Star Citizen's Latest PROBLEMS and Controversies

[@Culky]

The sad thing about the heavy crunch is that it wasn't enforced in the pursuit of improving and delivering either of the games, it was purely to deliver marketing material.

[@bosik111]

It's not even that. If Chris Roberts had more or realistic approach to project management the game would be in vastly better state, maybe it wouldn't be pushing envelope quite as much, but at least after 10 years it should have some of the core features complete and reasonably bug free. What we're seeing right now is a mess that was caused by a person with too big of an ego and extremely mediocre management skills, but a good salesman one.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@bosik111 What good is a game that isn't pushing the evelope? I'm not throwing money at them to make a safe game. If you want a safe game, Starfield gives you exactly what you want. In fact, you should be more than happy with it, right?

[@pringlewheel]

@@Billy-bc8pk I sincerely hope you are not throwing money at them, for your sake...

[@urazz7739]

@@Billy-bc8pk Yeah, but do you expect the project to be better managed? I sure do and Chris Roberts is lousy at being a boss. He's a good idea guy but I wouldn't trust him to run any kind of project.

[@marshmallow8709]

​​@@Billy-bc8pkit might be a game that's good to play Lol

[@_SurferGeek_]

Don't sell what you can't deliver today. Don't buy on the promise of future delivery. Wise words to live by.

[@NULUSIOS]

...now, let the fanboys attack

[@HarenunHoppus]

Tell that to the legatus whales. 😂

[@reitairue2073]

​@@NULUSIOSKind of like politics, 2 extremes. Idk why you feel the need to tell me what to do with my money. At the same time I will absolutely criticize the shit out of this game when I feel the need lol.

[@Erik3E]

You talking about every game in history then I asume

[@Lucpol1986]

Many Govt’s would collapse if investors used that mentality… 👍🏾Forecasting, models and ‘promises’ are everything pal😉

[@doj7777]

who's old enough to remember the money spent on Los Angeles office and the mo-cap studio ? 😅

[@fnunez]

Well, to be fair having a mocap studio in LA can be a good source of income. Not sure about all the crazy custom decor in their offices, a lot of naive startups in the 1990s went bankrupt because of frivolities like that. It's not like they can scrape the 1:1 scale connie doors for RMC when they have a bad quarter.

[@rolinthor]

They have a mocap studio in Manchester as well. I heard it’s the largest such studio in the UK.

[@franz14ade]

Back when LA was affordable

[@mrpositronia]

They clearly haven't been using it. Those avatar characters are very robotic.

[@Scylon1]

@@mrpositronia I thought the same thing. This was amazing when they were showing stuff 10 years ago. It is starting to look dated today, particularly with the animations. You'll note it is very "busy" when you sit in a chair to distract you from that.

[@ToastyMcGrath]

Wait, they made everyone work overtime to work on a demo for a game that won't even come out for two years?

[@seaofenergy2765]

Gotta keep the backer money rolling in to fuel the lavish lifestyles and keep the lights on at the lush office. Honestly the star studded cast of the demo feels like a huge red flag of mismanagement of funds. Wasting money on celebrities to add hype rather than use it to finish the damn game 😂

[@Monarch_GNSG]

Working overtime in IT and development is a normal thing + they got a break after the fact. Litterally every studio ever does this.

[@Stupoider]

@@Monarch_GNSG Yeah but you'd expect that before shipping or release, not 2 years away from release. And apparently it was feature complete last year. it's not adding up, keep drinking the kool-aid

[@SgtMajor82]

@@Monarch_GNSG They should all do National Service and see how that works out with their expectations of work and financial reward!

[@beardedlonewolf7695]

@@Monarch_GNSG 100% only lazy people don't understand this, but the issue I have is what came out from this overtime, a bigger tech demo.

[@Rickymcdd]

I'm none surprised its well known that Chris Roberts is a terrible manager, It is well documented that freelancer would never had seen the light of day until he was removed as director. He needs a boss to say no..

[@Ruintek]

so much of the last decade was foreseeable

[@mcbrite]

No worries, they will fail in a couple of months... Look at new players... It's TANKING even though the money still somewhat flows...

[@sk8ergrump]

To be more accurate, Amazon Lumberyard was a cross-platform game engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine, used to develop Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It replaces CryEngine and became the foundation of Star Engine.

[@MagiofAsura]

I'm not even sure how they are allowed to even call it star engine and attempt to license it. Then again, who the hell would want to buy In when support would be shit and the company doesn't even know how to use it.

[@AoyagiAichou]

It wasn't "developed by Amazon". All they did was buy CryEngine and implemented AWS into it.

[@FirebreathXIII]

Why does this seems to mirror a lot of what happened with the development of Freelancer, up to the point where Microsoft stepped in, thanked Roberts for his services and then appointed his replacement to basically "just finish and ship the game"?

[@AxeGaijin]

People being wowed by a bunch of demos is part of the problem, they should be pissed at the fact that's all they got looking forward to after all this time.

[@KamalaChameleon]

Ive had a massive game with 4 insanely detailed planets including the industries only gas giant for years and years.. eith the most detailed interactive vehicles ever made that surpass uboat sinulators.. in a full multiplayer environment with no monthly fees.. comments like this are so dishonest they should be hired by media

[@franz14ade]

You're right! We should bash CIG, talk shit, and hate on them because of the demos! We don't care about how much progress SC has made, we don't care how much the game has changed and move closer in inches to full release!

[@rolinthor]

Oh, we’re mad.

[@mrpositronia]

I doubt that would happen. CIG have a 'cult-like' culture. Seems as though the fans are a part of that cult. Maybe Star Citizen was a Scientology game all along.

[@hewhosayszonk]

@@KamalaChameleon for 12 years and $700m, their achievements are not impressive.

[@truton1060]

Yep my forum post was deleted by moderation last night where I just asked the question "Should CIG bring someone in to help get them over the finish line" it was not hateful or rude in anyway. I just legitimately think they need some help on the management end and it was getting traction and up votes and now it is deleted lol.

[@fnunez]

Deleting your post was the usual mod bs, but not having "someone to help get them over the finish line" is the whole point of the funding model. The game is done when Roberts says it's done, he doesn't want a repeat of when Microsoft did just that with Freelancer and fired him for going way over the publishing deadline, then got some of their own devs to finish the game.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

So you want another Starfield? I'm sure you have made zero negative comments about Starfield, right? That game is perfect in your eyes, right?

[@fnunez]

@@Billy-bc8pk If Todd Howard wasn't a cheapskate and actually used a modern game engine (maybe licensed the No Mans Sky engine from Sony), Starfield could have easily been a better game than Star Citizen. CIG are lucky their competitors are incompetent.

[@truton1060]

@@Billy-bc8pk funny enough I liked starfield enough. Got my 100ish hours of gameplay out of it. I was not expecting much though. Just Skyrim in space with some space stuff.

