SJ Parkinson
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Blame my slow Internet connection. If I leave the forums to load for a few min I see your images from above. While loading, I see blanks.
I checked her account on Twitter at the same time and got a “The tweet you are looking for is unavailable”, but they are there now so may just have been a glitch on my end.
The gaming media is web based and wants clicks. The more clicks they get, the more they can charge for ads on their site.
There’s a lot of SC players out there and many are vocal supporters. Positive SC articles get a lot of exposure through their shares and retweets, resulting in site traffic for the article.
A possible reason they are playing nice at the moment could be because CIG advertises with them and they don’t want to lose that revenue. When the web sites realize they can exceed that revenue with click traffic they will trash them. Herd mentality will mean when a couple of sites stampede toward criticism, the rest will follow. When the tide turns and they realize they can make more money by trashing CIG, they will, in a heartbeat.
Just read the CIG forum post for the 10FTC and it’s incredible the amount of people in denial.
Can we download the CIG forums in their entirety before they disappear. Then five years down the road when these same people are on other boards and voice an authoritive opinion we can post their CIG history and just laugh at them and their ignorance.
“But we’ll have something that we’ll think, ‘Okay yeah, now everyone can play it but it doesn’t matter – you can load it up, it plays really well, it’s really stable, there’s lots of content, there’s lots of fun things to do, different professions, lots of places to go, we’ve got a really good ecosystem.’ So, when we get to that point that’s when we would say, “Now it’s not alpha, it’s not beta, it’s Star Citizen 1.0.”
CR thinks he will go from the pre-alpha tech demo he has today, skip alpha and beta stages then declare this is Star Citizen 1.0 to satisfy the “delivery” of the KS project. Soon to be followed by a corporate bankruptcy with golden parachutes all around for the execs.
I know it took the Feds 48 years to arrest Bernie Madoff, but seriously this needs someone in authority to investigate this now before the rats scramble off the sinking ship.
Have you read the comments on that link? The vast majority are effectively saying “No. Make the game first, then sell the ships.”
The veil is lifting.
Take every single Tweet, post, comment, video and blog from Derek Smart and delete them, as if they never existed.
Assume he’d never said a word about Star Citizen and no one had responded. That removes a lot of noise from the issue, but with him completely removed from the proverbial equation, many unanswered questions remain:
Where is Star Citizen?
Initial funding began in October of 2012 and today only rudimentary pre-Alpha game play is possible. Over time, many features have been hyped, delayed, then withdrawn with staggering regularity. The only consistent activity has been the fundraising which never stopped and continues to this day. Chris Roberts stated he could finish the game on existing finances, yet keeps collecting money. This is one of the largest inherent contradictions affiliated with Star Citizen. There are regular sales to collect more funds for concept ships when the development for previously sold ships have sat idle for up to three years.
The best comparison I can think of is a new housing project on a grass field. There’s a lovely model home that’s been there for years. It’s full of glossy color brochures and large maps showing how wonderful things will look like at some point in the future. Streets, schools, parks, bus stops, etc. Yet when you look around the field, you see nothing but a series of lots marked off in flag tape with “SOLD” signs. In adjoining fields, more lots are being prepared to be placed on the market. There’s lots of sales people and advertising everywhere. Promise and anticipation are in the air, but no actual houses. When you ask when the houses will be ready to move in, the sales people say “soon.”
CIG is having issues delivering on its promises. Only a small percentage of promised features have been put into the project. Some estimates say only 10% of what was promised is playable today. Much of the game that has been showcased through the years is in the form of tech demos or concept art, not available to the backers beyond video and screen shots. What has been released to date is buggy, unstable, and has low FPS performance.
The project has been touted repeatedly as being “Open Development” yet there is no firm development plan, timeline or goals. Stated features / modules have had time estimates in the past, but they’ve been missed regularly. Additionally, announced features / modules are canceled or indefinitely delayed without warning. There is no stated time line that has been followed with any semblance of consistency. Recently, testers were asked to sign an Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before being given further access. This is not an “Open” environment and is like building a house on sand; it’s always shifting and moving. There is very little solid after more than four years of development save pervasive vagueness.
A full disclosure of finances was required as part of the original Terms of Service (ToS), yet this information has not been forthcoming. Indeed, the ToS has been amended multiple times to delay the financial statements being released.
Criticism of the project (even when not on CIG owned forums) can result in bans from CIG controlled websites. Champions of the game (so called ‘White Knights’) routinely harass journalists or indeed anyone who posts negative comments about the game.
The above issues are well known and I will not touch on the many rumours swirling around the project for the sake of time. Suffice it to say, there are a LOT of those.
Consider Elite: Dangerous. It was Kickstarted a full year after Star Citizen, the project finished on schedule as a fully playable game, is currently on V2.0 with more expansions coming soon. The scope of Elite: Dangerous is similar (some would argue greater) than Star Citizen and it is a fully playable product that has been on the market for over a year. Elite: Dangerous has sold 1.45 million copies on PC / Mac / XBox. Elite has support for VR, 4K displays and alternate controllers like HOTAS / game controllers.
No Mans Sky will be coming out soon as well. Large scale space games ARE possible, so I repeat…
Where is Star Citizen?
