Star Citizen - The E.L.E.

[dsmart]

We've been discussing this over on SA. If there's malfeasance involved, that tires into wire fraud. The latter is very broad and is usually used to send people to jail over financial crimes. That's why I keep saying that I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone doesn't go to jail over there. There's just too much money involved, and too many BAD & SHADY PEOPLE involved, for it to all be squeaky clean. I just don't believe that.

You're absolutely right, Wire Fraud is a very broad statue, which will undoubtedly be used. No matter what, if and when the criminal legal hammer falls there will be people rolling over to save their own asses from the fire. Then and only then will any backer ever get the disclosure and accountability that they were promised in the beginning.

Precisely. What people think when they hear "wire fraud", is oh, that's just because they "wired money". Nope. It's so broad that it's one of the most feared charges in all of financial crimes. It could be something as simple as paying an invoice (online) with ill-gotten gains; or just transferring money from one account to another. Boom! You're in for wire fraud.

[Suzikuh]

SANITIZED SERENDIPITY ALT

[David-2]

I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.

So, glad you're here, but you parachute in and bring up the same things that have been discussed ad nauseam by many many defenders before you, not least by the tedious Serendipity.

I won't speak for our host, but for myself:  Try bringing something new to the table than yet another repetition of hundreds of previous posts.

[Motto]

This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.

Hi Suzikuh, and welcome. I suggest that you start by reading the topics in bold first, starting at page 1 in everyone of them. This will give you a clear view of this forum, it's members and our take on Star Citizen. If you still feel you have new arguments to discuss with us, please join the table. I for one however, do not wish nor want to repeat the endless discussions we have had with Serenstupidity.

Please note that we here are all convinced that Star Citizen has turned into a scam, that it can and will not be made and that the collapse of the whole thing is imminent. We are here to watch and discuss the when and how of said collapse, not a if. So trying to start yet another discussion that the if is questionable or that the how and when still lacks proof is pointless. Just so you know.

So, ready to come in and join the hilarity that is Scam Shitizen?

[N0mad]

 :lol: I think the ATV segment on bugfixing needs relabelling as BurnUP


Derek Smart was right                                                              Derek Smart was right                                                              Derek Smart was right                                                              Derek Smart was right                                                              Derek Smart was right                                                              Derek Smart was right

I can't wait for the day when the best fit line becomes flat.

 

And, before anyone points out that this is normal for software development - we all understand this. It does prove that it's a buggy mess at the moment, perhaps one of the pitfalls of having a dev team split between 4 studios I might think.

What are the chances that, by the time the production schedule is released, 10 or 15 bugs might have suddenly been fixed to make the chart look better??

[helimoth]

Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now; they've pretty much sold the 'top tier' of every conceivable style of ship and thus cannot make a better/stronger/more powerful version yet to usurp those without pissing off ship buyers (an absolute no-no), there is no more roles they need ships to fill without creating more roles and thus introducing more feature creep at this stage which is already years behind schedule, yet they still need to sell a very expensive ship in order to stop the lights going out in the next 3 months. Thus the 600i was born; an expensive ship that does nothing other than be an inferior version of an expensive ship at a high price which exists purely to be an expensive ship that is expensive so that people who want to buy an expensive ship can.... 

The hilarity continues.

apparantly at the end of all of this is meant to be a game that is intended to be able to compete with behemoths of games of the likes of CoD, LoL, PUBG and DotA 2... I can't see it personally 

[GaryII]

Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now;

 Yes, even some of whales are not very happy: 

 and big joke is they need to sell new ships at least for 5 years... 

[Motto]

The Q & A for the 600i is up, and boy, even the cultists are not happy

The biq question is, did Chris take it too far with the fucked up presentation and yet another - expensive - concept ship sale? Are we already in the endgame now with Shitizen Con and the Anniversary and X-Mas Holiday events upon us? What options does he have left? Showing something of SQ42 and again a concept sale? Discounting on all ships (that'll go well)? What is there left to buy that hasn't been bought yet or that is worth buying?

Me thinks the endgame is way nearer than me thoughts....

[Spunky Munkee]

If they are planning to sell ships for the first 5 years the game is out (if it releases, if they last 5 years) I bet that earning new ships or trading up will be VERY expensive to incentivize you to buy the ships. Perhaps the ships you buy will come with LTI. I would put nothing past them, they are desperate. ROberts does not want to be selling Fish Tacos in Ensenada and divorced.

[Serendipity]

Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? If they were desperate for money they wouldn't have an expensive ship with no reason to buy it. They'd do loads more cheap aurora packages or shove the Idris on sale again.

Desperate for money would be shedding staff, not increasing Frankfurt and creating Derby offices.

Desperate for money would be rushing the release out in any state that loads, not 'polishing' and adding content causing delays.

I'm not buying that they're desperate for cash because they had a concept sale for a ship that only the most dedicated would want. It's backwards guys.

