I'm not a Star Citizen backer (I don't do Kickstarters), but I'm eagerly awaiting the eventual release of the game, because the game belongs to a genre that I enjoy greatly.
However, the scope of the project pretty much guarantees that there will be many delays, and that some significant features may have to be altered substantially or even cut from the eventual release version (possibly even cut from the game entirely).
History has shown us that great game designers are typically not good accountants. The reverse is also true. Just as bad things happen when financial managers control the game development project, so bad things happen when the game designer has total control of the money.
Given that it's Chris Roberts at the helm and there's a large pool of money involved, it's very likely that the train will derail spectacularly. CR is a great space game designer, but he's not a talented financial manager. It's very likely that he will overreach on the game design aspects, what remains to be seen is if he can recover from that in a timely fashion.
Chris delivered some excellent games in the past, despite some of them having some rough development cycles. I'm hoping that will be the final result with Star Citizen, despite all the drama and hot air that is surrounding it.
History has shown us that great game designers are typically not good accountants. The reverse is also true. Just as bad things happen when financial managers control the game development project, so bad things happen when the game designer has total control of the money.
You are right, there is basically no one with any experience with money at work at Star Citizen/CIG. It HAS to be Chris Roberts that handles ALL the money related things.
Lets quickly forget the OTHER owner of CIG, a successful lawyer/accountant named Ortwin Freyermuth.
Lets completely ignore the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Joe Sothy, who was Senior Director of Finance at Electronic Arts.
And we have already forgotten about Cindy Armstrong, the previous CFO, who was so bad at her job that she got headhunted away by an almost unknown studio called Wargaming.net for their equally unknown game called "World of Tanks".
Yes, Yes. Only Chris Roberts can handle money stuff at CIG. Bad things will happen.
*** mumbles about the end of the world approaching *** DOOM !!!
History has shown us that great game designers are typically not good accountants. The reverse is also true. Just as bad things happen when financial managers control the game development project, so bad things happen when the game designer has total control of the money.
You are right, there is basically no one with any experience with money at work at Star Citizen/CIG. It HAS to be Chris Roberts that handles ALL the money related things.
Lets quickly forget the OTHER owner of CIG, a successful lawyer/accountant named Ortwin Freyermuth.
Lets completely ignore the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Joe Sothy, who was Senior Director of Finance at Electronic Arts.
And we have already forgotten about Cindy Armstrong, the previous CFO, who was so bad at her job that she got headhunted away by an almost unknown studio called Wargaming.net for their equally unknown game called "World of Tanks".
Yes, Yes. Only Chris Roberts can handle money stuff at CIG. Bad things will happen.
*** mumbles about the end of the world approaching *** DOOM !!!
Have fun
I didn't say CIG had no people with financial experience working for them, my remarks (and concern) are regarding who ultimately controls the budget.
Chris Roberts is the founder of CIG, which would imply that he has some serious weight in the executive suite. Ortwin Freyermuth is his business partner, but he is an "entertainment lawyer and film producer", not an accountant. I do not know the details of their partnership agreement, Ortwin would probably be legal council in CIG, his involvement in financial decisions is not clear.
You can have an army of financial experts working for you, but if you don't listen to their advice, their expertise is irrelevant. That is the danger of having a creative person in ultimate control of the company and the budget. But "danger" does not translate to "guaranteed disaster".
I would not be the slightest bit surprised to hear that not every dollar of SC's budget was spent wisely. But that doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is the eventual outcome of the project. And it's too early to get into a panic about that.
History has shown us that great game designers are typically not good accountants. The reverse is also true. Just as bad things happen when financial managers control the game development project, so bad things happen when the game designer has total control of the money.
You are right, there is basically no one with any experience with money at work at Star Citizen/CIG. It HAS to be Chris Roberts that handles ALL the money related things.
Lets quickly forget the OTHER owner of CIG, a successful lawyer/accountant named Ortwin Freyermuth.
Lets completely ignore the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Joe Sothy, who was Senior Director of Finance at Electronic Arts.
And we have already forgotten about Cindy Armstrong, the previous CFO, who was so bad at her job that she got headhunted away by an almost unknown studio called Wargaming.net for their equally unknown game called "World of Tanks".
Yes, Yes. Only Chris Roberts can handle money stuff at CIG. Bad things will happen.
