dsmart
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Let me assure you of one thing: It’s a lot worse than you can possibly imagine.
And the E.L.E (Extinct Level Event) that I have been hinting at these past few days, is playing out as I type this. I have stated since last year that if they survived 2016, that it would be a miracle.
Regardless of what they do now, neither Star Citizen (mPU) nor SQ42 are ever going to see the light of day in completed form.
The last ditch feature attempts coming up in the “persistence” (hinted for 2.4 patch) are solely geared toward making money.
If you think I’m kidding, watch yesterday’s RtV in which Chris made an appearance. Listen. Watch. Observe (the body language, mannerisms etc of everyone).
And all those who thought that Chris was saying these things are coming in 2.4, is an uninformed fool. I told you it was all bullshit. Well, read this then.
There will never – ever – be a completed Star Citizen (Persistent Universe) or Squadron 42.
ANYTHING (implementing in-game sales) they do now, is geared toward a single goal: get cash quick
This is what I said back in July 2015 when I wrote that first Interstellar Citizens blog.
“Without disrespect to anyone, I’m just going to say it: it is my opinion that, this game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever.
There isn’t a single publisher or developer on this planet who could build this game as pitched, let alone for anything less than $150 million.
The original vision which I backed in 2012? Yes, that was totally doable. This new vision? Not a chance.
The technical scope of this game surpasses GTAV, not to mention the likes of Halo.
Do you have any idea what those games cost to make and how long they took?
Do you know how many games which cost $50 million to make took almost five years to release? And they were nowhere in scope as Star Citizen?“
It looks like the post I made here and on SA the other day, didn’t get poster here. Here it is again based on new info passed on by sources. It’s also in my social media feed.
- Star Citizen (like Star Marine when I said it) has been put on maintenance mode. That’s primarily why Chris (of all people) couldn’t talk about anything beyond 2.x. All they are going to be doing now are bug fixes and tweaks. They never planned – and won’t be doing – any of the promised features. All the primary engineers are doing now is pulling a pay check for appearances sake. It’s unsustainable and within the next few weeks; there will be a complete shutdown of everything not related to SQ42.
- All hands on SQ42 (which is still more of a mess, than it is a game) as we’ve know about; but it’s serious now and has been communicated company-wide to “parties who need to know”
- I now have 11 confirmed top tier leavers (management doesn’t know about at least 7 of them); a few of them are staging a joint exit. I have no intentions of naming names as I have done in the past. So you all will need to run your own LinkedIn trolling.
- As I predicted, they are literally out of money to finish these projects. Like literally. When I posted about “going concern” few days ago, that’s what I meant. And they’ve been looking for investment/bailout. Past and recent efforts to raise (not just through ship sales) money, have failed. And they haven’t disclosed this to the backers because they don’t feel that they have to. Though one person did point out that croberts had indicated that if he wasn’t making $3m per month, he would have to scale back. That’s what he is expected to fall back to when the time comes. Except that he’s also gone on the record as saying that if funding stopped, he could still complete the game. I have links to both statements.
- This is one that I simply cannot mention. At all. I am awaiting legal clearance (one has flat out said “don’t do it”), which is why I sent Erin a message.
I trust my sources 100% because I tend to corroborate these things with others because I don’t want anyone running a False Flag op on me; as that would be bad.
Seriously, I can’t say more than this without causing problems for scared sources. I fear that I may have already done just that with this post.
All I can say it that, anyone who has more than $5K in this, and wants to get to the truth before the end game plays out, needs to go find an attorney. right now. Or at least try to get a refund or chargeback.
Let me tell you how serious it is. I sent a message to Erin over the weekend; that he needs to get in touch with me asap. You know, like how reporters tend to give targets of an article a heads up to comment (or not). I have nothing to say to Chris or Ortwin – they had their chance. And Sandi is of no consequence, so I don’t even care what she thinks/does. And I don’t chat with Swofford anymore because I don’t want to put him in any compromising position; as someone just doing his job.
I’m hoping he (Erin) ignores my message. Then all hell breaks loose. Pretty much the same chance I gave Chris before my first blog of July 2015.
Seriously, tbh, for me, this is not about scooping and/or hurting anyone. It’s just not my style. My whole premise for this is to prove that I have been right since day one, and that this has ended up hurting some (we don’t care about Shitizens) gamers, gaming in general, and by a larger extent, video game crowd-funding. And it’s something that I take very seriously. Especially because that croberts left the industry, then came back and started making waves, pissing and spitting on everything with his “fuck publishers”, “I am going to save PC gaming” bullshit. It was all bullshit. Right from the start. And it doesn’t help that with his lying talentless hack of a wife, decided that they would treat those who WERE in the industry all this time, poorly because they could and had the money and clout to do it.
When I wrote that first blog, I thought that would be the end of it. I was wrong.
Once they made it personal, they triggered my autism spectrum and penchant for never – ever – letting go of a bone until I had chewed it until it disappears. And they gave me a bone. Then tried to hide the bag of bones.
Here we are.
I am going to see this to the very bitter end because I know with 100% certainty, sources be damned, that I’m right.
Unfortunately, I can’t sue them over Star Citizen without going to arbitration. There is no way around it. And in arb, NONE of the discovery material will make it into the public domain and in the hands of the backers where it belongs.
That’s why I didn’t do it.
