[dsmart]

IS AMAZON THE NEW STAR CITIZEN PUBLISHER?

So TheAgent is back with some info that even I find it very hard to believe, let alone absorb. I have reached out to my own sources for some confirmation. Will report back when I hear more.

“so amazon is 100% their publisher now

welcome to the jungle, motherfuckers

I know everyone has said, no no, Lumberyard is free or whatever

but they just got a huge cash injection and programmers and support from amazon

so there you go

all severs are free. new patcher by amazon. new devs from amazon. new higher up execs are all amazon. no more dreams. mvp early 2018.

and they just tossed all the dead weight devs. goodbye, tony z

expect to see amazon partnerships everywhere this year, like the AMD days of old

btw according to rumors amazon is going to take a loss of $700m over 3 years in their games division in order to make it a viable product going forward“

Basically, if true, then the circle is complete, and this is the Freelancer (1, 2) debacle all over again, and which happened mere years after Microsoft bought Digital Anvil and booted Chris Roberts off the project.

I have to wonder how on Earth any publisher – let alone Amazon – would look at the state and notoriety of this project, let alone the largely toxic community, and find it to be a good investment.

For one thing, very few devs are using LumberYard; not because it’s a bad engine mind you, but because, well, UE4 and Unity5 are so far ahead, it’s not even funny. Plus, regardless of all the wonderful (they really knocked it out of the park, when compared to what they originally pulled from CryTek) things they’ve done with it, LumberYard at its core, is still based on CryEngine 3.x which very few devs actually used; when compared to other offerings.

Not to mention the HUGE liability Amazon would be saddled with, nor the inevitable lawsuits (from either whales or State and/or Fed officials) and backer backlash they are going to be facing when the final chips fall and the game promised, and for which they have received over $145m to date, isn’t delivered.

It beggars belief. But this is the videogame industry; it’s not supposed to make any sense.

In my Irreconcilable Differences blog from Dec 2016, I wrote about how I thought it makes sense that CIG switched to LumberYard. At the time, from what we could tell from the 2.6.0 build (which first had the LumberYard logo), and sources, they hadn’t actually switched at all; other than the move from Google Compute Engine to AWS. The current 2.6.1 build still doesn’t have any evidence (if you have access to LumberYard and Star Citizen 2.6.x, and you know what to look for – go look and see) that they have in fact made a “switch” beyond that move from GCE to AWS.

Note that they never gave backers ANY forewarning about the LumberYard switch back in December 2016. This despite the fact that for most of 2016; they were already contemplating the switch. Which isn’t all that surprising, considering all the information they tend to either withhold from backers or communicate poorly.

To wit, in the past 24hrs, they have discontinued (1, 2) yet another aspect of the project which most backers have come to rely on for information about the project. Yes, they have now canned – without notice or forewarning – the monthly studio reports. These were detailed reports which, despite being mostly bullshit and inconsequential fluff, the backers could still use in their wet dreams about all the crap (none of which – six years later – has come to fruition mind you) they’re going to be doing in a largely vaporware game.

It’s hilarious that my first Star Citizen blog from July 2015, Interstellar Citizens, was written due to what I had read in an earlier monthly report and determined that they were i) fucked, and couldn’t deliver on what was promised ii) making shit up on the fly iii) lying to backers in order to continue raising funds

As I type this, there is still no public schedule for the much awaited 3.0 patch (which was really coming by Dec 19th 2016). At the time, I had said (1, 2) that it was pure bullshit, and that it didn’t even exist. It’s now March 2017 and the next 2.6.2 patch is supposedly coming around Mar 23rd. That’s basically the end of Q1/17. This despite Chris Roberts going on the record and saying that they share with backers the same internal schedule they use.

So taken at face value, the absence of a 3.0 schedule basically means that it doesn’t yet exist as a build; thus no schedule. Either that or they won’t share it because then backers are going to hold them to it. All of which makes sense, seeing as even when they started doing schedules in Dec 2016 in order to give backers even more false sense of security, they tend to remove items from the schedule without warning or notification. So basically, for all intent and purposes, despite what was promised in 3.0, they could very well take any patch higher than 2.6.2 and call it 3.0.

Back in late 2015 when this whole thing fell in my lap, and Chris decided to “face the devil and give it a face” by calling me out for writing a blog that went mainstream, I had taken legal action in which I asked them for three things. Their legal “come at me bro” response; was basically as worthless as the medium it was written on. I had asked for:

1. Refunds for backers who asked for itThey resisted this until a brave backer, reading my blogs, decided to get State officials involved after they refused his refund. The end result basically proved what I had been saying all along that the ToS (which has been revised several times and skewed in favor of CIG) wouldn’t hold up to any legal scrutiny if backers were being refused refunds. I wrote about this in detail in my Star Citizen Refund Debacle blog. And just like that, compared to previous years, refunds were a thing.Not to mention this recent case brought by the CA District Attorney over the Lily drone crowd-funding fiasco. That case, like other State actions against crowd-funded projects, sets yet another standard and precedent for what I believe is coming down the line for Star Citizen if they continue along this path of non-delivery. It’s just too big to ignore.
   

   “There’s also a slightly technical issue that forms a second front in the DA’s lawsuit: the fact that they went with an independent “pre-order” strategy rather than an established crowdfunded development site like Kickstarter. That makes Lily’s money qualify more on the side of internet sales than investment in an idea (something Kickstarter and its projects are always careful to explain), which exposed the company to certain consumer protection laws.“

2. A schedule that backers can rely upon as an indicator for when they would get the games paid forThey refused to do this until Dec 2016 during a major backer backlash after they – again – missed the 2016 ship date for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42, then never gave any forewarning. Then, out of the Blue – without forewarning – there was a schedule. And it was largely bullshit because not only was it not even complete, let alone detailed, what they ended up releasing in 2.6.0 and 2.6.1 barely contained what was promised, but also contained a slew of things that weren’t even in the schedule to begin with. Which means that they were just sharing what they felt was enough to keep backers on a leash. The practice continues in the current 2.6.2 schedule.
3. The promised financial accountability promised in the ToS which they used as a way to gain backer confidenceGiven the controversy surrounding the claims of monies $145 million to date raised (1, 2) for the project, not to mention the Red flags in the filings of the UK entities or the disparity in the funding chart (which doesn’t appear to take into account backer refunds, bank loans, and investor money), it is highly unlikely that outside of a lawsuit (whale backers, investors, State and/or Fed officials) that backers will ever get this financial accountability. And the arbitration clause in the ToS pretty much represents the first hurdle for whale backers because only investors, State and Fed officials can get around that, as they are not bound by the ToS.

So aside from the many rumors – and evidence – that the project is in trouble, whale backers ejecting like rats from a sinking ship etc, if Amazon has in fact taken on the liability and the role of “publisher” for this project, thus putting it under the purview of one of the Amazon Game Studios, to me, that’s the one move that’s going to cause the largest backer revolt yet. For one thing, as long as Chris Roberts isn’t in charge, any competent AGS lead producer will immediately have access to the game’s design and schedule, then see that i) what they’ve promised is all but a dream, and – as I’ve stated – simply cannot be built as promised ii) even if they chopped it up, scaled it down, and shipped both Star Citizen and Squadron 42, it likely won’t happen before 2020 – at best.

