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STAR CITIZEN UK FINANCIALS
Seeing as five years and over $138 million later they have yet to ship either of the promised games, all eyes are on the Star Citizen project financials. Especially given the recent fundraising shenanigans (1, 2) that CIG has been up to of late. The US corporations are private entities, so they are not required to file financials. Those financials are only shared with investors, banks and similar parties. Backers of the project were once promised access to those financials if CIG failed to deliver the project within the allotted time. So far, aside from the fact that CIG have since rescinded that offer in the June 2016 ToS change, no backer has challenged them to produce the financials. I have written before that the state of their financials represents the smoking gun as it pertains to their ability to complete and deliver the project as promised.
In the UK, where there are three (!) corporate entities, they are required to file public financials for the preceding year, by Sept 30th. Back on Sept 26th, F42 (UK), the entity with the liabilities, and which is tasked with making the game (as the developer), filed their accounting. It was pretty uneventful. The other two corporate entities, CIG (UK) which now owns 100% (1, 2) of both F42 (UK) and RSI (UK), as well as F42 (GER) didn’t file. Yesterday, RSI (UK) filed their accounting; leaving only the parent company, CIG (UK) which is currently late in filing.
I had written back in my July 2016 blog about what appears to be the execs cashing out and selling back their shares to the parent company, thus taking out wealth from the company.
“There are so many holes in this whole thing that the minute I even make public everything I know, I would no doubt have pretty much impeded on-going investigations. So we wait. But while we’re waiting, here’s a nugget. Please ask them if it’s true that: after they founded a studio (Foundry42-UK) to help develop this game, and Chris pulled in his brother and childhood friends in from another company to head it, that less than two years later, another subsidiary (associated with the project) then turned around and bought the company back from those very people. Thus taking out a significant amount of wealth out of the project and putting it into the pockets of those very friends and family. While still paying his brother Erin, what amounts to almost $250K in yearly salary; not including benefits or bonuses – which aren’t disclosed. Aside from this being reported to be almost 3x what he was making at his previous company, it’s also 2x the average for a director in the Manchester region. And in case you forgot, this is a crowd-funded project.”
In 2015, according to the funding chart (which is 100% inaccurate), the project raised approximately $35.9 million. That’s not taking into account refunds, investor amounts, bank loans etc. The RSI (UK) filing clearly shows that they are playing a financial shell game with the funding that’s going into the project. Arguably one would do this sort of thing not only for tax and liability reasons, but also as way to mask accounting anomalies and irregularities, while also inflating the value of the associated entities.
Also it should be noted that not only is RSI (UK) operating at a loss (!), but also F42 (UK) – the developer – is holding a secured loan note with NatWest bank. And they blew through almost $20 million in 2015 alone. Can’t wait to see the 2016 numbers.
Someone made a handy chart showing how the money reported in this filing, has moved around.
When the parent entity, CIG (UK), files its accounting, we should have a much clearer picture of how the money – up to 2015 – flowed to the UK entities. It won’t tell us anything about the F42 GER financials, nor the financials for the two US studios. And when you think about it, the fact that backers have no insight into the financials – something they were promised – it’s going to be very interesting to see how those very people who are saying “it doesn’t matter“, react when the dust settles.
List of Star Citizen related corporate entities
- Cloud Imperium Games Corp, West Hollywood, CA
- Cloud Imperium Games LLC, West Hollywood, CA
- 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
- Cloud Imperium Games LLC, Santa Monica, CA
- Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, West Hollywood, CA
- Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, Austin, TX
- Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited, UK
- Foundry 42 Limited, UK
- Foundry 42, Germany
- Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC, West Hollywood, CA
- Gemini 42 Productions LLC, Santa Monica, CA
- Roberts Space Industries Corp, West Hollywood, CA
- Roberts Space Industries International Limited, UK
- Twin Brothers Production Inc, West Hollywood, CA
- Twin Bros, Germany
I am still of the belief that the project is on the verge of collapse; and the recent desperate cash grab plays into that. What is unclear is what form that collapse will take, how they will handle the wind down (e.g. from 4 studios and 350+ people), and whether or not the project will continue in some fashion following the downsizing. As of Nov 2016, they had 363 employees working at the four studios. That does not include the many contractors at third-party studios which are also working on the project. Though several (including no less than three high profile positions) have left since the chart below was shown by Chris Roberts; and many more are rumored to be on the way out.
Seeing as F42 (UK) and F42 (GER) are primarily tasked with tech and Squadron 42 (the single-player game) development, it stands to reason that the two US studios are likely to suffer the most casualties; especially since nobody with half a brain really thinks Star Citizen is ever going to see the light of day.
THE END OF YEAR FIVE
Back when I said that neither Star Citizen nor Squadron 42 was going to be released in 2016; I faced quite a bit of derision and attacks. You know, all the standard things I’ve been dealing with since I got involved in this farce last Summer. Then came the August GamesCom event (I wrote about that here) in which even more lofty promises were made; topped only by even more lofty promises in the Nov CitizenCon event, and the subsequent anniversary event. The key takeaway from all those three Q4/16 events is that CIG created proof-of-concept tech demos, passed them off as being in the game, while promoting the sales of ship assets which aren’t likely to ever see the light of day. All designed to do one single thing: raise money based on LIES.