*** mumbles about the end of the world approaching *** DOOM !!!
Have fun
I didn't say CIG had no people with financial experience working for them, my remarks (and concern) are regarding who ultimately controls the budget.
Chris Roberts is the founder of CIG, which would imply that he has some serious weight in the executive suite. Ortwin Freyermuth is his business partner, but he is an "entertainment lawyer and film producer", not an accountant. I do not know the details of their partnership agreement, Ortwin would probably be legal council in CIG, his involvement in financial decisions is not clear.
You can have an army of financial experts working for you, but if you don't listen to their advice, their expertise is irrelevant. That is the danger of having a creative person in ultimate control of the company and the budget. But "danger" does not translate to "guaranteed disaster".
I would not be the slightest bit surprised to hear that not every dollar of SC's budget was spent wisely. But that doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is the eventual outcome of the project. And it's too early to get into a panic about that.
You effectively just said that any private company that doesn't have a financial person as the CEO cannot succeed.
You can have an army of financial experts working for you, but if you don't listen to their advice, their expertise is irrelevant. That is the danger of having a creative person in ultimate control of the company and the budget. But "danger" does not translate to "guaranteed disaster".
....
You effectively just said that any private company that doesn't have a financial person as the CEO cannot succeed.
This is not a question of whether or not they have a legal obligation to disclose. It is simply a matter of voluntarily providing disclosure as a good faith gesture to their backers for the unrelenting loyalty and support they have given CIG for the past four years.
Derek Smart's FUD has already succeeded in changing the conversation. It has so obviously not been 4 years. The Kickstarter campaign was October 1012, so it has actually been LESS THAN THREE YEARS that the public has been involved with this development project. Prior to that point there were no backers, therefore no "unrelenting loyalty and support" to be addressed.
Originally posted by Arskaaa ok i havent read/followed much about tis game, is it scam or whats the proplem?
no, Derek Smart thinks it´s taking too long, because he´s Derek Smart
also it can´t be made, because it´s impossible and we should buy his game instead
it is "it's impossible because me, Derek Smart, couldn't do it".
Also, that graph is missing Wildstar 9 years dev time (2005-2014) and FFXIV 5 years (2005 - 2010) or 8 years if we add ARR (2005-2013). Over 5 years usually mean "re-design".
It could also add EQNext (first mentioned in 2009 and is now into its like 3rd design iteration since late 2012).
Originally posted by Arskaaa ok i havent read/followed much about tis game, is it scam or whats the proplem?
no, Derek Smart thinks it´s taking too long, because he´s Derek Smart
also it can´t be made, because it´s impossible and we should buy his game instead
This info graphic looks like its part of an article ... can you link it ?
If you made it ... nicely done. May I re-post it (e.g. Star Citizen forum) ?
Have fun
seen on Reddit, post whereever you want, it´s the Internet. Nope I didn´t make it, I just link up stuff from Reddit
The source data is from Wikipedia
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability. All of the developers of the above games were accountable to either a publisher, venture capitalists, or a group of investors throughout their development cycles. CIG is not. Not only that but none of the above game's used contributed public funds to complete. So enough with the BS red herring arguments. You people do nothing but deflect and derail from the purpose and objective at hand. And that is a request for accountability for the tens of millions of dollars that CIG has been given in good faith. CIG can take as long as they need to complete the game so long as they are transparent and accountable to their backers in regard to how their contributions are being allocated. When taking into consideration that their backers have GIVEN CIG $85+ MILLION dollars to work on the project to begin with, accountability for that $85 MILLION dollars is the least CIG should be able to do for their backers.
And yes, you have my permission to post the above response on the Star Citizen forum as well. Though I am fully aware that a snowball would stand a better chance in hell since the above response makes silly putty out of your supposed "gotcha!" graph.
Of those games shown - can you please mark on the graphs the points where the developers started selling the games (including pre-orders) and items from the games (in game items) as retail products?
When did they start taking money from paying customers in the public?
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability. All of the developers of the above games were accountable to either a publisher, venture capitalists, or a group of investors throughout their development cycles. CIG is not. Not only that but none of the above game's used contributed public funds to complete. So enough with the BS red herring arguments. You people do nothing but deflect and derail from the purpose and objective at hand. And that is a request for accountability for the tens of millions of dollars that CIG has been given in good faith. CIG can take as long as they need to complete the game so long as they are transparent and accountable to their backers in regard to how their contributions are being allocated. When taking into consideration that their backers GAVE CIG the $85+ MILLION dollars to work on the project to begin with, accountability for that $85 MILLION dollars is the least CIG should be able to do for their backers.