[@adawg3032]

duh of course they deleted it doing anything else would be them admitting defeat

[@needy3535]

The fact that theres was mandatory 7 day mandatory crunch for an ON RAILS INTRO SEQUENCE is in fact a hige red flag

[@CellDE]

hard to say if that's only for sq42 prolog scene ...

[@beardedbarnstormer9577]

first time working at a fortune 100? pretty standard there. youd be shocked to realize the world runs on basically duct tape and bubble gum holding shit together

[@Matt_10203]

@@beardedbarnstormer9577yeah… I mean still not a good sign for the game but not entirely uncommon for any of these game studios - just that CIG has a pretty awful reputation.

[@beardedbarnstormer9577]

@@Matt_10203 100% agree, love Chris but hes in his own way a TON of the time. its funny that when Bault came in you can see where hes gained influence with the development getting more mature

[@XxXnonameAsDXxX]

​@@beardedbarnstormer9577I think he was told to cool the yapping this citcon that's why he was reading the teleprompter 1:1 + looked not very excited

[@GameSetPatch]

I've literally had posts censored on CIGs spectrum forums for "spreading FUD". You know what for? Explaining to someone else how they needed to tempor their expectations and accept that CIG is a game developer. There are technical realities they have to face, on top of juggling financial constraints. Yeah... It's not a good sign when your practical advice has mods behaving like crypto bros in a discord server. That's not the first thing that caused me to doubt the game, but it certainly added to my growing skepticism.

[@rolinthor]

Their latest strategy is moving critical posts to lesser visited sub forums like “Feedback” or “Other Games” or specific vehicle pages.

[@Niallistical]

They have to censor dissent because the game doesn't hold up on its own.

[@mrpositronia]

@@Niallistical Neither do the upper management of CIG.

[@chicken10999999]

As a programmer, who has worked with other developers who make games, many hurdles that may not seem reasonable can be development with the right developer.

[@amiththomas3884]

Yeaaaaah this is a bit hard to believe. Most of the people who say this will actually have gotten into an argument and used personal insults, comment or insult moderation, developers etc. Somehow they'll end up breaking some rule, even if unintentionally. And then they come back and give a half true explanation and say "Silenced for criticism". Did the moderators really say "spreading FUD" ? When you say 'financial constraints', did you say that or did you go around saying they're running out of money or something ? Seems off compared to what I regularly see on Spectrum. Spectrum is literally known for being filled to the brim with whining and complaining that is very snarky if not outright aggressive. Anyone who has been there will tell you that. Community run discord servers and reddits will tell you not to go there because it's too toxic for their tastes. And it's been this way for a long time now.

[@killerbees1199]

CIG will always be like this because this is the way it is supposed to be. The games they are working on are perpetual prototypes. CIG isn't selling Star Citizen or Squadron 42 or anything else, they are selling what the games CAN be, not what it IS. As long as someone gets inspired by what experiences they believe they can have, they will buy into the game, and don't worry about the game being released. It's why CIG has such a hard time with releasing a "final product" because no matter what, that final product will disappoint one of the backers. It's why the videos they create to sell the game are so much like movies, they are selling the chance to have that experience to the player.

[@mrpositronia]

Exactly. They sell the sizzle, not the sausage.

[@Ruintek]

not far off from the original paying for jpegs criticism. smell the coffee

[@toyahinata]

The luxury style of cig isnt really a mystery for anyone i think. And you only need a crunch if you development is really messed up, not for demos, so yeah, classic CIG.

[@Matt_10203]

I don’t doubt that the development is a shambles, but crunch definitely happens whether development is messed up or not. Unrealistic targets are set at plenty of studios that end up with teams having to crunch like crazy, Rockstar for example with Red Dead 2.

[@kityhawk2000]

Literally every major studio does crunch. Not saying that makes it ok but this is not something that's unique to CIG

[@Runic-Raven]

Ships like the 400i, the Corsair and the Redeemer getting hard, unjustified, nerfs just to sell the new Ships, people being completely ignored about their distain regarding Master modes, the Galaxy suddenly being green and much, much more. The failures of CIG pile up more and more and their dismissive attitude towards their backers will bite them even more back at some point.

[@robertjohnston8531]

Corsair nerf was justified. Long overdue. Just done poorly.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Redeemer got a buff, mate. Despite Avenger1 dogging on it, he was actually WINNING in it with the new changes thanks to the increased manoeuverability. Literally go watch the livestream, where everyone is yelling "nerf" while he's absolutely demolishing the other players in the PvP. It's embarrassing when people talk about things they don't actually know anything about.

[@Qwarzz]

@@Billy-bc8pk He did crush other players in Prospector (before master modes of course) as well so him doing fine in something may not tell much :)

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@Qwarzz Yes it does, because he got crushed in the Zeus in almost every match up except for the Vulture and the Prospector. The Redeemer cleaning house after the balance buffs shows it's more than capable at what its intended role is now: a gunship that works as a fighter screen.

[@Ruintek]

this is not new stuff. always happens

[@ahumanwolverine9697]

CIG running out of money is a good thing. That means they are incentivized to finally release the game.

[@lordflashheart3680]

Is it bad that I’ll likely never play SC again but I’m hooked on the drama surrounding it?

[@moon9light]

It's fascinating, for sure

[@andrebullitt7212]

😂 Same here.

[@All_Hail_Chael]

I really HATE Star Citizen, I'm really mad about the state of it and how long it has taken. But I am fascinated by it still and end up watching these videos.

[@robertjohnston8531]

Yes, especially when most of it is manufactured.

[@AstroTrain100]

Wait until Star Citizen gets cancelled, then you will see Drama.

[@sylbil6]

I think the coffee remark was about the baristas in the game not working after this was labeled as a feature in an update....

[@ObsidianAnt]

“But at least we have baristas serving us coffee here,” one employee joked, referencing the over-the-top coffee bar that takes up a large portion of the 9th floor of its new Manchester building." insider-gaming.com/star-citizens-development/ Seems, the comment was about the real coffee bar in the Manchester building.

[@BlazeBlevinspace]

I've been a backer since 2016 and this last year has been horrible for backers and CIG employees alike. Thanks OA for bringing all this to light on your channel.

[@WeLoveTheLibrary]

I don't really have an opinion either way... wait and see I guess. However I find it amusing that Roberts is apparently such a perfectionist, but last time I logged in I kept falling through the floor just in front of the elevators in the Station above New Babbage. Three times in a row, then I logged out until someone fixes something. :)

[@Scylon1]

But the level of rust and them 2 crates placement had 7 revisions. Consider that the next time you phase though them! :P

[@TheLobstersoup]

I think the backers were very patient and believed for the longest time that CIG would deliver Squadron within a couple of years. Personally, I only own Star Citizen and was never interested in Squadron. Yet, I have to patiently watch as SC devs are again and again working on Squadron. And it's not like they are making great progress. They still need two years to finish the game. But SC needs them, too. And when CIG says "2026" you know it will release in December 2026, probably ten seconds to midnight, on the 31st.

