[dsmart]

Someone said it best.

“I wonder if the backers realize how much they’re being bait-and-switched. Chris only ever wanted to make his fucking shitty movie, and he was always willing to sacrifice every other module at that altar. Now they’re near the end of their funds, all spent trying to build all of the modules like Star Marine, the PTU, and so on, but with Chris’s time-proven stupidity and mismanagement turning all that cash, and all that work, into a fine mist of piss on a summer breeze.

So now here we are, with all of the remaining funds being poured into the shittiest single-player space game we’re ever likely to see in our lifetimes. Why do people think they need more bug-testing on Arena Commander? Why the sudden laser-like focus on SQ42, when until now all the focus and all the fanfare was on the PU and Star Marine? Because with their remaining funds, Chris cannot complete SQ42 unless he diverts all resources to it. Every other module experiment is now a failure and a write-off. This is it – this is where the last of the money is going.

This is what Chris wanted to do, so he did it with the money given to him for another product, and another promise, entirely.

This was never about building a universe. It was about attempting to build a universe on the side, while fulfilling his personal desires as the main goal, front and center.

He could have chosen to scrap SQ42 and put all resources on the PU that all his backers want, but he didn’t. Backers got a hangar so they could see their ships and fantasize about their upcoming experiences, they got Arena Commander so they could better imagine what they would be like in combat, and they got the PTU, a barely-functional glimpse of how it would all tie together. Chris Roberts was not able to deliver both that universe, that the backers voted for with their dollars, AND the single-player mo-cap travesty he’s trying to shit out right now, before the funds started to dry up. So Chris Roberts had to make a choice.

Backers should never, ever forget that when the money got tight, and Chris had the tough choice on which part of the game to concentrate on, he chose himself. He chose to use backer money to build his personal pet project, and ignore the very project whose promise generated those funds in the first place.

It’s only January, but I’m going to nominate Chris Roberts for the Asshole of the Year award. Good job commando – you’ve earned it.”

And this person makes some valid points. Primary one being, since they do not yet have the tech to build/power what they promised for Star Citizen (aka Persistent Universe, PU), given all the engineering debt (take a look at the ship progress!), financial drain etc, and the fact that even at $106M, they are totally tapped out on selling JPEGs, the push for SQ42 is also related to how they can make money from it. Which is precisely why, contrary to the original plan, it is now completely episodic and beyond the original plan. Also, as of Feb 14th, they are going to split them into two products: Star Citizen and SQ42. Each sold separately.

And the recent Star Marine revelations is just the tip of the iceberg. Aside from what we now know, (1, 2) no doubt there is more to come.

[dsmart]

Yeah, I’m sure they’ve been working on some fps stuff to add to the PU; but it’s still not the Star Marine that was previously promised.

[dsmart]

Yes, it’s impossible. A lot of us devs have discussed it at length and simply don’t see how they could possibly do this. Then again, maybe they have some brilliant people there – who thus far having never done it, let alone shipped any game with it – have come up with a ground-breaking solution.

It’s all bullshit really.

I envision that the game – if they complete the PU – will remain an instanced game; but maybe with match-matching and server browsing to make it easier to join servers. And if they can do more than 16 clients at a time; that would be a miracle given what we’ve seen thus far.

The project is FUBAR.

[dsmart]

List of Star Citizen related corporate entities

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1. Cloud Imperium Games Corp, West Hollywood, CA
2. Cloud Imperium Games LLC, West Hollywood, CA
3. Cloud Imperium Services, LLC West Hollywood, CA <– The one is interesting. It is found on BBB, but is not in the CA Secretary Of State dB records
4. Cloud Imperium Games LLC, Santa Monica, CA
5. Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, West Hollywood, CA
6. Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, Austin, TX
7. Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited, UK
8. Foundry 42 Limited, UK
9. Foundry 42, Germany
10. Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC, West Hollywood, CA
11. Gemini 42 Productions LLC, Santa Monica, CA
12. Roberts Space Industries Corp, West Hollywood, CA
13. Roberts Space Industries International Limited, UK
14. Twin Brothers Production Inc, West Hollywood, CA
15. Twin Bros, Germany

