He was bashing their game on their official forums, while simultaneously advertising for his game. And when they attempted to refund him,
To be fair, other people bashed the game and were not given a refund but were simply banned from the forums, why was he given a refund he did not ask for?
I'm the first person to admit that Derek is a whack-a-do but one must also see how from the very start he was singled out and treated differently. While he did say a lot of stuff against the game and staff, some of it was true like Sandi lying about her degrees. Both sides handled that situation poorly.
That's a very good point. I don't agree with a lot of what he says, the way he says it or the apparent agenda behind it but what you wrote there makes a very good point.
A point that the staunchest CIG backers can't bring themselves to admit even though it totally undermines their credibility.
Yes kids, even the godliest of godly game developers fuck-up sometimes. Lashing back against DS just motivated him. That was a dumb move.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The credibility of anonymous sources is a double-edged sword.
Even if a source is real, what says one ex-employee says is truthful towards its ex-employer?
I mean being myself on the position of being quite salty my former boss, I know what I said to many people about my boss and my work-place when that happened... were un-truthful/dramatized. It's like bashing your ex's!
There's no lack of employees that were fired/resigned with clear intention of somehow hurt the former boss (applies globally not just for gaming), and if you can do that anonymously... That's Perfect!
So why is it so unbelievable that an editor didn't vet these sources?
My reasoning for why I think this unlikely is that if they were taken to court they might be compelled to expose their sources. If it turned out to be some elaborate plan hatched by Smart, Finnegan et al then they would be liable for slander, their reputation would be ruined, for all we know they could end up like the now defunct Gawker Media.
Would they really be willing to risk all that for some page views? Personally I don't think so.
If they were taken to court and exposed their sources they would be just as ethically bankrupt as if they bullshitted about those sources in the first place.
You lose your credibility either way.
I'm not sure I understand. If a judge forced them to release the identity and all information pertaining to those sources it's not really on the Escapist.
The judge can't force you. He can only cite you with Contempt if you refuse. You keep your mouth shut and take your lumps that's the ethical thing to do as a journalist. Don't fuck the people over who supposedly took risks.
The credibility of anonymous sources is a double-edged sword.
Even if a source is real, what says one ex-employee says is truthful towards its ex-employer?
I mean being myself on the position of being quite salty my former boss, I know what I said to many people about my boss and my work-place when that happened... were un-truthful/dramatized. It's like bashing your ex's!
There's no lack of employees that were fired/resigned with clear intention of somehow hurt the former boss (applies globally not just for gaming), and if you can do that anonymously... That's Perfect!
But in that case you would only print information where is it corroborated by X number of people, anything that doesn't meet that criteria gets dropped. That's how I'd expect it to work to avoid too much personal bias.
But in that case you would only print information where is it corroborated by X number of people, anything that doesn't meet that criteria gets dropped. That's how I'd expect it to work to avoid too much personal bias.
Unless the actual journalist wants to transmit the most negative message as possible. Don't put too much faith on journalism... The worse something can look, the more audience it gets.
This is why when there is natural disasters the media literally competes with each other on who claims the "higher victim number".
I think the right word for this is Sensationalism.
@Balmong I remember when Wingman was doing that the chat haha
Wingman definitely promoted DU when he first started the kickstarter for it. The difference is there was no malice. When he left to focus on that project, CIG was moving Ops to LA, and he couldn't follow because he'd have to uproot his family.
Wingman was well received by the community and staff at CIG for all he did for the game. CR went so far as to release a Letter From the Chairman giving DU a bump. DS did the exact opposite of that, going to show IMO that he's his own worst enemy.
If Escapist tells us they have verified their sources, then it's up to our evaluation of how reliable Escapist is.
Isn't " then it's up to our evaluation" and "Take everything you see, hear and read, especially if it involves anonymous sources with a grain of salt" the same thing.
FYI the 10,000 grains of salt was a dig towards my linked linked story.
No. Evaluating your sources is part of doubting everything you see, hear and read, but only a part of it. They are not the same thing.