[@Axonteer]

Same but different boat, im only interested in the og core game, squadron. Sc is just an aftertought to me.

[@mrpositronia]

It's not going to be 2026. Just like it wasn't 2016.

[@Scylon1]

its been 2 years away from about 10 years.

[@kityhawk2000]

All due respect but when you said you only own SC you revealed you didn't back the project until many years after it started. I have some sympathy for backers who backed a game that then changed and became something else or had a release date that was cancelled but by the time SC and S42 were being offered separately that had already happened. I believe they had even started offering refunds to people who were unhappy with the change of direction, so it's a bit weird that with all of this going on you still decided to back the game.

[@alzhaid2919]

when CIG says "2026" you know... it's a LIE. Remember that CIG asked our money in exchange of delivering Squadron 42 *in 2014*.

[@Culky]

Squadron 42 wasn't originally pitched as episodic, that happened later, essentially so that CIG could argue that Kickstarter and other early backers who were owed the game would only be eligible for the first episode, and they could sell the rest of it separately.

[@powerwhiteangel]

False, Squadron 42 was always meant to be 3 episodes, like episodes of Star Wars movies, forming a trilogy of games within the world of Star Citizen. Later, just after the Kickstarter, they had the idea to maybe release Squadron 42 Episode 1 in pieces/episodes during development to help fund Star Citizen. But because the money kept coming, they didn't have to.

[@Paisa231]

So much misinformation, and this is one of them. But I don't blame anyone, it's hell of a lot to keep track of. Without going full Beautiful Mind.. :)

[@KamalaChameleon]

If the game is 20 missions long and 20 times longer than the demo.. then not only did they make a full game they made a full LONG game

[@Paisa231]

@@KamalaChameleon Its gonna be 35 missions and about 40h story. And check out the 2017 Vertical Slice from SQ42. Vertical Slice is when a game developer take a part of the game, and take it as close to ""finished"" to see how much of a game they have at a point in time. I recommend the video with commentary, so you get some key information about the development and this particular mission.

[@Qwarzz]

@@powerwhiteangel There was no way they could have released parts of Sq42 earlier considering they're still building the engine. We're finally at a point that the engine starts being ready to support at least a single player game.

[@SALSN]

So 3 episodes of Sq 42. Let's be optimistic and say 15 years of development for each. So I'll be 70 when the third episode comes out...

[@dark_winter8238]

I would say 10 years now they had a lot a wasted time originally. You will be only 60.

[@Pete_Harris]

I'm in deep sh*t...just coming up to 66 years of age : /

[@LSBlaga]

Overscoping and underdelivering along with a huge waste of money is exactly what happened with Freelancer as well. I love Freelancer more than I could convey, I have made so many good memories with it. But it's very clear that Roberts can't finish a game just like he couldn't with Freelancer.

[@OldTime--Gamer]

have in mind that their backers nowadays and their out of touch with reality fans have no idea about the past, Freelancer or any of that. They have no clue where and how this started.

[@ojoshiro]

Promises is what they deliver.

[@Elwaves2925]

You could word it that way, seeing as they make promises but they don't follow through on those promises.

[@MagiofAsura]

They sell dreams, sir

[@Elwaves2925]

@@MagiofAsura "We can dream it for you wholesale" - CIG

[@in-craig-ible6160]

This is not surprising, considering CIG's history.

[@SgtHack802]

Look at the inside of their building and you will see where the money went

[@Elwaves2925]

I've said for a long time that SC is nothing more than a funding scheme for Robert's personal pet project and to serve his ego and lifestyle.

[@kityhawk2000]

Or.... you could look at their actual financial statements which are public records

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Ah, because surely having a positive and aesthetically pleasing work environment for devs crunching is a bad thing? LOL I'm sure if it were up to you they would be in a sweltering, leaky concrete basement with only the hum of a barely strung flourescent light looming overhead while flies buzz about in the dank environment.

[@Boss-Possum]

I'm liking the sound of that concrete basement idea 👍 Less distractions more progress 🙂

[@ObsceneSuperMatt]

@@Billy-bc8pk Back in the 90s, after the success of Quake, John Romero went off on his own and rented the penthouse suite in a skyscraper so they could have an awesome workspace, while John Carmack and the rest of id Software stayed in their offices in an industrial park. Guess who went broke and who went on to make several successful games?

[@jordanp8003]

Lol how does anyone take this game seriously anymore?

[@lucasurquiza554]

Blind faith, I guess. It’s like a religion. Very strange and concerning.

[@OldTime--Gamer]

Either being youn unexperienced person or 36 male fat virgin living their fantazy with these tech demos :P

[@ASAP_CARAMEL]

Sunken cost fallacy, mostly. Its defenders are actually a small group, but oh boy they're loud

[@adawg3032]

arena commander is the best pvp spaceship game on the market rn so there are folks out there who take pvp seriously

[@cmdrrubbelspritz2115]

"There should be a study" - Shroud -

[@bujin1977]

It sounds like the only way we'll ever see Star Citizen reach the goals it keeps claiming is if the entire senior management staff are sacked and are replaced by a more competent bunch. As buggy as it is right now, I like playing it, but I certainly won't be spending any more money on it.

[@nighttrain1236]

It won't happen because there's zero accountability.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Competent where? Where are these people making a similar sized game in a more "efficient" way? Elite is dying. Beyond Good & Evil 2 has been in development for 16 years and their staff is literally dying off (in real life). Star Wars Outlaws and Starfield were both star-failures. Who is this more "competent bunch"? Because CDPR just jettisoned all of their engineers and Red Engine and even Cyberpunk 2077 took three years POST release to get it to run right. So who are these "competent" managers the armchair developers in the comment section keep going on?

[@bujin1977]

@@Billy-bc8pk You honestly think their management style is doing well for the game? Wow. A decent project management team would be able to get them to focus in the right place - to get the basic features of the game working without the hideous bugs, for example, and not waste time and money on stupid, pointless things like having the characters sweating! FFS!

[@katraapplesauce1203]

​@@bujin1977 they crowdfunded 730m USD for one of the most ambitious games ever and are literally pioneering new tech. I think it's fine minus some communication issues. Delays are to be expected when you're literally at the cutting edge

[@bujin1977]

@@katraapplesauce1203 Twelve years and still no end date in sight. It's not a good way to run a project.

[@andrebullitt7212]

I started back in 2012. Have given up. Back to playing Elite dangerous. SC feels kinda scam like. When I could not run the simplest cargo missions that was the last straw. And 2026 for 42 . Lol. I really wish it works out, but I'm kinda done!

[@deathybrs]

Yeah, Elite has had it's issues, but for what I was personally looking for from the game, it shipped over a decade ago already containing the gameplay >I< was looking for.

[@fnunez]

@@deathybrs Recent patches have also fixed most of the problems I had with Elite when I left in 2018. From what I can tell, the horrendous materials grind is gone and the devs are listening to players again.

