All advertising contains subjective terms like great and best and presents them as if they are hard and firm facts. McDonalds can go around all day advertising that I will enjoy eating there and won't get heartburn but that doesn't make it fact. Some people might enjoy eating there but I'm not one of them.
Just like most other companies they picked a meaning for the term no pay to win that suited their needs and are using that definition to justify their claims. The term has so little real meaning since it's really just a matter of personal taste that arguing about it is like arguing who makes the best cup of coffee. Everyone is going to have a different opinion base on their own personal tastes and preferences.
The key issue with the term is that no one can agree on what it is to win in a MMO to begin with. If winning is getting to max level the fastest than all F2P and most Sub MMO's are pay to win because of XP boosts. If it's collecting the best gear in game than a lot fewer fall into that category and if it's competitive ranking than you have to look at how people develop their characters and skills to make it onto the competitive ranking and how those activities are benefited by the cash shop.
You are 100% correct sir but it doesn't change the facts,it is still misleading if someone or group of people present misleading information.
To say that no one could agree on a no win scenario i would say is false.If there is absolutely no way to get an upper hand or get something nobody else has through additional monetary gains,then it is absolutely not a pay to win.What Mr.Roberts is doing is trying to mislead people because he knows all too well how touchy the subject is and purposely avoids the truth which is that "it COULD be considered a p2 win".
It goes even further,imagine all those people who already invested money all of a sudden see Roberts offer something even better for less down the road.Yes i know we can all sit back and say "well those people should not expect anything,they should realize they are handing money over for free".However truth is MANY of those people most likely do expect something for the money they hand over.
Fact is that Mr.Roberts is offering items for investing,so it is not a simple donation but more like a purchase because i doubt woudl get nearly the same response if nothing was given errr sold.
You are totally right. But just one clarification. Their campaign actually IS NOT considered "donation" by law (it is only a meaning that the fans created to make people believe that "they do not owe you nothing" so you "can't ask for anything when interacting with them" or even "you should not give any feedback or require to be treated as a customer, because you are just a pledger").
The Crowd Funding reward fits under the concept of the "recharacteraztion" that exist in the US law and as a consequence, what they do is a sale.
It only would be considered a "donation" if they did not offer anything back, but they did, they offered the copy of the game and virtual goods and clearly they never would be "funded" without this reciprocity.
A) He a unknown internet poster tried to tell the developers of star citizen how to market their game.
they didn't follow his demands..
Thus
C) They are evil money grubbers only out to scam and make a quick buck.
Lastly the Op doesn't seem to understand no matter how well you define something there is always gonna be someone that will have a different understanding. One can well have a payment model that 99.9% of gamers agree is not pay to win, but that .1% that disagrees will still make the company a bunch of evil money grubbers in the OP's eyes.
I purchased a founders pack already, but if the game limits any type of game play, or any aspects that make the game Pay 2 Enjoy like War-Tune, or any of these other F2P Games I will not be supporting the game anymore.
I guess I am not understanding why you are putting this much time and energy into this. Even if everything you say is true who the fuck cares!?
Just dont buy the game, warn your friends / family. Let the rest of the free people of the world make up their own mind. Myself and most others do not need you crusading on our behalf to save me from spending $50 bucks on a game.
This particular game is one I am looking forward to. If it turn out to be a P2W game then I will pass. Thanks for your holy crusade to save me tho.
Edit: I know this may come as a shocker but he IS in it to make money, the more the better. I dont see this as some charity work to save gaming as we know it. If they can make more money off a p2w cash shop game then it is smart business to do it. Not that I will play, but many others might and enjoy it.
I don't know what kind of culture you have, but in my own, we care with customers and not just with ourselves. I am not ashamed to put some effort to help other possible customers to do not be leaded to mistakes of buy stuff of a company that perpetuates a mislead marketing and wants that others follow such bad example.
A) He a unknown internet poster tried to tell the developers of star citizen how to market their game.
they didn't follow his demands..
Thus
C) They are evil money grubbers only out to scam and make a quick buck.
Lastly the Op doesn't seem to understand no matter how well you define something there is always gonna be someone that will have a different understanding. One can well have a payment model that 99.9% of gamers agree is not pay to win, but that .1% that disagrees will still make the company a bunch of evil money grubbers in the OP's eyes.
A) No. I was not the only one who gives them the same obvious feedback for obvious "mistakes" (which I know that actually are not mistakes, but in purpose)
True. By obvious reasons of their strategy that I told here, they won't follow any best practice of marketing to avoid bad side effects in the long term.
c) Evil? That's a fun concept. It's a concept of people who watch movies indeed. They are not evil. They are just making money by misleading people. They just exaggerate, since they like to "play the hero" role in the fairy tale scenario that they created in their marketing. I am pretty sure that some of you think that "it is ok" in the values that the society preserves today, possibly in your country, that does not have maybe so many laws to protect consumers as others have. They still are going to release the game, eventually, probably later than sooner (obviously later than sooner). Only the talking about future won't happen. But you still will have the Private servers. But I am sorry for people spending thousands of dollars to support a thing that has no future. They definitely will cry a lot.
If you really think that 99% of the game community agree with you, I am wondering. Why all these people did not buy your game yet? Just a tiny group of people bought. The remaining are seriously skeptic, and as more CIG feeds the Money Machine, more they become more skeptic. And considering that CIG is not planning to release anything in time, and with this idea of "milestones" (releases full of bugs that goes against their pretty and polished videos), who is out won't care too much and will consider the game a fail, not keeping their promise and that won't help to make them lose their skepticism.
People are mistaken when thinking that a polished game saves business. Its marketing, communication and support which makes a company to survive (in any business). A lot of great games and companies with clearly more good faith than the CIG, are dead and never made success with their super-polished and cool games. You can make ONLY a cool game. If you make a cool game and a crap in your marketing, you are so doomed as someone who makes a bad game with an excelent marketing (actually, you will have more chances of success in this second scenario).
I don't know what kind of culture you have, but in my own, we care with customers and not just with ourselves.
Just to clarify...are you at any point in this games development part of the team making the game because you make it sound like you are?
No matter what advice you give I am not YOUR customer and neither is anyone else here so stop trying to pretend you are doing us all a favor. I am a customer with CRI and in that respects I have no problem with their customer services so far.
