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I've been following SC since the beginning, first in the hope that it truly would give us the next big leap in space games (a genre i'm obsessed with), but quic

I've been following SC since the beginning, first in the hope that it truly would give us the next big leap in space games (a genre i'm obsessed with), but quickly turning into it being me following it just for the drama and entertainment. Star Citizen is without a doubt a total scam, with development pushing out the absolute mimimum[0] to keep more sucke^H^H^H^H^Hpeople investing more money. They're pulling in more money every year, with this year on track to be the biggest year yet[1]. I'm far from the only person who thinks it's a scam[2] and there's entire subreddits[3] devoted to people complaining and trying to get refunds. The SC rabbit-hole is deep and (if you're into the industry drama) very entertaining, and while I don't feel sorry for the rabid fanboys who go into every SC thread defending their tens of thousands of dollars spent on a tech demo, I do absolutely feel sorry for the MILLIONS[4] of people who got suckered by these predators and led to believe they'll ever get what they paid for. [0] https://starcitizentracker.github.io/ https://starcitizentracker.github.io/ [1] https://www.gamerspack.com/2020/05/13/star-citizen-funding-records-2020/ https://www.gamerspack.com/2020/05/13/star-citizen-funding-r... [2] http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-six/ http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-six/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Funding

runawaybottle 6y ago
Thanks for the links. At this point I almost feel like this scam needs serious investigative journalism (wish we could interest a Matt Taibbi on this matter the same way he took on 2008 financial scams). This could be gaming’s Theranos.
causality0 6y ago
I've had people tell me with a straight face "I've spent $4,000 on it and have loved it the whole time." It really is a next-level addiction.
- chrysoprace 6y ago
  Worse yet, they spent $4,000 on a game that isn't released.
- zeeZ 6y ago
  That's about $48 per month over seven years, which is not completely outrageous.
throwawaye3735 6y ago
I know this has been discussed a million times but seems the consensus is that Chris is actively trying to scam people and not just biting off more than he can chew, running into massive scope creep, and being incompetent?
- yborg 6y ago
  I'm very peripherally following this story, mainly because it is the Duke Nukem Forever of this age, but my take on this is that after this much time and money how could he not have figured it out? He's making vastly more money NOT shipping a product than he would have actually completing the the thing, it actually would make a great biz school study. On the scale of tech industry scams, it's also been overshadowed by the many VC busts that delivered even less and pulled in even more funding (looking at you, Magic Leap).
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    But it has shipped product? This is release notes from a playable build that players are actually playing. It's nothing like Duke Nukem Forever that people are jockeying up only for the latest screenshots, it has a live community of sorts already. Sure, it's not complete, but in the "continuously deployed living game model" and "early access game model" we're starting to see a an even more huge variety in what "complete" even means than ever before.
chillfox 6y ago
I put $100 on it years ago, back when they were pushing the single player campaign. All I was hoping for was a spiritual successor to Freelancer, but I have long since given up hope of ever getting anything. These days I check in on the project about once or twice a year and really no significant progress ever seems to have happened. I don't know if it was always a scam, but it certainly feels like it has been for the last few years.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  I followed a lot of Freelancer hype and some of the over-promise/under-delivery I experienced of Freelancer was exactly why I didn't put early money into Star Citizen. Though my rule of thumb for Kickstarter projects is "get my money's worth from the entertainment value of development updates" and by those heuristics Star Citizen seems a great value for the money, and quite successful.
  - chillfox 6y ago
    Interesting, I only learned about Freelancer a year after release and never knew about the promises made during development. My general rule for Kickstarter is don’t back software, I am just not good at estimating the likelihood of delivery with software. It’s a rule that I have only broken twice (font awesome and star citizen). In total I have backed 24 projects and Star Citizen is the only one not delivered.
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      Yeah, it's primarily software projects where I developed my risk heuristic of "will backer updates and development logs be amusing enough, whether or not anything is delivered" and for videogames the subheuristic of "is the value of the soundtrack worth whatever state the game is in at release". A lot of KS games I have backed for their soundtracks and anything about playing the game itself has been a welcome surprise, usually. Most games on KS you have a good idea of who the composer will be and the likelihood of delivery of a strong product from that composer, no matter whatever else with the game. I've actually think I had more projects not deliver that weren't software, though, than software projects. At some I should review the statistics. Under the "did the backer updates entertain" heuristic though, I don't count any real losses.
noahtallen 6y ago