[@deathybrs]

@@fnunez Yeah, I have always been a casual player, so have been happy enough... it helps that the experience I was looking for was playing the space trucker.

[@RandomGaming-jm1qm]

You have to BELIEVE! The updates will be coming faster and will be bigger now trust me bro! With the attack of Squadron 42 everything wil be allright! Haha no i can feel you definitely the server state is a mess right now. What keeps me and other playing is the vision of the game when everything would be working correctly.

[@chris91527]

Elite is a good, functional game still receiving support with little monetization after 10 years. SC has an option to spend $45k on ships when the base game is still in alpha after a 12-year development cycle and still doesn't work. Every questionable practice in the industry is concentrated into one "game."

[@stevenkenney9473]

12 YEARS? has it been that long?? Wonder what Derek Smart is doing these days.

[@Swatmat]

12 years... to go from 1 guy in a room to multiple studios around the world, and lets look at gta, rockstar is an established studio, already filled with designers and teams, and its been 10 years and counting since gta 5... so where is your hate?

[@LayneBenofsky]

@@Swatmat why just GTA? RDR2 was 2018. And Rock Star has actually released their first game...

[@artjom94]

@@Swatmat In the last 10 years gta 5 got lots of online content and they also released a full-on another game that also recieved content updates. Meanwhile CIG went from a decently staffed studio with a release date in 2015 to a huge studio with no release in sight as well as multiple confirmed lies about the progress of the development. Hate is right here, boi.

[@Vamatt99218]

Desktop Commander 20?

[@dygon7663]

@@Swatmat keep drinking the coolaid. Rockstar has in the meanwhile released RDR2 And even if GTA6 was in development from the moment GTA 5 was released (which it wasn't), it's development time will still be less than Star citizen.

[@_SurferGeek_]

Thanks for covering the controversies as well. How you're able to say "12 years" for a game not fully released, doesn't have most of the features stated, still e-begging for money... without laughing (or cussing) is quite impressive.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

So Rockstar should laugh and cuss that GTA 6 has been in development just as long? And the engineers at BeamNG should laugh and cuss because their game has been in alpha just as long? Do people ever actually take into consideration more than just dogging on CIG before commenting or does it just come naturally because most people do not consider that life is more complex than negative comment circlejerks?

[@_SurferGeek_]

@@Billy-bc8pk And how much has Rockstar bilked from customers by releasing half-baked game that still not out? Oh wait... they haven't. As for BeamNG? I don't play it so I could care less but I seriously doubt they've burned through almost a million USD on development? Am I off here? Go give CIG more money if it makes you feel any better.

[@simplysolutions3146]

@@_SurferGeek_ Rockstar also lets you play in alpha for 12 years of GTA6 development? These are different games and different technical technologies, the server part of GTA is not as complicated as in Citizen, and I won't even mention the size of the world and game engines.

[@_SurferGeek_]

@@simplysolutions3146 Apples and oranges eh? You brought up GTA6. I'm specifically talking about SC. Go complain about GTA6 elsewhere.

[@_SurferGeek_]

@@simplysolutions3146 By the way... I see from other comments you've been jumping on that you enjoy polishing CIG's knob. Take it elsewhere. I'm done answering a troll.

[@geohan1619]

It's true they can't afford delaying the SQ42 game any further. Most backers were buffled for the 2026 release considering it is in polishing stage. I personally believe the delay has to do that they want to have the SC MMO at a more stable state alongside the SQ42 release. I have to dissagree that all the money are spend, they wouldn't afford pushing the game back 2 years if that was the case, unless they have secured an external investment, but deffinetely they are on the low side of financial estimates/expenditure considering the state with salaries and the history of excessive spending for props. Regarding the RSI Galaxy/NPC/AI blade drama, they rectified most of what they said after the uproar, but still they need to do better when they present ships or other purchasable items. Yes it's an Alpha, yes it's a work in progress, but don't go and dismiss stuff and/or make changes without offering some kind of compensation to the backers when you have to make those changes for better or worse. I'm glad that the comunity behind the game can hold them accountable for their (CIGs) decisions. I hope, despite the negativity, this game to reach its release and offer another game option for us space junkies out there, it will be a crying shame considering all the work and money invested to see it fail.

[@19iason19]

The have to publish their financial data on their webpage. You can read them. CIG business model is to sell packages to enable the work for another quarter. The financial reserve is extremely thin. A shift of customer behavior and they have only a few months until insolvency. This is what seems to have happened in 2023/2024 that s why the had to fire people. Last report is from 2022. beginning for January 2025 the 2023 financial report will be published. Let’s see

[@kityhawk2000]

​@@19iason19 that doesn't really add up with them setting the S42 release date 2 years from now or hiring new staff in other offices.

[@fnunez]

DICE would have called that SQ42 demo ready for release by Christmas, and they have released many more successful games than CIG has. If CIG say they need another two years, as opposed to the standard day 1 patch, it's because what we saw is the entire game.

[@19iason19]

@@fnunez exactly! Plus: what we saw was more or less kind of gameplay already shown in the past. Turret gameplay, cutscenes, walking around a Idris. My problem with this „demo“: I want to see an idea of an actual gameplay. How do I give commands to my wing in the case I am the „wing commander“? How does the career path work in this campaign? What are tactical options during a space battle? Can I equip my fighter individually? How open are the missions? Do I get detailed orders at the beginning flying along waypoints? Do I have deep space reconnaissance missions which can be designed and plotted based on my own decisions? Are there „side quests“ which help me to develop relations with other NPC? Etc etc etc So many open questions which define what kind of game we get. Instead of answers we got 1 hour of cinematics of which 10 minute would be fine to tease a new game.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@fnunez And it would have been a buggy mess on launch on Christmas day. Also, that's not the entire game since we literally saw other gameplay segments in the demo the previous year.

[@SgtHack802]

Single players flying bigger ships is gone. They say now the AI blades won’t be any good. Customers were not aware that buying a bigger ship would be a loss. A real shame being lied to buying a large ship

[@HoveringHog]

We (Backers) have always been told that AI Blades would be inferior to fully crewing bigger ships with yourself and friends or org-mates. We weren't lied to in any way whatsoever. They ALWAYS said that ships like the Idris, Hammerhead, etc. would require large number of players to staff successfully. You can pilot the ship by yourself, that won't ever change. You just won't be able to do everything all at once.

[@stuartburns8657]

​@@HoveringHogHa, can you imagine how boring it will be manning a turret or some other mundane crew task.. CIG are back peddling on the core features original backers funded. The irony is it's called CitizenCON headed by Chris ROBerts 😂

[@fnunez]

To be fair, it's trivial to melt your big ship for store credits and use those to buy ships better suited for a solo player. The problem for CIG will be when all those thousands of $800+ ships get melted and CIG sees the usual sales numbers for the new shiny, but almost no actual income. Now that LTI is worth way less than it used to be, buying with store credit is way more attractive.