If you are going to madly rant at least be accurate rather than annoyingly opinionated.
I don't know what kind of culture you have, but in my own, we care with customers and not just with ourselves.
Just to clarify...are you at any point in this games development part of the team making the game because you make it sound like you are?
No matter what advice you give I am not YOUR customer and neither is anyone else here so stop trying to pretend you are doing us all a favor. I am a customer with CRI and in that respects I have no problem with their customer services so far.
If you are going to madly rant at least be accurate rather than annoyingly opinionated.
So... to clarify, I meant, customers which care with other customers.
A) No. I was not the only one who gives them the same obvious feedback for obvious "mistakes" (which I know that actually are not mistakes, but in purpose)
Please provide proof that any claimed mistake was actually on purpose please. I call bullshit!
True. By obvious reasons of their strategy that I told here, they won't follow any best practice of marketing to avoid bad side effects in the long term.
Please provide an example of what you think they have done to avoid bad side effects. I call bullshit.
c) Evil? That's a fun concept. It's a concept of people who watch movies indeed. They are not evil. They are just making money by misleading people.
Please provide an example of misleading inforamtion. I call bullshit.
They just exaggerate,
Exageration is not the same as misleading. I call ignorance.
since they like to "play the hero" role in the fairy tale scenario that they created in their marketing. I am pretty sure that some of you think that "it is ok" in the values that the society preserves today, possibly in your country, that does not have maybe so many laws to protect consumers as others have. They still are going to release the game, eventually, probably later than sooner (obviously later than sooner). Only the talking about future won't happen. But you still will have the Private servers. But I am sorry for people spending thousands of dollars to support a thing that has no future. They definitely will cry a lot.
Your personal opinion but please provide a single reason you hold that opinion. I call bullshit.
If you really think that 99% of the game community agree with you, I am wondering. Why all these people did not buy your game yet?Just a tiny group of people bought.
If $26,000,000 is in your eyes not confirmation of the community backing the game...I can't even finish this one lol.
The remaining are seriously skeptic, and as more CIG feeds the Money Machine, more they become more skeptic. And considering that CIG is not planning to release anything in time, and with this idea of "milestones"
Just to check, you mention 'milestones' as if they are some made-up bullshit to confuse people rather then one of the most important components of ANY project plan and esential to not only keep things on time but also within budget. Is that correct?
I could keep pulling your post apart but I think I will leave it on the point where you laugh at their project using these so called 'milesstones'.....what a dweeb!
I don't know what kind of culture you have, but in my own, we care with customers and not just with ourselves.
Just to clarify...are you at any point in this games development part of the team making the game because you make it sound like you are?
No matter what advice you give I am not YOUR customer and neither is anyone else here so stop trying to pretend you are doing us all a favor. I am a customer with CRI and in that respects I have no problem with their customer services so far.
If you are going to madly rant at least be accurate rather than annoyingly opinionated.
So... to clarify, I meant, customers which care with other customers.
Originally posted by MindTrigger My guess is that this guy either owns, or works for a game developer, and is having a hard time coming to terms with the success of Star Citizen's crowd funding. Why else is he beating this particular drum? Truth in advertising? Hire a lawyer and get on with it, if that's what you need to do.
See... Fans help to prove my point. That what's CR will tell at their end. "Evil publishers hired people to say bad things about us". And they will believe on that and will cry, maybe will consider him a martyr. LoL
CR is smart and if this "way to be smart" is something that our society gives value, he really deserves all the profit that he is grabbing from these guys.
You know... Just like he said:
"I think the console business will be healthy for quite a while, I think the PC business, the tablet business, the mobile business, they'll all be healthy," Roberts said. "I think there's money to be made in all of them. I just like the PC business because there aren't a lot of people competing there."
If you want to know "my agenda" I can tell you. First I was a backer. Thought that they were making mistakes. Later it became clear that the "mistakes" were in purpose.
And I really do not like companies deceiving customers. And would be happy to be proved wrong, but they are unable to do that. They would not dare to call some independent company to prove those numbers for example.
And I saw they doing that many times, misleading people, more than any other game company that I have been following.
I will alert all people that I can. Not worried by your fan comments, because I am not willing to convince people who take things under religious proportions as you guys like you usually take and have a excuse for everything, even that such excuse is something like "the evil publishers" or some other fairy tales like that. You talk about success. A 'success' that you can't prove as true. It is just your overhyped mind that believes on that.
Clearly you're quite the legal expert. You should be ashamed at even inferring such a thing.
So at least you come clean, finally. You're a disgruntled backer who didn't get your way so you're slinging mud. You don't have a legal complaint and you don't really even have an ethical one because you've failed to point out how this developer crossed a moral line.
You can alert whomever you want, but no one really cares what you have to say unless you can clearly explain what went wrong, why it's wrong, and what the right course of action should be. You've failed to do that.
You're arguing from an emotional perspective because I'm not a fan of this game. I'm not going to play it. It's not my thing and I don't really care one way or another about it. I just see yet another post where a forum member isn't getting their way and is irrationally lashing out about it. If they've done something wrong then explain that. You not liking their game design or marketing choices doesn't really qualify as them having done something wrong.
This is why I warn people to be careful about crowd-funding and/or becoming an early adopter. They really aren't mentally geared for it. I am an early adopter and I understand the risks involved in doing so and am prepared to walk away from my investment when it goes wrong. If that is because I don't like how the game evolved, then that is on me. If the developer lied or scammed the community then that is on them. I'm not seeing the latter here yet.
Not really. I would not lost any lawsuit here. They took advantage on people because they sell it in another countries. That's why they were so offensive in their email answers when I asked them to take a look in some things. Because they underestimated me, as underestimate anyone who is not from US. They do not accept that you are a customer. Unless you behave like a blind fan, they won't respect you. It's very easy to prove that.
The reason that I am telling this things, is not for revenge. It is just because I saw their agenda. And when a company do not behave properly, is a tradition in my culture to alert other people. And I invite people to keep their eyes opened, so they see that too.
If you are fan you should not be worried, because you know. They only make good things right? And have good faith? So, people will see from their own eyes that they do (or not?). But the fans have fear from this kind of history, because they know what they really do there and how they treat people which paid for their services as anything, but no as a customer.