The most egregious affront to backers, has to be the promise that 3.0 patch, which included elements shown in all of the above streams, was imminent. Heck, they even went on record, while creating an entire “Road To CitizenCon” video, telling backers that a demo/preview of Squadron 42 was imminent, but that they ran out of time to polish it. Now, with the year ending, not even the much delayed 2.6 patch has been released to backers, let alone anything of Squadron 42. And you know what, I already raised the alarm on ALL of this months ago, and again quite recently (1, 2, 3).
This is what was promised in 2.6, which is already over six months late. They have yet to deliver it, even as they continue to shift the schedule.
And this is what was promised in 3.0 for end of 2016 release.
And even as I type this, there are backers who are vehemently denying that Chris Roberts ever promised 3.0 by year end. Despite his own word salad to that effect.
“..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.”
Note that back when I said the schedule was released in order to appease irate backers, and that it was inconsequential, again, I got attacked for it. But here’s the thing: since they first released it, they’ve missed every single milestone contained within. So it’s no different if they didn’t release it, since backers should just as well ignore it. And they keep making suspicious changes (1, 2) to the schedule page itself.
When I wrote the Star Citizen – E.L.E. blog back in April, and pointed out specifically why I believed that the project was inexplicably doomed, that neither of the two games was going to see a 2016 release, some backers waved it out of hand, while others decided to heed the warning and go for refunds (you can read the resulting fiasco in my Star Citizen – Refund Debacle blog from July). Since then, hardly anything has changed that would serve to change that opinion. Heck, this year, all they’ve released have been bug fixes to the 2.0x kernel, an in-game shop for buying pants, some flyable ships, and one new base (GrimHex). That’s it. All year. And, despite the dispute regarding the accuracy of the funding chart, they appear to be on track to raise over $35 million in 2016. In a year where they are on track to raise half of all the money that all of crowd-funding did.
As for Squadron 42, if they ever release any version (demo, prelude, episode 1 or whatever) of it, and it’s not stellar, they’re screwed because seeing as it’s built on the same engine components, it is going to automatically affect the larger Star Citizen game. But that won’t matter, seeing as they have already been paid in advance.
At end of the day, it’s all been a pack of lies, and what I believe to be protracted efforts to mislead backers at every turn. Which, when you think about it, makes sense that they would revise the ToS in order to not only reduce their liability, but also rescind whatever leverage backers have in terms of financial accountability.
At this point in time, what’s going to be interesting is just how those very same toxic backers who are attacking dissenting opinions, will react when they get wind of what is currently playing out behind closed doors. But that’s why we have the legal system, as well as State and Federal agencies who pay attention to things like this.
You all had ample warning. Now you get to bear the consequences.
UPDATE: New forum software has been installed.
THE SHITIZEN SCAMMER
We know that all gaming communities have their share of toxic anti-social nutjobs, scammers etc. In fact, the average Shitizen (toxic Star Citizen fans waging an Internet war of attrition against dissent toward the project) is all of those things – and then some. I have written a number of blog and forum articles about them 0ver the years, and it just keeps getting better and funnier. So it should come as no surprise that recently the person we once thought was your garden variety citizen, turned out to be a scammer running a variety of cons in various MMO gaming communities. Heck, there’s a Shitizen (Fuzzy Modem, who is also now banned on SA), an alleged pedophile, sitting in jail right now.
It all started with this thread on the Star Citizen forum started by one Deloria who was originally thought to be an 18 yr old Norwegian girl who backed the project when “she” was aged 14. At first, this person was only notable for the thread because shockingly it was neither deleted nor moved by CIG. If you scroll down to other posts here, you will see the posts about the growing dissent since CitizenCon. Well, after I tweeted that link, apparently Deloria got wind of it; then showed up on the SA (Goon enclave) forum – where we found out “she” had been banned since 2013.
Even with the paywall ($10 to read the site), we get all kinds of stragglers over at SA, and we tend not to pay too much attention to them; only regarding them as lol fodder for the most part. But Deloria decided that she was now famous, seeing as not only had I tweeted and written about her forum thread, but also it was being discussed on the SA forum. What followed was the most hilarious case of self-own in recent memory.
At first Goons were basically telling “her” to get a refund, that a “girl” spending $6K (which she said was her Confirmation gift from family) on a game that doesn’t look like it was ever seeing the light of day, was a bad idea etc. During all this time the “Curious case of Deloria” generated over 400+ posts. At some point, a pattern appeared to form, and it caught my autistic attention. So I decided to run with it. In the end, I found out that “she” was a middle aged dude, posing as a teenage girl. As soon as I mentioned that this person was a dude; some Goons decided to look into it.
In the end it was discovered that not only was Deloria a dude, but also had been running various scams across several MMO gaming communities. So with all the background material collected, I made a single effort post about it. Deloria stopped posting; and shortly after, asked a mod on the Star Citizen forum to close their original thread. It gets better. He also reported the post I had made on SA, as doxing (hint: it’s not). That last part is as hilarious as it sounds; seeing as these clowns tend to use that word as they see fit, even as they scam their way across the Internet. If posting publicly accessible social media pages is doxing, well I’m guessing that all the websites, including mainstream media sites such as Ars Technica, Gizmodo etc which tend to do expose articles with relevant links, are all guilty of doxing. It’s bullshit really. This was basically exposing a scammer. Period. End of story.