You have my permission to post this response on the Star Citizen forum as well.
Last time I checked, "public funds" referred to tax dollars, but perhaps that's too narrow a definition.
I'm fairly certain that none of the investors in any of the traditionally funded MMO's ever received detailed breakdowns of how every dollar was spent. It would most likely be of no use anyway. What's important and desired is whether the project is on track and likely to meet its deadline, because investors would have been given likely target dates for the start of repayments and profits from their investment. None of them would have micro-managed the projects.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if CIG ever produced detailed breakdowns of how the money is/was spent, the thousands of armchair game designers and project managers on the internet would tear them apart, regardless of the content of the reports. So it's not going to happen. Get over it.
Given the amount of money involved, I'm also quite sure that the FTC (or some other legal process) will take action if no game is produced in a reasonable time. Emphasis being on reasonable time. Having internet tantrums about it before then is entertaining, but futile.
Crowdfunding does not imply that there will be design-by-committee. It doesn't mean that you are a shareholder in the company. It doesn't mean the devs will take the slightest notice of your suggestions. At best it means that backers will be given more info than is normal about the game development process and progress. Donating money to a Kickstarter project does not imply that you get to decide which brand of coffee the developers may buy with "your money". It is no longer "your money", you gave it to them to do with as they see fit, as long as they at least try their best to produce a game with that money.
"10. Investigations in the past weeks, and discussions with various people, have led to some very alarming, and disturbing things that, I’m not even going to bother making public – yet."
How can you take a statement like that seriously, unless you like reading the tabloids or something. I'm actually dumbfounded at how juvenile this statement is.
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability.
Say they show you something that's isn't ready to be shown? What is your reaction? You have to understand in development it's just as important to a studio to only show what is ready to be shown, anything else can turn into a bigger sh*tstorm than we see now. The internet isn't just a cozy corner lounge for fans of things... Anything shown that is not ready can be highly detrimental to a products image.
Before you say it, I'm not trying to defend SC, I'm just stating the reality of it. You want to see something good, any backer would, even those of us who aren't backers want that. We all want to see something that reinforces this games position of being what it says it is. It's not nearly that simple for a studio to do though. We've seen flight, we've seen graphics, we've seen dog-fighting. We've even seen brief glimpses of the FPS module, I don't even follow this game (it's far too early for that IMO) and I've seen that stuff. None of that reinforces this game will be as advertised. That won't happen until we see it all working in tandem. Considering it's only 2 and a half years into full development. That could be a long while yet.
All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability. All of the developers of the above games were accountable to either a publisher, venture capitalists, or a group of investors throughout their development cycles. CIG is not. Not only that but none of the above game's used contributed public funds to complete. So enough with the BS red herring arguments. You people do nothing but deflect and derail from the purpose and objective at hand. And that is a request for accountability for the tens of millions of dollars that CIG has been given in good faith. CIG can take as long as they need to complete the game so long as they are transparent and accountable to their backers in regard to how their contributions are being allocated. When taking into consideration that their backers have GIVEN CIG $85+ MILLION dollars to work on the project to begin with, accountability for that $85 MILLION dollars is the least CIG should be able to do for their backers.
And yes, you have my permission to post the above response on the Star Citizen forum as well. Though I am fully aware that a snowball would stand a better chance in hell since the above response makes silly putty out of your supposed "gotcha!" graph.
"10. Investigations in the past weeks, and discussions with various people, have led to some very alarming, and disturbing things that, I’m not even going to bother making public – yet."
Where is the accountability for a statement like this?
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability. All of the developers of the above games were accountable to either a publisher, venture capitalists, or a group of investors throughout their development cycles. CIG is not. Not only that but none of the above game's used contributed public funds to complete. So enough with the BS red herring arguments. You people do nothing but deflect and derail from the purpose and objective at hand. And that is a request for accountability for the tens of millions of dollars that CIG has been given in good faith. CIG can take as long as they need to complete the game so long as they are transparent and accountable to their backers in regard to how their contributions are being allocated. When taking into consideration that their backers GAVE CIG the $85+ MILLION dollars to work on the project to begin with, accountability for that $85 MILLION dollars is the least CIG should be able to do for their backers.