Before, I was trying to help CIG, to see that their current marketing approach, their "mistakes" would be a problem for the future, due its side effects.
But their reaction against this feedback, was just.. .weird, and out of any sense of a person that have good faith.
It sounds like you adviced someone "I would not drive this way because it make you seem drunk for the authorities" and the person punched you because, even that you did not notice, the person was actually with some alcoholic level in his blood not allowed. They enlighted me by their own dumb reaction. If I had not proof in that time to consider "mistakes" as acts of bad faith, they feed me the proof that I needed with their own reaction.
This, summed with other things that they made, shown me what exactly is their agenda and why people should hold their pockets instead blindly spending thousands of dollars in a game without any chance of future (due their marketing approach).
I am alerting people, not so different in the same level that you do. The risk is higher when the company adopt a posture of grabbing more money without any worry about the future. Their constant "mistakes" in their advertising already proved that.
jcrg99; even if what you are saying is true, you are undermining your own position in your tireless tirade. You've made your opinion clear, now why not step back and let things unfold as they may? I'm sure others feel the same as you (I'm no fan of the marketing tactics employed here), but I also know that I'm not changing anything. The best I can hope for is a glimmer of understanding or recognition from another poster, and you've already attained that.
To sum up the words of a developer I have great respect for: "You are not fighting the great fight".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
So basically you are a KS backer who does not like the way marketing was / is handled, emailed them with your concerns, which were somewhat rudely rebuffed ( according to you ) and now want to warn everyone else not to back or buy into this game due to its impending failure?
Sounds like buyers remorse more or less. You somehow thought being a backer would allow you to give input into development and marketing of SC. And now you realize what you thought you were backing may not be the case or has changed in a way you do not like.
Welcome to KS !!
That is the reason people should think long and hard before backing, realizing that they may be basically throwing money away. The game may / may not release, things may be added you do not like, game may change altogether, released product may vastly differ from original concept you backed. That IS the risk of KS. If you cant accept that then do not donate and just wait for a released product to buy and make your decision then.
I personally do not back KS because of this. I have followed this game closely and will support it when its finished and released IF its what I want to spend money on.
Donating to KS does not entitle you to anything, other than money being deducted from your account and the hope that things turn out the way you envisioned.
Chalk this up to a lesson learned and think long and hard before you donate money to a project which is probably not even in an alpha state of development. Things can and will change, many of which you may not like.
jcrg99; even if what you are saying is true, you are undermining your own position in your tireless tirade. You've made your opinion clear, now why not step back and let things unfold as they may? I'm sure others feel the same as you (I'm no fan of the marketing tactics employed here), but I also know that I'm not changing anything. The best I can hope for is a glimmer of understanding or recognition from another poster, and you've already attained that.
To sum up the words of a developer I have great respect for: "You are not fighting the great fight".
Here? I suppose that you think that it is in the CIG forums. LoL
So basically you are a KS backer who does not like the way marketing was / is handled, emailed them with your concerns, which were somewhat rudely rebuffed ( according to you ) and now want to warn everyone else not to back or buy into this game due to its impending failure?
Sounds like buyers remorse more or less. You somehow thought being a backer would allow you to give input into development and marketing of SC. And now you realize what you thought you were backing may not be the case or has changed in a way you do not like.
Welcome to KS !!
That is the reason people should think long and hard before backing, realizing that they may be basically throwing money away. The game may / may not release, things may be added you do not like, game may change altogether, released product may vastly differ from original concept you backed. That IS the risk of KS. If you cant accept that then do not donate and just wait for a released product to buy and make your decision then.
I personally do not back KS because of this. I have followed this game closely and will support it when its finished and released IF its what I want to spend money on.
Donating to KS does not entitle you to anything, other than money being deducted from your account and the hope that things turn out the way you envisioned.
Chalk this up to a lesson learned and think long and hard before you donate money to a project which is probably not even in an alpha state of development. Things can and will change, many of which you may not like.
Good luck to you
No. That was not the way that it happened. I never was entitled to anything indeed. I just gave some feedback. Their reaction was something strange. And that opened my eyes to see other facts about their whole campaign. I saw their agenda, and then, some of their "mistakes" started to make more sense to me.
KS (Crowd funding reward) is not out of the law as you imagine. As I told before, it falls into the "recharacterization" concept. IT is just a sale as anything similar and you have consumers laws, marketing/ad laws to protect you and the business. It is not a donation (except if they do not offer you nothing in exchange of your money).
If you choose to ignore your rights, that's your choice, but do not lead people to assume that they do not have rights, or laws protecting them, because they have.
Of course, this false notion of "pure donation" benefits more the company than consumers, so, for obvious reasons, CIG is not worried to avoid that such lies be promoted in their forums and places were they interact with their customers, as well as any other crowd funding initiative (except those that still keep some ethic values and customer respect, those that really deserves trust).
Originally posted by goldtoof Are you the same guy that was bitching about them doing some charity thing for rememberance day?
Heh... This matter above was simply one more proof that they do not care a lot with their image for the future.
The first donation campaign that they do, officially, selling their products for "charity" and they make what they did.
Charity in their view: Sending video-games for US Soldiers in actual, real fights to explode people out there (in the name of questionable reasons, which are far to be popular in any country, except US). Volunteer and paid soldiers following only the US agenda and interest. Possibly, one day, with so happiness by playing Call of Duty, that when in real action would think that is actually playing a game, by killing some REAL people and making some "points". Maybe even entering in the home of some of the CIG pledgers in some future, and killing all them, including their children and their pets LoL
Nice charity!
Charity in my view and possibly in the view of any more sane person: helping children injured by US drones, or families destroyed by the horror of wars, or even helping veterans with deceases, by sending essential stuff, not a video-game and many other worthy causes. They even DARE to say that their "charity" campaign was to a "worthy" cause. Here you can have a better idea of the line of the thinking of this company.
They are associating their company's name in war efforts of US, with or without their intention. No. They are not investing in some US guys playing a game championship of Call of Duty. They are actually helping US Government, by sending video-games to soldiers, so they ignore the fact that are fighting for a wrong cause and just follow orders, killing people and having fun with that.
Knowing the way that I know them, that was obviously intentional, and not just "one more mistake", and they are part of the US group that would like to explode the whole world just to be the number 1.
