Kristoffer S
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The questions were not about Star Citizen in particular, but regarding crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Steam’s early access and lawmakers trying to look after consumers and alliviate “buyers remorse” and I used one reference to a comment on a completely seperate Kickstarter as an example.
But now that you say it – in my opinion anyone asking for a refund because they feel betrayed & lied to should absolutely do it and CIG should accept that (and there’s nothing saying that they aren’t right now, even though it’s taking time) because they have changed their minds and backed down from some promises. To their defense though, most developers do change stuff during their development (Diablo III for example had the entire “Talent tree” feature removed about a year before release), it’s just that we’re usually not even aware of it because they aren’t as open about things. And usually we haven’t already pre-ordered it which we technically have with Star Citizen.
But anyone asking for a refund because they _think_ the project is going south because someone says it is and want to bail so they don’t lose their “investment” is in my opinion wrong and are contributing to the problem. Simple cause and effect – a project is doing “good” (in lack of evidence to th contrary) -> someone says the project is about to crash and burn -> stakeholders withdraw -> project crashes because stakeholders withdrew. The best way to ensure it does crash is asking for a refund. Ironically these are most likely the same people that will point and say “I told you” when it crashed because people asked for refunds.
I’m right now in between these two, just a bit short of asking for a refund – and being a OB from KS with concierge that shouldn’t be a problem. But I don’t want to be one of those contributing to the project crashing.
Can I ask, what is your stance on “crowdfunding” in general, and Kickstarter in particular? On your twitter you link to alot of Kickstarter campaigns, but then you say some offhand remarks that sounds like your not too happy about crowdfunding projects at all. Like when you link to all those failed Kickstarters, or “funded but never resulting in a finished product” – you seem to use those as warnings. Or linking whenever there is legal issues with them. So I’m kind of wondering what your stance/opinion on this really is?
And a followup, do you consider the “early access on Steam” to be crowdfunding, or is that something else? To me they share alot of similarities, but you say that your game is fully funded by your own money? I’m just asking for your reasoning on this.As I said on Twitter today, I think people should be fully responsible with their money and what they do with it and not try to make it someone elses fault. I know, the guy on Kickstarter that said “Star Citizen took most of my money” was probaby just joking around. But since the #1 request to Star Citizen’s customer service are melt/unmelt requests it kinda makes me wonder how people can rely on others to undo their fuckups?!
Safety nets like the FTC (or whatever you have in the country you live in) and consumer protection groups are fine and unfortunately very necessary, but everyone (atleast in the USA and Sweden) has a brain and a free will – use it and if you do spend it against all logic then don’t blame anyone else. Unless you’ve been directly lied to that is…
(I know fully well when I back something on Kickstarter, and many people share this belief, that it is a gamble. You may see some product in the end or you may not. But that doesn’t make lying or running away with the money ok)I apologise if my comment sounded condescending or offended you, that really wasn’t my intention at all!
I was merely pointing out that CIG has pretty much the same refund policy as Steam officially has – NOW! But that’s only for new backers, not for us OB. And unfortunately it’s the OB’s that are feeling most let down at the moment. I do hope you get your refund, no one should be a backer if they don’t want to!I would have let that slide since you know alot more about this than me, if it wasn’t for the last comment 🙂 Because I did read that article when you linked it on twitter and it says “The company, and Chris Roberts, are almost certainly public figures, or at least limited-purpose public figures in the gaming world. That means they’d have to prove actual malice to win a defamation case.” which is kinda what I wrote, wasn’t it? That since the Escapist wrote it about public figures the burden is on CIG to prove escapist knew what they wrote wasn’t correct? Or is my english bad again?
I’m faily sure, and Derek can correct me on this, that taking things through legal is merely a way of getting an approval that “we can’t be sued for this” rather than “everything here checks out as facts”, even though the only lawyers I’ve worked with have been corporate busines/merger/acquisition lawyers.
Which is why Derek never states as fact that Chris has actually done something illegal, only facts like “he knew these guys that were affiliated with these other really really bad people”.
Which makes the Escapist article more interesting because they actually did state that they had done illegal things, like racial discrimination. And had they printed that about “a regular joe” I don’t know if it had passed legal without more proof than an “unnamed source”, but since “the Roberts” are public figures the burden of proof went to them to prove that Escapist knew it was a false claim. And they pretty much promised the world they had done their due diligence on that.TL:DR – legal isn’t fact checking or entering it into the history books.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Even though we don’t agree on everything 🙂
1 – Ofc I don’t know everything going on here, but I do know the history about the “Uppsala maffia” not being a real maffia and the way you pumped this blog post up on twitter indicated you wanted people to think it was. So just offering a Swede’s insight into it. But you’re absolutely right, even though they weren’t a real maffia, they did alot of illegal stuff and spent alot of time in jail for it. But that’s on them – afaik neither Chris nor Erin have spent jail time for that and I doubt two game devs asked hardened criminals to take the bullet for them.2 – Opinions are always opinions, you have yours I have mine 🙂
3 – What I meant is you used them both in this one blog posts. Pick one and stick with it, atleast within the same blog posts 🙂 (and it’s the same in Sweden, my wife didn’t want to change her last name at first but I won her over!)
4 – If you chose to write about it on your blog, fine. But sourcing a lame, pathetic third party site which had one purpose, it’s kind of reaching – in my opinion! (after all we’re talking about the actions of a backer abusing bad coding to spend more money than he should have been able to is hardly a Citizen Gate – if someone could share an e-mail where Ben tells Wulf “this is how you can brake the system and give us more money” than that would be a Citizen Gate!)