The judge can't force you. He can only cite you with Contempt if you refuse. You keep your mouth shut and take your lumps that's the ethical thing to do as a journalist. Don't fuck the people over who supposedly took risks.
Ah got you. I wasn't sure if things had changed on that front. Thanks for the clarification.
He was bashing their game on their official forums, while simultaneously advertising for his game. And when they attempted to refund him,
To be fair, other people bashed the game and were not given a refund but were simply banned from the forums, why was he given a refund he did not ask for?
I'm the first person to admit that Derek is a whack-a-do but one must also see how from the very start he was singled out and treated differently. While he did say a lot of stuff against the game and staff, some of it was true like Sandi lying about her degrees. Both sides handled that situation poorly.
Yeah, the whole affair could have been handled better. But from everything I gathered about the initial refund, Derek was shown the door because he was trying to ride CIG's coattails for free advertisement for Line of Defense. Going so far as to bash the game and promote his own in the same sentence on their forums.
Edit: for reference, I backed SC 5 months prior to these events and was a regular user on the forums.
I would love to see proof of that, I have read a lot of articles on that but no one would show anything to back it up. Which makes me laugh because if anyone on the DS side has to come up with proof yet on CR side no one needs proof.
Which makes CR look like the bad guy here.
The reason for that, and the absence of any of BeerForTheBeerGods posts, is that when an account is removed (not banned) it deletes the posts made by that user. Including any threads started.
He was bashing their game on their official forums, while simultaneously advertising for his game. And when they attempted to refund him,
To be fair, other people bashed the game and were not given a refund but were simply banned from the forums, why was he given a refund he did not ask for?
I'm the first person to admit that Derek is a whack-a-do but one must also see how from the very start he was singled out and treated differently. While he did say a lot of stuff against the game and staff, some of it was true like Sandi lying about her degrees. Both sides handled that situation poorly.
Yeah, the whole affair could have been handled better. But from everything I gathered about the initial refund, Derek was shown the door because he was trying to ride CIG's coattails for free advertisement for Line of Defense. Going so far as to bash the game and promote his own in the same sentence on their forums.
Edit: for reference, I backed SC 5 months prior to these events and was a regular user on the forums.
I would love to see proof of that, I have read a lot of articles on that but no one would show anything to back it up. Which makes me laugh because if anyone on the DS side has to come up with proof yet on CR side no one needs proof.
Which makes CR look like the bad guy here.
The reason for that, and the absence of any of BeerForTheBeerGods posts, is that when an account is removed (not banned) it deletes the posts made by that user. Including any threads started.
I would think that would be something important to save, yet that sort of kills the idea what is on the internet is always on the internet. But really if no proof exists then you really can't say it is true!
So what about server backup copies? I was not banned there but I can still find my post from SWG from 2003 on the archived server. Plus the Wayback Machine, https://archive.org/web/ probably still have the posts archived.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
He was bashing their game on their official forums, while simultaneously advertising for his game. And when they attempted to refund him,
To be fair, other people bashed the game and were not given a refund but were simply banned from the forums, why was he given a refund he did not ask for?
I'm the first person to admit that Derek is a whack-a-do but one must also see how from the very start he was singled out and treated differently. While he did say a lot of stuff against the game and staff, some of it was true like Sandi lying about her degrees. Both sides handled that situation poorly.
Yeah, the whole affair could have been handled better. But from everything I gathered about the initial refund, Derek was shown the door because he was trying to ride CIG's coattails for free advertisement for Line of Defense. Going so far as to bash the game and promote his own in the same sentence on their forums.
Edit: for reference, I backed SC 5 months prior to these events and was a regular user on the forums.
I would love to see proof of that, I have read a lot of articles on that but no one would show anything to back it up. Which makes me laugh because if anyone on the DS side has to come up with proof yet on CR side no one needs proof.
Which makes CR look like the bad guy here.
The reason for that, and the absence of any of BeerForTheBeerGods posts, is that when an account is removed (not banned) it deletes the posts made by that user. Including any threads started.
I would think that would be something important to save, yet that sort of kills the idea what is on the internet is always on the internet. But really if no proof exists then you really can't say it is true!