Their excuse "it is about to help people" was totally pathetic, since they are just helping people to kill other people and the objective of "saving lives" is far to be unanimity, and you can call "charity" to send video-games for people that probably receives better payment than a lot of US people.
They assumed a politic position here, without thinking in side effects (or just showing one more fact to demonstrate that they do not care with anything, except grabbing more money now for their own profit, because the future is an obvious fail), but did not lose time to ban and offend everyone who said in their forums that were against such idea.
Most pathetic was to see that forum hero, Toast, giving public alerts for everyone that was giving arguments against such idea and zero alerts to those that are in favor and were sometimes, more offensive than those complaining. Just biased and following the CIG memo as usual.
So, yes, I am one of the dozen of people, possibly hundreds which did not think that this was a terrible idea, considering that they are selling in the whole world, not just in US.
The only fact that the general press not even talked about that, shows to you, the fans, how important Star Citizen really is in the game industry today. If they were really important, or was threatening publishers or something, definitely the publishers would "pay" the press to write some story about this horrible "charity" campaign.
Originally posted by MindTrigger My guess is that this guy either owns, or works for a game developer, and is having a hard time coming to terms with the success of Star Citizen's crowd funding. Why else is he beating this particular drum? Truth in advertising? Hire a lawyer and get on with it, if that's what you need to do.
See... Fans help to prove my point. That what's CR will tell at their end. "Evil publishers hired people to say bad things about us". And they will believe on that and will cry, maybe will consider him a martyr. LoL
CR is smart and if this "way to be smart" is something that our society gives value, he really deserves all the profit that he is grabbing from these guys.
You know... Just like he said:
"I think the console business will be healthy for quite a while, I think the PC business, the tablet business, the mobile business, they'll all be healthy," Roberts said. "I think there's money to be made in all of them. I just like the PC business because there aren't a lot of people competing there."
If you want to know "my agenda" I can tell you. First I was a backer. Thought that they were making mistakes. Later it became clear that the "mistakes" were in purpose.
And I really do not like companies deceiving customers. And would be happy to be proved wrong, but they are unable to do that. They would not dare to call some independent company to prove those numbers for example.
And I saw they doing that many times, misleading people, more than any other game company that I have been following.
I will alert all people that I can. Not worried by your fan comments, because I am not willing to convince people who take things under religious proportions as you guys like you usually take and have a excuse for everything, even that such excuse is something like "the evil publishers" or some other fairy tales like that. You talk about success. A 'success' that you can't prove as true. It is just your overhyped mind that believes on that.
I'm actually fairly impartial, though I am excited for the game. I'm backing several other games right now, including Greed Monger, The Repopulation, Pathfinder, etc. I only have time for one game, so the best one will win out.
As a grown man who runs my own successful business, I'm certainly aware of what I am "investing" in, and having spent a lot of time listening to what CIG is saying, I trust that they want to make the best game possible. Chris has a chance to build a game here that can be extremely popular, including growing far beyond the "space sim" crowd, of which I have never been a part myself. I don't believe this is mad money grab, and that Chris's goal is to tank the economy within his own game and make it unplayable.
Simply put, I have not been deceived, because I've gone into this knowing full well what I am getting into. This is also the reason I don't mind backing several projects on Kickstarter, whether they ultimately fail or not. Some people are easily deceived, but if by deceived you mean they are too stupid to do their own due diligence and understand what they are paying for, then I don't feel sorry for them.
They are, for all intents and purposes, a small startup company. Well funded, thanks to backers, but still a startup. They will make mistakes, they will say the wrong things once in a while, but a smart person who wants to invest money in the game as a backer, takes the time to get to know them and understand what they are doing. The same goes for investing in *any* company.
No one here can stop you from putting on your tinfoil hat and seeing conspiracies in your breakfast. I do believe people should do the research before they put money in any project, or at least be willing the flush the money down the toilet when crowd funding. If you don't have the stomach for this, then you shouldn't invest/back anything.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Originally posted by MindTrigger My guess is that this guy either owns, or works for a game developer, and is having a hard time coming to terms with the success of Star Citizen's crowd funding. Why else is he beating this particular drum? Truth in advertising? Hire a lawyer and get on with it, if that's what you need to do.
See... Fans help to prove my point. That what's CR will tell at their end. "Evil publishers hired people to say bad things about us". And they will believe on that and will cry, maybe will consider him a martyr. LoL
CR is smart and if this "way to be smart" is something that our society gives value, he really deserves all the profit that he is grabbing from these guys.
You know... Just like he said:
"I think the console business will be healthy for quite a while, I think the PC business, the tablet business, the mobile business, they'll all be healthy," Roberts said. "I think there's money to be made in all of them. I just like the PC business because there aren't a lot of people competing there."
If you want to know "my agenda" I can tell you. First I was a backer. Thought that they were making mistakes. Later it became clear that the "mistakes" were in purpose.
And I really do not like companies deceiving customers. And would be happy to be proved wrong, but they are unable to do that. They would not dare to call some independent company to prove those numbers for example.
And I saw they doing that many times, misleading people, more than any other game company that I have been following.
I will alert all people that I can. Not worried by your fan comments, because I am not willing to convince people who take things under religious proportions as you guys like you usually take and have a excuse for everything, even that such excuse is something like "the evil publishers" or some other fairy tales like that. You talk about success. A 'success' that you can't prove as true. It is just your overhyped mind that believes on that.
I'm actually fairly impartial, though I am excited for the game. I'm backing several other games right now, including Greed Monger, The Repopulation, Pathfinder, etc. I only have time for one game, so the best one will win out.
As a grown man who runs my own successful business, I'm certainly aware of what I am "investing" in, and having spent a lot of time listening to what CIG is saying, I trust that they want to make the best game possible. Chris has a chance to build a game here that can be extremely popular, including growing far beyond the "space sim" crowd, of which I have never been a part myself. I don't believe this is mad money grab, and that Chris's goal is to tank the economy within his own game and make it unplayable.
Simply put, I have not been deceived, because I've gone into this knowing full well what I am getting into. This is also the reason I don't mind backing several projects on Kickstarter, whether they ultimately fail or not. Some people are easily deceived, but if by deceived you mean they are too stupid to do their own due diligence and understand what they are paying for, then I don't feel sorry for them.