The flip side of Amazon (who is apparently doubling down) being the publisher is that they stand a very good chance of stripping away all the lofty promises, while attempting to ship a game they can deliver – even in an MVP form. Unlike Freelancer, it won’t be such an easy sell to backers who have paid upfront – and in some cases thousands of dollars – for a completely different game.

LumberYard needs a boost because it’s not widely adopted. But using it to sell AWS is a tough call because contrary to popular belief the AWS costs can be prohibitive – especially for multiplayer games. And when those games stop making enough money to pay for AWS, well, it’s sunset time. So in the case of Star Citizen, I just don’t see how AMZ buying or publishing this game makes sense. It’s a massive financial and PR liability. And if that were to happen, the end result is that those acting like they are in a cult will just end up blaming AMZ for ruining Chris’s ‘vision‘ if they shipped anything less than what he has promised – even as all indications are that he can’t deliver on said promises anyway. With $145m (if you believe it) to date in liability, what exactly would AMZ be buying for them to even recoup that; let alone make any money? All that money is basically pre-orders with very little room for further monetization. Not even if it came to consoles. It makes no sense for them to do it; which is why I find it hard to believe this rumor. But if AMZ is going to do this as a way of marketing LumberYard + AWS for games, it’s one heck of an expensive spend – aside from it being completely nonsensical.

If you’re a whale backer, or investor in this project, and not already asking questions or trying to find out whether or not this very specific rumor is in fact true (in some form or another), you will only have yourself to blame for the end result.

Stay tuned.

[dsmart]

SQUADRON 42 – #JUSTANOTHERGAME MODE?

With all the recent musings and rumors, not to mention the switch to Lumberyard rekindling talk of SQ42 coming to consoles, it’s looking a lot like, just as I said in the past*, that SQ42 could very well end up being another game module within the pre-existing game launcher.

*”A recent rumor that’s been floating around also suggests that SQ42 will probably no longer exist as a separate game as previously planned. Instead, the missions will be rolled into Star Citizen, thus making it just another game mode like Arena Commander and Star Marine. Yeah, it’s hilarious. Especially when you consider that they split it into a separate product earlier this year; no doubt in order to maximize sales, as well as spin it off as its own title; thus justifying a console port, as well as DLC (episodic content etc).

To be honest, as a developer, and given the structure of the what they’ve built so far, I think making it a game mode and accessible via the Star Citizen menu, is probably a good call. Though it is mission based single-player, but originally billed to support co-op (which requires networking support), it makes sense. In fact, doing that could also enable them to bring back co-op play. But that would require revisions to the missions of course. And if nothing else, it would be consistent with the other game modules (hangar, persistent universe, star marine, arena commander).”

To that end, someone in my forum recently posed this question as to its legality.

“I honestly don’t see a legal way for them to just roll SQ42 into the main game similar to hangar or AC once they separated the games and started selling it as a completely separate “game”. Wouldn’t that essentially make it false advertising/fraudulent sales, no matter how much sense it would make? Or am I missing something.“

Actually they can do it; and it would be perfectly legal.

Remember that right now the main game launcher is just a menu system. You can go to the hangar, arena commander, star marine, and the Star Citizen (aka Persistent Universe aka pee-you). When you pledge buy the game – without SQ42 – you get all of that. If you buy a stand-alone ship (cheapest being $45), and also SQ42, then you get access to everything. So basically, for a low price of $90, you can get access to both Star Citizen and SQ42. Except that most of the ships they have been selling – some at thousands of dollars – either have zero functionality, let alone supporting modes (e.g. news, farming, mining, exploration etc), or they haven’t even been built yet.

If they roll SQ42 into the game launcher, then it’s just another menu item like the above. Which means that it will run just like those modules, in a stand-alone fashion, and with no connection to them.

Since SQ42 is just a single player game that takes place within the same game universe; and seeing as they still haven’t even built the other systems yet, let alone all the areas (e.g. planets) where the missions take place, it makes sense for it to be just another game mode.

Think about it. There is no SQ42 without them building the rest of the star systems – including planets – which they claim (1, 2) will be using a combination of procedural generation and hand-crafted areas. Even if they end up building them, they are shared by both the pee-you and SQ42. So why would they want to make it a separate “game” outside of the game launcher? There is no sense in that.

So whether or not they make it a standalone game, with its own launcher etc, or it’s #justanothergamemode accessible via the standard game launcher, it will end up being the same game. It just means that for those who bought only SQ42, they have to figure out a way to only enable just that module when the game is launched; thus restricting access to the others.

And as long as they deliver something called SQ42, they are legally in the clear. But they won’t, because that game is pretty specific in what was promised.

Funny thing is, back when I was developing All Aspect Warfare & Angle Of Attack, they both used the same game engine/modules/world etc. However, AOA was just the aerial combat portion and which had its own menu even though it was basically the same game, but with only planetary air combat missions (not present in AAW). Basically, one large game, split into two, and with different experiences (AAW is combined arms, AOA is planetary air combat).

Aside from all this, after completely missing all (2014, 2015, 2016) ship dates, SQ42 didn’t make an appearance in Citizen2016. After major backlash, they made a video called Road To CitizenCon which they used to explain how so close they were to showing it, but then couldn’t make it – at the last minute. Here’s the burning question. They knew – beforehand – that they couldn’t make it, why didn’t they disclose that during the show? Further, it stands to reason that they knew beforehand, and had the foresight to make a video – ahead of time – about their inability to show, let alone release it. That was Aug 2016. So, they were this close but didn’t make it; yet, now almost two months later, not only have they not even shown whatever it was they were so close to releasing, but, like the much touted 3.0, it’s not even in the dev schedule.

I remember back when some backers were saying that since it didn’t get shown in Dec 2016, that it’s possible that it would be a Q1/17 release. Well, here we are – and Q1 ends in less than a month and half.

WHY 3.0 REMAINS A PIPE DREAM

It was all lies. Right from the start when it was being touted as far back as Summer 2016, then officially took center stage during GamesCon in Aug, it was already clear. From that presentation in which Chris Roberts stated the following, then they released 2.6.0 instead, it was already clear.

“..so, it’s our big end of the year release. er so er yeah, so we’re gonna get it out the end of the year; hopefully not on December 19th but, er, like last year….but it is a big one, so, not making er, I got shot for making promises, but er, that’s our goal“

Excerpt of what I said in Nov 2016

“When it comes to the 3.0 patch, backers may as well just reconcile the fact that they were lied to – again. It’s not even a case of a missed schedule. He basically came up with a list of features (none of which, according to sources, exists or in a form that would have lent any credibility to his “end of year” promise) he knew backers would fall for, then put it out there as “coming soon”; thus – like the demos at GamesCom and CitizenCon – raising money from the few whales who are still dumb enough to keep giving him money.
…
Rumors and source leaks aside, the writing is on the wall. They are either going to move 2.6 into 2017 – as indeed they should if it’s not ready for test release – or they will try to push some interim 2.5.x minor branch out in order to quash some of the dissent. But the fact remains, waiting until the last minute, or at a time when the bad news won’t affect the anniversary stream, is just another dishonest plan, and one which has become a staple for them.
…
3.0 status: sources say all are still laughing at this one. It simple does NOT exist as was communicated to backers. It was basically a wishlist of items they wanted to see in a point release; and which Roberts when on the record (again) as saying was coming by “year end, and not on Dec 19th like last year“.“

Excerpt of what I said in Sept 2016

“While it does not absolve them of the liability of breaking an NDA, it’s easy to see why it makes sense to the people doing it. Especially in light of the fact that this latest leak has clearly shown that not only is the 2.6 patch most likely not coming in Oct; but that given that the test pattern has a lengthy period from “limited Evocati –> wide testing –> live“, it means that it probably won’t be out until sometime in the Nov/Dec time frame. And that, my friends, all but guarantees that the much touted 3.0 (aka the Jesus Patch) which Chris was heavily promoting at GamesCom as coming by end of the year, is not being released this year. At all. Yeah, I know – shocking. Note that there isn’t even a 2.7 patch. It was once talked about, then came GamesCom and Chris saying that after 2.5 (current), there will be 2.6, and then it’s onto 3.0 – the Jesus Patch which fixes everything, and includes all of the latest promises.“

In the past weeks, some backers have now realized that they were blatantly lied to – again. And a little over a week ago, as I wrote here, Ali B (Ben Parry’s boss) in a rare appearance in the community, made another post that added fuel to the fire.