There's always someone not happy, even when they gave away 5 dollars store credit they got complained at, they're still working, still getting paid, still making the game.

End times aren't here yet. They weren't here over a year ago either...

[Backer42]

:lol: I think the ATV segment on bugfixing needs relabelling as BurnUP

He is going on about how this field test helped him finding bugs, which would have shown up after release otherwise.

Then for what reason did backers pay for Alpha access?

[StanTheMan]

Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.

I do know that the project is FUBAR though.

I kinda understand what you're saying here, but if the project is FUBAR, then it's already in an ongoing ELE.

I'll repeat this again, because it bears repeating,

"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."

All the term "ELE" is referring to is the final stages of the collapse of this ongoing Ponzi Scheme. Croberts is doing everything he can to delay the inevitable collapse of this project. Which will invariably make the boom at the end that much bigger, and louder.

Make no mistake, if the reports are true that they are only giving partial refunds now. There is very little time left, the cash on hand must be at such a level that they're scrambling just to make payroll for this month, and are trying madly to come up with the cash to meet next months. That's my feeling, I'd be surprised if they make it to January of next year.

Also remember that a train wreck is a perfect analogy for a situation like this. The wreck happens all at once, there very well might be indicators before the wreck happens that a wreck is imminent, but when the wreck happens it's a catastrophic immediate event.

 

All he has to do is go and find some credible independent games developers and get them to give their analysis and conclusions on SC progress and likelihood of making it into game form.

[StanTheMan]

Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now; they've pretty much sold the 'top tier' of every conceivable style of ship and thus cannot make a better/stronger/more powerful version yet to usurp those without pissing off ship buyers (an absolute no-no), there is no more roles they need ships to fill without creating more roles and thus introducing more feature creep at this stage which is already years behind schedule, yet they still need to sell a very expensive ship in order to stop the lights going out in the next 3 months. Thus the 600i was born; an expensive ship that does nothing other than be an inferior version of an expensive ship at a high price which exists purely to be an expensive ship that is expensive so that people who want to buy an expensive ship can.... 

The hilarity continues.

apparantly at the end of all of this is meant to be a game that is intended to be able to compete with behemoths of games of the likes of CoD, LoL, PUBG and DotA 2... I can't see it personally 

They should be selling "houses" shouldnt they ?    At least they dont have to move and presumably are a piece of piss to develop in Cryengine.   

[Motto]

Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? Etc. etc.

You can choose for low margin, high volume or high margin, low volume. Now selling 100 Aurora's to new backers (after all those years of being around and all the news surrounding SC) or selling one 600i to an already heavily invested whale backer (SCF) makes for an easy choice. Especially if you have a lot of SCF whales.

Now, as explained before, the moment Chris starts to do stuff that could be explained as a sign that there is something amiss, this project will collapse. Chris has no choice but to maintain the illusion that everything is fine. That means going to Gamescom and doing a Shitizen Con and not pushing out a horrible 3.0 build. Only at the last possible moment he will do the things nessescary to survive, like downsizing on studio's and staff since he has no choice left. Making it public that he is out of money will not also make even the whale backers wonder, but it will also start backers wondering again about the concept sales, loans and the teaming up with partners like faceware. It will kill CIG. So, Chris goes on as if nothing is wrong simply because he has to. Stopping is Game Over.

This scam is coming to a stop real quick now. Because Chris can't act on the money issue, he has to keep up the current burning rate. Only by not replacing staff that has left and not renewing ending contracts he can stop the drain a little. But showing groupfoto's with half the staff from last year will raise questions as well. So he's fucked.

Simply put, he can't show his money problems because showing them will immediatly crash and burn CIG. That's why there are no direct visible signals of money problems. But if you look closely at their current behaviour, you can see them. And that's why the end is near. You just have to be willing to see the signs, and clearly you are not. As we already established.

[the_wolfmann]

I don't understand how the SC defenders don't realize what is meant when we say that CIG is desperate for money. It's not necessarily that they can't pay the bill this month or the next if they don't sell X ships.

What they are desperate though is that there has to be at least one person on their team that realizes that their accrued technical debt (due to consistently poor management coming from the top brass) is so huge that they need at least 5 years worth of consistent funding to make anything that can be considered a bare minimum MVP.

If push comes to shove I will not be surprised if they do start selling everything with LTI and all limited edition ships. Until then they will try anything to let existing and new backers part with more and more money to try and cover for their failures so far. Last example is the custom naming your ship if you spend cold hard cash instead of melting existing chariots.

As Motto said above desperately selling everything will alert and enrage a large part of the community as to something with the project is horribly amiss. Some are starting to wake up early though... there's just so many red flags one can sleep through.

In closing I think the general confusion might come from the occasional hyperbole stating that the project will not last 90 days. Which is not that far from the truth. All we need to prove it right is for all funding to stop completely for that duration and see the end.