Roberts Space Industries - Star Citizen

General
925

That is quite the theory you got there. So he lied to get his way and in the process made millions. Hate to tell you this but some would call that fraud.

“Incomparable. And CR is not over-promising, he’s taking all the risks, that’s different. And again please consider that there is a context, a timeline… and don’t consider that Inovae made things perfectly. LIKE EVERY DEVELOPMENT TEAM OF THIS F***ING PLANET, they had their parts of issues, their lack of communication, etc… and they have been unfairly treated as vaporware during years, like you’re doing with Star Citizen…
[/quote]”

Yes, he has over promised, on quite a few occasions though promise is not accurate. Stated yes but not promised. For example, in the beginning he was saying it was possible to get 200 players in a single instance but then it went to 200 ships, then reality sunk in and it was more like 30 ~ on a good day. And I just have to ask, how many of all those stretch goals has CR accomplished? Where is the Beta?! Oh I get it, say anything you want and when something isn’t delivered slap ‘in development’ on it.

As for Infinity, yes their lack of communication caused a lot of people to unfairly judge them. That said, they had not officially started their Kickstarter and since then their communication has been exemplary. But if you want to compare a company with a few employees operating under $500,000 to one that has has 4 offices, 270 employees and well over $100 million, be my guest.

?

Never said SC is an army of villains - I can see you have no compunction about putting words in other people’s mouth. Evil no. Blindly obsessed to the point of ignoring facts with a singular willingness to troll, even threaten others? Yes, most definitely.

I fail to see the correlation between my quote and your reply. It is a simple statement that points out Battlescape isn’t just an amalgamation of known tech but something completely new. It’s not a question of who is and isn’t a noob - it’s your replies that are in question because they ignore facts and rely on spin. I think your very first reply about CR intentionally misleading supporters about release dates is a perfect example of this - you are so desperate for a rebuttal that fraud is acceptable to you. What’s more, I don’t believe CR intentionally mislead supporters but simply screwed the pouch. He dug a hole so deep he is starting to find Chinese terracotta warriors. But he only has himself to blame despite his attempt to blame supporters with his ‘but they asked for it’ (in reference to stretch goals he created).

‘Not perfect’? I guess that’s your way of justifying incompetence or, by your own admission, fraud.

If DU can get all those players on a single server or same instance, it will be truly a feat in of itself! As for their business model, it seems to work for EVE and it has been around longer than Wing Commander and continues to make money today.

No one here questions your right to express yourself - we encourage it. But there is a difference between expressing yourself with valid arguments and spin.

The fact that you think you can ‘convince’ me that SC is awesome, especially as a former supporter, leads me to conclude that you really are out of touch with reality. And perhaps I’m out of touch as well given I take the time to reply, as if cognitive dissonance could be cured with simple facts.

926

I know exactly how you feel Zen. I have the same relationship with Elite: Dangerous.
As things stand in E:D right now I hate it, but at the same time I remember all the good times I had in it before that.
Those good times were partially fueled by the promisses from the devs, but when they decided to spend time and money (some of it mine) to downgrade and release the game on consoles instead of keeping to the “promised” roadmap, I pretty much lost it.
Tantrums from me on the forums and the following (not unjustified) bans from there was the final nail.
I know it’s not normal to feel that hate against something not even real, but the feeling of betrayal is still very real.
That’s why I decided not to follow SC too closely after finally pledging for it.

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927

You said something really interesting : “some of it mine”, Maybe the central question about all of this is there : is it still your money ? Or, does the fact you helped a project or somebody give you the right to decide how he’s able to use it ?

For example : I’m a modest Lunar supporter. If tomorrow, Flavien says that finally, true to-scale is not really interesting in terms of gameplay, and changes his mind on that, and choose to go from true-to-scale to large-scale only, what can I do ? Am I able to protest ? Can I force him to make the game he wanted first instead of the lightly different game he wants to make now ? As you already know, I don’t think so.

It is not fraud as suggested @Zen (it would if he never had the intention to make this game), because I didn’t buy a game, neither a part of INovae company. I helped somebody to realize his project. I’m not Flavien. I didn’t pass a decade on an incredibly hard to make tech. But because I helped on funding, now I can act like if I was associated ?

No, and why ? Because INovae still owns 100% of I:B. I’m just a future consumer, that didn’t wait for the game to be released to put money on it. But I didn’t buy the game, neither you did. the backers that gave 5$ have the same rights than the stellar supporter. The only difference is that INovae offers naturally more to those who helped more.

This is the “tragedy” of crowd-funding. It just demonstrates that if people could, a large part of them would be dictators…

928
929

You’re right.
It’s no longer my money once I give it away, but I did give it away expecting the devs to stay true to what they said I gave it away for.
Nowhere in the roadmap of E:D when I bought in did it say “We will at our convenience downgrade the game for a release on consoles”.
A pledge should go both ways.