The reason for that, and the absence of any of BeerForTheBeerGods posts, is that when an account is removed (not banned) it deletes the posts made by that user. Including any threads started.
What i remember well, is that i knew who DS was, and what LOD was from his campaign he started surrounding CIG/SC. I had no idea who he was and his game, and never looked for it either.. It just popped in everywhere on discussions, making it quite hard to be un-aware of his game.
So independent of all the details, this whole situation made a LOT of people aware of his game, due the attention he got and how he placed his game on the same places he made serious accusations against SC/CIG, on something that gained even the media attention.
What i remember well, is that i knew who DS was, and what LOD was from his campaign he started surrounding CIG/SC. I had no idea who he was and his game, and never looked for it either.. It just popped in everywhere on discussions, making it quite hard to be un-aware of his game.
So independent of all the details, this whole situation made a LOT of people aware of his game, due the attention he got and how he placed his game on the same places he made serious accusations against SC/CIG, on something that gained even the media attention.
Dont forget that Derek and Chris have had issues between them from way back in the early 90s. I'm sure that factored in to Chris having him refunded.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
[...] 2) CIG is a private company that has the right to refuse service to anyone
[...]
That's not true, as soon as you decide to sell something in the public, your customer has to act in an inappropriate way to be excluded from your service. You can not just say: "I don't like his hairstyle, so I ban him" And even if you ban him once and he pays to be signed up again - you cannot just ban him again for "reasons" he did on a different purchase in the past - he has to be handled as a different person. Basically that's what the games EULA/TOS is for, it represents the house order. The paragraphs in an EULA/TOS have to be reasonable and must not harm any country laws they apply to (You still may not put a paragraph about hairstyles in there - because irrelevant in internet activities). It's different on public real live events where you can set rules on clothing and hair style (but still not Religion, ethic, ethnic, disabilities, sex, sexual orientation and age [yes you may visit an Over40 party when you are 20 years old]).
CIG is refusing the service if you have been banned once to a new user account which they are surely free to do but a user can enforce a new account by law. If you ban an account you have to document the whole process and may not refer to other sign up's.
Well, in the end it's your money that CIG is spending on comedy like that - they can not control the userbase. It takes just a minute to get a new email adress, 2min if you want to reroute the mails to your main address. But it takes much more time for the CIG Customer service to investigate if the "User" is tagged as a "bad" person, ban the account, refund the stuff and write the documentation. These are wasted man-hours and the "good" userbase has to pay for that (either with money or time, more likely with both).
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
He was bashing their game on their official forums, while simultaneously advertising for his game. And when they attempted to refund him,
To be fair, other people bashed the game and were not given a refund but were simply banned from the forums, why was he given a refund he did not ask for?
I'm the first person to admit that Derek is a whack-a-do but one must also see how from the very start he was singled out and treated differently. While he did say a lot of stuff against the game and staff, some of it was true like Sandi lying about her degrees. Both sides handled that situation poorly.
Yeah, the whole affair could have been handled better. But from everything I gathered about the initial refund, Derek was shown the door because he was trying to ride CIG's coattails for free advertisement for Line of Defense. Going so far as to bash the game and promote his own in the same sentence on their forums.
Edit: for reference, I backed SC 5 months prior to these events and was a regular user on the forums.
I would love to see proof of that, I have read a lot of articles on that but no one would show anything to back it up. Which makes me laugh because if anyone on the DS side has to come up with proof yet on CR side no one needs proof.
Which makes CR look like the bad guy here.
The reason for that, and the absence of any of BeerForTheBeerGods posts, is that when an account is removed (not banned) it deletes the posts made by that user. Including any threads started.
I would think that would be something important to save, yet that sort of kills the idea what is on the internet is always on the internet. But really if no proof exists then you really can't say it is true!
Again like your post this is not proof, just someone who is making a statement with no teeth! If one side is told to show proof then the other side has too also.
Didn't present it as proof, just as the best there is. Even the Reddit on him wasn't around at the time.
Now this I can believe but still would need some proof that it is true.