Anyway, below is the post that I made in its entirety, and as was originally written on SA. Enjoy.
NOTE: Deloria was subsequently banned on the SA forum. Again.
Once they get busted and outed, they are always quick to pull out the “harassment” and “doxing” card. It’s the oldest – and dumbest – game in the play book.
No, you’re a scam artist who got busted the minute you decided to come back to SA and mouth off.
The good thing is that you decided to try and prove who you were (a UK citizen living in Norway), thus giving everyone carte blanche to debunk it.
This is all public, and most of it backtraced to what you posted. So if you even utter the word doxing, you’re getting temp-banned – again.
This is where you claimed – at 14 – that you were gifted an Idris by your boyfriend who just happens to backtrace to this Facebook page
After comparing to the previous Mann Facebook page – which freaked you out and you started sending out frantic PMs here – the question is: did a middle aged (approx 35 yrs old) man have a 14 yr old GF in 2013, or are you (Mann) all these alt accounts?
And from your very own post here on SA, there’s that “Mann” surname again.
Here is where it gets even better…
Your Star Citizen profile, links back to an email (siobahnmahon) which backtraces to an account on the Crowfall site (one of the communities you frequent)
And that Facebook account, was FB friends with Mann before you hid it after being busted here. And as of this writing, you are still in Mann’s FB friends list; better go hide that one too.
This article was interesting though.
You’re a scammer that’s been lurking in various MMO gaming communities such as Star Citizen, Black Desert Online, Archeage, Shroud Of The Avatar, TERA, Crowfall, Elder Scrolls Online obtaining money and items while posing as an Norwegian girl.
There’s more – a lot more – but posting those will definitely be within the realms of doxing. Which is why I called you out as being a dude* the minute you showed up here; and others took up the mantle to look into it.
Bear in mind that roleplaying with an online persona is perfectly OK. What’s not OK is using that to scam others. As far as your history shows, you’ve tried to raise $10K twice (once with a calendar for which you got over $1k). Not to mention all the other gifts you’ve got from those gaming communities. That’s not different from a garden variety 419 scam.
* I have extensive AI experience; so pattern recognition is something that my brain is wired for. Your post patterns, sentence composition, context connectivity, and word usage, were a dead giveaway. The more you posted, the more obvious it became that you were a dude.
ps: In case you guys missed it, the Facebook page for Shiv Mahon has an image of Deloria’s Star Citizen membership card.
QUICK THOUGHTS ON STAR CITIZEN ANNIVERSARY STREAM 2016
The 4th quarter of each year is when CIG/RSI pulls out all the stops to raise funding. The scam campaign usually starts from GamesCom (my thoughts on 2016) in Aug, then the CitizenCon (my thoughts on 2016) in Oct; and finally closes the year with the anniversary (nobody knows of what; seeing as the campaign started in Oct, not Nov – but I digress). So this 4th anniversary stream was no different in this regard.
However, in the weeks following the disastrous CitizenCon event, a growing uprising (I wrote about that here and here) among the backers who were becoming more and more vocal, had obviously made CIG nervous. Of course they went completely radio silent on the backer dissent this whole time. Most of the complaints surrounding cash sales, discount on ships which were once high priced, delivery schedule for the 2.6 and 3.0 patches promised for year end etc.
The event itself was as boring as hell. In fact, by all accounts, it was worse than CitizenCon – if you can imagine that. A few days earlier, community manager, Lando, had tweeted that they would be playing the long awaited 2.6 patch live in the stream. So the anticipation started to build up accordingly.
ARENA COMMANDER
It started off with a 2hr long pre-show event in which they showcased Arena Commander (the dogfighting module in the suite) and flight racing which is just another game mode that uses AC. It was as uneventful as one would expect. In fact, the only noticeable items from the list of 2.6 promises, were some minor UI changes, hardly noticeable flight dynamics, some new audio – and not much else. Even what looked like the new score leaderboards were simply broken and showed inaccurate score data.
The good part? This was all setup to run on a local LAN; which from the stream showed ping rates as high as 45 (!) ms. On a LAN. You would think that for a company building an MMO and which, as of this writing has terrible sub-par netcode, that even for a low player count they would run it across the Internet. It’s not like they don’t have 4 studios around the world – all working on the game. Heck, they even flew Tyler down from Austin to LA; as they did other streamers (e.g. Twerk17, a member of redacted who recently repeated a death threat directed at me on his stream -excerpt here – by another member of redacted) sponsored by CIG.
They subsequently had to cut the stream short and took a 3hr break. Naturally backers who were expecting to see Star Marine, were disappointed and took to Reddit and the official forums to vent.
BREAK/DELAY
During the wait, a source reached out to me to say that they were still having technical problems with Star Marine and that they may not even show it; though they were well aware of the ramifications of not doing so.
At some point, a series of events occurred. The first of which backers found that the prices for some ships had been increased. This appeared to be in preparation for the capital ship (Idris-P, Javelin) sales which were about to go live. Well, they went live, as did the Prowler (which looks nothing like the Copperhead ship from Final Fantasy) concept (read: JPEG) ship. These capital ships were being sold in waves in which the first wave consisted of 50 Javelins @ $2,700, and 200 Idris-Ps @ $1,300. They sold out almost immediately. As of this writing, the second wave is online and has 242 Idris-Ps left in “stock” (yeah, hilarious, I know). They made over $500K on 11/18 as a result of these sales. Remember this article about the guy who sold his fleet to finance a new car? How about the Star Citizen Grey market where these ships are bought and sold – no doubt with ill-gotten gains as per money laundering?