“This will most likely be a setup issue with the trigger volumes and logic that the art & design teams use to control color grading across the level (e.g. if you manage to escape a space station but don’t pass through specific trigger volumes then the color grade might not be updated). If there is a known set of steps to reliably reproduce the issue I’d recommend raising it in the issue council.
This setup however is intended to be replaced with a more reliable and systemic system to control color grading where every room is tagged with the desired color grade / mood (either by art or procedurally by code). This system will be updated every frame and doesn’t rely on hand placed trigger volumes so will never get into an incorrect state, even if you somehow teleport from one location to another. This will likely have a dependency on the ‘room system’ being developed in LA so it’s something we intend to address later in the year, and is a required feature for both 3.0 and Squadron 42.
Cheers,” – Ali Brown – Director of Graphics Engineering

Basically they knew – back in Aug 2016 – that whatever Chris Roberts said was 3.0 and coming before Dec 19th, wasn’t true. Not even an over-estimation, because we’re now in February, and they’ve only just released 2.6.1 patch to the public test universe; with the next one being 2.6.2. And the dev schedule makes no mention of 3.0, let alone anything about Squadron 42. In this regard, with 2.6.1 supposedly going live by Feb 17th, it stands to reason that 2.6.2 is most likely another month or two away, depending on what they put in it.

So if back in Aug Chris said they were working on getting it out by Dec 19th, that would mean it had to have already been in development. That means, by the time 2.6.2 is out, assuming they don’t do another 2.6.x patch or even 2.7 (as Todd Pappy let slip in a recent broadcast), that would be almost eight months since Chris stated it, and four months since it was due. And there is already a major Reddit discussion asking for the 3.0 schedule.

It’s safe to say then that both 3.0 and SQ42 (which needs 3.0 framework) stand very little – if any – chance of coming out even in the Summer 2017. Which means, all eyes are to Gamescom in Aug or CitizenCon in Dec. Even with GDC, E3 and two more PAX events ahead of Gamescom, they don’t traditionally release anything at those shows. In fact, last year they skipped mostly all events, while opting for only Gamescom and CitizenCon.

At the end of the day, they can brand any build as 3.0, and call it a day. All with complete disregard for promises made. And they can do this with impunity because even as they continue to do so, and whales, in Sunk Cost Fallacy, keep propping it up, they get the impression that they have a blank check. And with that, they have zero incentive to finish the games as promised, let alone deliver on any promises made.

WHY THE E.L.E CONTINUES TO BE A GOING CONCERN

When, almost a year ago, I wrote an Extinction Level Event blog, in my description of what I believe to be the slow and gradual death of the project, and a total loss of backer money, some people thought it was just hyperbole. Especially since they were all under the impression that SQ42 and Star Citizen were going to be completed and released by the end of 2016.

The latest metrics (1, 2, 3) are a clear indicator that funding (1, 2) and backer (many whales have, and continue to, put in for refunds) numbers are on the decline. Even as I had written (1, 2) about the funding and accountability issues, it appears that a lot more people are coming to the sad realization that, when it’s all said and done, what I said back in July 2015 in my first blog, and which started a major backlash and attacks against me from not only CIG/RSI, but also their toxic backers, continues to play out and remains true.

“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.“

We’re now in year six (five if you refuse to take 2011 into account, despite Chris Roberts claiming the game was in dev then). With over 350 – 500 people across almost a dozen studios, having been involved in the project – and almost $143 million (not including loans, investors etc) of backer money, the game is still very much in pre-Alpha. It’s not even alpha, let alone beta, by Chris Roberts’ own definition of what those actually mean as per his development.

As I wrote extensively last month, Chris has already gone on the record describing the development funding as akin to a Ponzi scheme.

“First of all, we always have a decent amount of money in reserve, so if all support would collapse, we would not suddenly be incapacitated. We plan the scope of the development based on what arrives monthly by the people to support. I’m not worried, because even if no money came in, we would have sufficient funds to complete Squadron 42. The revenue from this could in-turn be used for the completion of Star Citizen.” – Chris Roberts, 2016

And those words are being echoed today by some backers who somehow have been led to believe that, even with all this money already pre-paid for the games, that there is a very good chance that it won’t be enough to deliver the two games promised. And that SQ42, a niche space combat title, is somehow going to be so awesome and ground breaking, that millions of gamers who aren’t already entitled to it, are going to buy it, thus keeping the operations going. Those people are the same fools who keep throwing money into an open furnace.

How foolish do you have to be to believe that when triple A games like COD:IW (barely 400K units on Steam), and Elite Dangerous (1 million units on Steam) in the space combat genre aren’t selling those kind of numbers (note that by Jan 2016, Elite Dangerous, a vastly superior game had sold 1.4 million units), that somehow SQ42 is going to be the magnum opus that’s going to continue funding this operation to the tune of over $35m a year. Not to mention that a single studio (F42-UK), as I wrote last month, burned through over 50% of that in 2015 alone; and will most likely burn through even more, given the increased resources needed for 2016.

And that’s precisely why they have not only been downsizing gradually (lots of departures in Q4/16 and in the new year) without making any noise (rumors are that Behavior Interactive is the latest third-party studio no longer working on the project) , but also said to be converting some employees to contractors. The latter is clearly an attempt to not only save money, but also save money and image because contractors don’t have the same termination protections, benefits etc as employees. And contractors, like third-party studios, can come and go without fanfare. It’s also why they have to keep using all kinds of tricks (cash-only sales, sales of JPEG ships with zero chance of making it into the game, R&D demos posing as actual game code etc) to keep raising money. Even though the project has already been funded by almost 3x what was originally needed – even after the vision 2.0 scope creep.

At this point in time, it should already be crystal clear that SQ42 and Star Citizen stand very little chance of being completed and released in 2017. Regardless of whether or not you believe the dev schedule, or the Aug 2016 dev slides, it’s just not possible, given the sheer amount of work left to complete. All backers can do now is wait and see what does get released in 2017; and whether or not the whole thing gradually collapses before they get a game worth the thousands that some have put into it.

[dsmart]

ALL THE PROCEDURAL PLANETS PROMISES TO DATE

With planets on the 3.0 menu, I thought I’d catalog and bookmark this for future reference.

10 For The Chairman EP 78 (May 2016) in which the discussion about procedurally generated planets, takes center stage and an hilarious turn.