They are, for all intents and purposes, a small startup company. Well funded, thanks to backers, but still a startup. They will make mistakes, they will say the wrong things once in a while, but a smart person who wants to invest money in the game as a backer, takes the time to get to know them and understand what they are doing. The same goes for investing in *any* company.
No one here can stop you from putting on your tinfoil hat and seeing conspiracies in your breakfast. Still, I do believe people should do the research before they put money in any project, or at least be willing the flush the money down the toilet when crowd funding. If you don't have the stomach for this, then you shouldn't invest/back anything.
You are forgetting the implications of using a business model to scam people. And using it to sell products or services not just in the US country.
That's why you can't count on people just "smart" as you, and there are laws to protect them from abuses for "smart" people who will take advantage of the business model. You know. If CR was a real bad person not even interested in release anything (what he is going to do at least, due his image with their big fans and of course, to avoid suits), he could simply vanish. Do you really think that there is no law to protect people from that? Yes. There is. And the laws protect them in more deep, not just in case of the guy vanishing.
If you set your expectations right and you do not care to pursuit your rights, again, that's your choice, but still people HAVE the choice to pursuit their rights if they want to.
They only have to take the care of taking screenshots of advertising, at this case saving some Dev's speech, interviews and so on, showing their contradictions, so they be able to prove if their point which they could be complaining is valid of a suit.
Actually that is a good think for the crowd funding as a whole. Because people does not need to have "stomach". They have laws to protect them. And laws only protects who follows the law. It only does not help those who are not willing to follow it and are willing to take advantage on people. Unfortunately, in CIG they already demonstrated and filled many people with actual proof of their contradictions and disrespect to consumer/marketing/ad laws.
You, as an "investor" (Which is not even the case of a crowd funding reward, so you have used the quotes correctly here, since you cannot obligate them to do what you ask), should at least give them some feedback and advice so they have more responsibility, because again, they are opening a lot of space to have you, the pledgers, creating new stretch goals to pay suits instead new in-game or better company structure features.
If you saw the email that they send me for example, for a simple complain (not offensive or something, but what you can expect from a client that suffered from a bad situation when using the company services), you, as a business owner, would definitely understand what I am talking about. And that is just one example. You can see many of these "offenses" in their own lack of interest to make a good and honest advertising. Not doing that, is a disrespect to your clients, and in the long term, definitely it will go against you. You cannot ever underestimate clients or consider as "doing a favor" to your clients.
Oh! But whatever feedback that you could think in doing, do that quietly and fully of poetry and drama, to put them in a high pedestal of kings, acting yourself as a vassal, asking a favor, and showing them how you are the big fan and could even give your wife to CR spend a night, just to they hear you. (by the way, they confirmed to me that they spend their whole day in the forums and they deceive people that are fully involved with development and not involved too much with the forums, since those dumb people told in another occasion, that they do that - CR, Sandi, Ben, Eric and others that are not so involved in coding - and knows everything that happened in their forums, and the idea of "we are not aware of everything because we do not have time to deal with that" is just one more of their lies). Actually I would not be surprised if they were many of the "fans" that appear hyping the game all the time, or raising threads to talk about money achievements.
Because if you do that in their forums, in the natural way that any customer would behave when watching some absurds, these guys that you love and you respect, probably will ban you, unless of course if you paid thousands dollars in your pledge
My friend Joe chooses not to support SC, as he wants to wait to see how it turns out.
On opening day I have a Hornet, Joe has a crappy Cloudhopper (TM), that I easily blow to ribbons in space combat. Is that PTW?
Given that Joe had the same options as I did, and choose not to utilize them, I would say No.
Also given that Joe can still, over time, gather the resources to obtain as good a ship as mine, or better even, I again say NO, not Pay to Win.
Once again I find myself glad the OP is not going to play SC, and i sincerely hope that none of his friends play either, so I don't have to deal with this kind of crap.
My friend Joe chooses not to support SC, as he wants to wait to see how it turns out.
On opening day I have a Hornet, Joe has a crappy Cloudhopper (TM), that I easily blow to ribbons in space combat. Is that PTW?
Given that Joe had the same options as I did, and choose not to utilize them, I would say No.
Also given that Joe can still, over time, gather the resources to obtain as good a ship as mine, or better even, I again say NO, not Pay to Win.
Once again I find myself glad the OP is not going to play SC, and i sincerely hope that none of his friends play either, so I don't have to deal with this kind of crap.
T
Maybe Joe will buy the game without any ship and only with some credits (after completed SQ42) and will chose between basic ships, while you, between now and release, will buy 10 ships or more, different kinds of ships, not only basic level ships (I heard about a guy with 60 and that was months ago).
The game is not only about dogfighting. Its also about enrichment and economic power making the difference and other things that does not involve only dogfighting, other objectives (and even in dogfighting you will have advantage due the ships that you buy now, and could use other pilots, NPC's to help you against Joe)
LTI also helps people to recover more quickly than those that have to spend in-game money with such taxes. You lost the ship and do not need even to wait for the recovering. Go to you garage and get one of those 10 that you bought by real money to continue to make your in-game money. Real money mad the situation between you and Joe very unbalanced. And that fits with the pay2win concept.
Actually the impact is more big than people imagine. Because people starting with many ships will have this big economic advantage + Skill, since they are going to play from now until release, and we are talking about an unique universe, not many different universes.
In the time that Joe achieve your earlier level or quantity of ships, you are going to be already way ahead of him, unless you quit the game, which is difficult to imagine the big fans doing that ever.
The game is Pay2Win now. After release, for those who will buy after release, maybe the concept starts to fit (between them only and not between them and earlier pledgers, that acquire a big advantage over them WITH REAL MONEY, NOT WITH SKILL).
If you still wants to believe that it is not, that does not matter. The advertising is wrong and advertising cannot be ambiguous, because it mislead people and ad which mislead people is against the law.
Sometimes companies can claim that it was not their intention. But Chris Roberts said that KNEW that the concept was ambiguous, but still used that in their marketing. Here, in his speech, he confessed that used such word in purpose, knowing that it would mislead people.