Then a new newsletter (which was later posted on the website) hit the inbox of backers. The TL;DR is: they need more money to finish the games promised because the $130 million (at the time) raised thus far was simply not going to be enough.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
In what can only be described as utterly hilarious is that they also – for the first time ever – released something of a dev schedule for the project.
For the near term builds, they show 6 weeks past, but only 3 weeks future planning. And given all the statements they were making about Star Marine, Squadron42 etc following CitizenCon, and how they were “coming soon”, if you look at the schedule, you will see that Star Marine is targeted for release in less than two weeks; though what was shown at this stream clearly indicates otherwise. More on that later.
And even the 2.6 patch (containing Star Marine) which they played on the stream, was shown as being released to Evocati on the day (11/18) of the stream. Considering that the patch schedule is dev -> internal testing -> external (Evocati) testing -> live, how does anyone see this patch being ready for live in the short term?
And the timeline for the 3.0 patch (which sources had told me simply doesn’t exist) which Chris had gone on two recent events and said was coming by end of the year; even though he knew the statement to be patently false, is clearly nowhere in the near term schedule. In fact, it doesn’t even have a schedule. Just a listing similar to the Powerpoint slides that he has used at the two previous events. The Squadron 42 game which was coming in 2015, then 2016, and pushed into 2017, doesn’t appear in the schedule either.
[videojs_video url="https://clips-media-assets.twitch.tv/23695209888-offset-3653.0070000000137-14-1280x720.mp4" poster="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cxk9CNkXcAAYKZt.jpg"]When the stream came back at 1pm PST/4pm EST, as my source had indicated, they were still having technical problems with Star Marine. They started off with more Arena Commander, more racing, ship sale shilling akin to Home Shopping Network, some talk about the lore (none of which made a lick of sense to anyone but Chris); then finally Star Marine. Even then they still couldn’t get it running. So they had another delay during which Lesnick proceeded with the usual nonsensical bullshit he’s notorious for.
For what amounted to a 4 hr stream, the highly anticipated Star Marine session came at the end (starts @1:37 and ends @1:59) – and lasted for all of 20 mins.
The less said about the controversial Star Marine, the better. It was just so embarrassing. The most depressing part for backers is that it looked a lot worse that anything they had shown in previous years, and which were built by Illfonic (no longer on the project). Seriously CIG has succeeded in licensing a top-notch CryTek engine built for fps games, and found themselves unable to actually make an fps from it. None of the innovation promised these past years are in it. Not a single (vaulting <— lol) item. What they have now shown and coming to backers in 2.6 is barely different from the fps module currently in main Star Citizen (aka Persistent Universe) game. It is devoid of any innovation or anything that would try to pass for a module in a game that’s 4+ years and over $130 million in the making. You can go right now on Steam and pick any fps game in Early Access (e.g. Angels Fall First) and see better multiplayer fps. Forget about the slew of top notch triple-A fps games which recently came out, with others being released in the coming months.
Also forget about it being pre-Alpha and all that, we get it. What we don’t get is, who exactly thought that what they have now shown as coming was worthy of the wait and almost 2 year delay? The end result is that this is just one more check box from the list of promises and which, regardless of how they do it, can now be considered as delivered to backers. Bear in mind that this module was once canceled and Chris went on to say that he gets annoyed when backers bring it up because they were already playing it in the PU. Yeah.
CONCLUSION
The Squadron 42 demo/trailer which they said was “coming soon” but which they claimed wasn’t quite ready for CitizenCon, was of course a no-show. No, we didn’t see that coming – at all. Especially since I had said that it was all lies; and which sources had confirmed was in no shape to be shown live. So Chris lied again. And of course following the show, backers are now again discussing that very same issue.
So what did backers get?
- More production work on a shilling video designed to sell ships and raise money
- A wonky and completely unfinished 2.6 play through which doesn’t even have 50% of what was promised
- A 20 min play through of an unfinished and sub-par Star Marine which doesn’t even have 10% of what was promised
- A dev schedule which is barely pandering, neither contains meaningful data nor schedules for the entire project of both games
- No 3.0 patch which was promised as “before end of the year” since GamesCon in August
- No Squadron 42 demo which was promised and claimed to be “coming soon” following CitizenCon in Oct
Then they followed all this up by breaking yet another promise they had previously made to backers, by putting back on sale a slew of “rare” ships they said would never be sold again. Then they increased the prices to boot.
IF IT SOUNDS LIKE A SCAM, LOOKS LIKE A SCAM, FEELS LIKE A SCAM…
For sometime now I have been saying that they simply couldn’t build the game as pitched, but that even if they had the tech and the talent, that it would take a very long time and a lot (I had estimated $150+ million) of money to do it. They neither have the tech, nor the talent. And now they no longer have the time or money; which is why they keep using all these tricks to keep milking the few whales still giving them money due to Sunk Cost Fallacy.
