GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within

[Motto]

Based on their filed company accounts we know for a fact Derek and Sandi have a base salary of £1.5 million each

Derek and Sandi  :cop:

If I had Twitter, that would be the Tweet of the century  :D

I do see a movie there though: When Derek met Sandi  :lol:

[dsmart]

You know game development. Games start with ambitious goals all the time and then get cut down to something mundane because R&D does not yield the necessary results. My expectation is that SC will do just that - they are just unusually (unreasonably?) stubborn to cut off these limbs. At one point they will drop the 100 Star Systems, boarding of ships etc etc. Is it really impossible that instead of imploding and never releasing anything they will (in the end) release "just another space-sim"? That would be my prognosis. Also: SQ42 might come out once they raise the white flag on the crazyness of the MMO. It appears they want to integrate SQ42 into the PU now as some sort of Main-Campaign of the MMO and therefore obviously all the stuff that does not work in the MMO keeps delaying SQ42.

You just made my point. At any moment in which they fail to deliver what was promised, they're in trouble.

LOL!! This is not a safe space. That's over on /r/StarCitizen or Spectrum. 

You're mistaking me for a SC-fan. I don't want a safe space. I just find the schadenfreude here annoying because it makes me rolleyes so hard when I see somebody simply reveling in any sign of failure. There is some highly interesting discussion here and the way that statements and data that holds CIG accountable is gathered here is unique and very important. And it just gets underminded by the trolling - IMO.

Oh I wasn't referring to you wanting a safe space. I was just saying that this isn't a safe space, and we welcome all types of meaningful discussions, pro, neutral, or con, it doesn't matter. As long as it's respectful and doesn't give rise to meaningless trolling (see Serendipity)

[dsmart]

I don't know if you have ever been impaneled in a jury. You get presented with arguments from both sides who paint very different pictures from the same circumstance and you have to decide either based on the preponderance of the evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt depending on the type of case.

This will be a mess, I'm tired and you will just have to deal with the rambling jumble of ideas.

Now we have heard all the stories coming from Roberts over the years and if we are here most of us are former backers who have requested refunds and left the project and with that we  have weighed Roberts statements, CIG videos, what is actually released, the sliding scale meaning all the wild promises Roberts made and then all the incredible scope creep Roberts piles onto the project making delivery harder and less likely at every turn, this balanced against the reversing slope where now Squadron 42 will have a couple of chapters each being a few of another of Robert's games missions (a far cry from the original scope).
 They are going from the original 100 systems to 5-10 (but backers claim there will be more content when they have no way to know this and all behavior indicates that the content will be further reduced not increased), weighing in against what we had seen and what apparently has been leaked or discovered regarding the games development, game creation in general, human nature, life experience dealing with people.

When we look at all of the information we see what may have been a terrific idea and dream that began with all good intentions (if we want to be generous) but it has fallen apart and we believe is teetering on financial instability. Why did it get here? Indisputably the choice to use Cryengine and patch it repeatedly for each added level and function has created a huge mess and this one decision more than anything has wasted countless millions of dollars. Now as incompetent as I believe Roberts actually is at managing large projects (see this and read it all to gain the background, http://gameranx.com/updates/id/70033/article/the-chris-roberts-theory-of-everything/ ) he had to have known how badly this has affected the projects schedule and budget and you can view it as fraud if he knew it was not working and continued to make statements which backers relied upon to take their money. That would be a type of fraud and clearly would be unethical.

Add in the fact that Roberts and Ortwin were involved with some shady characters one of which went to prison for their movie making and funding ventures and financial shenanigans where they were the only people who made money and countless  million of investors money got transferred to shell corporations and then to the principal architects of this venture, that would be Roberts, Ortwin and 2 other dudes who all work on this project. Now with a background for dirty dealings that screwed people of MANY millions, Total funding was 700 Million, would you trust these same people to make statements you could rely upon and would you trust them to build the game? If you look here you will learn about it, http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=34.15

Add in the way they changed the TOS so that backers are in the dark and cannot know what is really going on ion the company. The original TOS allowed backers to see if Roberts missed the delivery by 12 months, then he gave himself another 18 months and he missed that, then he changed the TOS a third time to remove backers ability to learn just where they stood and take away their rights to a refund. Luckily with the help of a California AG refunds have started again but only after the threat of legal action.