Still not here. And it’s almost as if all of these were just R&D tech demos designed to show the non-existent progress on this front…

“Nyx Landing Zone Preview” (Aug 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YMlnn4Ngk

“Pupil To Planet” (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yLTm8DZ8s4

“Seamless procedural planetary landing gameplay” (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSiww9ZO4

“Alpha 3.0 gamescom 2016 Gameplay” (Aug 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1wX1Kk3Ajg

“Procedural Planets v2” (Oct 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdCFTF8j7yI

…and that sandworm on a planet (Oct 2016)

https://youtu.be/XuDj5v81Nd0?t=5120

[dsmart]

STAR CITIZEN – “OPEN DEVELOPMENT”

So recently TotalBiscuit made some comments about Star Citizen regarding people comparing it to No Man’s Sky.

Jan 26, 2017: In this broadcast, he said (verbatim):

“The comparisons to No Man’s Sky are bullshit. Wanna know why they are bullshit? Because No Man’s Sky hid everything before launch; and lied about a bunch of shit; and then came out and ended up being a bunch of shit.

Star Citizen is the most transparent development of anything I have ever seen. There is so much info..I mean one, you can go and play it right now; and you can see the exact state that it’s currently in – ‘cuz you can just go and play the alpha.

And the amount of information they put out on a weekly basis..they make videos, they stream, the developer blogs are like five fucking pages long a day.

There’s no game in history that has been as transparent as with the development and where they’re going with it, than Star Citizen has been.

They…you can play it; they show it all the time; they are completely open with their process.

So no, yeah, it might end coming out and being shit; and the people throwing thousands of dollars at it, well I think that’s kind of foolish, but you know, it’s your money, you do what you want with it.

But I refuse to allow it to be compared to No Man’s Sky; it’s a, it’s a polar opposite situation..of that. It’s a stupid comparison. We know exactly what Star Citizen is, right now at this very moment. We do; it’s all out there.”

Aug 16, 2016: In this broadcast, he basically makes the same comparisons between No Man’s Sky and Star Citizen hype; but this time specifically about the “zealous” Star Citizen fanbase and it’s comparison to the NMS one.

July 9th, 2015: In this broadcast, he said (verbatim):

“I am certainly concerned about No Man’s Sky; obviously I’ll give it a try, uhm, but it’s extremely ambitious, and that’s always a reason to doubt it. And then when you throw in the idea of procedural generation, like urrgh. I hear that word; I hear that word a lot, and whenever I hear it, I get a little bit worried because I’ve seen games that do the all procedural generation thing, and they’re generally by no means as good as a game that has a properly designed level. Because the computer can never create a properly designed level anywhere near as well as an actual human being can. And when comes out to planets; I’m like oh well, I mean, er I dunno what’s gonna be going on with that. I’ve definitely got my doubts; certainly. I hope it turns out good; I don’t want it to fail.

*laughs*

Star Citizen, imaginary game, yeah. You threw money at a pipe dream. You know, maybe Star Citizen will come out at some point in some form, I’m sure it probably will, but. We will see some game, that has space ships in it. It will probably be…yeah, we turned it into a racing game guys, we took the racing component that’s the entire game, just like, we’re done. It is, it is super ambitious. It also has a lot of money, but it doesn’t matter how much money you can throw at a game, you can still end up failing your goals.

They’re [backers] throwing money at a dream; and I, I don’t really know if Star Citizen actually turns out to be what they claimed it is, and what they promise it is; then it will be incredible no doubt; but..when? When is that gonna happen? “

Meanwhile, over at the /r/StarCitizen watering hole, a bunch of the “zealous” fanbase, along with the Usual Suspects (aka Shitizens) are trying to use his statements to somehow legitimize the notion that because Star Citizen has “open” development, that means everything is fine, it’s coming out etc.

It’s all the usual rubbish.

TotalBiscuit has been clear and consistent in his musings and statements regarding Star Citizen. His recent statements are no different. His comment about NMS vs SC, especially in the recent broadcast, are restricted to the notion of people comparing the two games in terms of knowing what the game is and about; and that because NMS was a disaster, so too will Star Citizen.

He is basically saying that with NMS you didn’t know what you were getting, what state the game was in etc. Until it was released. Then all hell broke loose. But with Star Citizen, there is all this wealth of material, you can read them, go play the alpha right now etc. So you know – beforehand – the state that the game is in, the discussions around it, and from there you can make an informed decision about it.

The key takeaway here is that, NMS hid everything about the development, failed to curb expectations etc. But how is that wrong? The game wasn’t crowd-funded, it wasn’t early access, and they were under no obligation to release anything about the development of their game, other the hype they were generating. In short, they operated like a standard dev studio or publisher would.

Star Citizen is a $142m crowd-funded game; not to mention the amount of money from loans and investors which haven’t been disclosed. Even if they don’t have to explain anything to the bankers and investors, they have an obligation to the backers because that was the premise of the project and the promise made to backers. It is patently irrelevant if they are “open” (hint: they aren’t) or not, in terms of full disclosure because, since day one, they’ve historically LIED to backers, used shady tactics to continue fleecing them for funding etc. And after five (six if you’re counting) years and all this money, neither of the two games promised for a Nov 2014 delivery, are even near 15% complete.

 

No Man’s Sky promised no such thing; and were under no obligation to be “open” about their development. However, just like Sean Murray did, Chris Roberts has been talking up and lying about a bunch of features which have now either been cut, or will never – ever – make it into the game.

The Star Citizen devs are only “open” about what they want to share with backers. And most of the more critical info is either hidden or obfuscated. Go ahead, ask a backer when the much touted 3.0 patch (see my predictions here – all of which came true) is coming out; or the state of Squadron 42; or the status of the Lumberyard engine switch; or their internal projections (note the public schedule only goes to 2.6.1) for the release of both games; or why they were busy making R&D tech demos under the guise of building tech for the game engine; or why some critical info about the game, ends up in game magazines (e.g. in Germany) instead of the community etc. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Star Citizen is as open and transparent as the frosted glass in a Church. In fact, the “game” itself is so transparent, that you can’t even see it; because there is no game.

ps: Rant by a former concierge and $10K+ backer.

[dsmart]

WHY STAR CITIZEN BACKERS SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION

No doubt you already read about the collapse of the Lily drone project. Yesterday, news reports (1, 2) revealed its demise amid a lawsuit filed by San Francisco after several months of investigations, made possible by anonymous sources within the project. As you read these and other news reports, key excerpts such as the ones below, should give you an idea of what I have been clamoring about Star Citizen since July 2015 when I wrote my first blog raising the alarm.

“Snap passed on the deal, which was first reported by Business Insider, because of potential liability associated with pre-orders.”

“Now some tech veterans say there were red flags in Lily’s story all along.”

“There’s also a slightly technical issue that forms a second front in the DA’s lawsuit: the fact that they went with an independent “pre-order” strategy rather than an established crowdfunded development site like Kickstarter. That makes Lily’s money qualify more on the side of internet sales than investment in an idea (something Kickstarter and its projects are always careful to explain), which exposed the company to certain consumer protection laws.”

And what should be noted is that a judge saw it fit to grant San Francisco a TRO, allowing them to freeze the company assets. Which means that they did in fact have a case to be made.