This now released dev schedule which only spans 2.6 through to 4.0 (slated for end of 2017) and which accounts for barely 30% of what was promised in terms of gameplay features, should be of grave concern to any backer who was previously on the fence. It shows a game with an 8 to 10 year development span; of which they have already chewed through 4 (if you give them a pass on 2011 preparation which would make it have made it 5) years. And considering that they have never – ever – met a single milestone schedule in 4 years, it’s safe to say that this dev schedule now shared in that ludicrous “open development” nonsense, is just pandering (through blatant lies) to gullible whales in much the same manner in which they’ve used tech demos these past years to achieve the same results. Heck, back when Arena Commander was first released, they promised regular dev scheduled dates. They went with it for a whole two months – then stopped. Then they released 2.0 last Dec with the promise of “monthly” incremental patch updates. Yeah, that didn’t happen either. Then he stopped given dates entirely. Until he started again. Then promptly missed every – single – one to date. Here we are. Again.
It gets worse. Given their average crowd-funding starting from when they were lean to ramping up to over 400+ people across 4 studios, it stands to reason that there is no way they are going to keep raising $30+ million a year to keep this farce going for as long as it takes to get some version of the two promised games in a released state. And the release of Squadron 42 which is now squarely into some unknown date next year, isn’t going to change anything.
By his very conduct and statements, Chris Roberts is clearly a liar and scam artist. This whole project has now devolved into what many believe to be a massive scam in which millions of dollars have been taken from the gamers who crowd-funded this project; not to mention the bankers and investors who have had a hand in funding it. And when it collapses, it will have long term ramifications for the gaming industry, not to mention crowd-funding itself.
PSA: TO THE SHITIZENS PARKED ON REDDIT
So a thread on a sub-Reddit popped up about that time when Chris Roberts took 8hrs writing a diatribe about The Escapist article. An article which didn’t even mention me once; though Roberts decided to mention me 24 times, while blaming me for the “unfounded” dissent against the project.
A year later, that dissent is even louder. The hilarious part is that, to this day, as is normal for those clowns, they’re blaming me for The Escapist article – because Roberts said so. So I decided to give them a wakeup dose of reality; something they’re not very used to.
Oh, and just the other day, one of the pro Star Citizen streamers (this guy) confessed to it being a “job”, and also spending $13K on it.
Easy claim to make. Especially since it’s patently false.
So please, by all means, post your evidence that shows I had any prior knowledge of, let alone gloating, about any such article before it was published.
And no, this nonsense you guys keep parroting as proof is just that, nonsense. My tweet was clearly referring to my original July 2015 blog, which was the first time anyone went on record and detailed why the project couldn’t be made. A small fact that most of you tend to ignore because it hurts your feelz. And since my blogs, then following The Escapist article, many other similar articles about the demise of the project, have been written. Heck, look no further than the most recent flurry of articles from Kotaku. I had a hand in those too, huh?
That aside from the fact that people – including the media – excerpt and quote things all the time; and has nothing to do with collusion or what you’re inferring. How did you think my original July 2015 blog in which I said they were lying and couldn’t build the game pitched, got picked up? Oh, that’s right. I went around to all the media outlets and asked them to read, let alone excerpt my blog.
You see, this is the problem you guys have, and aren’t willing to accept. YOU are the reason for where we are today. You’ve elevated me to a position that, never in my wildest dreams did I ever ever aspire to be in with this whole Star Citizen farce. And your penchant for waging an Internet war of attrition across the Internet has only served to magnify the problem, while showing off the Star Citizen community as a toxic cesspool of malcontent. I didn’t do that. You did.
And even though the Derek Smart Was Right movement is moving ahead full steam, having proven beyond any/all reasonable doubt that I was RIGHT about them never – ever – being able to build the game pitched, this hate-Red will be here as a reminder that the harassment & attack campaign were all for naught.
You think the growing dissent is loud now? Wait and see what comes next. I’m not even going to say anything further about that because I think the conclusion needs to be shocking for it to have any effect.
You’re all in denial. Attacking & harassing me and other dissenting opinions has proven to have zero effect in the general scheme of things. It hasn’t made Star Citizen:
- a “game”
- less of a scam
- less of a frantic cash grab
- a project that looks like it will ever be a “game”
Instead, the dissent has grown louder, the project has failed harder, it is the laughing stock of the ENTIRE gaming industry, people are rushing to get refunds etc. Even as CIG/RSI continue to beg backers to reconsider refunds; which btw is hilarious, when you consider that croberts had stated in past that if funding stopped, they had reserves to finish the game. Just one in a string of blatant lies he has told in order to keep milking gullible backers.
And hardly anyone is even playing the tech demo now; and even the popular streamers are now having frequent meltdowns – live on camera.
All you guys have done is made a group of friends and family in exec level positions, rich. And some of you even agreed to a ToS change that says they neither have to provide the financial accountability promised nor the games promised!! And that’s just hilarious AF.
I didn’t do ANY of the above. You the toxic backers aided CIG/RSI to turn the project into what many of us now believe has evolved into an epic SCAM.
ps: Go ahead and down vote; it won’t stop the signal because that’s louder than your exclusive toxic hug box.