Maybe you cannot see any wrong with that, because you are a Chris Roberts fan. But for other kinds of buyers, trust must be earned, and at this case, CR did a disservice to that, showing that he cannot be reliable, because we can't be sure in what something that hes saying is just a profit interest or if that promise of exclusivity for some good to be bought in a "last opportunity" will be really accomplished. And by other kinds of buyers you have to put the majority of those 2 million players that he is planning or willing or announcing that is expecting so this game survives in the long term, as some of their earlier interviews shown.
The fact that he went out of his way to define what the ambiguous term he used means to him just shows that your entire post makes no sense at all. If he had come out and defended the finished game with this that would be one thing, defining it before ever releasing the game is nothing but a positive.
It's 7 pages ago but ^this
I really don't understand why anyone would create a thread when they answer their own question in it...not to mention act like you've caught him is some type of lie.
Comments
You are totally right. But just one clarification. Their campaign actually IS NOT considered "donation" by law (it is only a meaning that the fans created to make people believe that "they do not owe you nothing" so you "can't ask for anything when interacting with them" or even "you should not give any feedback or require to be treated as a customer, because you are just a pledger").
The Crowd Funding reward fits under the concept of the "recharacteraztion" that exist in the US law and as a consequence, what they do is a sale.
It only would be considered a "donation" if they did not offer anything back, but they did, they offered the copy of the game and virtual goods and clearly they never would be "funded" without this reciprocity.
Lets see if I understand the OP.
A) He a unknown internet poster tried to tell the developers of star citizen how to market their game.
Thus
C) They are evil money grubbers only out to scam and make a quick buck.
Lastly the Op doesn't seem to understand no matter how well you define something there is always gonna be someone that will have a different understanding. One can well have a payment model that 99.9% of gamers agree is not pay to win, but that .1% that disagrees will still make the company a bunch of evil money grubbers in the OP's eyes.
I purchased a founders pack already, but if the game limits any type of game play, or any aspects that make the game Pay 2 Enjoy like War-Tune, or any of these other F2P Games I will not be supporting the game anymore.
Only time will tell.
I don't know what kind of culture you have, but in my own, we care with customers and not just with ourselves. I am not ashamed to put some effort to help other possible customers to do not be leaded to mistakes of buy stuff of a company that perpetuates a mislead marketing and wants that others follow such bad example.
A) No. I was not the only one who gives them the same obvious feedback for obvious "mistakes" (which I know that actually are not mistakes, but in purpose)
c) Evil? That's a fun concept. It's a concept of people who watch movies indeed. They are not evil. They are just making money by misleading people. They just exaggerate, since they like to "play the hero" role in the fairy tale scenario that they created in their marketing. I am pretty sure that some of you think that "it is ok" in the values that the society preserves today, possibly in your country, that does not have maybe so many laws to protect consumers as others have. They still are going to release the game, eventually, probably later than sooner (obviously later than sooner). Only the talking about future won't happen. But you still will have the Private servers. But I am sorry for people spending thousands of dollars to support a thing that has no future. They definitely will cry a lot.
If you really think that 99% of the game community agree with you, I am wondering. Why all these people did not buy your game yet? Just a tiny group of people bought. The remaining are seriously skeptic, and as more CIG feeds the Money Machine, more they become more skeptic. And considering that CIG is not planning to release anything in time, and with this idea of "milestones" (releases full of bugs that goes against their pretty and polished videos), who is out won't care too much and will consider the game a fail, not keeping their promise and that won't help to make them lose their skepticism.
People are mistaken when thinking that a polished game saves business. Its marketing, communication and support which makes a company to survive (in any business). A lot of great games and companies with clearly more good faith than the CIG, are dead and never made success with their super-polished and cool games. You can make ONLY a cool game. If you make a cool game and a crap in your marketing, you are so doomed as someone who makes a bad game with an excelent marketing (actually, you will have more chances of success in this second scenario).
Just to clarify...are you at any point in this games development part of the team making the game because you make it sound like you are?
No matter what advice you give I am not YOUR customer and neither is anyone else here so stop trying to pretend you are doing us all a favor. I am a customer with CRI and in that respects I have no problem with their customer services so far.
If you are going to madly rant at least be accurate rather than annoyingly opinionated.
So... to clarify, I meant, customers which care with other customers.
Please provide proof that any claimed mistake was actually on purpose please. I call bullshit!
Please provide an example of what you think they have done to avoid bad side effects. I call bullshit.
Please provide an example of misleading inforamtion. I call bullshit.
Exageration is not the same as misleading. I call ignorance.
Your personal opinion but please provide a single reason you hold that opinion. I call bullshit.
If $26,000,000 is in your eyes not confirmation of the community backing the game...I can't even finish this one lol.
Just to check, you mention 'milestones' as if they are some made-up bullshit to confuse people rather then one of the most important components of ANY project plan and esential to not only keep things on time but also within budget. Is that correct?
I could keep pulling your post apart but I think I will leave it on the point where you laugh at their project using these so called 'milesstones'.....what a dweeb!
If there is no common consensus as to what p2w is how can someone say they don't have it?
Easy, half-truths...as in just enough truth to be legal.
May be a crappy tactic but very much practiced by many companies.
That didn't clarify anything.
Not really. I would not lost any lawsuit here. They took advantage on people because they sell it in another countries. That's why they were so offensive in their email answers when I asked them to take a look in some things. Because they underestimated me, as underestimate anyone who is not from US. They do not accept that you are a customer. Unless you behave like a blind fan, they won't respect you. It's very easy to prove that.
The reason that I am telling this things, is not for revenge. It is just because I saw their agenda. And when a company do not behave properly, is a tradition in my culture to alert other people. And I invite people to keep their eyes opened, so they see that too.
If you are fan you should not be worried, because you know. They only make good things right? And have good faith? So, people will see from their own eyes that they do (or not?). But the fans have fear from this kind of history, because they know what they really do there and how they treat people which paid for their services as anything, but no as a customer.
Before, I was trying to help CIG, to see that their current marketing approach, their "mistakes" would be a problem for the future, due its side effects.
But their reaction against this feedback, was just.. .weird, and out of any sense of a person that have good faith.
It sounds like you adviced someone "I would not drive this way because it make you seem drunk for the authorities" and the person punched you because, even that you did not notice, the person was actually with some alcoholic level in his blood not allowed. They enlighted me by their own dumb reaction. If I had not proof in that time to consider "mistakes" as acts of bad faith, they feed me the proof that I needed with their own reaction.