[dsmart]

Cloud Imperium Games invests £15 million in its UK studio

They took $16.5M (Euros) – $21.5M (Sterling) – of backer money – out of the US corp and put in Chris’s brother’s studio, Foundry 42, which is developing Squadron 42. Some of it via tax credits as I reported last year in my Interstellar Pirates blog (search for: credits)

I spoke to some people earlier this week and they claim that’s not what happened. Wording is key. They’re saying that this press release was about two things:

1) UKTI promoting the allocation of tax credits to a UK company – for the public record. It happens here in the US as well, when States do the same thing. e.g. The Rhode Island $75M investment in 38 Studios

2) The total approx investment to date of CIG into the Foundry 42. The UKTI would have this number since they’d need to have all those records when CIG/F42 applied for those tax credits anyway.

UPDATE: It’s actually worse than I thought.

UK studio opened in January 2014. Two years ago.

Since then they’ve spent (since tax records show they don’t have any money in the UK) according to the article, over £15 million (approx $21.5M) on that office.

With the fluctuation of the exchange rate over the last two years; that amounts to about $23M dollars.

Again, tax records show they aren’t holding more than £400K anymore.

So in two years they’ve spent $23M+ on just the UK studio; which everyone knows is the cheapest location of all their studios for salary and rent.

So sum it up:

That is the ENTIRE game’s ORIGINAL budget for two years of their least expensive [i]per capita[/i] of the 4 studios.

If you add up:

Frankfurt 1 year
LA 3 years
Austin 3 years
BHVR (Behavior Interactive) 3 years
Illfonic 2 years
Void Alpha 1 year
CG Bot 2 years,
Turbulent 3 years

PLUS mocap costs you understand WHY they are out of money and need to keep raising funds.

And the rest…

The Imagarium Studios
Atomahawk Design
Cubic Motion
Massive Black
Rmory.net

List of all corporate entities associated with Star Citizen.

1. Cloud Imperium Games Corp, West Hollywood, CA
2. Cloud Imperium Games LLC, West Hollywood, CA
3. Cloud Imperium Services, LLC West Hollywood, CA <– The one is interesting. It is found on BBB, but is not in the CA Secretary Of State dB records
4. Cloud Imperium Games LLC, Santa Monica, CA
5. Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, West Hollywood, CA
6. Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, Austin, TX
7. Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited, UK
8. Foundry 42 Limited, UK
9. Foundry 42, Germany
10. Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC, West Hollywood, CA
11. Gemini 42 Productions LLC, Santa Monica, CA
12. Roberts Space Industries Corp, West Hollywood, CA
13. Roberts Space Industries International Limited, UK
14. Twin Brothers Production Inc, West Hollywood, CA
15. Twin Bros, Germany

[dsmart]

[quote quote=2369]Again I have to interupt this broadcast to correct facts:

“There will be no Star Marine module, and there need not be one, as the features formerly promised are now available in the PTU. Deal with it.”

That is not what he said! What he said was that they have SOME of the FPS features in he PU today and will continue to implement them along the way, he specifically mentions the cover system as coming up next. After that the maps and FPS competitive mode will be enabled with the maps we’ve already seen. But there will be no big patch or drop labelled “Star Marine” (maybe because, as you pointed out, they don’t even own the TM for it) That is what CR said. If that is what is actually going to happen or if he’s plain old lying we’ll see soon enough. Yes it goes against alot of what was stated last year, such as the infamous “matter of weeks” and yes the people who backed because of cool pew-pew may feel they have been bait-and-switched, but the fact is that everything that was promised is either in the game now or will be in the game when it’s done. (If anyone has reason to yell foul it’s the early backers that backed a Wing Commander like game (vision 1), not a MMO with fully fledged FPS, but that’s beside the point) [/quote]

You’re just arguing semantics as usual. Star Marine is no more. There is no other way to explain it away. Even if everything that was promised in Star Marine was coming to the PU at some point, it does’nt take away from the fact that: Star Marine, as was sold to backers, is no more.