I have strong doubts that it's actually a real scam. My impression is that the scope is just totally blown out and the devs are trying their best. I think it's a classic example of committing to something you can't reasonably ship. I'll totally buy into some scammy behavior like ship purchases. But that's basically the only source of cash until it actually ships (lol), and we all know that big engineering teams are very expensive. I backed SC at the smallest level way back, and I still enjoy it from time to time. It's definitely very cool and unique, the progress is just slow. They're trying to do way too much, IMO, and they don't really know how to communicate timelines well with the community. Hell, I don't know how to create estimates well. I think if the game had been in the hands of a talented game studio, things would have gone much differently. Having to build out the studio and company along with the game is likely a big task. Processes that already exist in a studio have to be created from scratch. Plus, a studio would have a much easier time cutting the scope to meet deadlines. :P But I could totally be convinced that it's a real scam in the future. The amount of work that has been put into it so far seems quite large by my estimation, and I doubt they are just doing that work to run away with folks' cash. 300 engineers would cost enough that I could see them being tight on cash anyways, even with the large crowdfunding efforts.
- throwawaye3735 6y ago
  You make a good point. Assuming you are correct on the scope creep issues, ironically if they actually were a scam and instead of building out an entirely new studio, hiring hundreds of people (which is what leads to so many delays and complications) if they just funneled the money out and hired a small team of developers to perpetuate the scam they probably would actually have more concrete Development done.
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  I think the scam-ie-ness of it is more along the lines of predatory marketing. They sell ship concepts for a lot of money. And are only now getting into the real meat-and-potatoes of the critical development. Things like server meshing, and appropriate object culling server/client side. There are NO gameplay loops that don't involve a small variation of the following: Kill bounties / mine minerals / trade goods to earn money. Use money to buy ships. And even that is kinda bogus because your purchases may/may not persist between patches! Any PVP is completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop. Any group events are completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop. There are a few things you can do to speed up say mining loops by having a scout + cash maker(s). There is ZERO logistics. There is ZERO economy (8 years in and they finally created money transfers). Overall this is a project that has every incentive to keep developing forever and not deliver. Because of this they over-promised so so so much that it is almost impossible to meet these expectations. Also development has been... insanely slow. Took them 7 years before they gave you a mobile respawn point on some ships. Took them 8 years to get aiming even remotely okay. Took them 8 years and NPCs still can't glitch out and stop moving/acting. 8 years later and only the latest top notch PC can even attempt to get 30fps in this game, and even then, not in most areas. This has to be Fyre festival. The same thing happened there. "Just fund it, we'll figure it out." until... they couldn't figure it out. So they asked for more funding.
rurounijones 6y ago
Using Derek Smart of all people as a source doesn't help. Guy is bitter, jealous and has a rather long history of crazy and putting out unfinished, mediocre games ever since BC3K. Just look at the latest offering (removed from steam by the looks of it) that was a $99 early access thing started around 2012 I think: http://lodgame.com http://lodgame.com with a last update 2 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart
- mcv 6y ago
  I remember Derek Smart from my USENET days at the time of the BC3K fiasco. I would definitely take his claims with some grains of salt. That said, Derek calling it a scam doesn't mean it's not a scam.
  - rurounijones 6y ago
    > That said, Derek calling it a scam doesn't mean it's not a scam. Agreed, but neither does it make it a scam. Any input he has on the subject is compromised and basically meaningless as evidence one way or the other. So we really should avoid citing him.
    - iamtom 6y ago
      How is that? Everyone who isn't invested in the project is calling it a scam. Heck, even Forbes had a lengthy article about that a few months ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-the-saga-of-star-citizen-a-video-game-that-raised-300-millionbut-may-never-be-ready-to-play/#1e4592c05ac9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-... So you're saying because it's still in dev and still raising money, so it's not a scam?
      - rurounijones 6y ago
        > So you're saying because it's still in dev and still raising money, so it's not a scam? At no point have I weighed in on if it is a scam or not. All I am saying is that citing Derek Smart as an authority on the matter is not really a good idea either way. He is hugely biased and is basically praying it fails. Citing other, probably less biased sources? Great, go ahead.
m_mueller 6y ago
Hmm I just had a quick look st the 0th link and a lot of these yellow items seem to be done or in alpha stage. E.g. mining, unrestricted view distance and a lot more. Outdated data? Bias? Or am I getting something wrong?
ehnto 6y ago
If it's a scam it's the most poorly executed scam I have encountered. They have hundreds of employees all working on two concurrent games, which currently releases regular builds. Is that not what people backed for? Not only that but it's truly a better space sim than most even in its Alpha form. I have gotten hours of fun and atmospheric gameplay out of the scam to date and every quarter I get more to play with. Suits me fine. The situation is far, far more easily explained by an intense project management incompetence and a vastly expanding scope. My biggest fear is that they can't deliver on some of their technically challenging goals before running out of money due to wasteful project management, but so far they have executed all the big tech pillars.