Last year, amid various consumer unfriendly actions which CIG/RSI took, such as revising the ToS in June 2016, thereby stripping backers of certain protections and warranties they had since the start of the project, I wrote several blogs in which I opined that the project had seemingly evolved into an outright scam due to questionable fund-raising tactics used. And these tactics appeared due to the fact that they had run out of time and money to build the two games (Star Citizen, Squadron 42) promised. Then, just this past December, it was revealed that, despite promises made, they didn’t even have the tech required to build the games promised. So, while lying to backers, they were then found to have switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard game engine. I wrote an extensive blog about this in Irreconcilable Differences.

And through most of my blogs, I had written that no matter what CIG/RSI or the toxic backers say, anyone with money in the project, was entitled to everything that CIG/RSI promised back in Oct 2012 when the project first appeared on Kickstarter. For quite some time, they were refusing even refunds, only granting them to those (like me) who they deemed were detrimental to the project in some form or another. Much has been written about how they refund and close accounts of backers who were identified and found to be expressing dissent against either the project or it’s creators. I recently wrote another update about that as well. It wasn’t until one backer decided to heed my advice and go directly to the State authorities, thus forcing CIG/RSI to give him a refund, that people started getting refunds upon request. And I wrote the Refund Debacle blog specifically about that back in July 2016.

I had also written that CIG/RSI giving some backers refunds, doesn’t absolve them of any liabilities, nor does it allow them to maintain an open ended delivery date for the project; even after they had given a fixed Nov 2014 delivery date, and which also had an 18 month delay period. Someone running a scam, for example a Ponzi scheme, will tend to appease those who pose a threat to said scam. So if you think about it, just because someone gets a refund, doesn’t make what’s going on any less of a scam, nor does it mean that by giving refunds, they no longer have any legal liability. For example, when you break the law by stealing something, returning it doesn’t mean that you’re no longer liable for prosecution.

So this recent lawsuit, which is similar to other lawsuits taken by other states against crowd-funding projects, echos everything that I have been saying since July 2015, as it pertains to the consumer protections which backers have. And now, we have a State official stating that because a project is run off a business site, it is actually subject to even more stringent consumer protection laws. Yet, back when I was saying this, and advocating for people to report the project to the FTC if they didn’t get a refund, I was incessantly attacked and derided. And seeing as, outside of the CA refund issue previously reported, no action has yet been taken against CIG/RSI by State and/or Fed officials, some people are taking this to mean that everything is business as usual. As I had previously reported, like some backers, my attorneys and I have personally spoken (and my case met) with both State and Fed officials about how I became involved in this project and its on-going controversy. What the officials choose to do, and when, is entirely up to them. Similarly, what backers and their attorneys choose to do, and when, is also entirely up to them.

I believe that the project is an on-going scam, that certain actions taken are a violation of consumer laws; and according to sources and info which I have passed along to various authorities, could quite possibly be found to be facing accusations of both consumer and wire fraud if the project and its executives were in fact investigated. I had called for such an investigation as far back as July 2015 when I wrote the Interstellar Discourse blog. I believe that the creators, as well as their friends and family – all executives involved with the project – are engaged in actions tantamount to unjust enrichment, while pretending to be working toward the development of a project. A project that, by all accounts, is reported to be in dire financial trouble due to the amount of the time and money left in which to deliver the two games as promised. A project which, in Oct 2013 after raising $25 million, Chris Roberts in a statement said was fully funded. I wrote about this in my Fidelity Of Failure blog back in June 2016.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Star Citizen fully funded at $25 million in Oct 2013[/caption]

For as many times as I have been proven to be correct about this project, there will come a time when most people who thought that this could never happen, will be wondering how it is that a project that has thus far raised over $140 million (assuming the funding chart is accurate – which many believe it isn’t) from gamers, with other amounts from investors and loans, could possibly fail to deliver even a single game as promised, and yet managed to collapse.

Unlike projects like the Lily drone, when you consider the amount of money that backers and investors have put into this project, it’s easy to see that there is no way that refunds can be given to everyone. In short, once the money runs out ahead of the games being completed (in some form or another), it will end up being a total loss of backer and investor money.

GAMESTAR Feb 2017 INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS ROBERTS

PCGamesN: Squadron 42 would fund Star Citizen if cash ran out

Shortly after I wrote this missive, excerpts of a translated interview (original, Google translated) that Chris Roberts did with a German magazine, began to surface online. Given the print times, this interview no doubt took place within the last two to three months. It’s a pretty long interview. However, there are two very important excerpts which, without a doubt, prove two of the most important points that I’ve been going on about these past months.

1) He has basically confirmed that the project is a Ponzi scheme.

“First of all, we always have a decent amount of money in reserve, so if all support would collapse, we would not suddenly be incapacitated. We plan the scope of the development based on what arrives monthly by the people to support. I’m not worried, because even if no money came in, we would have sufficient funds to complete Squadron 42. The revenue from this could in-turn be used for the completion of Star Citizen.“

Note that he made this exact claim back in Sept 2014 in this statement – shortly after raising $55 million.

This basically confirms that they simply do not have the money to complete this project as promised; and that’s why they need to keep raising money as they have been doing. This despite the fact that the project funding currently stands at over $140 million. So basically, if refunds continue, and sales flow slows down, they can’t complete Star Citizen. Instead, now he says they are focusing on releasing the Squadron 42 single-player game which over 96% (according to our metrics) of the people who have thus far backed the project, are already entitled to – at no charge.

This also explains the lack of meaningful Star Citizen progress in 2016; not to mention the complete absence of Squadron 42 itself. Back in Sept 2016 when I wrote that neither Star Citizen nor SQ42 was going to be released in 2017, well, guess what happened.

Remember back when I said that they can’t build Star Citizen as promised, and that Chris is only now focused on SQ42 because he wants to make a movie; and that it’s more likely to be what they deliver – in some form or another? Yeah, me too. Then rumors started swirling that even so, they still can’t deliver the full Episode 1 of SQ42 as promised due to the fact that SQ42 shares the same engine as Star Citizen – complete with all the problems (besides networking) that it has. Hence rumors of a “prelude” or some sort of demo, being in the works.

If this is the bet that Chris has made, then for financial reasons, we’re back to talking about SQ42 on consoles. Hence more reasons for the Lumberyard engine switch.

2) He has basically confirmed that the 3.0 patch doesn’t exist.

“We’ve looked at 3.0 and said. We need that and that and that and then we found: Damn, that’s more than many complete games. Therefore, we develop a detailed plan for all tasks and subtasks. If that is done, we will share this plan with the community. This is expected to be the case at some point in January, depending on when the production team gets the information from the project managers.“

The article then goes on to say that during this time, there will be smaller updates due to the length of time in between. These include performance, as well as networking improvements, which the article says aren’t coming before 3.0. And that pretty much confirms what I wrote in my last blog that there were no networking revisions in the 2.6 patch; contrary to some people thinking that it was done as part of the Lumberyard switch.

Seriously, this one beggars belief, and is also proof positive that Chris has been lying to backers – consistently. Back in Aug 2016 during the Gamescom conference, Chris claimed that the much touted 3.0 patch was due out. That was even though they still hadn’t even released the 2.6 patch (which didn’t arrive until Dec 23rd). As I wrote over here, he went on the record (23:36) saying: “..so, it’s our big end of the year release. er so er yeah, so we’re gonna get it out the end of the year; hopefully not on December 19th but, er, like last year….but it is a big one, so, not making er, I got shot for making promises, but er, that’s our goal.”

