pals taking cash out of the company is also one thing, other people using Star Citizen as a way to launder money is obviously another.

There was a lot of Grey Market activity for a number of years and there were quite a few people advertising large inventories of ships whicvh you had to wonder where they were getting them from and why...

Absolutely correct on all counts. Even taking cash out of the company isn't illegal unless someone (backers, investors, banks) sue them for fraud under "unjust enrichment" causes and such.

[StanTheMan]

Absolutely correct on all counts. Even taking cash out of the company isn't illegal unless someone (backers, investors, banks) sue them for fraud under "unjust enrichment" causes and such.

Yes and Backers have been so unconcerned that instead of demanding accounts or project plans they just kept spending more $$ and defended CRoberts.

It has been obvious,  for a long time,  that he is not an especially competent or honest person.

If he was, he would have made sure that he provided correct timely information,  because it is the right thing to do.

[N0mad]

I don't have any reason to believe that CIG has been involved any such activities. I don't see how outsourcing could be used for money laundering when they would still have to account for it and use that info in their tax filings.

As far as I was aware the way to launder money is to do it via a legitimate business - which gives you a traceable source of legal money whilst separating you from and hiding the input of dirty cash.

In Breaking Bad, Walt had the car wash. They would fill the tills with dirty money and then make up receipts to account for the extra cash. Making the business more profitable than it really was, but doing so subtly enough so nobody notices.

Outsourcing could just be a method to extract the money in a legal way which is completely detached from the method of injecting the dirty money in the first place (via big spending whales). I'm not saying that this had happened but there are certainly a few dodgy characters who were associated with the Gizmondo fiasco in CIG.

[Bubba]

If you're gonna cite Breaking Bad as your source of information on money laundering, you probly should stop there. I mean, it's a fine show and all. You're better off asking someone in the know, say a FINCEN lawyer.

First,  the term covers a wide range of maneuvers.
Second, the clear interest here isn't CIG laundering cash (uhh... What cash?), but third parties. And it works rather simply: CIG tolerates a secondary market for their jpegs. The value of those jpegs is not fixed. Players also can and do trade those jpegs. I won't spell it out, but I will say that there are good reasons game companies have been trying to avoid their games having secondary markets.