Man, am I confused

[dsmart]

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.

[dsmart]

...they have a forum? That's mighty tempting now. :)

Oh gawd, yes, they do. A few months back, they transitioned from the standard forum, to their Discord wannabe clone called Spectrum (yeah, the irony isn't lost there at all). Only the hardcore cultists actually use it, due to the abject toxicity and the fact that any dissenting opinions are immediately shouted down, you'll get summarily banned etc.

[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.

[Serviceman]

You see Chris Roberts has unilaterally changed the Terms Of Service twice now removing his requirement to show backers the finances if he fails to deliver on time (he gave himself delivery plus 12 months, then he changed it to give himself another 18 months before being required to show the books, then he simply removed the requirement to show anything)  and he claims that he does not have to give any refunds but out of the goodness of his heart he will grant them on a case by case basis.

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).

My current jurisdiction is too small to have any effect or have enough people join, but someone over on the US side could make an impact I'm sure.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge but if you don't want to spend a weekend reading everything just look at the link I gave you for the pertinent points.

I strongly suggest you request a refund if you are not happy with what you see.

Yeah, thanks for that, definitely will look into it. Truth it, I'm not even remotely interested in the MMO, I really just backed a new WC game.

If you don't mind answering, how much are you in for? A basic package or more? I was in for $515 and got a refund.

I'm in for $37. This is the package on Kickstarter:

DIGITAL SCOUT: A digital copy of the finished game for your PC with your RSI Aurora spaceship ready to fly + 1,000 Galatic Credits + Exclusive access to the Alpha + Beta (digital tier, no physical rewards)

I don't remember if the description of it changed after the fact, but it makes sense (most of the stuff I backed back then I stuck with digital delivery).

I live in the USA, and living in different States, I have never seen any law that says they couldn't change the TOS on the fly.
Also there isn't any reason for there to be a class action lawsuit when CIG have been giving refunds.  If they were refusing refunds en masse, then I could see a class action lawsuit being taken.

I don' think there will ever be any class action lawsuit, because people will know there would be no money to get from it anyways, since it will be gone.  My guess the worse that is going to happen is they will run out of money, have to sell the company, and then some other company is going to finish up the 2 games minus all the feature creep that happened beyond the stretch goals, release them and find ways to monetize the games further from the customers who have bought the game.  The company that bought CIG would be able to buy it on cents on the dollar and be able to complete the games for much less money using what is already done.

I doubt Chris Roberts is going to be in charge of the company when these games release, but I don't doubt the games will release at some point.  I just don't see any company not willing to pay cents on the dollar for CIG for what is obviously a cash cow given the number of backers and how much they were willing to spend already.

[Motto]

Nope. This game will never be finished. It cannot be made and nobody will come to the rescue of Chris this time. There is nothing of worth to get with the buying of CIG, but the financial risks are enormous. Nobody is going to burn their hands on it. And the true fanatics will go after Chris. After he has been their saviour and messias for so long, he'll be hunted beyond his grave for his betrayals. Make no mistake, they'll want him dead for this failure.

[Serviceman]

Nope. This game will never be finished. It cannot be made and nobody will come to the rescue of Chris this time. There is nothing of worth to get with the buying of CIG, but the financial risks are enormous. Nobody is going to burn their hands on it. And the true fanatics will go after Chris. After he has been their saviour and messias for so long, he'll be hunted beyond his grave for his betrayals. Make no mistake, they'll want him dead for this failure.

I will disagree with this.  I am fully expecting basically another Digital Anvil situation.  And I do believe the game can be made (minus all the feature creep beyond the stretch goals) under the right leadership. I also don't think what is obviously a cash cow can be ignored.

[Motto]

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.

[Backer42]

Star Citizen will only survive as the biggest failure in crowdfunding history.

And it's already in the Guinness book of records.

[dsmart]

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.

[dsmart]

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.

[Serviceman]

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.

[Motto]

The thing is, there are no assets. Everything revolves on a butchered version of CryEngine from years ago. And the concept of SC basically is "I'll take all kind of space games and put them together in one big ass mother of all space games". Now, that's the other reason this game will never work. You can't throw all kinds of a game into one and expect it to work.

[Aya Reiko]

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.

That's if they find a buyer at auction.  It's not unheard of for assets to go unsold.
I just don't see any value to any of CiG's assets.  If anything, some unknown Chinese company may pick it up for pennies.  What they would do with it would be anyone's guess.

[dsmart]

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.

That doesn't change anything. How does buying a toxic IP, then re-releasing it, a good thing? And how do you think the target audience - who would have been $160M in the hole - are going to react? Let's not even BEGIN to talk about the media. The bad PR alone will kill it right off the bat. In fact, as soon as this collapses - as I am 100% certain that it will - the bad PR will flood the channels making it worthless.

Aside from the fact that the both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 IP are WORTHLESS because 1) there is no value, due to being negative equity due to debt, because of all the pre-orders (ala crowd-funding) and 2) there was never a released product from which to judge its value

As skittish as the industry is, anyone who thinks a publisher or investor is going to go buy the IP so they can make a game, is an ignorant fool.

[darkpen]

I live in the USA, and living in different States, I have never seen any law that says they couldn't change the TOS on the fly.
Also there isn't any reason for there to be a class action lawsuit when CIG have been giving refunds.  If they were refusing refunds en masse, then I could see a class action lawsuit being taken.

Those aren't usually codified statutes, they're usually set by precedent.

I know companies reserve the right to modify their TOS (I've written a few myself), but applicability is a different game.

It's true about the refunds, though. That may be a barrier. But on a personal level, I don't like that they promised full transparency to get money, and then modified the terms to not having to disclose anything.

I don' think there will ever be any class action lawsuit, because people will know there would be no money to get from it anyways, since it will be gone.  My guess the worse that is going to happen is they will run out of money, have to sell the company, and then some other company is going to finish up the 2 games minus all the feature creep that happened beyond the stretch goals, release them and find ways to monetize the games further from the customers who have bought the game.  The company that bought CIG would be able to buy it on cents on the dollar and be able to complete the games for much less money using what is already done.

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.