[@Laurie-g2d]

@@fnunez Dude, that’s exactly what I am doing. I have melted my bigger ships that I never expect to see and if engineering is too much of a pain, others will follow. The best benefit is that I can try out different ships with store credit. I am curious what they will do when, as you predict, ships will sell but not generate much new income. My feeling is that they will nerf the melt value of ships, or even try to massively reduce/get rid of melting altogether. They could potentially stop melting altogether once 1.0 arrives and the game is then released. Please correct me if I have got the 1.0 thing incorrect.

[@fnunez]

@@Laurie-g2d I think you may be right, and we will see amendments to the melting rules so they look more like money back guarantees (you can only melt up to x months after purchase). What surprised me the most was the nerfing of LTI. With that gone and they way CIG is nerfing old ships to benefit new ones, it makes way more sense to melt the old ship and use that money to buy the new one. Maybe CIG is starting the transition away from selling ships and towards much cheaper items like skins which people are less likely to melt. Or they're just being clueless, hard to tell.

[@JagHiroshi]

This project is one huge gamble, mainly with 750 mil of backer's money.

[@alexbrown200]

It's a catastrophe look at the likes of skull and bones after being through development hell, people are actively deluding themselves with this game it would make a very interesting psychological study

[@arthurtuxedo]

Except that if you gamble, there’s a chance you might win

[@farmerpandasyoutube4800]

I refuse to spend anything until I see it completed, I know once I am invested, I will not be objective

[@kityhawk2000]

​@@farmerpandasyoutube4800 well bias goes both ways. I've seen people so against this game call all the people who have backed it mentally ill. That doesn't sound particularly objective to me. More like an excuse to bully people because they don't like a game. 🤷‍♂️

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@alexbrown200 You can play Star citizen right now, and it runs circles around Skull and Bones.

[@marionetteworks]

I had a recent eye-opening about SC funding. I knew there were expensive ships but I had no idea. There’s a subreddit devoted to people comparing their fleets of SC ships, which they paid amounts like $80,000 for. Except most of those ships don’t exist, or are not playable in game. This is nuts, in what world do you pay 80k for game content that you don’t get for years and you may never get? Apparently some ships you can only buy if you’ve already bought one of those $1000 ships, which limits the offer to people who have gobs of money to waste or in some cases, sadly, a mental illness. There’s another subreddit about getting refunds for the above, and people claiming they were told to sign NDAs for such refunds, which they had to fight for and many were turned away.

[@jumblestiltskin1365]

These mega backers 😂 otherwise known as "whales".

[@Golgot100]

Yep, some of the numbers involved can get pretty staggering. And they bite all the harder if backer's remorse kicks in... kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZ3RapybbJx3rqs (That's some example whale regret from the last few years)

[@geohan1619]

@marionetteworks There are packages for people whose daily income is our salary sum of 5 - 10 years

[@marionetteworks]

@@geohan1619 you would hope it’s those people who spend that kind of money, but I think CIG will take your money either way. In fact I read a Reddit post from a backer yesterday who almost certainly wasn’t particularly high income/worth.

[@boostfrog]

It'll be fun to see what happens when Roberts finishes running the company into the ground, they declare bankruptcy, sell off their assets, and the game never releases. All those people will be screaming about being scammed out of their $80k and demand lawsuits. They'll never get their digital spaceship that cost more than double my yearly income with Roberts laughing at them about handing him that much money for something he never even bothered to have anyone model in-game because he spent to money on baristas instead.

[@3556df44]

The fact that experienced developers are leaving and being replaced with young inexperienced ones is extremely worrying.

[@drdavidddavidson2392]

read a comment on another video of someone defending this as "they're just jaded / they lack the gumption to work on something so visionary" - yeah it's clearly that vs experience & pattern recognition of a fucking car crash when they see one :|

[@imad1996]

I wonder how many KZbinrs are promoting the game by using reverse phycology? Why do the videos show such nice animations but not the tons of issues?

[@sjonjones4009]

CIG still hasn't fixed 30k errors which ejects you from the game frequently. I last played a year ago, for reference.

[@Elwaves2925]

I first tried on a mate's PC after a very early release, then twice on my own through free fly events, the last one being the end of last year. In all three cases the elevator doors in the starter location were bugged in exactly the same way. You either got another set of doors, the back wall texture, open space, or something similar. If they can't even fix that, there is no hope for SC.

[@geohan1619]

@sjonjones4009 I haven't experienced a 30k in quite a while, same with elevator issues. The most repetitive issues for me are hangar doors and hailing ATC not working. I had one 30k like 2-3 months ago, but persistence kicked in and reloaded me back to where I was just outside the station, but again, the ATC hailing was not working (not even Alt + N).

[@Billy-bc8pk]

30ks no longer exist due to the replicationlayer and server recovery. They only recently came back with 3.24.2 because it's on the 4.0 codebase but with server meshing disabled.

[@christianpatten6978]

@@Billy-bc8pk This is a lie, 3.23 had tons of 30k issues. Server recovery is not an adequate answer to that when it would take between anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to resolve. This isn't even to mention the server issues leading up to a 30k, where lag would increase as the server got closer to failing. You would sometimes be stuck in an elevator for several minutes, and god help you if you were doing a bounty at the time. 30k issues will no longer exist when they no longer happen at all or are an extreme rarity.

[@JorisKoolen]

Thanks for shining a light on this. Developers andnpublishers need to be held accountable on the treatment of employees.

[@Magnumaniac]

CitizenCon (very apt name) had some nice demos then - that's nice for them. Any chance they might actually go beyond the demo stage sometime this century?

[@tspencer227]

I've had friends who have worked at CIG Santa Monica, and they all left because the place is more toxic than a Superfund site- for all the reasons stated in this video. Also for the record, this isn't the just the second time they've promised and missed a ship date 2 years out.

[@stynkus]

I know several people, a two of them close friends, who were very excited for this game and dropped from several hundred to several thousand dollars on this 'venture'... because calling it a game at this point is *still* a bit of a stretch. I was very skeptical mainly based on the very ambitious nature of a crowd funded project and shared that skepticism with them, of course; and I was called a hater and several other terms I won't repeat here. Fast forward 15+ years and only one of those people still believes that this game will come out in the near future; but then again he's the one that has thrown the most money towards CIG so it's basically a sad case of sunk cost fallacy at this point. I'll freely admit that I was tempted several times to jump in on Star Citizen early on; but something just felt off to me with the whole venture even back then...

[@Qwarzz]

15+ years? Star Citizen was announced in 2012. Did you post from the future? How badly did the Squadron 42 release slip?

[@cmdrmarz8625]

Feels like we've gone all the way back to where we were in 2016. Pretty much everything shown at citizencon is still years away.

[@Crumphorn]

I think you are coming to the same conclusion I now have - this company will collapse long before the game is even close to being released.

[@andrebullitt7212]

I sadly agree.