You can see all the slides showing the roadmap for 3.x up to 4.0 which he then went on to share during CitizenCon 2016 in Nov. Subsequently, ahead of the show, back on Nov 2, 2016, I had written a missive that sources told that the 3.0 patch didn’t even exist at the time that he made those statements; and that he was blatantly lying. In fact, sources told me that the first time they even heard anything about such a patch, was when the slide went up. So apparently this was something the Chris and his top cohorts (Erin Roberts, Sean Tracey, Tony Zurovek, Brian Chambers) cooked up in the continued bid to lie to and mislead backers.

With 3.0 not even on the near horizon, let alone in the dev schedule, even as they talk about the upcoming 2.6.1, and now the 2.7 patch as per this recent stream (34:50) – which I recently wrote about – it is clear that with the main focus on SQ42, this 3.0 patch which most of us think is going to be the Minimum Viable Product (30:18) he spoke of back in April 18th, 2016, is not coming in the short term.

I think at this point, if the backers don’t have enough proof that this project is FUBAR, then we may need to revert to smoke signals. Regardless, it’s their money, and we don’t care what they do with it. Regardless, these unscrupulous scumbags who keep abusing backer goodwill in crowd-funding projects, are ruining it for everyone. Especially for us in video gaming. My purpose in this whole Star Citizen fiasco remains the same: archiving and sharing my opinions on this whole farce, while striving toward unconditional vindication.

Finally, along these same lines, if you haven’t yet watched this interview with Dan Trufin in the F42-GER office, you should. Key points: 1) persistent points of interest on planets are basically just ship wrecks. Just like in Elite Dangerous btw 2) @06:48, most of the ships need to be “refactored” due to docking problems 3) @09:52, networking is still mostly broken 4) @12:02, the sandstorm in the CitizenCon 2016 presentation was faked (we knew this already), and that no weather systems have been implemented thus far in the engine.

Love charts and numbers? Don’t forget to check out the Star Citizen Analytics project.

[dsmart]

STAR CITIZEN – EARLY 2017 UPDATE

The year has barely started, but the clowns over at CIG/RSI are making waves again, even as they come up with new and inventive ways to piss off their backers who have so far given them $141 million to make a pair of games (neither of which is even near completion). So, let’s see where we are barely two weeks into the New Year.

THE LUMBERYARD NON-SWITCH

You probably know by now, as I wrote in my last blog, Irreconcilable Differences, that after several months of delays, they finally rushed out the 2.6 patch in late December. Not only has it been confirmed that in 2.6 the switch was basically restricted to their use of Lumberyard’s abstracted access to EC2, hence the need for displaying the logo, but also that aside from some network performance improvements due to the switch from Google Compute to Amazon EC2 cloud servers, it had zero impact on the game. Same game. Same custom engine. Same bugs. Same performance & networking issues. Which pretty much explains why they didn’t even bother mentioning that – for almost a year – they were considering this switch, but never once mentioned it to the backers.

As one joker put it: “The development is so transparent and open, that you can’t even see it.”

STAR MARINE. TOO LITTLE. TOO LATE.

The 2.6 patch also brought the once canceled and much anticipated, delayed, then canceled, fps module.

Some backers were rejoicing that – after four years of promoting it – CIG managed to release a stand-alone fps game module built with an engine designed specifically for fps games. The end result? It’s generic, lackluster, buggy (hey pre-Alpha!), and uninspiring in every way. Needless to say, this one won’t be saving PC gaming any time soon. And if you believed Chris Roberts – even for a second – when he said that “it would be more lethal than Call Of Duty“, congrats; you’re a fool.

Basically, this was just them ticking off another check mark in the list of documented promises, and which joins the hangar, Arena Commander, and persistent universe modules in their mediocrity (at least for a $141 million project). And if those other modules are anything to go by, this first release will also lack any meaningful content and updates for quite some time.

Case in point, people are already using hacks to cheat. For a game that is in pre-alpha, you would think that these reports would be useful to CIG in order that they be identified and fixed. But no, that’s too easy and logical. So instead, they’re threatening to ban accounts. For cheating in a pre-alpha game. Yeah.

And speaking of Arena Commander – which first appeared in 2014 – after all this time, not only do they still not have a plausible flight module, but in 2.6 they somehow managed to make it worse; if you can imagine that.

SQUADRON 42. STILL MIA

This single-player version of the game, and which was to tie into the larger Star Citizen (aka Persistent Universe), is still a no-show; and all bets about it even being released in 2017, are off. In fact, in a recent issue of German magazine, Der Spiegel, Chris was quoted as saying that it would “probably be finished in 2017“.

Rumors have been swirling for months that not only is that module itself in serious trouble, but that it doesn’t even exist as a cohesive game. Just think, it was supposed to be coming in 2014, then 2015, then for real, in 2016. But so far, aside from the godawful Morrow Tour video from CitizenCon 2015, nothing of it has been shown. Not even a trailer or a demo.

After seeing the likes of the recently released Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare and the upcoming Mass Effect Andromeda, anything less than a spectacular showing of SQ42 – the game that Chris mostly cares about – will be devastating. But let’s not ignore the fact that Chris had gone on the record and stated that they had a demo “ready to go” for CitizenCon 2016, but they opted not to release it due to time constraints. I wrote about that in my Shattered Dreams blog.

Other rumors say that only a prelude (aka demo) – not the full Episode 1 – will be released sometime in Q1/17. Seriously, we can’t wait. Though with some top level team members (e.g. Tom Johnson, Todd Pappy) on that project rumored to have either left or on their way out, one has to wonder how far along that module is at this point.

A recent rumor that’s been floating around also suggests that SQ42 will probably no longer exist as a separate game as previously planned. Instead, the missions will be rolled into Star Citizen, thus making it just another game mode like Arena Commander and Star Marine. Yeah, it’s hilarious. Especially when you consider that they split it into a separate product earlier this year; no doubt in order to maximize sales, as well as spin it off as its own title; thus justifying a console port, as well as DLC (episodic content etc).

To be honest, as a developer, and given the structure of the what they’ve built so far, I think making it a game mode and accessible via the Star Citizen menu, is probably a good call. Though it is mission based single-player, but originally billed to support co-op (which requires networking support), it makes sense. In fact, doing that could also enable them to bring back co-op play. But that would require revisions to the missions of course. And if nothing else, it would be consistent with the other game modules (hangar, persistent universe, star marine, arena commander).

None of this matters anyway. Now that they are switching to Lumberyard – five years into development – they have bigger problems to worry about.

THE DEV SCHEDULE

Back in Dec, following the disastrous CitizenCon 2016 and anniversary community events, they released a dev schedule. Most of us – after we finished laughing – remained skeptical, seeing as we already knew that they did that only to boost backer confidence in the name of “open development”. Of course, aside from the fact that the schedule was just rubbish, they missed every single deadline contained within. Finally rushing to release a broken 2.6 patch, of which various promised items were removed. Which begs the question. Why bother? They are already notorious for missing deadlines; so how does releasing a schedule in which they continue that trend, change anything? It doesn’t. They only did it due to the backer uprising.