runawaybottle 6y ago

Thanks for the links. At this point I almost feel like this scam needs serious investigative journalism (wish we could interest a Matt Taibbi on this matter the same way he took on 2008 financial scams). This could be gaming’s Theranos.

causality0 6y ago

I've had people tell me with a straight face "I've spent $4,000 on it and have loved it the whole time." It really is a next-level addiction.

chrysoprace 6y ago
Worse yet, they spent $4,000 on a game that isn't released.
zeeZ 6y ago
That's about $48 per month over seven years, which is not completely outrageous.

throwawaye3735 6y ago

I know this has been discussed a million times but seems the consensus is that Chris is actively trying to scam people and not just biting off more than he can chew, running into massive scope creep, and being incompetent?

yborg 6y ago
I'm very peripherally following this story, mainly because it is the Duke Nukem Forever of this age, but my take on this is that after this much time and money how could he not have figured it out? He's making vastly more money NOT shipping a product than he would have actually completing the the thing, it actually would make a great biz school study. On the scale of tech industry scams, it's also been overshadowed by the many VC busts that delivered even less and pulled in even more funding (looking at you, Magic Leap).
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  But it has shipped product? This is release notes from a playable build that players are actually playing. It's nothing like Duke Nukem Forever that people are jockeying up only for the latest screenshots, it has a live community of sorts already. Sure, it's not complete, but in the "continuously deployed living game model" and "early access game model" we're starting to see a an even more huge variety in what "complete" even means than ever before.

chillfox 6y ago

I put $100 on it years ago, back when they were pushing the single player campaign. All I was hoping for was a spiritual successor to Freelancer, but I have long since given up hope of ever getting anything. These days I check in on the project about once or twice a year and really no significant progress ever seems to have happened. I don't know if it was always a scam, but it certainly feels like it has been for the last few years.

WorldMaker 6y ago
I followed a lot of Freelancer hype and some of the over-promise/under-delivery I experienced of Freelancer was exactly why I didn't put early money into Star Citizen. Though my rule of thumb for Kickstarter projects is "get my money's worth from the entertainment value of development updates" and by those heuristics Star Citizen seems a great value for the money, and quite successful.
- chillfox 6y ago
  Interesting, I only learned about Freelancer a year after release and never knew about the promises made during development. My general rule for Kickstarter is don’t back software, I am just not good at estimating the likelihood of delivery with software. It’s a rule that I have only broken twice (font awesome and star citizen). In total I have backed 24 projects and Star Citizen is the only one not delivered.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    Yeah, it's primarily software projects where I developed my risk heuristic of "will backer updates and development logs be amusing enough, whether or not anything is delivered" and for videogames the subheuristic of "is the value of the soundtrack worth whatever state the game is in at release". A lot of KS games I have backed for their soundtracks and anything about playing the game itself has been a welcome surprise, usually. Most games on KS you have a good idea of who the composer will be and the likelihood of delivery of a strong product from that composer, no matter whatever else with the game. I've actually think I had more projects not deliver that weren't software, though, than software projects. At some I should review the statistics. Under the "did the backer updates entertain" heuristic though, I don't count any real losses.

noahtallen 6y ago

I have strong doubts that it's actually a real scam. My impression is that the scope is just totally blown out and the devs are trying their best. I think it's a classic example of committing to something you can't reasonably ship. I'll totally buy into some scammy behavior like ship purchases. But that's basically the only source of cash until it actually ships (lol), and we all know that big engineering teams are very expensive. I backed SC at the smallest level way back, and I still enjoy it from time to time. It's definitely very cool and unique, the progress is just slow. They're trying to do way too much, IMO, and they don't really know how to communicate timelines well with the community. Hell, I don't know how to create estimates well. I think if the game had been in the hands of a talented game studio, things would have gone much differently. Having to build out the studio and company along with the game is likely a big task. Processes that already exist in a studio have to be created from scratch. Plus, a studio would have a much easier time cutting the scope to meet deadlines. :P But I could totally be convinced that it's a real scam in the future. The amount of work that has been put into it so far seems quite large by my estimation, and I doubt they are just doing that work to run away with folks' cash. 300 engineers would cost enough that I could see them being tight on cash anyways, even with the large crowdfunding efforts.