You have my permission to post this response on the Star Citizen forum as well.
Last time I checked, "public funds" referred to tax dollars, but perhaps that's too narrow a definition.
I'm fairly certain that none of the investors in any of the traditionally funded MMO's ever received detailed breakdowns of how every dollar was spent. It would most likely be of no use anyway. What's important and desired is whether the project is on track and likely to meet its deadline, because investors would have been given likely target dates for the start of repayments and profits from their investment. None of them would have micro-managed the projects.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if CIG ever produced detailed breakdowns of how the money is/was spent, the thousands of armchair game designers and project managers on the internet would tear them apart, regardless of the content of the reports. So it's not going to happen. Get over it.
Given the amount of money involved, I'm also quite sure that the FTC (or some other legal process) will take action if no game is produced in a reasonable time. Emphasis being on reasonable time. Having internet tantrums about it before then is entertaining, but futile.
Crowdfunding does not imply that there will be design-by-committee. It doesn't mean that you are a shareholder in the company. It doesn't mean the devs will take the slightest notice of your suggestions. At best it means that backers will be given more info than is normal about the game development process and progress. Donating money to a Kickstarter project does not imply that you get to decide which brand of coffee the developers may buy with "your money". It is no longer "your money", you gave it to them to do with as they see fit, as long as they at least try their best to produce a game with that money.
No one is asking for micro-management of CIG, or "what brand of coffee these developers can buy with contributed money." That is just another of an unrelenting series of red herring arguments that your side is putting forth to attempt to deflect or derail the purpose and objective at hand. Proof of the silliness of your argument is grounded in the fact that this has not been the case until recently. What has transpired recently is that valid questions of significance have surfaced bringing to question, and raising the concerns of many, regarding the development of this project. That is a natural reaction when people see signs that a project is going awry and CIG has refused to answer to any of these questions or concerns. That not only a problem, it's a huge problem.
When you are given $85 MILLION dollars to complete a project you don't get to tell the people who gave you that money to mind their business. It just doesn't work that way in real life. The common sense reaction to this by any company that comes under this type of scrutiny is to provide proof of accountability in an attempt to satisfy the masses knowing full well that failing to do so will bring even harsher undue scrutiny. Failure to provide any proof of accountability promotes the perception that something is amiss. There fore, companies that fail to do so are then saddled with the potential of facing independent commissions who will then investigate the matter on behalf of the vested or interested public or parties. The more CIG continues to behave like they are some type of omnipotent gods who should not be questioned over a project that they were,in good faith, given money to complete, the more they will be digging their own graves. And mark my words, if they continue down this road, they will need a big cemetery because there will be" lots of heads rolling."
Derek Smart isn't saying anything their own paying "investors" haven't been saying for well over 6 months. There are people who have thrown hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of dollars into the project and gotten essentially nothing. They've been sold "virtual goods" that don't even exist yet, and given promises with no fulfillment of them in sight. In any other situation outside of the gaming industry, this would have been investigated for fraud already.
You can't go around selling promises to people and providing nothing. This is the very definition of fraud in our country. It's often the foundation of so-called Ponzi schemes, where someone takes money from someone else to sell something to another in an endless ruse to keep their fraud perpetually going. This is really no different.
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability.
Say they show you something that's isn't ready to be shown? What is your reaction? You have to understand in development it's just as important to a studio to only show what is ready to be shown, anything else can turn into a bigger sh*tstorm than we see now. The internet isn't just a cozy corner lounge for fans of things... Anything shown that is not ready can be highly detrimental to a products image.
Before you say it, I'm not trying to defend SC, I'm just stating the reality of it. You want to see something good, any backer would, even those of us who aren't backers want that. We all want to see something that reinforces this games position of being what it says it is. It's not nearly that simple for a studio to do though. We've seen flight, we've seen graphics, we've seen dog-fighting. We've even seen brief glimpses of the FPS module, I don't even follow this game (it's far too early for that IMO) and I've seen that stuff. None of that reinforces this game will be as advertised. That won't happen until we see it all working in tandem. Considering it's only 2 and a half years into full development. That could be a long while yet.
All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves..
