Star Citizen Breaking News

[Motto]

For some reason, the theme song for Dirty Dancing springs to mind  :dance:

[StanTheMan]

They must be so desperate for cash that they don't care about any negative headlines at this stage. I can't see this going well.

Once you are selling  $50 chunks of virtual land your MMO (yes I know) is fucked.  Second Life .....

Inevitably anyone owning land near the popular hubs will get fantastically wealthy/powerful or griefed

The idea you can mitigate this because there is plenty more land out there is absurd to anyone that has a clue how an economy works.

[Aya Reiko]

They must be so desperate for cash that they don't care about any negative headlines at this stage. I can't see this going well.

Yes, they are in fact. I am sitting on some stuff that I am under explicit instructions not to share. As I've stated before, it's bad - real bad. Just bookmark this post.

And, if you can divulge, what are the conditions where can share?

[Spunky Munkee]

I don't know if it's just someone making shit up but I read that the cat is out of the bag, this engine won't do. Now we know this but apparently it's become the basis for their next phase of development.

According to this internet rumor they need 250-350 million more to completely wipe the slate and start to build a custom game engine. I wish I had remembered where I read this but it's probably just another swinging dick making things up based on the probability of what they see.

I think that CIG is at a dead end and should have tried making a custom game engine as soon as they went beyond Squadron 42's scope but Robbers ran his scam until all the rope was gone. Let's see if they start laying people off.

Even as deluded as some of these cultists are I doubt that many will ante up a second time and It is my opinion that if some do they will just lose their money to no avail.

This is nothing but speculation on top of rumors so don't place too much stock in it, then again, land sales, ships that were limited one time sales are for sale again, reeks of desperation.

This is so much more entertaining that playing that sad assed game.

[dsmart]

It's too late to turn back now. They have no choice but to keep going until the wheels fall off. They thought that switching to LY was going to solve their problems. I wrote a blog saying that was bullshit, and a CryEngine derivative isn't going to make much difference because they need to have built a custom engine from the ground up.

[Flashwit]

I honestly didn't think they would do it, but there it is.
This SHOULD be definitive proof that things have gone badly wrong. How you gonna sell land when we haven't even heard of concepts for what you can do with that land? There's no logical reason to buy this shit.

The comments on the homefront are definitely not positive but there are the usual spindoctors spamming up the front page with submissions along the lines of "ACTUALLY, I think land claims are great!"

[dsmart]

But what most are ignoring is the fact that they claim it's to "fund development". Right. Think about that for a moment. At $20m Chris Roberts claimed that he had all the money needed to finish the game he pitched. In Nov 2014, the month he was SUPPOSED to have delivered TWO games, he had received $65M. Today, we're at $166M. And no game. After 6 years.

[Spunky Munkee]

Oh come on now. All the additional funding has been explained by the fearless leader. It is to speed the development process along even faster.

Don't you feel better now?

It would have taken much longer to get to this glorious moment of the 3.0 Pre Alpha without all of those ship sales.

We would still be in 2.6 Alpha or a previous version. This is money well spent. Chris Roberts would have been holding up a cardboard sign in one hand and a tin cup in the other at a freeway exit in California if not for this money. All of these people now have jobs, especially those hard working folks who give the refunds to backers. We need backers to continually give CIG money so that those horrible scummy backers who want to leave the fold can get their refunds and allow the true believers to be pure.

No this is definitely and absolutely not a PONZI scam. In a Ponzi scam participants bring in fresh meat so they can profit, In Star Citizen the only persons who actually profit are at the very top of the pyramid. In Star Citizen backers talk up the game because misery loves company. They seem to think that if their numbers swell the game cannot fail. On the positive side it enables refundees to get out, who needs them. Chris Roberts only wants true believers, and if they are not true believers they will be silenced on the forums.

I am certain that Star Citizen is the best thing to happen to these backers since Prozac.

[Bubba]

A Ponzi scheme is one where the schemer uses later investments to pay off the earlier investors.