This, summed with other things that they made, shown me what exactly is their agenda and why people should hold their pockets instead blindly spending thousands of dollars in a game without any chance of future (due their marketing approach).
I am alerting people, not so different in the same level that you do. The risk is higher when the company adopt a posture of grabbing more money without any worry about the future. Their constant "mistakes" in their advertising already proved that.
jcrg99; even if what you are saying is true, you are undermining your own position in your tireless tirade. You've made your opinion clear, now why not step back and let things unfold as they may? I'm sure others feel the same as you (I'm no fan of the marketing tactics employed here), but I also know that I'm not changing anything. The best I can hope for is a glimmer of understanding or recognition from another poster, and you've already attained that.
To sum up the words of a developer I have great respect for: "You are not fighting the great fight".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
So basically you are a KS backer who does not like the way marketing was / is handled, emailed them with your concerns, which were somewhat rudely rebuffed ( according to you ) and now want to warn everyone else not to back or buy into this game due to its impending failure?
Sounds like buyers remorse more or less. You somehow thought being a backer would allow you to give input into development and marketing of SC. And now you realize what you thought you were backing may not be the case or has changed in a way you do not like.
Welcome to KS !!
That is the reason people should think long and hard before backing, realizing that they may be basically throwing money away. The game may / may not release, things may be added you do not like, game may change altogether, released product may vastly differ from original concept you backed. That IS the risk of KS. If you cant accept that then do not donate and just wait for a released product to buy and make your decision then.
I personally do not back KS because of this. I have followed this game closely and will support it when its finished and released IF its what I want to spend money on.
Donating to KS does not entitle you to anything, other than money being deducted from your account and the hope that things turn out the way you envisioned.
Chalk this up to a lesson learned and think long and hard before you donate money to a project which is probably not even in an alpha state of development. Things can and will change, many of which you may not like.
Good luck to you
Here? I suppose that you think that it is in the CIG forums. LoL
I am answering questions made. Just that.
No. That was not the way that it happened. I never was entitled to anything indeed. I just gave some feedback. Their reaction was something strange. And that opened my eyes to see other facts about their whole campaign. I saw their agenda, and then, some of their "mistakes" started to make more sense to me.
KS (Crowd funding reward) is not out of the law as you imagine. As I told before, it falls into the "recharacterization" concept. IT is just a sale as anything similar and you have consumers laws, marketing/ad laws to protect you and the business. It is not a donation (except if they do not offer you nothing in exchange of your money).
If you choose to ignore your rights, that's your choice, but do not lead people to assume that they do not have rights, or laws protecting them, because they have.
Of course, this false notion of "pure donation" benefits more the company than consumers, so, for obvious reasons, CIG is not worried to avoid that such lies be promoted in their forums and places were they interact with their customers, as well as any other crowd funding initiative (except those that still keep some ethic values and customer respect, those that really deserves trust).
"That's why they were so offensive in their email answers when I asked them to take a look in some things."
DING DING DING!
We have an answer for this over the top angry rant.
People have different opinions, part of growing up is learning that. Hey, we were all there once.
Heh... This matter above was simply one more proof that they do not care a lot with their image for the future.
The first donation campaign that they do, officially, selling their products for "charity" and they make what they did.
Charity in their view: Sending video-games for US Soldiers in actual, real fights to explode people out there (in the name of questionable reasons, which are far to be popular in any country, except US). Volunteer and paid soldiers following only the US agenda and interest. Possibly, one day, with so happiness by playing Call of Duty, that when in real action would think that is actually playing a game, by killing some REAL people and making some "points". Maybe even entering in the home of some of the CIG pledgers in some future, and killing all them, including their children and their pets LoL
Nice charity!
Charity in my view and possibly in the view of any more sane person: helping children injured by US drones, or families destroyed by the horror of wars, or even helping veterans with deceases, by sending essential stuff, not a video-game and many other worthy causes. They even DARE to say that their "charity" campaign was to a "worthy" cause. Here you can have a better idea of the line of the thinking of this company.
They are associating their company's name in war efforts of US, with or without their intention. No. They are not investing in some US guys playing a game championship of Call of Duty. They are actually helping US Government, by sending video-games to soldiers, so they ignore the fact that are fighting for a wrong cause and just follow orders, killing people and having fun with that.
Knowing the way that I know them, that was obviously intentional, and not just "one more mistake", and they are part of the US group that would like to explode the whole world just to be the number 1.
Their excuse "it is about to help people" was totally pathetic, since they are just helping people to kill other people and the objective of "saving lives" is far to be unanimity, and you can call "charity" to send video-games for people that probably receives better payment than a lot of US people.
They assumed a politic position here, without thinking in side effects (or just showing one more fact to demonstrate that they do not care with anything, except grabbing more money now for their own profit, because the future is an obvious fail), but did not lose time to ban and offend everyone who said in their forums that were against such idea.
Most pathetic was to see that forum hero, Toast, giving public alerts for everyone that was giving arguments against such idea and zero alerts to those that are in favor and were sometimes, more offensive than those complaining. Just biased and following the CIG memo as usual.
So, yes, I am one of the dozen of people, possibly hundreds which did not think that this was a terrible idea, considering that they are selling in the whole world, not just in US.
The only fact that the general press not even talked about that, shows to you, the fans, how important Star Citizen really is in the game industry today. If they were really important, or was threatening publishers or something, definitely the publishers would "pay" the press to write some story about this horrible "charity" campaign.
I'm actually fairly impartial, though I am excited for the game. I'm backing several other games right now, including Greed Monger, The Repopulation, Pathfinder, etc. I only have time for one game, so the best one will win out.
As a grown man who runs my own successful business, I'm certainly aware of what I am "investing" in, and having spent a lot of time listening to what CIG is saying, I trust that they want to make the best game possible. Chris has a chance to build a game here that can be extremely popular, including growing far beyond the "space sim" crowd, of which I have never been a part myself. I don't believe this is mad money grab, and that Chris's goal is to tank the economy within his own game and make it unplayable.
Simply put, I have not been deceived, because I've gone into this knowing full well what I am getting into. This is also the reason I don't mind backing several projects on Kickstarter, whether they ultimately fail or not. Some people are easily deceived, but if by deceived you mean they are too stupid to do their own due diligence and understand what they are paying for, then I don't feel sorry for them.