And it’s not just the money we’re talking about here. I spent hundreds of hours in the game looking for bugs and glitches while the gameplay was still confined to the “pill” in beta.
I did it because Frontier asked all beta-backers to do so. In a way I actually worked for free on top of my monetary contribution.
Will I ever support Frontier in anything in the future? No.
Will Zen ever support Roberts in anything in the future? I dont think so.

The one important thing in all this is not how I or Zen or anyone else feels about it.
All this controversy will put a big cloud over any future large-scale crowd funding.

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930

Nowhere on the initial roadmap you can find a word on E:D Horizons, do you want a refund for that ?

This is not your game you’re just a consumer. You can consume it, or no longer. Like Zen with Star Citizen. I totally understand that you have good reasons to be disappointed of how the things turn, both for SC and E:D, but, again, you are not more than simple consumer of a product you don’t own. You guys are like giving your money on the guy on the street playing guitar, and then you think you can ask him to stop what he’s doing to make something else… I understand the product no longer matches with your expectations, but assume it by stopping playing it, instead of going on forums to say “this is crap, this is fraud, they didn’t listen to me…”. That really pisses me off…

To finish, you over-estimate the number of people like you and Zen (that misunderstood the goal of crowd-funding). It’s a certain % of the backers, but not enough to degrade the future of crowd-funding, fortunately.

931

I disagree. I don’t use the word “investor” or “buyer” or anything else like that to describe the Kickstarter relationship, but there’s one thing that’s clear: a company is accepting money in return for the promise of goods and services. To me, that’s a contractual obligation, and there are legal ramifications. If a company says “six character slots per account” and they implement three, well, they’re in breach of contract.

Most of the claims about the product or services tend to be pretty vague, and that’s perfectly fine. If people are willing to contribute to a Kickstarter that says simply “We’re going to build a space game” and people back it, well, that’s their call. It’s when specific features are identified during the campaign that companies need to be diligent about fulfilling those obligations.

That said, the twist here is that it’s crowdfunding. That means a couple bucks from a lot of people. Unless they collectively want to pursue a class action suit against the company, it’s likely that nobody is going to take them to task. Folks will just know to steer clear of that company (and its officers) in the future…

Here’s an attorney discussing the legal issues around backing Kickstarter campaigns.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-your-kickstarter-legal-liabilities-dan-rogers

Among other points he brings up is this topical bit:

MISSING THE TARGET

It wouldn’t be surprising for a backer to sue a campaigner for delivering non-comforming goods either. In the case of software and video games, and while not a Kickstarter related matter, a recent suit against Sony provides some insight.

Around the time that Molyneux kicked off his GODUS campaign, Sony launched the PS4 game console in the United States. Anxious to demonstrate its advanced technical capabilities, they promoted a game named Killzone, claiming never-before, high-resolution graphics.

Killzone Shadow Fall is a visual stunner on PS4, rendering a smorgasbord of reflections, dynamic lighting, and billowing smoke at a razor-sharp 1080p native resolution (1920 x 1080). [21]
Shortly after the game’s launch, however, an article in Eurogamer.net revealed that Killzone was not delivering native 1080p graphics in multiplayer mode as claimed, but was instead using a technical process called interpolation, which, in a puritanical sense, is considered graphical cheating among game enthusiasts.

In the single-player mode, the game runs at full 1080p with an unlocked frame-rate… but it’s a different story altogether with multiplayer. Here Guerrilla Games has opted for a 960x1080 [i.e., exactly half of 1080p’s resolution of 1,920 by 1,080] frame-buffer, in pursuit of a 60fps refresh. Eurogamer.com [22]
In response, Killzone purchaser Douglas Ladore filed a California class-action lawsuit, seeing over $5 million, claiming negligent misrepresentation, false advertisement, unfair competition, fraud, and inducement. [22] In December 2014, the California Northern District Court determined that the suit, Ladore v. Sony, could proceed. [23]

While the viability of Ladore’s lawsuit is beyond the scope of this article, its mere existence demonstrates that failing to deliver promised features can subject a promoter, including Kickstarter campaigners, to an array of legal troubles.

Emphasis mine. This is just a case of false advertising. The Kickstarter relationship is much stronger.

932

Yes. Yes you are. :wink:

The event you described wouldn’t make the kickstarter fraudulent (as to be defined as fraud, the goals of the developer would have never aligned with what was said in the kickstarter to begin with), but it would still be a huge betrayal of trust and abandonment of commitments made.

Not saying this applies to Star Citizen, just that example you used is incredibly clear-cut.

But if you used your last example, it would be more like paying money to a guy on the street who said he was going to play Beethoven’s 7th, only for him to then play Dueling Banjos after you gave him your money. :stuck_out_tongue:

933

The important words in this are “to me”. I can understand your point, but. You don’t use the word buyer or investor but you think, like Zen and Agamemnon, that’s what you are. And in your example, the fact that the district court permitted to the suit to “proceed” is nothing more than an attempt to scare future campaigners. It is never going to go further because of KS rules. As I said and as it is clearly said in KS, you are not buying a product, you are helping a project.