CR claimed it on a legal letter, the one that was publicly posted last year. That DS had sent him (his company) developing wing commander, a legal threat that they ignored.
And the fun part is that DS, a person with a public background of involvement in several lawsuits for even lighter reasons... Denies that ever happened and CR lies, yet he had ALL the legal power to sue CR over defamation and didn't. And that's where i see the bluffing!
I really don't know why you guys are so fanatic over Derek Smart, let him twitter and blog what he wants and ignore him if you don't like what he writes. People like Mr. Smart do more harm than good to the game industry with that behavior. You present him a whole playground (yay he has his own we-hate-derek reddit) to brag about it, instead of "let him fuckin finish". IMHO Chris Roberts did way more harm to the crowd funding/gaming community than Derek Smart. I really can not foresee if crowd funding will ever recover from this 120m$ soap opera debacle.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
So why is it for you guys? Do you really want to give a platform to Derek Smart? This is the same person who wrote a letter to Origin and me after Wing Commander was out claiming that we were infringing on his game and we had to cease publishing it or he would sue us. We told him we never heard of him and good luck with that. He never sued. His game was, of course, the now infamous Battlecruiser 3000AD that would take many more years to come out (I think I shipped four Wing Commanders before his game came out).
[...] 2) CIG is a private company that has the right to refuse service to anyone
[...]
That's not true, as soon as you decide to sell something in the public, your customer has to act in an inappropriate way to be excluded from your service. You can not just say: "I don't like his hairstyle, so I ban him" And even if you ban him once and he pays to be signed up again - you cannot just ban him again for "reasons" he did on a different purchase in the past - he has to be handled as a different person. Basically that's what the games EULA/TOS is for, it represents the house order. The paragraphs in an EULA/TOS have to be reasonable and must not harm any country laws they apply to (You still may not put a paragraph about hairstyles in there - because irrelevant in internet activities). It's different on public real live events where you can set rules on clothing and hair style (but still not Religion, ethic, ethnic, disabilities, sex, sexual orientation and age [yes you may visit an Over40 party when you are 20 years old]).
CIG is refusing the service if you have been banned once to a new user account which they are surely free to do but a user can enforce a new account by law. If you ban an account you have to document the whole process and may not refer to other sign up's.
Well, in the end it's your money that CIG is spending on comedy like that - they can not control the userbase. It takes just a minute to get a new email adress, 2min if you want to reroute the mails to your main address. But it takes much more time for the CIG Customer service to investigate if the "User" is tagged as a "bad" person, ban the account, refund the stuff and write the documentation. These are wasted man-hours and the "good" userbase has to pay for that (either with money or time, more likely with both).
DS isn't able to create any new accounts, per ToS, after his forceful refund. Hence the reason DS went to the Grey Market and purchased package(s). He even claims to still be a backer on his twitter. This, despite it being against ToS, is waay to hard to track down on CIG's side. But it does raise the question of why he would do something like that.
Everything CIG did was within Kickstarter's guidelines, since DS backed when it was still only a Kickstarter.
So why is it so unbelievable that an editor didn't vet these sources?
My reasoning for why I think this unlikely is that if they were taken to court they might be compelled to expose their sources. If it turned out to be some elaborate plan hatched by Smart, Finnegan et al then they would be liable for slander, their reputation would be ruined, for all we know they could end up like the now defunct Gawker Media.
Would they really be willing to risk all that for some page views? Personally I don't think so.
Ohhhhhh, ok, I see your thought process now, I get where the conspiracy angle is coming from. No, I don't think that it was some elaborate conspiracy theory by Smart and Finnegan. That's the whole point. I think it was a clickbait article where she didn't vet the sources properly or at all. She's not even an employee with them, she's simply a contributor. So why would she vet her sources using their editors and legal?