THE E.L.E MOVING AHEAD FULL STEAM
The recent INN coup is even more poignant as the community is currently up in flames over the fact that not only is the long-awaited 2.6 patch not out yet, but 3.0 – as I predicted – was just lies (again) by Chris Roberts, and is neither a “thing”, let alone being released this year as promised at both GamesCom and CitizenCon.
To make matters worse, just a few days ago, instead of showing progress on the game, they announced yet another JPEG (!) concept ship sale, the long promised Prowler, at the ridiculous price of $425; even though the furor over the recent Hornet ship sale hasn’t even died down yet.
I have no idea why these backers are now all of a sudden acting as if ANY of this is new. Regardless of what I’ve said in my blogs, posts etc, the warning signs were there all along.
See the thing is that for a long time we’ve all been saying that betting on SQ42 is what’s going to be the last straw. Most whales didn’t back for SQ42, which basically was just a peripheral project. Then, because he figured out that he could make a movie, Chris and Sandi decided to use it to buy their way back into Hollywood, even as they squandered away millions on it.
“I am concerned that our money has gone into building a corporate empire, rather than a game – backer on Reddit“
Engine issues aside, seeing as the tech can’t even run a single-player game – which should be shocking enough. When I wrote this missive ahead of CitizenCon about the engine, the fact that the event was just going to be more smoke & mirrors, the hardcore backers laughed, and some skeptics just discarded it. Well, as we came to find out, that’s precisely what happened: smoke & mirrors. And CIG themselves helped prove and confirm it with their “Road To CitizenCon” post-event video. Every backer – right now – should be asking themselves why they still have nothing show of SQ42, if they were claiming that they wanted to show it at CitizenCon, but that it wasn’t ready. It’s been a month already.
In my latest blog, Shattered Dreams, I again said that if they were having engine difficulties, that it’s bound to also affect SQ42. In fact, I said:
“While others have taken it apart, the glaring issues* are that things like AI, pathfinding, proper vehicular dynamics/physics, atmospheric conditions – or even the expansive planet promised, are just missing. So, if the tech demo showing the new terrain tech is missing such fundamental building blocks of the game, all of a sudden it makes sense that both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 (which uses the same engines and tech) are so far behind in development.”
So it stands to reason that if they can’t even get 2.6 out this year as promised, let alone 3.0 (<—- lmao, I called that one the minute he uttered it), that they’re having some very serious technical issues. I don’t even think that anything less than a playble 2.6/3.0 or SQ42 in a live stream, is going to quash dissent. They’re at the cusp now whereby the skepticism is at an all time high and nothing short of tangible delivery is going to curb it. These posts (1, 2) below from the “We didnt fund a company – we funded a game. Remember the pledge” thread is an example of where things are now.
When all is said and done, despite what some fringe think of me, I have made a career out of developing massive games. I have extensive knowledge in all forms of game design & engineering. Which is why once back in the Summer of 2015 I saw that Vision 2.0 was now the end goal, I realized that the project was FUBAR because they simply couldn’t do it with that base line engine. Not to mention the fact that they don’t have ANYONE in the team who has ANY experience building MASSIVE games; let alone MASSIVE SPACE GAMES WITH FPS.
When I was calling for financial accountability, some backers kept giving them money, even as Chris Roberts continued to lie, and make false promises. The fact is that it is 100% illegal for a company to make false statements and warranties, in order to convince the public buy their products. There is absolutely no getting around this.
This is no longer about a game, it’s all about money now; and has amounted to what many of us believe to have evolved into an outright scam. When this collapses – and I have every reason to believe that it will in the coming months – the ramifications are going to be unprecedented. All the signs are there already. As if there was any doubt, when that happens, I am going to make a new mission out of ensuring that ALL the leading execs (friends and family such as Chris & Erin Roberts, Chris’s wife, Sandi Gardiner, Nick & Simon Elms, Derek Senior) as well as the leading studio heads and devs (Tony Zurovec, Sean Tracy, Brian Chambers et al) answer to the authorities for what they’ve done. And I will continue to turn over any/all material that comes my way in the pursuit of this because I had swore that I would never let them get away with this. This whole thing has all the undertones of the Gizmondo collapse (I wrote about that here) which some of these people were previously involved in.
Back in April, I wrote the Extinction Level Event blog, and espoused that it was already in progress due what my sources were saying, what CIG itself was doing publicly etc. It’s only a matter of time now.
SHILLIZEN DOWN!
So amid the rising unrest (1, 2, 3, 4) in the Star Citizen community, the #1 shill (aka: fan) site has apparently suffered a coup d’etat in the past 48hrs.
Yesterday, this cryptic thread about a new INN site popped up on Reddit. Speculation was that they were just moving hosts – or something. Then today, Wolf Larsen, who I outed in an article (The INN Conspiracy) about INN months ago, create a page that there was a foiled coup d’etat. Then a follow-up thread popped up on Reddit shortly after.
Not sure how this is a coup, but apparently the four guys who used to post – highly questionable content – on the site, decided to split, with everything, leaving only Jake (who wasn’t active on the site anyway), the owner.