If you are not trying to defend SC in your post, then what exactly are you doing? Listen, there is nothing worse than a person who can not stand and defend a position. Stop being "wishy-washy" trying to play on both ends and just man up to what you believe. There is no shame in that. Unbeknownst to you, you reveal your bias in defense of CIG in all of your posts yet you don't even realize it. This particular post makes little sense when addressing my post. It is just another red herring post by those attempting to defend CIG from being accountable, and leaves me no material with which to build any relevant response. Of course it being your nature, you will respond to this post with yet more irrelevance just because. Just know in advance that a response will not be forthcoming if one is not deserving. It is just not worth my time.
There are 47 ships that have been sold to customers. Not counting all the variations and Vanduul NPC ships.
ONLY 8 ships are feature complete. EIGHT out of FORTYSEVEN. 17% Completion.
What have 3 offices worldwide, with nearly 300 developers done for almost 3 years? At this pace the game will be finished in around 20 years. Something smells rotten.
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability.
Say they show you something that's isn't ready to be shown? What is your reaction? You have to understand in development it's just as important to a studio to only show what is ready to be shown, anything else can turn into a bigger sh*tstorm than we see now. The internet isn't just a cozy corner lounge for fans of things... Anything shown that is not ready can be highly detrimental to a products image.
Before you say it, I'm not trying to defend SC, I'm just stating the reality of it. You want to see something good, any backer would, even those of us who aren't backers want that. We all want to see something that reinforces this games position of being what it says it is. It's not nearly that simple for a studio to do though. We've seen flight, we've seen graphics, we've seen dog-fighting. We've even seen brief glimpses of the FPS module, I don't even follow this game (it's far too early for that IMO) and I've seen that stuff. None of that reinforces this game will be as advertised. That won't happen until we see it all working in tandem. Considering it's only 2 and a half years into full development. That could be a long while yet.
All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves..
If you are not trying to defend SC in your post, then what exactly are you doing? Listen, there is nothing worse than a person who can not stand and defend a position. Stop being "wishy-washy" trying to play on both ends and just man up to what you believe. There is no shame in that. Unbeknownst to you can't help giving yourself away in your posts yet you don't even realize it. Your post makes little sense when addressing my post. It is just another red herring post by those attempting to defend CIG from being accountable, and leaves me no material with which to build any relevant response. Of course it being your nature, you will respond to this post with yet more irrelevance just because. Just know in advance that a response will not be forthcoming if one is not deserving. It is just not worth my time.
I just laid out what i believe of the situation..I'd say the same for any company; even Derek Smart would get the same consideration from me....It's reality, nothing is so black and white for there to be no middle ground. There's nothing wishy-washy about acknowledging both sides in the debate. And you say what I said is giving myself away.. You want nothing to do with anything said that isn't lock step in accordance with your own opinion. That's a clear cut agenda. So yeah, don't worry about replying if you can't look past your own opinion, agendas are worth no ones time.
Did you even read this part? " All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves.."
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Gazwkd Oh deary me. Poor old Derek smart has made it his job to try and destroy anything related to Chris Roberts. He has tried to get hi'articles' out everywhere and has met little success. I expected better of this site than to publicise an individual who simply rants and raves whilst promoting his own buggy, badly designed, badly conceived games that no one really cares about. He has a massive case of jealousy, upon looking at his posting history he obviously needs professional help. That this site has fallen for the ravings and rantings of this individual does the sites credibility no favours.
Whatever one thinks of Derek, he raises some valid points in his article. And quite simply, there's a story developing here, in one way or another, which it's our duty to report.
Ahh come on now. Derek has got to be one of the worst track records in the gaming industry.
Tell me of a single succesful game from him?
Everyone forgotten about that terrible WoW clone (litterally) he was in charge of a couple years ago? Where People caught him having re-used (read stolen) UI assets from WoW!
That game was so terrible, that Blizzard didn't even bother acting on it.
Let this clown first make a succesful game himself, before ranting against Chris Roberts.
He clearly has an agenda of his own here, working on yet another fail game of his that coincidently has a Space theme as well.
Proof of the silliness of your argument is grounded in the fact that this has not been the case until recently. What has transpired recently is that valid questions of significance have surfaced bringing to question, and raising the concerns of many, regarding the development of this project. That is a natural reaction when people see signs that a project is going awry and CIG has refused to answer to any of these questions or concerns. That not only a problem, it's a huge problem.
..