So here we are, week two of the New Year, and the first problem (shocker) was just made public via the latest communication to backers from Chris. They’re now talking about delivering 3.0 (aka The Jesus Patch) in 2017. The same 3.0 that Chris, according to these slides, said would be released before Dec 19th, 2016. No talk of 4.0 coming in 2017 now. The Reddit thread that popped out around it, contains the usual hilarity.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="726"] Star Citizen 01/06/17 newsletter[/caption]

FOR SALE, ONE BARELY FUNCTIONAL FLAMETHROWER

Quite a number of backers continue requesting and getting refunds. Some have made it public, while others are doing it quietly in order to stay out of the on-going fray. Even the hardcore backers who were once convinced that I was wrong about all this, that my sole purpose was to kill (yeah, hilarious, I know) the project etc are getting refunds. In the last 24 hrs, two made public that they had requested a refund. In fact, when this hardcore backer posted that he put in for a refund, he got attacked; prompting another backer ($7.2K) to put in for his refund.

CIG have in fact been granting refunds – as indeed they should – or face the wrath of State and Fed officials who are long aware of what’s going on with the project. However, in the New Year, there have been some reports of refunds being rejected. We’re still looking into it; but it appears as if either they’ve stopped doing refunds in 2017, thus only doing those who filed before the end of 2016, or they’re enforcing the 2016 ToS refund criteria now.

They’re rumored to be quite low on funds (it’s expensive to fund 4 studios and almost 400 people around the globe), so we already expected this to start happening eventually. With this much money at stake, all things considered, CIG is basically robbing Peter (new backers) to pay Paul (refunds). Which is how a Ponzi scheme collapses once the amount of money needed to give to Paul, exceeds what was taken from Peter – and spent.

If after all these months of being warned you didn’t get a refund, well, you only have yourself to blame.

Across the web, and on the official forums, many a heated thread has either been closed or flat-out deleted. A lot of the hardcore backers, already fed up with what is going on, are voicing dissent on a daily basis; even as they face incessant attacks from the anti-social Shitizens (the backers who are waging an Internet war of attrition against dissent).

And even long-time backers are facing attacks and ridicule for even questioning what is going on. This thread popped on Reddit after a long time original backer ($8K vested!) was censored on the CIG forums for basically doing nothing wrong. So he got even and put in for a refund.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, in the past 24 hours, yet another original (2012) backer, Badger, a Golden ticket holder and the second or third oldest documented backer, also faced similar derision. Get this. A CIG staffer even threatened to close his account if he leaked the plot to Star Wars Rogue One movie. Yes, something that has nothing to do with Star Citizen.

If you have been following my Star Citizen writings, then you should know that this won’t be the first time that CIG have taken action against a backer for something said outside of CIG forums. There was a media article about it as well. Anyway, the backer wrote an entire missive about it up on Google Docs; which he then posted in this Reddit thread. Well, go look and see what happened next.

Basically, the backers – who just wanted a game they paid for and who are now seeking accountability, while voicing their dissent, are in an all-out war with Shitizens (who are fighting a proxy war for CIG), and even CIG community staffers.

Aside from the wars going on in the backer community, CIG has also been scaling back on community activities. Last year they canceled the popular 10 For The Chairman programming (in which Chris answered questions from subscribers and backers), while scaling back on a number of other broadcasts. This new year has now seen the cancellation of the Reverse The Verse (weekly updates from the community teams) programming as well. And – get this – that has now been replaced with a Happy Hour broadcast in which CIG community members get to play the game on a stream. No, I’m not making that up.

Note that all of these broadcasts are supposedly paid for by subscribers paying $10 or $20 per month. Yes, it’s hilarious. The RSI forum and Reddit threads are…well, go look.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Having failed to deliver the games promised and within the 18 month grace period following the Nov 2014 promised date, CIG have not only failed to release financials to backers as promised, but they also changed the ToS in June 2016, removing that requirement for new backers completely. That single action alone sparked a refund cascade, and which I wrote about extensively in my Refund Debacle blog. Since that time, seeing as the UK laws, unlike US laws, require companies to make their financials public, we’ve been paying close attention to the money being funneled into the UK from the US.

After being late (like the other two entities) and paying fines each year, for whatever reason, CIG (UK) have recently filed their 2015 financials. Basically, CIG (UK) costs £15m (approx $18m) a year; which is almost 50% of the $35.9m raised in 2015. These financials are evidence as to why they need to keep raising money. Think about it. If this single studio cost this much to run in 2015; how were they planning to build a game for $65m, let alone $15m as they were saying merely two years ago?

And my guess is that this funding amount is going to probably be higher in 2016 due to the increased head count as shown in this slide during CitizenCon 2016 this past Oct.

Remember, for some reason, there are 3 (!) UK companies for this single project. Seriously. CIG (UK), RSI (UK), F42 (UK).

Links for financials for all three UK entities: CIG, F42, RSI, and the complete (we think) list of companies setup for and/or associated with the Star Citizen project in some form or another:

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

The money flow for 2014-2015:

Also, similar to how some States here in the US give tax breaks and financial assistance to some companies (see the 38 Studios debacle) depending on investment, jobs etc, we’ve been trying to find out how much financial or tax breaks CIG received from the UK; specifically the city of Manchester. This is something that some of the local businesses are also trying to find out, amid rumors that CIG may have sucked up most of it. To that end, when we came across the 2016 Science & Innovation Audit report from Manchester, which listed CIG as having a £1 billion turnover, we immediately jumped on it seeing as we knew it to be factually incorrect. In fact, given their yearly fund-raising, not taking into account bank loans (e.g. the NatWest loan in the UK), and investor money, the entity is barely a $35 million company. Assuming you go with gross revenue and not P&L.

Manchester wrote back to confirm that it was in fact an error.

But they also indicated that the US parent company had a £150 million turnover. We have no freaking clue where they got those numbers from either; so another query has been sent to them. We’re just hoping that whatever it is they filed with the UK officials, is accurate, because when the final end game starts to play out in the coming months, this is the sort of data that’s going to be crucial to following the money and finding out how they could possibly have raised – and blown through over $141 million (not including loans and investments) in five years – and never shipping any of the games promised.

update 01/12/17: A response was received regarding the £150 million turnover amount. So basically they were just publishing data straight from CIG/F42 – with zero vetting.

THE ROAD AHEAD

If rumors and insider leaks are to be believed, not only are they now facing the prospects of doing layoffs (so far, we’re tracking over 20 people having departed in the past weeks) in order to curb spending, but even with SQ42 now a “maybe” for 2017, without additional funding or curbing their spending, not only do they stand a very slim chance of delivering on even 25% of what was promised, but they stand zero chance of delivering 100% of what was promised by Q4/2020. Back in July 2015, in my first blog, Interstellar Citizens, I opined that they simply couldn’t make the ultra ambitious game Chris pitched. And I further went on to say that even if they had the tech and the talent, they’d need $150m minimum to do it. That was at $85m. Clearly they neither have the tech, nor the talent; and even with $141m and five years in, by all accounts, they simply can’t build that game.

At this point, short of money laundering and similar shenanigans, anyone giving them money, knowing that they have zero incentive to complete, let alone ship the games promised, deserves to lose it. Enough is enough. And those backers fighting a proxy Internet war of attrition against dissent, are doing more to taint and tarnish the project and its community, than they can imagine. Even so, for those guys, no matter how this ends, the worst thing to them isn’t that Chris Roberts was wrong; it’s that Derek Smart was right.

How did I get involved in this on-going farce? I’m glad you asked. It’s hilarious; and the sort of dumb thing that only someone like Chris Roberts would do.

Discuss in the forums.

[dsmart]

Today’s Star Citizen leaks courtesy of TheAgent. Some I already knew and tweeted about. 

