I have no opinion about SC being scam or not, but a referral program is definitely not a pyramid scheme. You may want to explain me why I’m wrong, but still, it’s not a pyramid scheme.
Maybe its not exactly a pyramid scheme but its very close:
Wikipedia:
A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable and often illegal business model
that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for
enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real
investment or sale of products or services to the public.
Dude, how can you have watched the presentation and the current demo and take away that this is a scam? It contained a live demo of all the hard dev bits, 64-bit big world, multicrew, local and global physics grid, zero-G, amazing art assets, etc. The animations were a bit choppy and the character models are still placeholders? Like to be expected for an unfinished game?
I’ve not spent a penny on SC (yet) but I’ve been following hundreds of hours of development videos and posts since 2012 (while eagerly observing Infinity’s development since 2006). You literally watch over the shoulders of the now 270 people building it, not counting numerous contractors. If you could ever have been sure of any game in development NOT being a scam, it’s Star Citizen.
Honestly this scam talk reminds me of the story of the Red professional cinema camera company. Uninformed people were still calling it a scam when Peter Jackson was already filming the Hobbit with dozens of the alleged vaporware cameras.
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Trolls be trollin’.
If you want to call it a scam, then you have to call every other kickstarter project a scam as well, including Infinity. Except it’s not a scam because there are people working on it that are achieving tangible results. Why would they hire A List actors on a videogame that is supposedly going to vanish into thin air? Why would they release playable ‘slices’ of the game every few months?
You can only call something a scam when there has been no delivery of a product and we haven’t even reached 2016 yet.
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Are there even any popular mmo games without referral things? I don’t get how you can call something a scam after seeing that alpha 2.0 demonstration. It’s obviously, demonstrably, there. Some people just have irrational dislike for these kind of things, i guess.
Meanwhile, derek smart’s game? If you want to call something a scam… i think i found it. Derek smart is famous for his 7 year BC 3000 dev cycle deadline slip. He should understand completely that while a delayed game is unfortunate, it’s not critical. hell, he argued for it then fucking commited violence on a coke machine at his publisher’s offices when he didnt get his way about it, that a game delayed is not a game ruined, or a scam. They have the money to make sure the game is good, it’s foolish to judge a missed deadline as a failed game.
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You missed this part…
And I reckon Roberts would burn a lot of bridges career wise, if the game turned out a scam, after hiring that much hollywood talent. Bit off more than he and his studio might chew, maybe.
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A scam would be if they intentionally trick people, I don’t think they are doing that.
Even Derek Smart hasn’t called it a scam as far as I know.
It does seem they do really have some troubles in making the game in the currently promised scope though.
This game will not in a hundred years deliver what is promised. If it is released at all (they are saying end of 2016 now). They are tricking people into buying ships for “just 170 dollars” fully knowing that their tech and game will be crap.
Derek, is that you?
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Denial, is that you?
Denial of what?
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Derek has been calling Star Citizen a scam, a ponzi scheme and pretty much every other word a thesaurus would cough up for that for more than a year.
They use every opportunity to emphasize that you don’t have to buy any ship beyond the base game package and can get anything later in game. Selling virtual space ships is their funding model for development, not their business model for after release. The latter is going to be a mix of full price game sales + future additional single player campaigns + optional subscriptions + in-game credits for real money.
EDITS: added some extra links
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+1
People tend to forget or ignore that fact. Although personally I wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars on something I can have for free after some time, this method is a legitimate way to generate revenue. So long they eventually release the ships in game, more power to CIG. And wow, was that a powerful money generation idea.
For me, I bought the Aurora in the kickstarter. I’m pretty sure I got it when the funding was under the 150k mark (thousand, not million 
). But from there, I wouldn’t purchase a ship because it would feel too much like a short-cut.
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Slightly off topic, but I can gladly say that 90% of steam Greenlight “games” at a load of horseshit, wouldn’t touch even if they were “complete”
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Just a side note. If you are going to have ships as funding rewards, it makes a lot of sense to have them be very expensive, especially when people are willing to “pay”(donate) for them. Otherwise, everyone will own a bengal before the game goes live. That’s not fun. People have fun progressing through these games, so they need to strike a balance between what people are willing to “pay”(again, these are donations with rewards) for and the proliferation of ships they are aiming for on launch.
There are people who think they are making value oriented purchases when they buy a star citizen ship. They are not very smart. Regardless, RSI is doing their ship-pledge thing the right way, though obviously many think it would be better if they weren’t doing it at all.
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Chris roberts is awesome, and star citizen too… derek is a jerk.
Why is there so things around this game ? Because it will be probably the most Incredible game ever
But right after for I:B, of course 
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But that’s just like… your opinion, man.
See the thing with your posts is that you state something arguable as inarguable fact, and then when someone hints at that fallacy, you switch to another pretense of certainty and this time even less credible - that you telepathically know the other person is in denial.
@Tjafaas I’ll reply after the kickstarter’s start … I don’t know how to say this in english but “les deux ne jouent pas dans la même cour” is my point of view