Lol, there are a handful of particularly loud individuals who feel that THEIR "questions" about the project are "of significance". They need to get over themselves as far as I'm concerned. The usual threats concerning litigation are as empty as they always are, but still amusing nevertheless.
Any actual attempt at litigation at this point will probably consume most of the funds and result in either a massive delay or no game at all. But there's probably a horde of internet idiots who'll jump at the chance to destroy this game just for the sake of destroying it.
If CIG does not deliver a playable game by the end of 2017, I'll be right there in the mob with the tar and pitchforks. If the final product is half-assed or a buggy mess, I'll condemn it as loudly as the next person.
I always expected this to happen with any Kickstarter-funded MMO of any real complexity. The average gamer does not have the patience to wait 5 years for the product they "paid for". It was bound to end in tears one way or another.
Yeah I was suspect if this game as being to good to be true, and given the recent release of most games not even offering near the ability of features this game claims to offer. Seeing this confirms it for me
Comments
I'm not a Star Citizen backer (I don't do Kickstarters), but I'm eagerly awaiting the eventual release of the game, because the game belongs to a genre that I enjoy greatly.
However, the scope of the project pretty much guarantees that there will be many delays, and that some significant features may have to be altered substantially or even cut from the eventual release version (possibly even cut from the game entirely).
History has shown us that great game designers are typically not good accountants. The reverse is also true. Just as bad things happen when financial managers control the game development project, so bad things happen when the game designer has total control of the money.
Given that it's Chris Roberts at the helm and there's a large pool of money involved, it's very likely that the train will derail spectacularly. CR is a great space game designer, but he's not a talented financial manager. It's very likely that he will overreach on the game design aspects, what remains to be seen is if he can recover from that in a timely fashion.
Chris delivered some excellent games in the past, despite some of them having some rough development cycles. I'm hoping that will be the final result with Star Citizen, despite all the drama and hot air that is surrounding it.
You are right, there is basically no one with any experience with money at work at Star Citizen/CIG. It HAS to be Chris Roberts that handles ALL the money related things.
Lets quickly forget the OTHER owner of CIG, a successful lawyer/accountant named Ortwin Freyermuth.
Lets completely ignore the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Joe Sothy, who was Senior Director of Finance at Electronic Arts.
And we have already forgotten about Cindy Armstrong, the previous CFO, who was so bad at her job that she got headhunted away by an almost unknown studio called Wargaming.net for their equally unknown game called "World of Tanks".
Yes, Yes. Only Chris Roberts can handle money stuff at CIG. Bad things will happen.
*** mumbles about the end of the world approaching *** DOOM !!!
Have fun
I didn't say CIG had no people with financial experience working for them, my remarks (and concern) are regarding who ultimately controls the budget.
Chris Roberts is the founder of CIG, which would imply that he has some serious weight in the executive suite. Ortwin Freyermuth is his business partner, but he is an "entertainment lawyer and film producer", not an accountant. I do not know the details of their partnership agreement, Ortwin would probably be legal council in CIG, his involvement in financial decisions is not clear.
You can have an army of financial experts working for you, but if you don't listen to their advice, their expertise is irrelevant. That is the danger of having a creative person in ultimate control of the company and the budget. But "danger" does not translate to "guaranteed disaster".
I would not be the slightest bit surprised to hear that not every dollar of SC's budget was spent wisely. But that doesn't matter to me in the slightest. What matters is the eventual outcome of the project. And it's too early to get into a panic about that.
You effectively just said that any private company that doesn't have a financial person as the CEO cannot succeed.
How did you come to that conclusion ?
Derek Smart's FUD has already succeeded in changing the conversation. It has so obviously not been 4 years. The Kickstarter campaign was October 1012, so it has actually been LESS THAN THREE YEARS that the public has been involved with this development project. Prior to that point there were no backers, therefore no "unrelenting loyalty and support" to be addressed.
no, Derek Smart thinks it´s taking too long, because he´s Derek Smart
also it can´t be made, because it´s impossible and we should buy his game instead
it is "it's impossible because me, Derek Smart, couldn't do it".
Also, that graph is missing Wildstar 9 years dev time (2005-2014) and FFXIV 5 years (2005 - 2010) or 8 years if we add ARR (2005-2013). Over 5 years usually mean "re-design".
It could also add EQNext (first mentioned in 2009 and is now into its like 3rd design iteration since late 2012).
This info graphic looks like its part of an article ... can you link it ?