• 2017 is now looking like the last full operational year for CIG (*from the perspective of 2 people who recently left)
• several office/staff moves (including the Brno move, disco lando, ben, etc) are still planned
• roberts joked at one point “the cheap labor must flow”
• the “must deliver” deadline is still march/q1 of 2017 for the sqlude
• might be much less than what was planned to be released (think less than an hour of story content, highly repetitive missions to pad playtime, grind, etc)
• sqlude will include the new footage shot earlier this year of hamill
• direction/management are being shuffled around, some people with no experience are now in charge of dozens of employees
• several employees and execs are now gone, including cashing out on promised bonuses or other monies when they left
• “If [we] didn’t have money in the tank for refunds, delay. Delay, delay, delay. Promise, then delay. That was standard, yes.”
• had to cut one or several major characters from SQ42
• additional mocap is required “to have the story make any sense” thanks to “constant” changes to the script
• entire maps, levels, mocap, VA, music and SFX have been thrown out, reworked and thrown out again
• what was promised for 2.6, especially networking, won’t be in until late Jan/Feb 2017 at the earliest (maybe midyear)
• 3.0 networking is a massive, complete mess and won’t be anywhere ready for 2017
• “They are walking the design back on a massive scale. Try and get a refund.”
• ^ moma that one is for you because the guy who said it, lol, just lol
• crunch time has continued now for over six months, some people over a year

“if you’re in this project for anything over $40, get a refund. get a refund like now. after 2.6 releases to the PU you’re going to have a hard damn time getting anything back unless you pledged for the SQ42 package only“

[dsmart]

QUICK THOUGHTS ON STAR CITIZEN HOLIDAY STREAM 2016

Wow. The less written about the holiday stream on Dec 16th, the better. It was an absolute disaster. To the extent that shortly after, not only did they pull the stream (copy over here) from YouTube, but they also proceeded to wipe out any/all dissent (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) from the official RSI forums. Of course Reddit – where only the hardcore Shitizens have some level of control – was ablaze. The media (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) had a field day with this one; and Imperium News (<— LOL!!) has a pretty good write-up about the fiasco and resulting fallout.

My prediction for the stream was so accurate that I was astonished.

Prediction:

1. croberts will recite, then write a cringe-worthy missive asking for money, making excuses, making new promises for 2017
2. 2.6 will be delayed; and if they are smart, pushed into 2017. the schedule will be updated to reflect this
3. they will play 2.6 Star Marine on local LAN because doing it across the internet – the environment it was designed for – is shite
4. no meaningful SQ42 reveal – of any kind
5. no meaningful 3.0 reveal – of any kind

Outcome:

1. croberts will recite, then write a cringe-worthy missive asking for money, making excuses, making new promises for 2017 CALLED IT! // see latest newsletter
2. 2.6 will be delayed; and if they are smart, pushed into 2017. the schedule will be updated to reflect this CALLED IT!
3. they will play 2.6 Star Marine on local LAN because doing it across the internet – the environment it was designed for – is shite it was 8v8 (the max before CE3 falls over) over the Internet. so much for 12v12
4. no meaningful SQ42 reveal – of any kind CALLED IT!
5. no meaningful 3.0 reveal – of any kind CALLED IT!

As I had warned several weeks before, not only did they not show anything of Squadron 42, let alone the much touted 3.0 patch, but the whole stream was devoid of any meaningful content. Remember back during CitizenCon when Chris Roberts stated that the SQ42 demo was mere days away, but they didn’t want to risk showing it? Well, we knew that – like always – he was lying then. So it came as no surprise to most of us that SQ42 was still a no-show. In fact, I wrote about that in this blog and in this musing.

To further compound the problem, the dev schedule – which they’ve been tinkering (1, 2, 3) with and making material changes to as they remove several promised features – which they made public a few weeks after CitizenCon in order to appease gamers, didn’t get updated until a few hours ahead of the stream; and to show that the 2.6 patch was again delayed to Dec 22nd.

The community manager didn’t even do a community post ahead of the stream; even as the forum denizens were getting nervous about what that would mean. Then shortly around the same time the stream went live, a newsletter from Chris Roberts went out. The hilarious part?

“After we made the decision before CitizenCon that the Squadron 42 vertical slice wasn’t ready to be shown publically, we spent some time on reviewing how far off we were and what we wanted to achieve in order to be comfortable showing a full chapter of S42 gameplay. After all the effort we expended for CitizenCon, we didn’t want to spend additional developer time polishing intermediate solutions if it wasn’t going towards the final product. A slick demo isn’t that helpful if it pushes back the finished game, so we decided that the priority should be completing full systems over getting the vertical slice into a showable state.“

Basically the only highlight of the stream – if you can call it that – was that they got to play 8v8 Star Marine in the much delayed 2.6 build. It looked no better than a glorified CryEngine mod; and played even worse. Seriously, 4-5 years in dev and almost $140 million dollars, they can’t build an FPS module using a custom build of an engine built specifically for FPS games. It’s amazing. In fact, Star Marine was MIA for much of the year; and even Chris Roberts went public and said that it was just a game mode, that backers were already playing it etc.  There was a huge furor over that. Then due to what can only be attributed to a complete lack of any meaningful progress in 2016, they decided to resurrect it as a standalone module. And aside from being complete rubbish, is largely broken.

Of course during the stream they had the usual ship sales to continue raising money. Most backers weren’t having any of it; so their funding continued to tank. It’s hilarious to even talk about raising money at this point. This was a game that needed less then $5M. Then it was $12M. So far they have raised almost $140 million; and having run out of money (according to several sources), time, and amid dwindling resources and high level studio departures, dodgy corporate shenanigans etc, the conclusion is that they simply can’t build the game they promised.

Then, shortly after the stream ended, they finally released the 2.6 from Evocati to the Public Test Universe server. It was invite only of course. It completely broke the live 2.5 version, leaving other backers who have no access to either Evocati or the PTU, with a game they can no longer play. In fact, the only way to play 2.6 now is either if you are in the invitation only Evocati (800 invites), PTU (waves of four invites), or if you are a subscriber ($10 per month).  Basically, with 2.5 flat out broken for most backers, if you don’t get an invite to 2.6, or you are not a subscriber, you have to pay $10 to gain immediate access to the game you already paid for. And they have no incentive to fix 2.5. So yeah.

So once again, with the Dec 22nd deadline looming, and knowing that 2.6 simply isn’t ready for wide release, as they did with the 2.0 release in Dec 2015 which was broken and didn’t work for weeks, they’re about to do the same thing by releasing it live to all backers. Except this time, 2.6 is a lot worse, and doesn’t contain any meaningful update.

As of this writing, with 2.6 MIA and 3.0 still a pipe dream, these are the major releases this year since 2.0 was released in Dec 2015

v2.1.0, Jan 15, 2016
v2.2.0, March 4, 2016
v2.3.0, March 26, 2016
v2.4.0, June 9, 2016
v2.5.0, Aug 25, 2016

And during this period, these are ALL the Star Marine updates. Yet, here we are, over a year later, and they still can’t get it working.

AUGUST 22ND 2015
AUGUST 29TH 2015
SEPTEMBER 19TH 2015
OCTOBER 23RD 2015

Five years in dev. Two (!) years overdue. $140 million given by backers. No game delivered.

Discuss!

UPDATE: Beer4TheBeerGod finally got a refund!!

 

[Author]

Posts