Also, there was a threat of legal action from CIG. So if we're assuming that no lawsuit is an admission of guilt, then what of no follow-up? My guess is that there were conversations that happened behind the scenes. Lots of don't-ask-don't-tell stuff. Why? Simply put, it hasn't harmed CIGs rep. Haters are still hatin' and white knights are still white knightin', plus it's free press that is still being talking about. Plus a lawsuit would be costly. Plus maybe a lawsuit exposes stuff they don't want exposed. I'm not saying that happened, though. It's just speculation. What I am saying is there was a threat of a lawsuit and then there was no follow-up, so there was obviously talk about what would be mutually beneficial. The credibility of TheEscapist has already been called into question over the article, so why wouldn't you publish sources who were ok with it or publish your follow-up with more damning information? Or even conduct the office visit that was offered? Not trying to make it out like CIG is the picture perfect company or they are doing everything so well. Just saying that to say that the Escapist article was completely legit is like saying that SC is the greatest game of all time.
In my OPINION, I feel like the article has accounts of actions that are waaaaaaaay too far over the top to be factual. Overt racism, agism, sexism in the office can lead to massive lawsuits and, being honest, if I'm SG, I can veto your recommendation for a hire anyway, for whatever reason I want. Just, "Not the right fit". There's no reason to express that you don't want to hire anyone 40+, you just veto them. That's just my opinion.
[...] 2) CIG is a private company that has the right to refuse service to anyone
[...]
That's not true, as soon as you decide to sell something in the public, your customer has to act in an inappropriate way to be excluded from your service. You can not just say: "I don't like his hairstyle, so I ban him" And even if you ban him once and he pays to be signed up again - you cannot just ban him again for "reasons" he did on a different purchase in the past - he has to be handled as a different person. Basically that's what the games EULA/TOS is for, it represents the house order. The paragraphs in an EULA/TOS have to be reasonable and must not harm any country laws they apply to (You still may not put a paragraph about hairstyles in there - because irrelevant in internet activities). It's different on public real live events where you can set rules on clothing and hair style (but still not Religion, ethic, ethnic, disabilities, sex, sexual orientation and age [yes you may visit an Over40 party when you are 20 years old]).
CIG is refusing the service if you have been banned once to a new user account which they are surely free to do but a user can enforce a new account by law. If you ban an account you have to document the whole process and may not refer to other sign up's.
Well, in the end it's your money that CIG is spending on comedy like that - they can not control the userbase. It takes just a minute to get a new email adress, 2min if you want to reroute the mails to your main address. But it takes much more time for the CIG Customer service to investigate if the "User" is tagged as a "bad" person, ban the account, refund the stuff and write the documentation. These are wasted man-hours and the "good" userbase has to pay for that (either with money or time, more likely with both).
DS isn't able to create any new accounts, per ToS, after his forceful refund. Hence the reason DS went to the Grey Market and purchased package(s). He even claims to still be a backer on his twitter. This, despite it being against ToS, is waay to hard to track down on CIG's side. But it does raise the question of why he would do something like that.
Everything CIG did was within Kickstarter's guidelines, since DS backed when it was still only a Kickstarter.
I would do the same if he would do such a thing in my games. But if he signs up for a new account he signs a new TOS agreement. If he blogs something after signing the TOS kick him and refund him again. If the TOS says otherwise (Banning people not accounts) then this part of the TOS is not valid. As I stated before it would just cause work for the company, a user can create a new identity in minutes.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
[...] 2) CIG is a private company that has the right to refuse service to anyone
[...]
That's not true, as soon as you decide to sell something in the public, your customer has to act in an inappropriate way to be excluded from your service. You can not just say: "I don't like his hairstyle, so I ban him" And even if you ban him once and he pays to be signed up again - you cannot just ban him again for "reasons" he did on a different purchase in the past - he has to be handled as a different person. Basically that's what the games EULA/TOS is for, it represents the house order. The paragraphs in an EULA/TOS have to be reasonable and must not harm any country laws they apply to (You still may not put a paragraph about hairstyles in there - because irrelevant in internet activities). It's different on public real live events where you can set rules on clothing and hair style (but still not Religion, ethic, ethnic, disabilities, sex, sexual orientation and age [yes you may visit an Over40 party when you are 20 years old]).
CIG is refusing the service if you have been banned once to a new user account which they are surely free to do but a user can enforce a new account by law. If you ban an account you have to document the whole process and may not refer to other sign up's.