The ONLY chance I have at ending up in a proper court, is if I sued them – and Chris – over his diatribe (since it’s got so many defamatory causes of action in there, my attorneys had a hard time believing that the CEO of a company wrote it. And I live in FL, which has the most strict defamation laws in the country) at me and The Escapist. Or if they sue me. Both of those instances do NOT go through arb. However, they could continue to delay discovery for months on end. And the could very well have failed and out of business by then. Which is why my attorneys told me that I could very well just sit back and wait for the collapse; if I am certain that it is inevitable. I am. And so we wait.
On the other hand, the May 31st, 2016 deadline for the ToS v1.2 expiration is another trigger point that we’re pondering over. Even so, any action over that by the backers, has to go through arb. I can’t sue them over that, as I’m no longer a backer. I have no standing there. So if whales or others don’t do it, that’s on them.
People can think what they want. It is of no consequence to me. We’re firmly in End Times now and there is nothing – at all – that can save either SC or SQ42.
All we’re going to be doing for the next 30-90 days, is rehashing the same shit; while loling at all the hilarious stuff that’s coming.
They aren’t going to stop trying to raise money to stay afloat in some fashion. In fact, as was told to me, now that ship sales are tanking; they’re not even sure that putting ships in the game (ala show room) for sale, or even clothes, is going to make a dent. Note that those things aren’t “gameplay”. They are part of the money raising machine. And from the last meeting, apparently the question remains: if the game is broken, and in maintenance mode, who is going to be spending enough money on vanity items for it to make a dent in funding?
But Star Citizen is officially in maintenance mode; and has been since Feb apparently. Nobody noticed. Though some of us did, because we kept laughing at all the bug fixes, tweaks, superficial (anti-griefing) “features”. No tangible promised features.
Remember, it’s now end of Q1/16. All they have of the “world” now, is what’s in the mPU.
And I said last year that they were running on fumes. I gave them 90 days. They pulled the Q4/15 stunt. It bought them a few months. Here we are.
My goal remains as it always was: to convey, explain, and expose what is going; and for the record. I don’t care what anyone believes or doesn’t. Anyone who has read my blogs, my social media posts etc, can see that I have been completely consistent. And since July 2015, there is nothing that convinced me that they have the tech, ability, or funding to finish either of these games. They still don’t.
The kicker is going to come when croberts decides to pass off SQ42 as being everything that was promised for Star Citizen. That’s part of the plan. And when it was hinted at last year, people discarded it out of hand.
Then there’s the looming May 31st, 2016 ToS v1.2 deadline.
Ahead of that, the planned down-sizing and scaling back is coming. And by the time the dust settles, both Austin and LA will cease to exist as “studios” because everything will be transitioned to Foundry 42 in the UK where all bets have now been placed. Nobody knows yet how far back Foundry42 Germany will be scaled back. But that’s coming.
They’re fucked. The End.
Well, a picture of the $20K cappuccino machine bought with backer money and which I first wrote about in my Star Citizen – The End game blog from Oct 2015, has surfaced online.
“And when it collapses and companies start sifting through the debris in bankruptcy court or auction, my guess is that you can probably pick up that $20K (!) cappuccino machine purchased for the new LA office (the one where all work has stopped due to a dispute with one of the contractors), for less than $5K. No, I’m not kidding. They apparently have a $20K cappuccino machine that backers paid for. Because Chris always wanted one. Go ahead, ask him.”
Don’t forget that the 18 months period for refunds and financial accountability, expires on Mar 31, 2016. More here.
The way they are doing it now, is a blatant cash grab. They no longer care who they piss off.
In fact, I had predicted that they would rush out the 2.3 patch incomplete, because they want to sell these Starfarers. Sure enough…
Meanwhile, back at the Kool-Aid fountain
It’s all neatly summarized in the Twitlonger post
Star Citizen – How It All Came To This
In July, after I got wind of the Star Citizen project in trouble, unable to deliver, backer money being wasted, I started to investigate it.
I got in touch with Chris to try and get some more details from him. He ignored both of my inquiries on LinkedIn and Facebook.
So I continued with my research and subsequently published that first blog, Interstellar Citizens.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/
Then, in what can only be described as sheer madness, they lost their minds and made it personal.
They canceled my backer account, and refunded me. Without my asking.
Then to make matters worse, they sent out a press statement about my being refunded, and my account canceled.
http://www.pcgamer.com/derek-smart-star-citizen/
Then tried to make it look like I had somehow violated their ToS for the game and the website.
Problem is 1) I have never posted on their forums 2) I have never downloaded the game due it not being complete nor playable. They actually confirmed this in their legal response letter as mentioned in this blog.
http://dereksmart.com/2015/09/star-citizen-the-long-con/
Then they doubled down when Ben Lesnick in customer service, made a public forum post about it.
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/5304637/#Comment_5304637
All these actions were taken in obvious retaliation for the blog and the fact that it got widespread release in the media.
As you can now see, they simply made it worse by making themselves subject to the Streisand Effect.
They bet on my being completely vilified for writing an opinion based and technical blog. Forgetting that I have been a fixture of this industry for almost 30 years and that sort of tenure has its merits.
So I kept digging and writing. All the while Chris and Sandra kept making defamatory statements about me both in writing and in person. And there are people willing to be deposed under oath about the aforementioned statements.