The exchange below from one of the primaries (Erris) indicates that Jake is on his own once again. So the fifty people who actually read the site, are probably giving a collective yawn. I am asking around, but this all probably went down because Erris and co found out that Jake, being paid by CIG, was probably stifling what the guys could or couldn’t write about. And given the current actions by CIG, and which has the community up in flames, it makes sense that no matter how much of a shill the INN guys are, they know that before long, they’re all going to be left with a lot of explaining to do, so they probably want the autonomy to get in front of it. You know, much like how even the most dedicated shills, the latest (Twerk17 had his share couple of weeks ago) being WTFO (1, 2, 3, 4), are currently having spectacular meltdowns.
This INN drama has been fermenting and going on for quite sometime now, and long before I wrote the blog. In fact, at some point last year someone at INN was calling Jake out a year ago. The person claimed that the r/star citizen/ sub-reddit was controlled by INN. Subsequently, one of the mods, /u/dolvak, who worked for INN, stepped down as mod, then deleted his entire comment history. So seeing as CIG was funding Jake’s INN, it stands to reason then that CIG was in control of the sub-reddit, which is possibly a violation of the Reddit rules.
The whole INN thing has been murky from the start; which is why I investigated it and wrote the blog. In fact, this image shows all the changes they made to the ownership section of the site in May 2016 following my INN conspiracy blog.
UPDATE: Erris, the believed leader of the coup d’etat has issued an a statement. Also, earlier this evening on Discord, I asked Erris (the more prominent member of the INN group) whether or not he was aware that Jake DiMare (aka Wolf Larsen) had in fact received funding from CIG (something that various sources have told us). His response is below.
Jake also issued a statement shortly after Erris posted his. Some past members have also weighed (1, 2) in on Jake being a scumbag.
TheAgent (the premier Star Citizen insider info leaker), weighed in:
here’s what I can 100% confirm (and they are lying if they tell you different):
– INN/Redacted receives money from CIG both directly and indirectly
– this includes gifted ships and donations
– several members of INN and Redacted have given away these ships for events or to increase subscriptions to their channels
– members have also, directly or through 3rd parties, sold CIG gifted ships on the grey market for cashWhen all is said and done, it appears as if while Jake was being paid by CIG, he wasn’t paying the guys like Erris who were working on the site, creating content, engaging the community etc. Heck, as of this writing, Jake hasn’t even logged into his RSI account since June 2016.
However, now that Erris is saying that they never received any funding from CIG, though he doesn’t know about Jake, it appears that someone is lying. This image below of a discussion shows a QA session with Erris back in January and again yesterday. On Jan 8, 2016, he says “No-one at INN works for CIG in any capacity“. Now on Nov 13, 2016, he says “We don’t know. I never was. Wolf has (per the whole issue here) not been very open, ever”
STAR CITIZEN – THE LATEST FIASCO
The past few weeks following the CitizenCon event have been very difficult and dare I say disastrous for the Star Citizen project. From the post-show videos they did in an attempt to explain away why (read my Shattered Dreams blog for more on that) Squadron 42 wasn’t shown, to the controversy over lies about procgen planets, to the status of the patches (the much delayed 2.6 patch, as well as the 3.0 patch touted at GamesCom in Aug as coming end of the year), the flippant mention of SQ42 coming to consoles – and right down to last week’s uproar over the silence on the status of both aforementioned patches.
Well in the past 24hrs, things took a turn for the worse.
For some time now I have maintained that not only has Chris Roberts blown through $130 million (a huge amount, even though we have reason to believe that the funding tracker isn’t accurate) dollars of backer (plus whatever investor and bank loans source say they have) money, but has also run out of money to fund this pipe-dream to completion. Heck, at GamesCom he flat out said that 4.0 of Star Citizen – which won’t even be 50% of what was promised – won’t be out until end of 2017 – which, going by trends means “sometime in 2018”. The longer a project takes, the more money it needs to continue. And with over 400 employees and contractors worldwide, it’s easy to see how money will eventually become an issue. As of this month, the project which was promised to be released in Nov 2014, is now officially two years late.
Yet, there are those who, rather than holding them accountable for promises made, keep rejoicing in point digit milestones such as the recently reached $130m one. It’s hilarious, and now goes way beyond Sunk Cost Fallacy and Cognitive Dissonance. When the inevitable crash comes, psychologists are going to be digging deep to figure out how so many people fell so far, and so hard for what many believe to now be the biggest scam in video game history.
So anyway, given what they did with the pre-CitizenCon Polaris sale, the stunt they just pulled should come as no surprise to backers. See, ahead of the anniversary stream which is coming in two weeks, they decided to do another ship sale. This, while par for the course won’t have been all that surprising – except for the fact that i) they discounted it ii) made it cheaper if you paid cash and didn’t use store credits (obtained via melting existing ships). What that means is, not only do they need the cash (from new buyers), but they are also willing to devalue the existing backer inventory in favor of “new money”.
And so the community was set ablaze (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Again.
Think about this. They tested the waters with the Polaris ship sale in which the pre-sale was cash only. They got over $4 million by the time the dust settled on that one. So it should come as no surprise that they would go for broke and do something similar – mere months later. And the dumb backers who keep giving them money, are 100% responsible for this. Which is why I personally don’t feel sorry for any of them anymore. Myself and countless others have done our very best to point out how this whole project is a money sink dumpster fire; and anyone with more than a few brain cells, already got a refund and bailed – and many are still doing so.