From the land claim Q&A, I drew up a list of features they are promising, but haven't implemented yet:

3D Models/Objects: Beacon, Claim licenses
   Outposts:
   Outpost crafting systems
   Outpost modules:
      habitation
      armory
      refinery
      hydroponics
      storage
      medical
   Automated Defense drones

Planetary Weather
   Sandstorms
   Electrical storms
   winds
   snow
   other
Planetary Geophysics:
   Earthquakes
Motion Detection Alerting System
Claim registration system
Space Criminal System
   Destruction of Claim Posts
   Piracy
   Theft
   UEE Protection system, UEE Patrols
   Dedicated Mercenaries
   Private Defense contracts
Land designation systems.
   Available for Claim
   Reserved
      National parks
      Wildlife Refuges
      Nature PReserves
Industry:
   Mining
   Commercial Production
   Retail outlets
Analysis:
   Core samples
   Seismographic surveys

They are very clear that "These claim licenses are being made available for pledging to help fund Star Citizen’s development." In other words, they will use the money to fund the development of features.
Now, if they're using the the money from this sale to pay for the development of previously-promised features, then what you have is not a Ponzi scheme, but the incorporation of Ponzi elements into a different funding scheme, a Ponzi-like, if you will (or a Ponzi-like-like), specifically:

Announcing and selling new features to pay for the development of already-promised ones.

Crowdfunding implicitly monetizes feature creep; by having a continuous funding model, they are continuously creeping.

[Spunky Munkee]

Sarcasm dude.

I know what it is.

Sickening.

My fervent wish is to see the perpetrators behind bars a la Bernie Madoff.

[Backer42]

Crowdfunding implicitly monetizes feature creep; by having a continuous funding model, they are continuously creeping.

Star Citizen has nothing to do with crowd funding, at all. So their Guinness record is bullshit.

Crowd funding means that a high number of people pool low amounts of money together to reach a certain funding goal. Once that goal is reached, that sum is then invested. This way a group of people could buy or lease a ocean-going ship for a research mission for example.

Early access video game / digital content pre-order scams have nothing to do with crowd funding.

There was only one thing anywhere near that term: the Star Citizen Kickstarter campaign. This one was intentionally fraudulent, as the goal sum ($500,000) was set way too low to actually implement the project description on Kickstarter within the promised time frame on Kickstarter. You cannot develop a AAA video game with $500,000. So the factual result of this Kickstarter: CIG didn't deliver and ran away with that Kickstarter money ($2 million).

Everything else including selling non-existing digital items on your website is not crowd funding. Publishing a ever-increasing fantasy number (instead of legitimate financials with costs, sales and revenues) is not crowd funding.

[StanTheMan]

Crowdfunding implicitly monetizes feature creep; by having a continuous funding model, they are continuously creeping.

Star Citizen has nothing to do with crowd funding, at all. So their Guinness record is bullshit.

Crowd funding means that a high number of people pool low amounts of money together to reach a certain funding goal. Once that goal is reached, that sum is then invested. This way a group of people could buy or lease a ocean-going ship for a research mission for example.

Early access video game / digital content pre-order scams have nothing to do with crowd funding.

There was only one thing anywhere near that term: the Star Citizen Kickstarter campaign. This one was intentionally fraudulent, as the goal sum ($500,000) was set way too low to actually implement the project description on Kickstarter within the promised time frame on Kickstarter. You cannot develop a AAA video game with $500,000. So the factual result of this Kickstarter: CIG didn't deliver and ran away with that Kickstarter money ($2 million).

Everything else including selling non-existing digital items on your website is not crowd funding. Publishing a ever-increasing fantasy number (instead of legitimate financials with costs, sales and revenues) is not crowd funding.

Yes because Elite Dangerous would still be being Crowdfunded to this day if we allow it to mean ..making any money from people that supported you get a venture of the ground .

[Motto]

So the development of Dual Citizen by Nova Quark is not crowdfunded? I disagree. Even Star Citizen is crowdfunded, just not 100% anymore due to the loans and investors. That they totally fucked up what they were supposed to do with that money doesn't make it less crowdfunded.

[Flashwit]

Let's just say it's idiot-funded at this point and call it day.

[Aya Reiko]

Let's just say it's idiot-funded at this point and call it day.

More like funded by the whaling industry and yes.