[@kityhawk2000]

People have been saying it will collapse for 7 years though 🤷‍♂️

[@ciaranbyrne7922]

@@kityhawk2000still doesn’t mean they are wrong

[@ciaranbyrne7922]

@@kityhawk2000SC was supposed to release 9 years ago aswell remember

[@Darkdiver28]

@@ciaranbyrne7922you all answered the poll wanted the best game no matter how long I takes remember? You all wanted this since the start and now you are now surprised?

[@Aliamus_]

"You will buy the .PNG and be happy, sales will continue till morale improves!"

[@deathybrs]

This video makes me feel a whole lot better about the 300 pounds I spent for a lifetime Elite pass... I still don't think I've got my moneys worth, but the Elite that I got is the one that I personally expected, and have been playing for around a decade.

[@JohnDoe-iv7yu]

Severance pay IF you sign this NDA. Should be completely illegal!

[@kyleteuscher6042]

This should not be a surprise to anyone! Red flags were given over 7 years ago when things were over promised and under delivered. Then threats from within were made and so many shady things were swept under the rug. That’s when everyone should have gotten of that train wreck.

[@virtualworldsbyloff]

SCAMED FOLKS IN DENIAL - A Mandatory attitude when you invested so much... And I invested 800$, but long ago I saw - Enough is Enough - Got refunded, Ufffff

[@ecogreen123]

on one hand pointless crunching is very sad especially considering the potential release date, on the other hand i am glad to actually see something from this game showing it's still in development and that's atleast a little comforting, i do still hope the situations for the developers themselves improve tho.

[@HunteR3453]

We'll get GTA 7 before Scam Citizen gets a proper release.

[@Culky]

We'll have every GTA that will ever be made before SC is delivered

[@oboropro]

SC will never have a proper release

[@Swatmat]

the fact you call it a scam lets us know how much of a moron you are

[@moon9light]

Elder Scrolls 6 will be released and have mods galore before SC hits 1.0

[@alexbrown200]

After playing it I really don't understand the hype around SC it sounds alot like all these big promises are just people's inner space nerd mmo side being weaponised against them, just an opinion I hope all the best for star citizen but it pales in comparison to games like Elite dangerous and No man's sky A game which is older than both of tgen

[@Tiki832]

Just a bit of clarity on UK labour laws, there's the "Surface law" and then there's the "Actual details law". The surface UK labour laws state that certain minimum hours between shifts is required, that there must be a minimum number of hours of time off and so forth. The actual details UK labour laws state that the surface laws must be followed except when doing so would negatively impact the business or stop it from being able to function/trade, in particular such exceptions to the surface labour laws applying for certain areas like public service, retail and so forth. Under the actual details of UK labour law, employers have a much more ambiguous requirement to make sure that "The average time between shifts over a 2 week period" meets a minimum amount. Or that "The number of hours not working have to meet a minimum number of xx hours when averaged out across a 2 week period" and other such much more easier to work around and abuse "Averaged out across 2/3/4 weeks" requirements. This means if a company in certain sectors can justify that following the 'surface labour laws' would negatively impact the companies ability to function or trade, a employer can tell an employee "You need to work 6 days straight finishing at 10pm and back in at 6am some of the days", providing that alongside those 6 days straight, they introduce enough non-work period between the shifts in a 2 week period to keep the average numbers within the ranges outlined in the "Actual details" of UK labour laws. It's one of those things that got somewhat worse after UK labour laws became all UK workers had to protect them after EU labour laws stopped covering them. People look at the surface details of UK Labour laws and go "These are my rights", until a employer who knows better introduces them to the ACTUAL labour laws and what is essentially "The legal fine print" that is very much designed to favour the employer and exploitative hours and shift schedules to ensure money is flowing.

[@ZeSpektrum]

Still waiting for the full game release after my 35€ pledge in the first months of the kickstarer... One of these years or decades I'll get what I've been waiting for.

[@vulcan4d]

CIG will give all backers an Idris on launch so all will be forgiven :p. Right? Right?

[@deathybrs]

I love the Gary Oldman and Mark Strong characters, though... but that said, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg as my commanding officer.

[@mrpositronia]

The character models look outdated and robotic though.

[@Qwarzz]

Don't worry, Zorg won't be your commanding officer. The captain of the Stanton is Davos Seaworth. I wonder if he's picked up smuggling again.

[@cobrac4t34]

Chris Roberts should fund the game using money from his Roberts Family Trust. Lets be honest. A guy that remarries a woman that tried to strangle him. Stated in a court doc that if she'd had a gun she would have killed him. Then makes that woman a co founder of CIG and puts her in charge of the marketing department isn't someone most people would trust with 750 million dollars. Many would suggest that good judgement and decision making arent his strong suit. Feels like the ship is sinking even faster these days. Time for those class action law suits so hopefully some of us can recoup some of the money that was wasted on a posh spaceship interior office, life size statues of Star Citizen characters and coffee bar baristas.

[@nebulajumper6216]

The Citcon month is every year the most hyped month for CIG. It goes down from there to plateau around the summer in anticipation of the next Citcon. This year, I have a feeling there is way less hype and way more mumbeling within the community then previous year. I think that 2025 will be rough ..

[@Slay0lot]

I been with Star Citizen since 2017. Since that time I have bought a few favorite ships with the most expensive being a ReclaImer and the cheapest a Mirai Pulse. I don't like the resets and that's the only reason why I buy them, but my frenzy on ships over several years is mild compare to most and I generally only purchase released ships with a concierge status of Grand Admiral. I did purchase the Zeus because in my opinion it sets the new gold standard on ships. It's a great tech demo and looks stunning and the buck stops there, I don't ever expect it to excel in any type of gaming, it's just something to showcase at what graphics could be. In my case, it will probably in my opinion be a dismal failure. The dream, the journey and the hope is not enough from a company that seems to never have a deadline when they will have a playable game. It promises everything and in the end could deliver nothing.

[@OldTime--Gamer]

whale much ?

[@benpassmore7135]

So after watching this it thought I’d share my Star citizen story. I’m an older gamer (almost 50) and have been playing games since I was 10 (Atari 800XL) and then moved through consoles, PC’s and various cloud platforms. These days my usual gaming is done using older laptops (a 2018 MacBook Pro, a 2020 windows laptop) a steam deck, GeForce now and Shadow PC. I purchased Star Citizen last year after playing Elite Dangerous since 2015. With the intention of using it with Shadow PC. But I have never been able to play it……… Don’t get me wrong it installs and runs. But (maybe it’s just bad luck) whenever I jump in it has issues with servers, patches, logins and stability in general. My last attempt was last week, only to discover the live servers were experiencing “performance problems”. Yes I know it’s a “beta” but I remember speaking to a colleague who backed it at project launch and that was 12 years ago! To be frank this kind of development window is just pants…….. If CIG wants this to work then they are being left behind by the tech, after all the dev and release approach is 12 years old. It’s not the software but the hardware approach. In my case Cloud is rapidly replacing high powered home PC’s and people want to access these services via different platforms. I want to play it and I want to spend money on the game, but CIG’s “closed shop” approach is limiting my enjoyment of the game. I’d love to have this on GeForce Now (for example). I’d love to to run on the Steam Deck (other, newer graphically intensive games run fine like cyber punk 2077. And yes it can run Crisis (all 3 in fact)). Maybe one day I will drop into the game via Shodow PC and find it’s all working as intended. But for now it’s just too unfinished, I mistakenly thought that after 12 years there would be something to play. I was wrong.