If you made it ... nicely done. May I re-post it (e.g. Star Citizen forum) ?
Have fun
seen on Reddit, post whereever you want, it´s the Internet. Nope I didn´t make it, I just link up stuff from Reddit
The source data is from Wikipedia
Except its an irrelevant graph. Why? Because no one is asking, or expecting, a released product from CIG at this time. All that is being asked for at this time is accountability. All of the developers of the above games were accountable to either a publisher, venture capitalists, or a group of investors throughout their development cycles. CIG is not. Not only that but none of the above game's used contributed public funds to complete. So enough with the BS red herring arguments. You people do nothing but deflect and derail from the purpose and objective at hand. And that is a request for accountability for the tens of millions of dollars that CIG has been given in good faith. CIG can take as long as they need to complete the game so long as they are transparent and accountable to their backers in regard to how their contributions are being allocated. When taking into consideration that their backers have GIVEN CIG $85+ MILLION dollars to work on the project to begin with, accountability for that $85 MILLION dollars is the least CIG should be able to do for their backers.
And yes, you have my permission to post the above response on the Star Citizen forum as well. Though I am fully aware that a snowball would stand a better chance in hell since the above response makes silly putty out of your supposed "gotcha!" graph.
I have a question about the graph too:
Of those games shown - can you please mark on the graphs the points where the developers started selling the games (including pre-orders) and items from the games (in game items) as retail products?
When did they start taking money from paying customers in the public?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Last time I checked, "public funds" referred to tax dollars, but perhaps that's too narrow a definition.
I'm fairly certain that none of the investors in any of the traditionally funded MMO's ever received detailed breakdowns of how every dollar was spent. It would most likely be of no use anyway. What's important and desired is whether the project is on track and likely to meet its deadline, because investors would have been given likely target dates for the start of repayments and profits from their investment. None of them would have micro-managed the projects.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if CIG ever produced detailed breakdowns of how the money is/was spent, the thousands of armchair game designers and project managers on the internet would tear them apart, regardless of the content of the reports. So it's not going to happen. Get over it.
Given the amount of money involved, I'm also quite sure that the FTC (or some other legal process) will take action if no game is produced in a reasonable time. Emphasis being on reasonable time. Having internet tantrums about it before then is entertaining, but futile.
Crowdfunding does not imply that there will be design-by-committee. It doesn't mean that you are a shareholder in the company. It doesn't mean the devs will take the slightest notice of your suggestions. At best it means that backers will be given more info than is normal about the game development process and progress. Donating money to a Kickstarter project does not imply that you get to decide which brand of coffee the developers may buy with "your money". It is no longer "your money", you gave it to them to do with as they see fit, as long as they at least try their best to produce a game with that money.
Gotta love Derek's point #10
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Say they show you something that's isn't ready to be shown? What is your reaction? You have to understand in development it's just as important to a studio to only show what is ready to be shown, anything else can turn into a bigger sh*tstorm than we see now. The internet isn't just a cozy corner lounge for fans of things... Anything shown that is not ready can be highly detrimental to a products image.
Before you say it, I'm not trying to defend SC, I'm just stating the reality of it. You want to see something good, any backer would, even those of us who aren't backers want that. We all want to see something that reinforces this games position of being what it says it is. It's not nearly that simple for a studio to do though. We've seen flight, we've seen graphics, we've seen dog-fighting. We've even seen brief glimpses of the FPS module, I don't even follow this game (it's far too early for that IMO) and I've seen that stuff. None of that reinforces this game will be as advertised. That won't happen until we see it all working in tandem. Considering it's only 2 and a half years into full development. That could be a long while yet.
All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Where is the accountability for a statement like this?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
No one is asking for micro-management of CIG, or "what brand of coffee these developers can buy with contributed money." That is just another of an unrelenting series of red herring arguments that your side is putting forth to attempt to deflect or derail the purpose and objective at hand. Proof of the silliness of your argument is grounded in the fact that this has not been the case until recently. What has transpired recently is that valid questions of significance have surfaced bringing to question, and raising the concerns of many, regarding the development of this project. That is a natural reaction when people see signs that a project is going awry and CIG has refused to answer to any of these questions or concerns. That not only a problem, it's a huge problem.