Add in the two loans that they claim they did not need, but took anyway, it starts to look bad. Does the circumstantial evidence begin to pile up in one corner and begin to taint the character of Roberts? We have not even gotten into detail, have not gotten into the lies that 3.0 was ready last year but needed polish when we now know he had not begun yet. Lies on top of lies. Just tonight he made statements in interviews that directly contradict the lies he told last year. The problem with being a habitual liar is that it eventually becomes so difficult to remember what lies you told to whom.

But you know what, over here and on the SC refund reddit page, we watch everything he does and says publicly and amass the evidence. You can think this is just mean spirited and you are chasing a White Whale literally and figuratively but somebody has to doo it. One day it will all collapse and backers will be shocked, but we will have been waiting. Hopefully the Attorney Generals will be able to use the documentation and put it to good use but in the meanwhile if we can manage to show some poor backer who is ambivalent about the project the entirety of the scam (as it has become) and they get their money back before losing it, we have done well.

In the meanwhile please look around I promise you that Derek Smart has been right about this situation the vast majority of times. The funny thing is that I had no idea of who DS was a year or so ago. I made  some suggestions on the SC forums and was met with the typical hostility that has earned the community the crappy reputation it has. One off the asshats called me Derek Smart. Smart I had no idea what this fool was saying I looked up the name and found tons of information on the ongoing feud. Eventually with the help of the SC refunds reddit board I got my $515 back. yeah I was a fool who got wrapped up in this mess. I'm so happy to be free of it since I stopped playing the game, I found it SO fucking boring, get out of bed, do the same 3 missions, save my rep at Korea or wake up at backstabber central waste dump. Or survival mode in space ships, oh or a really shitty FPS module. He couldn't even do that well. Shattered Horizons did a better job of space combat 8 years ago. It was limited in video definition and scope because at the time only the best PC's could play it at medium display settings. I had an I7 970x so it ran well. In any case we have looked at lots of what you believe is circumstantial but in its entirety it pretty much paints a really ugly picture of this project, its future, its creator.

Please keep an open mind but also realize that you can never get anybody here to ever say "Hey that Chris Roberts is a swell fellow, his game is nifty, has great physics and novel concepts, it's reasonably priced and his marketing has been both forthright and  honest. This is clearly the most transparent gaming company ever, I'm so glad we don't have to deal with any of those mean efficient publishers because CIG has done so much with so little."

Yeah there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for this or that, but there is no way they can explain away this pile of evidence. Sorry for being long winded, repetitive and not particularly clear. All this stuff becomes a blur and you have a hard time remembering where you saw this or got the link for that. I do see that Roberts has hired companies to put out tons of positive SC stories so the good stuff gets buried. It wont matter.

I read all of that.  :supaburn:

[Motto]

So did I. What's your take on it  :smuggo:

[dsmart]

So did I. What's your take on it  :smuggo:

Though he thought it was a "mess", I found it to be a pretty eloquent read that encapsulates how he got where he is. This whole farce is so convoluted that it's easy to miss some of the highlights, fine points etc. And that's why I write, because as it stands, my articles and blogs - regardless of veracity and/or hyperbole, serve to keep records that many people refer to to.

[dsmart]

You know game development. Games start with ambitious goals all the time and then get cut down to something mundane because R&D does not yield the necessary results. My expectation is that SC will do just that - they are just unusually (unreasonably?) stubborn to cut off these limbs. At one point they will drop the 100 Star Systems, boarding of ships etc etc. Is it really impossible that instead of imploding and never releasing anything they will (in the end) release "just another space-sim"? That would be my prognosis. Also: SQ42 might come out once they raise the white flag on the crazyness of the MMO. It appears they want to integrate SQ42 into the PU now as some sort of Main-Campaign of the MMO and therefore obviously all the stuff that does not work in the MMO keeps delaying SQ42.

Here's the thing, he promised to do all those things for 65m and now they have given him more than the double amount. And then it OK to scale down? And that'll go well, you think?

I ask for people's money to build them a vehicle that is a car, a truck, a boat, a submarine, a helicopter and an airplane into one. Finally, I deliver..... a car. Doesn't matter what kind, it's only a car. And then all investors would go Hmmm, not what I paid for and had in mind and definately not what I was promised but what the heck, it'll do. You really think that? Of course that's not gonna fly.

Chris is doing damage control already. He's is trying to convince the backers that the MVP is near and that everything he promised will be added on during the lifespan of the game. So basically, the 150m is used to create this piece of crap and if they want to see it finished, buy more JPEGS. The man is utterly lost. And so is Scam Citizen.