I have written several blogs outlining how this whole thing is well on track to collapse, how funding is a huge on-going issue etc. By all accounts, if they hadn’t been pulling these sort of tricks to raise funding, this whole thing would have collapsed by now, rather than being delayed and propped up by a few thousand whales. If you haven’t already, you should read both my Extinction Level Event (April 2016) and The Fidelity Of Failure (June 2016) blogs. It’s all in there. Really.
And now, just like they did with previous event videos, they now ask backers who want a refund, to watch the CitizenCon video, then review their request for a refund. This backer’s response is fantastic.
Then there was that time (Feb 18th, 2016 to be exact) when Lesnick made this statement about how bad discounting ships was.
update: So a funding boycott thread subsequently appeared on Reddit. It’s quite the read. Here are some (1, 2) gems.
“I for one had $11,000 USD put into this project and was a proud content creator to boot making Star Citizen cinematic videos for both INN and [REDACTED]. All of which is totaly gone now with any confidence that C.I.G can pull this project off. After being part of the tech crew that visited C.I.G Austin in Feb this year to conduct recorded interviews with both the marketing and development teams I soon came to notice a repeating pattern, only that I had to sign an N.D.A I would release the details of these conversations.
Shortly after returning I had both my financial advisers and lawyer retrieve my $11,000 pledge from C.I.G. I still wish the project all the best of luck and hope this game is built, but one thing is for sure, disrespect and mislead people who have injected the cash to build your project; the REFUND option will become very real for a lot of backers.
EDIT: To the multitude of people messaging me thanking me for stepping up and telling them how it is, you are welcome.”“I agree with the OP post completely.
I was an original vet backer, sub-10K citizen, golden ticket holder and pledger. I sunk a few hundred dollars into the game and hoped for the best. Over the years the situation went from bad to worse to something I’ve never seen before. I eventually got a refund and backed out, waiting instead to see what happens in the long term
Bottom line. I just got tired of the lies, tired of the deceit and the excuses. I don’t know if it’s a scam or not. I don’t care if DS is right or not. I do know that CIG have some real issues which they refuse to deal with and as long as people continue to fund them at the current rate, the issue will continue and the money will run out because there is no real governance or oversight at CIG other than whatever CR ‘wants’. This is no way to run a business. Its no way to design and build a game either because it completely isolates the contributions of everyone else. And as for the ‘community’… holy hell I’ve never seen such vicious alignment to extreme positions so quickly in any game community, replete with self fulfilling prophecies and delusions too. I really wanted to be part of the ‘open development process’ but that died a long time ago too.
So I wish them well. I won’t be part of the drama going forward. I hope they get sense and wake up soon in order to produce something credible.. but I honestly don’t think we will see anything in 2017. I think 2018 / 2019 is more realistic but even at that there is a fair chance the whole thing could just implode way before that… which I really hope doesn’t happen because the ramifications for future gaming kickstarters and independent/self funded options would be horrific.
Honestly though – I cannot understand anyone who would pore more money into this endeavor at this point. I really think the kindest thing we could do for CIG now is stop the flow of money and force them to just knuckle down on one single slice of the game, with a defined scope and delivery date that they can all get behind.
More money = more delusions + more delays imho“We didnt fund a company – we funded a game. Remember the pledge.
MONTHLY STUDIO REPORT
This one was hilarious by all accounts. I mean read the thing. Aside from the fact that it was delayed due to CitizenCon, despite the “words”, they don’t appear to have made much progress since April 2016 in various areas. Which of course explains why the current 2.5 patch is a mess, the 2.5.x currently with Evocati testing is no better, 2.6 is still a no-show, and 3.0 remains a wishlist pipe dream.
Amid all this, instead of showing playable builds of the 2.6 and 3.0 patches which they claim to be working on, they are still showing stills from animations, level design, and a bunch of other inconsequential nonsense used as filler. Then yesterday, they did the worst possible thing imaginable. On the day that Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare (which is basically the first Squadron 42 killer, by all accounts) launched to critical acclaim, CIG released “exclusive” video footage from SQ42. They need no description. Here are some clips (1, 2).
So even as some backers believe that CIG have been working on both 2.6 and 3.0 patches in tandem, despite reports to the contrary, the evidence (presented by CIG themselves) is a lot clearer. The 2.6 patch and SQ42 are priority; and 3.0 – as predicted – isn’t even close to release, let alone slated for 2016. And from what sources have been telling me, nobody has any reason to believe that 3.0 will see the light of day before mid-2017. All CIG has been doing, is what they do best: lie to backers consistently and routinely; even as they continue to unveil new and inventive ways of fleecing them for more money.
It doesn’t end there. In what can only be described as “wtf?”, they also just showed mocap animations of a space janitor mopping a floor. I kid you not. Of course there’s a White dude doing the mocap, which is shown as a Black dude in the game. Yeah.
“At this point it’s obvious that Roberts isn’t selling a game anymore so much as he’s selling time. He’s shitting himself knowing that like Derek said the game as pitched will never be possible and he’s built on impossibly broken code that is going to take years to get working even a tenth of what he originally pitched. He’s selling time for himself with all the refactoring and introducing new ships and randomly breaking down new employees with vague statements saying things need fixed. He’s fucked and working on a way to get out of it with the least amount of damage to his own ego. The game has probably been second to ego preservation for quite some time now.” – Mr. Carlisle
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