When you are given $85 MILLION dollars to complete a project you don't get to tell the people who gave you that money to mind their business. It just doesn't work that way in real life. The common sense reaction to this by any company that comes under this type of scrutiny is to provide proof of accountability in an attempt to satisfy the masses knowing full well that failing to do so will bring even harsher undue scrutiny. Failure to provide any proof of accountability promotes the perception that something is amiss. There fore, companies that fail to do so are then saddled with the potential of facing independent commissions who will then investigate the matter on behalf of the vested or interested public or parties. The more CIG continues to behave like they are some type of omnipotent gods who should not be questioned over a project that they were,in good faith, given money to complete, the more they will be digging their own graves. And mark my words, if they continue down this road, they will need a big cemetery because there will be" lots of heads rolling."
Derek Smart isn't saying anything their own paying "investors" haven't been saying for well over 6 months. There are people who have thrown hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of dollars into the project and gotten essentially nothing. They've been sold "virtual goods" that don't even exist yet, and given promises with no fulfillment of them in sight. In any other situation outside of the gaming industry, this would have been investigated for fraud already.
You can't go around selling promises to people and providing nothing. This is the very definition of fraud in our country. It's often the foundation of so-called Ponzi schemes, where someone takes money from someone else to sell something to another in an endless ruse to keep their fraud perpetually going. This is really no different.
If you are not trying to defend SC in your post, then what exactly are you doing? Listen, there is nothing worse than a person who can not stand and defend a position. Stop being "wishy-washy" trying to play on both ends and just man up to what you believe. There is no shame in that. Unbeknownst to you, you reveal your bias in defense of CIG in all of your posts yet you don't even realize it. This particular post makes little sense when addressing my post. It is just another red herring post by those attempting to defend CIG from being accountable, and leaves me no material with which to build any relevant response. Of course it being your nature, you will respond to this post with yet more irrelevance just because. Just know in advance that a response will not be forthcoming if one is not deserving. It is just not worth my time.
There are 47 ships that have been sold to customers. Not counting all the variations and Vanduul NPC ships.
ONLY 8 ships are feature complete. EIGHT out of FORTYSEVEN. 17% Completion.
What have 3 offices worldwide, with nearly 300 developers done for almost 3 years? At this pace the game will be finished in around 20 years. Something smells rotten.
I rest my case.
SOURCE: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tnx5w5EwJw23lPYhHdlHs5g/htmlview# (one that Ellrion the biggest defender on this forum also linked multiple times)
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
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I just laid out what i believe of the situation..I'd say the same for any company; even Derek Smart would get the same consideration from me....It's reality, nothing is so black and white for there to be no middle ground. There's nothing wishy-washy about acknowledging both sides in the debate. And you say what I said is giving myself away.. You want nothing to do with anything said that isn't lock step in accordance with your own opinion. That's a clear cut agenda. So yeah, don't worry about replying if you can't look past your own opinion, agendas are worth no ones time.
Did you even read this part? " All of that said...Backer pledges should be met, anything that can't be met should be put out there ASAP. Not to mention any pledge that brought that feature should be refunded. The folks making Elite had to do just that if memory serves.."
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Ahh come on now. Derek has got to be one of the worst track records in the gaming industry.
Tell me of a single succesful game from him?
Everyone forgotten about that terrible WoW clone (litterally) he was in charge of a couple years ago? Where People caught him having re-used (read stolen) UI assets from WoW!
That game was so terrible, that Blizzard didn't even bother acting on it.
Let this clown first make a succesful game himself, before ranting against Chris Roberts.
He clearly has an agenda of his own here, working on yet another fail game of his that coincidently has a Space theme as well.
Lol, there are a handful of particularly loud individuals who feel that THEIR "questions" about the project are "of significance". They need to get over themselves as far as I'm concerned. The usual threats concerning litigation are as empty as they always are, but still amusing nevertheless.
Any actual attempt at litigation at this point will probably consume most of the funds and result in either a massive delay or no game at all. But there's probably a horde of internet idiots who'll jump at the chance to destroy this game just for the sake of destroying it.
If CIG does not deliver a playable game by the end of 2017, I'll be right there in the mob with the tar and pitchforks. If the final product is half-assed or a buggy mess, I'll condemn it as loudly as the next person.
I always expected this to happen with any Kickstarter-funded MMO of any real complexity. The average gamer does not have the patience to wait 5 years for the product they "paid for". It was bound to end in tears one way or another.