5 – I’m arguing because no court in the world would hold Chris responsible for what the backers do (unless he downright tells them, but afaik he’s never told anyone to go ahead and send death threats to anyone)! He might be held responsible for what his employees do, but hardly the backers. We all have a free will and free mind, if morons want to send you death threats it’s their actions and choice – not Chris.
6 – Yeap, you say you do and you may very well do, but it’s not a public fact. Yet.
7 – I don’t see how I miss the point? When I read that part about the blog again the point seems to be “Frontier is open about their finances, why aren’t CIG?” – which is answered by the fact that FDEV is publicly traded, they have to show their finances or they are braking the law, it’s not like they do it to be nice guys. CIG is privately owned so they don’t have to show that information so they chose to not to it. What point am I missing?
8 – One would think the “O” would mean he was listed as “officer” of the company. But I’m not arguing the fact as much as I found it funny that early in the blog post you wrote that he was “said to be CFO” and later in the same blog stated it as a fact.
9 – Yeah, that was kinda reaching for a funny point of contrast 🙂
10 – Sorry I put focus on the word “uncovered”, but it’s again an instance of you referencing claims without actual publically available proof as facts which I disagree with.
Just a reply regarding Steam refund – CIG has a two weeks no questions asked refund policy. Even if you backed during Kickstarter they will consider refunds. So they aren’t “worse” than Steam in that regard. Just to get that fact straight 🙂
Hey Derek,
Since you go through everything everytime you make a blog post I might as well remind you of where I’m coming from: I’m a backer of the project over $1000 in. And I fully realise it’s a dream and hope to maybe see a game sometime around 2020 if they are alive by then. I also proud myself in trying to be objective and sticking to the facts. You know this since I have repeatedly pointed out factual errors and things that are “grey” in your arguments and was annoyed when you missused the two words “public money” (and to be fair, you’ve stopped doing that which shows you actually do listen and change accordingly which I hoped more people on the internet would do!). But still I agree with some of your points. Their continued “changes” to milk us backers for more money and changing terms as they go along is a real kick in the crotch.Also, awesome to get a proper forum for these long threads!
So here goes
1 : I’m Swedish. So I was very much looking forward to you stepping in the pile of shit which is the “Uppsala maffia”. Not because I enjoy seeing people stepping in shit but I was looking forward to seeing how much research you’d do and apparently not alot. Either that or you intentionally got it wrong. “Uppsala maffia” isn’t a thing, it doesn’t exist. It was one of our worst tabloids that created the label because they needed a container to put these criminals in and since they couldn’t connect them to an actual criminal organization they made one up. So “Uppsala maffia” should always be used in quotations since it’s a made up alias. Also “Fat Steve” may sound cool in english, but the untranslated Swedish alias (“Tjock Steffe”) is very, very far from a cool gangster name.
This doesn’t do much to discredit the, to be honest, thin link of CIG and the criminals involved in Gizmondo, but since “Fat Steve” have been either in prison or court since 2005 it’s a far reach connecting him to this project. It’s easier to connect CIG to Lego!2 : “It is a known fact that the Star Citizen community is one of the most toxic gaming community in recent memory”. Quite simply no. You and I have both been around long enough to know that’s not the case! There are plenty that are worse than the SC community. I agree that it’s very polarized though. If you come in there with a negative attitude people will jump at you, most certainly. But if you come in there asking “what’s up” people are helpful. Or just check this https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/294270/why-is-so-much-withheld-from-us/ thread that I thought was going to be nuclear but actually got a discussion going.
3 : Is it Sandi Roberts or Sandra Gardiner, even you get the name confused. What is her actual name, surely you must have that by now 🙂
4 : “This scandal” (https://citizengate2014.wordpress.com/) Really? Referencing that site is quite nonsensical. It’s an anonymous blog hosted by Automaticc with 3 posts last year making alot of claims about an individual but proving nothing. (I so hope for your sake you’re not behind it to be honest, but that’d come up during “discovery” I guess). Links to somewhat established newssites is ok, but this is just something someone with an anger towards Wulf Knight put together in an afternoon, nothing more. It’s not a scandal or even “gate”. I’d go as far as to say it’s pathetic, but that’s just my opinion. I can’t defend Wulf Knight though because I really don’t know the guy at all but he doesn’t appear to be the most sane person on the planet. Anyone could put up a “Derek Smart is into some shady things” WordPress blog and make alot of claims and hide behind their anonymity wall and then try to use it as “source” the way you are using that site.
5 : “community headed by Chris Roberts” – no Derek, just no! You can’t keep attributing what the community and White Knights are doing and holding CIG or Chris Roberts responsible for it! You can’t merge them into one evil corner of the internet and say they are one entity.
6 : “Last we heard, the monthly burn rate was over $3m per month.” Source? It may be accurate, I have no clue, but I’m not accepting that as stated fact without source.
7 : Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Frontier Development a publicly traded company? So they HAVE to publish their financials? And neither CIG nor Foundry 42 is, so they don’t? (other than their taxes)
8 : “Over at Foundry 42, Simon Elms (..) is said to be the CFO.”. That’s quite easy to check up: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/officers. No Simon Elms. Yet you then write “Simon Elms, now the CFO of Foundry 42” as a fact?
9 : You say that Disco Lando and Ben Lesnick are at the bottom of the food chain, and that Sandi is at the top. Yet they work, literally, side by side. Not just on screen but their offices are next to each other. Not sure you can have it both ways on that one 🙂
10 : “uncovered by The Escapist.” Did I miss followup article? Escapise didn’t “uncover” anything, they published alot of claims. You uncover “proof”, but they made claims. If they could prove that Sandi said “we don’t hire old or black people” than they should have published that, but they simply claimed she had.
11 : FYI some of my $1000 are physical merchanise like t-shirts and hoodies, they have all been delivered and ok quality, so they are atleast delivering that.
Other than that – good write up 🙂