[dsmart]

As I posted elsewhere:

“Quite a number of people don’t realize just how serious I am taking all this. I’m not doing it for shits ‘n giggles; or because I don’t have better things to do with my time and money, but to spend it on legal bills, investigations, research etc.

And the latest thing to irk me (because I know a lot more than what has been public), is the Illfonic situation and how RSI/CIG have pretty much thrown them under the bus over SM since last year. And if you’ve heard my rants about how they are treating some of the people still working on this project, then you already have a pretty good idea what my motivation for all this is. Outside of the fact that they drew first blood.

Since no private person is going to be able to sue them over Star Citizen without going through arbitration, even though there is a very slim chance that it can be tossed out of arbitration and into court (State or Federal), I have been hoping (yeah, I know right?) that they’d sue me by now because that gets around the entire arbitration conundrum and gets the ball running. But they know that ANY lawsuit for ANY reason that arises out of this farce, makes it open season on everything – including Star Citizen which is the reason for all this. My attorney already put them on notice in one of his letters (which I made public) for that specific reason.

And since I have no intentions (at this time) of suing Chris or CIG/RSI over his defamatory diatribe (in his response to The Escapist), since that’s just going to be a waste of time given how long it would take to slog through that and get to the Star Citizen part, I am left with no choice but to do precisely what I said I would do: get the State and Fed authorities involved so that THEY can go take a look and determine what’s best for the consumer. After all, that’s precisely what the FTC (a Fed agency) is for.

And since I haven’t and wont’ do ANYTHING illegal, they simply can’t hurt me in any way, shape or form (Chris knows this, and has said on the record that “I have nothing to lose”. He’s right) over this, given the fact that 1) I’m not making shit up on a whim 2) most of what I’ve stated as opinion and/or hyperbole is not legally actionable 3) any action they bring, and which we get tossed is a win for me and very – very – bad for them, they have no choice but to weather the storm until they either deliver or fold.

Chris’s commentary over the SM debacle should be notable to anyone who read his Escapist diatribe and understood the tone, premise and hubris within.

They’ve been playing a very bad game of “Derek Smart” poker with me. And losing. And I don’t even play poker.”

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“Yes, the issue with the govt – as I’ve stated before – is that 1) they take their sweet time and probably won’t get to it until it’s all over 2) we won’t be privy to any of the information that backers are entitled to because Fed action is not the same as a private or class action – they won’t tell you shit if you’re not part of the action

Yes, myself or anyone can sue them over Star Citizen but as attorneys (even the two that contacted me and offered to help pro bono) have said, we run the chance of it being tossed out of State or Fed court and into arbitration due to the ToS. In my case, since they have NO evidence that I ever agreed to their new ToS, having never – ever – played the game or done anything that resulted in my agreeing to said ToS, I do have a case. But a slim one.

So the choice is either :

1) sue in State or Fed court and run the risk of it being tossed to arbitration as per Star Citizen ToS. waste of time and money. bad.

2) then (as per above) in arbitration, show enough cause to get it tossed back into State or Fed court. waste of time and money. bad. going back to #1 is good.

3) sue Chris for defamation, make RSI/CIG a party to the suit and add a litany of causes of action related to Star Citizen.

4) wait for the whole thing to collapse. now there are so many reasons (aka “Cause Of Action”) to sue either in arbitration, State, Fed court because now we’re talking about the collapse of a $106M+ project; which is still shy of the $150M+ collapse of 38 Studios and which reached a crescendo of legal shenanigans only because the State had $75M invested in it.

There are other options which I am not at liberty to discuss. But at the end of the day, I have always maintained that I have no intentions of giving up unless and until they 1) give people the refunds they asked for 2) they provide the financial accounting they promised

In the US, you don’t need a plausible reason to sue someone. I could walk into court today, and for less than $500, sue them for a laundry list of things. They will attempt to get it tossed. And if they succeed, they can petition for their legal costs etc.

The legal system is fucked. Which is why a company like this can do shady shit like the ToS shenanigans – and get away with it for a long as they can.”

[dsmart]

Yeah, that post is spot on; and I am already aware of some of that.

ps: Allie_C is one of those now gone too

[Author]

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