throwawaye3735 6y ago
You make a good point. Assuming you are correct on the scope creep issues, ironically if they actually were a scam and instead of building out an entirely new studio, hiring hundreds of people (which is what leads to so many delays and complications) if they just funneled the money out and hired a small team of developers to perpetuate the scam they probably would actually have more concrete Development done.
Justsignedup 6y ago
I think the scam-ie-ness of it is more along the lines of predatory marketing. They sell ship concepts for a lot of money. And are only now getting into the real meat-and-potatoes of the critical development. Things like server meshing, and appropriate object culling server/client side. There are NO gameplay loops that don't involve a small variation of the following: Kill bounties / mine minerals / trade goods to earn money. Use money to buy ships. And even that is kinda bogus because your purchases may/may not persist between patches! Any PVP is completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop. Any group events are completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop. There are a few things you can do to speed up say mining loops by having a scout + cash maker(s). There is ZERO logistics. There is ZERO economy (8 years in and they finally created money transfers). Overall this is a project that has every incentive to keep developing forever and not deliver. Because of this they over-promised so so so much that it is almost impossible to meet these expectations. Also development has been... insanely slow. Took them 7 years before they gave you a mobile respawn point on some ships. Took them 8 years to get aiming even remotely okay. Took them 8 years and NPCs still can't glitch out and stop moving/acting. 8 years later and only the latest top notch PC can even attempt to get 30fps in this game, and even then, not in most areas. This has to be Fyre festival. The same thing happened there. "Just fund it, we'll figure it out." until... they couldn't figure it out. So they asked for more funding.

rurounijones 6y ago

Using Derek Smart of all people as a source doesn't help. Guy is bitter, jealous and has a rather long history of crazy and putting out unfinished, mediocre games ever since BC3K. Just look at the latest offering (removed from steam by the looks of it) that was a $99 early access thing started around 2012 I think: http://lodgame.com http://lodgame.com with a last update 2 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart

mcv 6y ago
I remember Derek Smart from my USENET days at the time of the BC3K fiasco. I would definitely take his claims with some grains of salt. That said, Derek calling it a scam doesn't mean it's not a scam.
- rurounijones 6y ago
  > That said, Derek calling it a scam doesn't mean it's not a scam. Agreed, but neither does it make it a scam. Any input he has on the subject is compromised and basically meaningless as evidence one way or the other. So we really should avoid citing him.
  - iamtom 6y ago
    How is that? Everyone who isn't invested in the project is calling it a scam. Heck, even Forbes had a lengthy article about that a few months ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-the-saga-of-star-citizen-a-video-game-that-raised-300-millionbut-may-never-be-ready-to-play/#1e4592c05ac9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-... So you're saying because it's still in dev and still raising money, so it's not a scam?
    - rurounijones 6y ago
      > So you're saying because it's still in dev and still raising money, so it's not a scam? At no point have I weighed in on if it is a scam or not. All I am saying is that citing Derek Smart as an authority on the matter is not really a good idea either way. He is hugely biased and is basically praying it fails. Citing other, probably less biased sources? Great, go ahead.

m_mueller 6y ago

Hmm I just had a quick look st the 0th link and a lot of these yellow items seem to be done or in alpha stage. E.g. mining, unrestricted view distance and a lot more. Outdated data? Bias? Or am I getting something wrong?

ehnto 6y ago

If it's a scam it's the most poorly executed scam I have encountered. They have hundreds of employees all working on two concurrent games, which currently releases regular builds. Is that not what people backed for? Not only that but it's truly a better space sim than most even in its Alpha form. I have gotten hours of fun and atmospheric gameplay out of the scam to date and every quarter I get more to play with. Suits me fine. The situation is far, far more easily explained by an intense project management incompetence and a vastly expanding scope. My biggest fear is that they can't deliver on some of their technically challenging goals before running out of money due to wasteful project management, but so far they have executed all the big tech pillars.