They are, for all intents and purposes, a small startup company. Well funded, thanks to backers, but still a startup. They will make mistakes, they will say the wrong things once in a while, but a smart person who wants to invest money in the game as a backer, takes the time to get to know them and understand what they are doing. The same goes for investing in *any* company.
No one here can stop you from putting on your tinfoil hat and seeing conspiracies in your breakfast. I do believe people should do the research before they put money in any project, or at least be willing the flush the money down the toilet when crowd funding. If you don't have the stomach for this, then you shouldn't invest/back anything.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
You are forgetting the implications of using a business model to scam people. And using it to sell products or services not just in the US country.
That's why you can't count on people just "smart" as you, and there are laws to protect them from abuses for "smart" people who will take advantage of the business model. You know. If CR was a real bad person not even interested in release anything (what he is going to do at least, due his image with their big fans and of course, to avoid suits), he could simply vanish. Do you really think that there is no law to protect people from that? Yes. There is. And the laws protect them in more deep, not just in case of the guy vanishing.
If you set your expectations right and you do not care to pursuit your rights, again, that's your choice, but still people HAVE the choice to pursuit their rights if they want to.
They only have to take the care of taking screenshots of advertising, at this case saving some Dev's speech, interviews and so on, showing their contradictions, so they be able to prove if their point which they could be complaining is valid of a suit.
Actually that is a good think for the crowd funding as a whole. Because people does not need to have "stomach". They have laws to protect them. And laws only protects who follows the law. It only does not help those who are not willing to follow it and are willing to take advantage on people. Unfortunately, in CIG they already demonstrated and filled many people with actual proof of their contradictions and disrespect to consumer/marketing/ad laws.
You, as an "investor" (Which is not even the case of a crowd funding reward, so you have used the quotes correctly here, since you cannot obligate them to do what you ask), should at least give them some feedback and advice so they have more responsibility, because again, they are opening a lot of space to have you, the pledgers, creating new stretch goals to pay suits instead new in-game or better company structure features.
If you saw the email that they send me for example, for a simple complain (not offensive or something, but what you can expect from a client that suffered from a bad situation when using the company services), you, as a business owner, would definitely understand what I am talking about. And that is just one example. You can see many of these "offenses" in their own lack of interest to make a good and honest advertising. Not doing that, is a disrespect to your clients, and in the long term, definitely it will go against you. You cannot ever underestimate clients or consider as "doing a favor" to your clients.
Oh! But whatever feedback that you could think in doing, do that quietly and fully of poetry and drama, to put them in a high pedestal of kings, acting yourself as a vassal, asking a favor, and showing them how you are the big fan and could even give your wife to CR spend a night, just to they hear you. (by the way, they confirmed to me that they spend their whole day in the forums and they deceive people that are fully involved with development and not involved too much with the forums, since those dumb people told in another occasion, that they do that - CR, Sandi, Ben, Eric and others that are not so involved in coding - and knows everything that happened in their forums, and the idea of "we are not aware of everything because we do not have time to deal with that" is just one more of their lies). Actually I would not be surprised if they were many of the "fans" that appear hyping the game all the time, or raising threads to talk about money achievements.
Because if you do that in their forums, in the natural way that any customer would behave when watching some absurds, these guys that you love and you respect, probably will ban you, unless of course if you paid thousands dollars in your pledge
WTF is the OP talking about?
I bought a ship (a Hornet).
My friend Joe chooses not to support SC, as he wants to wait to see how it turns out.
On opening day I have a Hornet, Joe has a crappy Cloudhopper (TM), that I easily blow to ribbons in space combat. Is that PTW?
Given that Joe had the same options as I did, and choose not to utilize them, I would say No.
Also given that Joe can still, over time, gather the resources to obtain as good a ship as mine, or better even, I again say NO, not Pay to Win.
Once again I find myself glad the OP is not going to play SC, and i sincerely hope that none of his friends play either, so I don't have to deal with this kind of crap.
T
Maybe Joe will buy the game without any ship and only with some credits (after completed SQ42) and will chose between basic ships, while you, between now and release, will buy 10 ships or more, different kinds of ships, not only basic level ships (I heard about a guy with 60 and that was months ago).
The game is not only about dogfighting. Its also about enrichment and economic power making the difference and other things that does not involve only dogfighting, other objectives (and even in dogfighting you will have advantage due the ships that you buy now, and could use other pilots, NPC's to help you against Joe)
LTI also helps people to recover more quickly than those that have to spend in-game money with such taxes. You lost the ship and do not need even to wait for the recovering. Go to you garage and get one of those 10 that you bought by real money to continue to make your in-game money. Real money mad the situation between you and Joe very unbalanced. And that fits with the pay2win concept.
Actually the impact is more big than people imagine. Because people starting with many ships will have this big economic advantage + Skill, since they are going to play from now until release, and we are talking about an unique universe, not many different universes.
In the time that Joe achieve your earlier level or quantity of ships, you are going to be already way ahead of him, unless you quit the game, which is difficult to imagine the big fans doing that ever.
The game is Pay2Win now. After release, for those who will buy after release, maybe the concept starts to fit (between them only and not between them and earlier pledgers, that acquire a big advantage over them WITH REAL MONEY, NOT WITH SKILL).
If you still wants to believe that it is not, that does not matter. The advertising is wrong and advertising cannot be ambiguous, because it mislead people and ad which mislead people is against the law.
Sometimes companies can claim that it was not their intention. But Chris Roberts said that KNEW that the concept was ambiguous, but still used that in their marketing. Here, in his speech, he confessed that used such word in purpose, knowing that it would mislead people.
Maybe you cannot see any wrong with that, because you are a Chris Roberts fan. But for other kinds of buyers, trust must be earned, and at this case, CR did a disservice to that, showing that he cannot be reliable, because we can't be sure in what something that hes saying is just a profit interest or if that promise of exclusivity for some good to be bought in a "last opportunity" will be really accomplished. And by other kinds of buyers you have to put the majority of those 2 million players that he is planning or willing or announcing that is expecting so this game survives in the long term, as some of their earlier interviews shown.
It's 7 pages ago but ^this
I really don't understand why anyone would create a thread when they answer their own question in it...not to mention act like you've caught him is some type of lie.