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934

You’re not helping a product because you like the developers beard (no offence Hutchings, your beard just wasn’t enough for me alone). You’re doing it because you like the thing they want to make.

If everyone changed what they were making after getting their money, why should you have helped them in the first place? Why should kickstarter even exist at that point?

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935

4 vs 1 it’s unfair :smiley:

Yes of course you can protest, but I meant you have no real control on the product evolution.

And for a more more precise example, it would be more like paying money to a guy on the street who said he was going to play Beethoven’s 7th (on his guitar, rude …), and then a string broke and he’s now only able to play Duelling Banjos…

But Duelling Banjos is maybe better than Beethoven for some people, so it’s not again a really perfect example.

936

A farmer who wanted to start up a fully organic free-range egg business had a bad harvest so used the kickstarter money to start up a battery farm. That’s 100% fair. I see no problem with it. It’s his money and his backers forfeited all creative control the moment they funded him. He had zero responsibility or obligation to them as long as some end product resulted regardless of the underlying reasons people gave him that money or the marketing strategy he used to get them to part with it.

And yes, yes, I know that’s a rather extreme strawman argument but there’s not too much difference between it and your examples. (It’s also fun to go off the deep-end sometimes).

937

But the fact you like the thing they want to make doesn’t legally/contractually force them to never change a comma on the project.

There is what you want to do, and what you’re able to deliver at the end, independently or not of your desires. How could you attack somebody on the fact that he didn’t succeed ?

And the fact that in KS, you’re not paying money to the guy to obtain something in return. If you did it, you were simply wrong. And the guy you paid risks nothing from you, fortunately.

it becomes really off-topic.

it’s going off-topîc. Can somebody move the lasts posts on a new topic ?

938

The important part is that the developer stays true to what they promised in order to get you to give them your money. They pitch an idea, you like that idea, you give them money so you can see that idea end up being a thing. You’re giving them money on nothing but trust and good faith, it’s an un-written obligation that most good developers that have used crowdfunding accepted and honoured, which is why crowdfunding sites like indiegogo and kickstarter are still viable ways of funding small game projects.

Star Citizen’s still planning everything it promised in their kickstarter and more (you know, for that big ‘eventually’ date). They’ll get there one day thanks to people still throwing money at em. Elite’s done everything they listed in the kickstarter (minus the whole ‘no offline’ fiasco), Elite paid the price for that in bad publicity and refunds at the time.

*Point is; you should complain and whine and make a big fuss if things go badly, the threat of so much bad publicity is a big part of the reason kickstarter projects fulfill their (unwritten and not-legally-binding but still entrusted with.) obligations. :slight_smile:

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939

The fact is that campaigners can legally buy a car with the money the obtained from crowd-funding. Legally. Because help is not contractual. The reason you helped is not more contractual.

Effectively, the side effect if you don’t respect your commitment is that your last campaign was literally your last. And the same if you don’t accept (even if you’re not legally forced to do it) to refund people.

But we’re going on theories. More practically, nor E:D nor SC tried to fraud or to play with people. You can protest, you can be disappointed because it no longer fits to your expectations, but that’s all. What you’re all saying is “to me, to me, to me”. The fact is that you’re not alone guys. How could a game fit with everybody’s expectations. It cannot. There’s a part of interpretation, a part of chaos, in all of this. that you cannot control.

If you were right, I could pursue Frontiers, because after the launch of their KS, they added procedural generation and I was not ok with this… it just doesn’t work like this.

If you didn’t understood that you were helping somebody, it’s your fault. If you believed that you were buying any sort of power, you were wrong. Your only power is to support the project, or not.

940

Here, I totally agree. I forgot that point. your power is also to obtain what you want if a majority agrees with you.

I mean, it’s like if you were 10 guys, facing the guy ant his guitar. He has interest on finding a way to play Beethoven with his 5 strings guitar :smiley:

941

I did say they had no legal responsibility to provide a game exactly as promised, just a moral one; and that both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous provided Elite Dangerous provided pretty much everything it promised (minus offline) and Star Citizen hasn’t said it isn’t going to continue working on everything it promised, during their respective kickstarters.

942

I would still rather hear the poor attempt at Beethoven. It is what I paid for. I shall listen to the crime against music in shame as it is what I asked for and, at that point, deserve.

943

You means the four of you, that was not personal.

944

Ah ok, the specific reply to my post threw me, sorry.

There’s some people here (including myself) talking a lot more about common decency rather than legality and use words like ‘obligation’, ‘commitment’ in that context.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the terms of service for all those different crowdfunding websites and what they get their ‘project hosters?’ to sign. I’m going to stay well clear of that minefield, thanks.