Well, in the end it's your money that CIG is spending on comedy like that - they can not control the userbase. It takes just a minute to get a new email adress, 2min if you want to reroute the mails to your main address. But it takes much more time for the CIG Customer service to investigate if the "User" is tagged as a "bad" person, ban the account, refund the stuff and write the documentation. These are wasted man-hours and the "good" userbase has to pay for that (either with money or time, more likely with both).
DS isn't able to create any new accounts, per ToS, after his forceful refund. Hence the reason DS went to the Grey Market and purchased package(s). He even claims to still be a backer on his twitter. This, despite it being against ToS, is waay to hard to track down on CIG's side. But it does raise the question of why he would do something like that.
Everything CIG did was within Kickstarter's guidelines, since DS backed when it was still only a Kickstarter.
I would do the same if he would do such a thing in my games. But if he signs up for a new account he signs a new TOS agreement. If he blogs something after signing the TOS kick him and refund him again. If the TOS says otherwise (Banning people not accounts) then this part of the TOS is not valid. As I stated before it would just cause work for the company, a user can create a new identity in minutes.
The problem is, he used the Grey Market (a place players go to sell unique ship packages for profit). His account(s) is registered under someone else's name. CIG would have to track down the whole transaction, which occured offsite.
So why is it for you guys? Do you really want to give a platform to Derek Smart? This is the same person who wrote a letter to Origin and me after Wing Commander was out claiming that we were infringing on his game and we had to cease publishing it or he would sue us. We told him we never heard of him and good luck with that. He never sued. His game was, of course, the now infamous Battlecruiser 3000AD that would take many more years to come out (I think I shipped four Wing Commanders before his game came out).
LOL Yeah I played his game way back when and I actually enjoyed it but also enjoyed Wing Commander by Roberts. It is kind of childish to put down a game made years ago. Which is exactly why a little worried about putting money toward SC! Again all this back and forth with you guys are hurting the game and Roberts himself. You guys should all just ignore DS and move on.
That letter from CR to the escapist sounds more like a little 6th grader blaming everything on one person. If anything CR should of either ignored it or let his lawyer handle it. Really sounds like i'm taking my bat and balls and going home. Also can't believe he left it on the site. Very unprofessional!
Responding to someone on the internet sort of legitimizes what they have to say as something worth responding to... see what I did there?
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Again all this back and forth with you guys are hurting the game and Roberts himself. You guys should all just ignore DS and move on.
lol the point of their history remains, as all that happened and then it's swept under the rug to give more credibility.... then it's a war of words.
Actually not, it's all this back and forth that keeps Star Citizen on the homepage of this website, and several others, the eternal forum crusades. Free publicity!
btw, i do ignore him, however, the people around that pretty much do nothing but relaying what DS says to this forum, doesn't help much towards never mentioning him.
Comments
Yes kids, even the godliest of godly game developers fuck-up sometimes. Lashing back against DS just motivated him. That was a dumb move.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I remember when Wingman was doing that in the chat haha
Even if a source is real, what says one ex-employee says is truthful towards its ex-employer?
I mean being myself on the position of being quite salty my former boss, I know what I said to many people about my boss and my work-place when that happened... were un-truthful/dramatized. It's like bashing your ex's!
There's no lack of employees that were fired/resigned with clear intention of somehow hurt the former boss (applies globally not just for gaming), and if you can do that anonymously... That's Perfect!
Have that in mind before eating it all up.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
But in that case you would only print information where is it corroborated by X number of people, anything that doesn't meet that criteria gets dropped.
That's how I'd expect it to work to avoid too much personal bias.
This is why when there is natural disasters the media literally competes with each other on who claims the "higher victim number".
I think the right word for this is Sensationalism.
Wingman was well received by the community and staff at CIG for all he did for the game. CR went so far as to release a Letter From the Chairman giving DU a bump. DS did the exact opposite of that, going to show IMO that he's his own worst enemy.
Ah got you. I wasn't sure if things had changed on that front. Thanks for the clarification.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So independent of all the details, this whole situation made a LOT of people aware of his game, due the attention he got and how he placed his game on the same places he made serious accusations against SC/CIG, on something that gained even the media attention.