This clip says it all

As I've said before, I don't believe that it started out as a scam. It sort of evolved into one. However, when you consider things like malfeasance as it pertains to the money, Unjust Enrichment etc, it doesn't have to fit the bit for a scam in order for it to be legally actionable. e.g. Let's take F42-UK for example. A project for which, six years later, he has now raised over $156M, of which $75M+ was spent by a UK studio he built for his brother (who now makes £230K a year at a studio that's NEVER shipped a game; even as Braben at Frontier Dev which has shipped two massive games since 2012, and a third on the way, makes £180K), and which has NO reason to exist other to unjustly enrich his UK friends and family. The same studio, the largest of five, that's supposedly developing Squadron 42, and some major components for the engine that's powering both games.

That studio could have been built right here in the US and for less. But his UK friends and family wouldn't have benefited from it in the same way.

What about pay checks? If sources are to be believed, most of the money is going to The Nine. When you find that someone as unqualified as Sandi is making the sort of money that is higher than another VP of marketing would - and from crowd-funded money - it's easy to make the case for Unjust Enrichment.

There are so many ways that they are going to be in serious problems after this project collapses, that I'm not even going to bother listing them. All I know is that someone is going to jail over this project's failure.

[StanTheMan]

I'm not saying they have made highly inaccurate statements. But if they were trying to maliciously scam people I find it hard to believe they'd do such a bad job with all the money they have at their disposal.

I agree - I don't think it's an intentional scam. CIG are just incompetent and unable to make a game. It's the marketing drives to constantly attract new backers based on false promises which is dishonest.

Strictly speaking - to label it as fraud or a scam will be a decision after the event (release of the game or collapse) - doesn't stop us having our own views on the matter though.

Look .. if you have history of fuckign things up and doing shady things which Roberts has .. at what point do you stop giving him the benefit of the doubt ?   He should be extremely cautious and self aware of his past and be bending over backwards to show he isnt what that past suggests he is.  But he isn't doing that is he ?

After all this water under the bridge, here he is saying this game is in continual development, with a smug grin on his face.     That doesn't remotely say sorry to all the people he is letting down every minute SC remains in the mess it is with so little to show for all the $$$. 

Decent people dont behave like CR is behaving.

[Andrew]

You just made my point. At any moment in which they fail to deliver what was promised, they're in trouble.

Because that is a point we agree on. It was in reference to the assumption that the company will inevitably fail and no game whatsoever will be released. And while that is a possible scenario the more likely (to me) is the "they release something much more mundane than promised"-case.

[Motto]

What a coincidence, the funding tracker is up by another 20k. How strange. One wouldn't dare to think that the funding tracker is rigged, now would we? Let's await the major spike in JPEG selling that's about to happen. Chris' demo and speech will save the day!

I joined some discussions on Reddit today, advising a lot of people to get a refund while that is still posssble. But for some reason, that's only getting me lots of negative karma and I'm always downvoted. I dont'get it 

[Motto]

Oh My God. This is Gamescom 2017 

.

[StanTheMan]

You just made my point. At any moment in which they fail to deliver what was promised, they're in trouble.

Because that is a point we agree on. It was in reference to the assumption that the company will inevitably fail and no game whatsoever will be released. And while that is a possible scenario the more likely (to me) is the "they release something much more mundane than promised"-case.

and your point is ?

Because you know the real issue is the amount people have paid and what has been promised, not turning out some simplistic shell of a game.

[Andrew]

and your point is ?

The discussion originated in me wishing for a more nuanced discussion. One of the examples was that sometimes it was stated as an absolute certainty that the company would implode and no game ever released which I find to be hyperbolic. That's how we ended up here. If you look at the thread though my initial complaint was aimed at the commenter who was already proclaiming that "Chris Roberts lacked the balls to face the music" which accepts as fact that Chris Roberts would not appear on friday (a mere rumor at that point proven false shortly thereafter) and that there would be some kind of uproar (i.e. "music") to be faced which - given the near-religious fervor of the fanbase - was also not extremely likely. So I'd just wish everybody pulled back a bit on this kind of stuff and tried to be better than just Star-Citizen-fanboi-hyperbole in reverse.

[N0mad]

Derek, can you give us any hints about what to expect from the big event tonight?

[Motto]

Lot's of Uhmms and handwaving  :dance:

Spectacular sales video's for pictures of ships that may or may not be made for a game that still doesn't excist.

Man, I really do hope Chris makes an ass out of himself tonight. A really big one that'll finally open the eyes of the majority of backers. Let the run on the refunds begin!

[Kastenbrust]

What time does the shitshow start?