[@eavdmeer]

Thinking gaming will move to cloud services is something I definitely can't agree with. Unless that cloud server is running at the end of your street, latency *will* be horrendous! The odd single player game may run somewhat acceptably, but that latency added to high ping times will make it entirely unsuitable for multi-player games. And while SC runs modestly well on a high end CPU, having it in a cloud service is and will be a disaster

[@cammy9r]

Bought the starter pack years ago, played the game for a while. Got bored with it and uninstalled 2 years ago. Like with most games, buy , play, move on to something else. I'm not sure what people are expecting from this game really but I enjoy the drama around it 😁. Right I'm off to try Sniper Elite 5 now.

[@wagner55]

😂😂 over a decade of drama, this game is something I install to see how is doing once a year… uninstall 32 minutes later.

[@cammy9r]

@@wagner55 Never understood how people could pump 1000's of their own cash into this but at $700m+ I bet the CEO's all live a good life while dangling the gold bar on a stick to the pledgers But yeah, it's been a great soap opera.

[@amentothat100]

ALL I WANT is Squadron 42 - I don't give a crap for the MP.

[@CMDROldDuck]

SpaceX has achieved more in IRL “star citizenry” than CiG has writing a computer game. I’ll be living in a nursing home on Mars before this game is finished.

[@BloodSteyn]

Financial Struggles... what the hell are they doing? 3/4 Billion and no game to show yet, just server crashes all round.

[@Arocksy]

That’s why we are not seeing Tony Zurovec. I think he leaved CIG. That’s a bad news…

[@disky01]

14:52 The moderators on Spectrum (CIG's forums) are famous for quashing any kind of negativity or dissent. They rule their forums with an iron fist.

[@Reoh0z]

The tighter CIG holds their grip, the more systems will slip from their production cycle.

[@KiithnarasAshaa]

It's really unfortunate - I felt the Squadron prologue was visually impressive, but substantively lackluster. Many of the characters made decisions that were nonsensical, and the ships presented themselves as easy targets for the player to shoot at, repeatedly. The fleets seemed committed to a nice, polite line engagement amidst the relative vastness of space, and really wanted to get into a nice, close, melee slugging match to settle their differences.

[@pikadasgalaxias306]

I flight sim without flight model. Star systems with static planets, moons and stations. I'll check it again in 10 or 20 years.

[@rueben225]

Eh. I've said before that if this weren't CIG and was any other name than CR, it would have folded ages ago. Studios come and studios go, titles get shelved, and in that aspect SC isn't anything special. It's kind of the Zune of games, CIG isn't reinventing the gaming wheel but they tell us they are. Anyway, great upload as always, OA.

[@DvdV1337]

This is why you dont give money first. First get the product, then pay the money. Also demand a refund if your product is not up to a certain standard. I know for a fact the whole star citizen crew and many other businesses have never heard of Karl Marx. Stop giving away your money to services that arent worth said money.

[@mrpositronia]

Older ladies giving their money to suave younger men promising to be with them soon, "but just wait a bit longer, you'll be grateful you did."

[@nebohtes]

The last time I backed a software project in development was 2013. Star Citizen cured me of all that.

[@kityhawk2000]

Ok but this is literally an argument for never ever ever using Kickstarter again. Seem to remember Elite and Kingdom Come were also Kickstarters so if everyone felt that way those games would never exist.

[@Ruintek]

no one should care about anything but substance at this point. backers, stop getting distracted by shiny things and be objective. the jumpgate test was a monumental failure

[@Relt88]

CIG and financial struggles is definitely not something i would have expected to see in the same sentence.

[@mobtek]

🤣haha good one!

[@FancyaBevMate]

When CR sold,off OUR money to investors this was the moment that made me feel SO used! The whole point he mentioned on numerous occasions was it's STRICTLY crowd funded and would never have outside investors...what a bull*hiter! 😢😢😢

[@stevedv629]

They had layoffs?! With the amount of funding they received?? Unbelievable

[@cslpchr]

the fact that so many seasoned staff members of this game have left is a harrowing sign of things to come. Not being able to hold onto people actually experienced in developing your game and resorting to hiring people with no industry experience, simply because theyre fans of star citizen is a recipe for just burning through cash without any tangible progress being made. Studios, some examples quite recent, no, entire franchises have died because of this practice... Its an alarming indicator for the state of the game.

[@taxman3749]

I've been a pretty high price backer for quite some time.... If they end up revealing another game, some kind of medieval hooha, then I would never give them another dime.

[@Steve-gu4nb]

More funding is certainly needed. Roberts hasn't hired his entire family yet so they have to get moving on that and buying art for their offices, etc.

[@MagiofAsura]

If CIG wanted to fund SC by releasing s42 installments, they would need laser focus and a tight development. Both of those are outside the reach this company.

[@raven1378]

I still call it a scam. One of the biggest in gaming history. Citizen Scam is its name

[@Swatmat]

define a scam? Because SC has a very playable product, which means it can't be a scam, became a scam takes your money and gives you nothing, but do us a favour, when it does come out, dont buy it, we dont want you

[@Doughillman]

Such a hot take. :rolleyes: 🤡

[@mrpositronia]

They'll make a Star Citizen movie... About the scam.

[@IonutStefanescuSturz]

Lemme get this straight, a couple star systems "universe" takes this long to develop? Just call it what it is , a scam.

[@mrpositronia]

$790m for a few planets and ships and a whole load of carrots on sticks.

[@isaacthesharkwolf9038]

This can take as long as you want it to take, you can let an algorithm autogenerate billions of star systems with about as much definition as the algorithm offers but what star citizen is doing is closer to a more level design focused solution. It's not really a scam, if it was it'd be a very unoptimal scam, there's actually a product being made. What it is however is horrendously overscoped and mismanaged.

[@TagW110]

all to make... a video. Not a game, not a release. A video. I really wish CGI and this game would kindly just f--- off now and make space for a company and ceo with new ideas (and a capcity to do more than just charging customers for them to day-dream).

[@Volf1916]

The number of posible backers that have walked away from SC after I give a simple warning to do some due diligence over the past couple years continue to increase. Just by listing the misses, the performance and showing the actual spectrum community what is and is not functional.

[@shadrachlane5555]

Onyl thing that will keep this gamme relevant is downscaling making servers and adding community mod support

[@atuned85]

It makes me sad to see such a promising game being mishandled like this

[@OverlordZephyros]

star citizen is just hilarious!! 🤣

[@DagobertX2]

SQ42 was in polishing phase for a year already. It's concerning that even the prologue had still some bugs, crashing aside which could be hardware related. And by CIG's prediction it will need three years of polish, the engine must be a mess.