You can not just say: "I don't like his hairstyle, so I ban him"
And even if you ban him once and he pays to be signed up again - you cannot just ban him again for "reasons" he did on a different purchase in the past - he has to be handled as a different person.
Basically that's what the games EULA/TOS is for, it represents the house order. The paragraphs in an EULA/TOS have to be reasonable and must not harm any country laws they apply to (You still may not put a paragraph about hairstyles in there - because irrelevant in internet activities).
It's different on public real live events where you can set rules on clothing and hair style (but still not Religion, ethic, ethnic, disabilities, sex, sexual orientation and age [yes you may visit an Over40 party when you are 20 years old]).
CIG is refusing the service if you have been banned once to a new user account which they are surely free to do but a user can enforce a new account by law.
If you ban an account you have to document the whole process and may not refer to other sign up's.
Well, in the end it's your money that CIG is spending on comedy like that - they can not control the userbase. It takes just a minute to get a new email adress, 2min if you want to reroute the mails to your main address. But it takes much more time for the CIG Customer service to investigate if the "User" is tagged as a "bad" person, ban the account, refund the stuff and write the documentation. These are wasted man-hours and the "good" userbase has to pay for that (either with money or time, more likely with both).
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
And the fun part is that DS, a person with a public background of involvement in several lawsuits for even lighter reasons... Denies that ever happened and CR lies, yet he had ALL the legal power to sue CR over defamation and didn't. And that's where i see the bluffing!
IMHO Chris Roberts did way more harm to the crowd funding/gaming community than Derek Smart. I really can not foresee if crowd funding will ever recover from this 120m$ soap opera debacle.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
Everything CIG did was within Kickstarter's guidelines, since DS backed when it was still only a Kickstarter.
Ohhhhhh, ok, I see your thought process now, I get where the conspiracy angle is coming from. No, I don't think that it was some elaborate conspiracy theory by Smart and Finnegan. That's the whole point. I think it was a clickbait article where she didn't vet the sources properly or at all. She's not even an employee with them, she's simply a contributor. So why would she vet her sources using their editors and legal?
Also, there was a threat of legal action from CIG. So if we're assuming that no lawsuit is an admission of guilt, then what of no follow-up? My guess is that there were conversations that happened behind the scenes. Lots of don't-ask-don't-tell stuff. Why? Simply put, it hasn't harmed CIGs rep. Haters are still hatin' and white knights are still white knightin', plus it's free press that is still being talking about. Plus a lawsuit would be costly. Plus maybe a lawsuit exposes stuff they don't want exposed. I'm not saying that happened, though. It's just speculation. What I am saying is there was a threat of a lawsuit and then there was no follow-up, so there was obviously talk about what would be mutually beneficial. The credibility of TheEscapist has already been called into question over the article, so why wouldn't you publish sources who were ok with it or publish your follow-up with more damning information? Or even conduct the office visit that was offered? Not trying to make it out like CIG is the picture perfect company or they are doing everything so well. Just saying that to say that the Escapist article was completely legit is like saying that SC is the greatest game of all time.
In my OPINION, I feel like the article has accounts of actions that are waaaaaaaay too far over the top to be factual. Overt racism, agism, sexism in the office can lead to massive lawsuits and, being honest, if I'm SG, I can veto your recommendation for a hire anyway, for whatever reason I want. Just, "Not the right fit". There's no reason to express that you don't want to hire anyone 40+, you just veto them. That's just my opinion.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
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If the TOS says otherwise (Banning people not accounts) then this part of the TOS is not valid.
As I stated before it would just cause work for the company, a user can create a new identity in minutes.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
lol the point of their history remains, as all that happened and then it's swept under the rug to give more credibility.... then it's a war of words.
Actually not, it's all this back and forth that keeps Star Citizen on the homepage of this website, and several others, the eternal forum crusades. Free publicity!
btw, i do ignore him, however, the people around that pretty much do nothing but relaying what DS says to this forum, doesn't help much towards never mentioning him.