[@ZorroComputers]

I just hope they do not take all the money and run. Honestly, for 700 million I would have a team of genius programmers that would finish the game in a year. They have ten times money needed....

[@buk1237]

Many years ago I queried this in the forums about how the money was being spent at the time because it was very opaque, I got completely shouted down about it, that I was entitled.

[@Luca__]

The article is not in the descripton 👀

[@markruhland3035]

I love this, they have been working on this game for 10 years and now they think they can make up for it in 19 days? Sounds like me in high school! The best thing that could happen to this game is for CIG to go bankrupt and some real Dev company to buy the IP and finish it properly.

[@Mazin_Kaiser]

I went to download it cuz I have a PC now and I cant... page says internal server error

[@imushavem4061]

I had to also clear the installer cache.

[@Mazin_Kaiser]

@@imushavem4061 well it got fixed so, see you out there?

[@mikeytom2991]

Back 8 years ago someone said it's a electronic ponzi scheme. That stuck with me. Never gave any more of money to it.

[@mjk9388]

The funishings in the developer's office talked about @5:40 are tax write-offs for the company. If the artwork is used to enhance the business environment (e.g., displayed in lobbies, offices, or meeting rooms), the company can classify it as office furnishings or business assets. That artwork can also qualify as a capital asset, meaning its cost is depreciated over a number of years. Art generally falls under the 7-year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) if treated as property and depreciation spreads the deduction across the asset's useful life rather than writing off the entire cost immediately. Basically, the company is just getting tax write offs for all these elaborate furnishings.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Yup. That's business tax-write-offs 101. Anyone who has ran a business knows that the more EXPENSIVE the furnishings and supplies, the higher the tax write-off. It actually saves you a ton of money in the long run. But armchair devs don't care about facts.

[@JDJ1213]

you are only allowed at MOST 70% of value as a write off and only to a certain allowable amount according to their own local laws where they are registered. They are not allowed section 179 9accelerated deduction as is allowed in most places. So at the end of the day you are still expending income in hopes of deducting taxable income. Sincerely, a CPA from an actual tax firm.

[@Scylon1]

Tax write offs aren't free money. You are just lowering your tax commitments. You are still out some money. But company's do a trick where they sell themselves a service to make it look like they ran at a loss so you don't pay taxes (think apple and its HQ in Ireland). This isn't that. Yes, it is a tax deduction, but they are still out money for something not needed.

[@Ruintek]

tax writeoff doesn’t just mean “free stuff”

[@timcollins340]

This company works in several countries with far less generous tax laws. It's not all about the USA.

[@talaris-uk]

I thought the whole point of crowdfunding instead of being beholden to large publishers is to retain freedom of independent working environments and prevent crunch and bad work ethics.

[@alexking_17]

To be fair, nobody ever paid for base building capabilities for the RSI Galaxy as it wasn't announced as a base builder when they first started selling it, and they never actually sold a base builder module/variant.

[@jakejewkes6688]

It’s about what was implied the galaxy would be able to do from last years citizencon where it was verbally stated and shown on the slide that the galaxy would be able to build small to large structures for only a year later them to be like nah that was never the plan only then a few hours later completely backtrack the statement once video proof started being posted and marketing knew it was a damning sentence when he used that phrase “speculative”

[@alexking_17]

@jakejewkes6688 I mean I agree it was a completely stupid thing to unequivocally state that it would be able to build bases at Citcon23. To then say a year down the line that they're not sure it's feasible with the current concept of the Galaxy and the way they want base building to work. And unless they really aren't on top of things there's no way they needed reminding with video evidence that that had been said. They clearly had changed plans since 2023 and failed to let anybody know until pressed on it. So overall a massive fuck up, but I wouldn't necessarily say they took money for something and then took it away. Unless you were one of the people who bought the Galaxy post 2023 specifically for the base building capabilities. In which case those people would be completely within their rights to get a refund from CIG.

[@SgtHack802]

It will be sold to another developer just like the last Roberts game.

[@SpaceDad42]

Kinda hope so. Their direction took a bad turn recently.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@SpaceDad42 And if that happened you would end up with another Starfield... whch I'm sure you enjoyed with zero complaints, yeah?

[@mrpositronia]

The other developer will fix the bugs, put the game out on official release and close the book.

[@cosporcos]

50k ships isn''t expensive enough? they want more ships that are even more expensive? that will certainly solve it riiiiiiight

[@TeddyLindsell]

I last left SC about a year or so ago having initially backed in 2016..and here we are yet again it’s still in turmoil, still virtually unplayable unless you have the patience of a saint. I’ve watched several recent player streams and whilst the CIG ambitions shine bright , the realities are very different. In fact I honestly think CIG is very surely imploding in on itself , whilst players continue to spend their hard earned money on nothing but promises and after 12 years of not having ANY beta build I cannot allow myself to believe it will ever happen.

[@CreativeMatter1]

We'll said. What you describe has happened SO MANY times before. Micromanagement and tunnel vision that ends up ignoring the precious human aspect and talent contribution that only great games have. Unfortunately now this game is all about money money money. Sad

[@MarkRemovedChannel]

... ' "Polishing an alpha" isn’t the same thing as fixing breaking-bugs that ruin your experience' - old reddit post but it's the same old thing (titled "A CTO/Senior Software Dev's take on Star Citizen")

[@Laurie-g2d]

They want to “release more ships at higher price points”? How about delivering the ships people have been waiting years for? Or how much can they charge for a single seat ship, seeing as engineering will make bigger ships nigh on impossible the fly solo? They also basically said no NPCs crew for years and blades will come sometime in 1.0, whenever that drops and in what patch, 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3? I really do pray that come IAE, a lot of people lock their wallets. The only thing I might do if I like a new ship is to use store credits. I’ve melted enough of my bigger ships to have a decent buffer of credit. I got tired of waiting for ships to be delivered or improved. It seems that once CiG feel they have milked the ship for what they can get, they forget about it and make a new shiny. The Crusader Star Runner is a prime example. Some of CiG’s people have even admittedly stated that they forgot the second entrance. They sold this ship as a fast ship able to run away. Yeah right! SQN 42 episode 19 will release long before they fix it. Crusader were supposed to be the speed demons. They are about to release a new Crusader starter, it will probably move as fast as a frozen turd on a glacier. And I’m only mentioning Crusader!!! Other manufacturers have also suffered from what fans call bait and switch. The game play seems to going full steam ahead in one direction to benefit big orgs. Hmm I love the idea of what this games can be, I was very enthusiastic and supported this game financially enough to get well into Concierge. I am fast losing interest in the more expensive ships. I must state that I am not into the big sub-capitals and above. The smaller ships I can pick and try just on store credits alone. The direction of this game is discouraging me even considering whole classes of ships, which could have opened my wallet back up.