Forbes article on SC.

[Blind Owl]

I have yet to read this in-depth, So I don't know yet if it's pro or con SC. But the general sense I'm getting is negative.

Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $300 Million—But May Never Be Ready To Play

Video game legend Chris Roberts has spent seven years building "Star Citizen," drawing in money from average gamers in the world's biggest crowdfunded project outside cryptocurrency. The game is still not done.

www.forbes.com

 

[CosmicTrader]

@Blind Owl It's Forbes --- enough said.

Except, What the HELL are you reading Forbes for? Lost your mind?
Stay in the real World buddy.......
Oh, so you were Blind Owl drunk..........Yeah, that would explain it. hehehehe

 

[Vulgor]

It is rather scathing. It's negatively opinionated and draws Chris Roberts in a bad light. There's really no need to include Roberts personal life into this piece, but I guess that follows the Forbes model. Personal attacks to identify character flaws does not help make your point; it just makes you look like an asshole.

 

[Printimus]

After just skimming the article, they seem to focus on all the negative shit.

 

[DorianSkyphire]

I remember when Forbes was worth reading. I mean, they might as well have interviewed Derek Smart and Tila Tequila.

 

[Bambooza]

as well have interviewed Tila Tequila

Last time I interviewed Tila Tequila i lost several days.

 

[Thraesh]

I almost never listen to or care for internet "journalism". It's not journalism at all

 

[Montoya]

Im reading it now, this is good shit!

" Roberts said Gardiner had also visited Peterson’s San Diego home and once became violent and tried to strangle him. "

Sandi is into some serious kink!

Here I thought she is all sweet an innocent, but DAYUM... have a safety word ready! :D

 

[Bambooza]

Seems like a hit piece with a lot of miss information. Like this gem in the first paragraph.

Star Citizen was supposed to be finished in 2014

while it was initially true for the original kick starter the original backers voted to go big and thus void that release date.

Or this.

“There’s no two ways about it, man. Star Citizen is nuts,” says Jesse Schell, a prominent game developer and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “This thing is unusual in about five dimensions. . . . It is very rare to be doing game development for seven years—that’s not how it works. That’s not normal at all.”

While I agree 7 years is getting on the upper end of a typical game development cycle its still with in average of a standard MMO.

 

[Montoya]

“There’s no two ways about it, man. Star Citizen is nuts,” says Jesse Schell a guy that makes childrens games which take about 9 weeks from start to finish.

 

[ColdDog]

Ouch

"This is not fraud—Roberts really is working on a game—but it is incompetence and mismanagement on a galactic scale. The heedless waste is fueled by easy money raised through crowdfunding, a Wild West territory nearly free of regulators and rules. Creatives are in charge here, not profit-driven bean counters or deadline-enforcing suits. Federal bureaucrats and state lawyers have intervened only in a few egregious situations where there was little effort to make good and a lot of the money was pocketed by the promoters. Many high-profile crowdfunded projects, like the Pebble smartwatch ($43.4 million raised) and the Ouya video game console ($8.6 million), have failed miserably. "

 

[Montoya]

a lot of the money was pocketed by the promoters

How this article came about was that one evening Matt Perez sat down and was looking for a good topic.

Star Citizen came up, it seems that $225M $300M has been raised, and there is NO GAME YET! Therefor, the only logical explanation is that Chris Roberts and Sandi are stealing the money and everything is a scam.

Unfortunately those two lines are too short to be submitted as a complete article, so he had to pad it a bit.

 

[maynard]

[RANT]

You know it's a hit piece when they stray from reporting on the business to negative reporting of the subjects' personal lives. What is not clear is, who benefits from dragging this project through the mud?

Perez and Vardi describe the development process as 'chaotic', as though the development of other large games/software projects normally proceeds in an orderly fashion. We know better. What is unique about Star Citizen is that the process, warts and all, is so visible to the public. They say, "Creatives are in charge here, not profit-driven bean counters or deadline-enforcing suits" like that's a bad thing - which is how it would appear to Forbes' audience of bean counters and suits.

What the reporters never mention is that the delays are happening because the developers are creating new, ground-breaking technologies in support of the visible parts of the game. It is not surprising to anyone familiar with large software projects that unanticipated issues have cropped up. They take pains to point out that none of the promised 100 star systems are completed, but never mention the work on procedural generation which will allow devs to build entire sytems in days instead of months.

And on, and on - the glass is always half empty. Whose interests would be served if CIG went under before SC's launch? Disney, which owns the Star Wars franchise? Other game companies who see an existential threat in a platform that goes beyond theirs by an order of magnitude?

Something I've never seen discussed anywhere but our forums (TEST theorycrafters best theorycrafters) is that the SC platform goes far beyond just being just a game engine. It will be an end-to-end digital content creation system. Maybe It's Pixar that's feeling the heat?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[/RANT]

 

[ColdDog]

He is not saying its a scam... he is saying CR over promised his deliverables and let feature creep get the best of him. Time will tell - will we be having this discussion in 2025, maybe? Either CR will be broke - SC fails and closes shop or will have a living game that continues on for decades.

Marketing + Features is what people were excited about. But when you look at the business and tech side... it's a totally different animal. His business model requires constant infusion of money.

"“There’s no two ways about it, man. Star Citizen is nuts,” says Jesse Schell, a prominent game developer and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “This thing is unusual in about five dimensions. . . . It is very rare to be doing game development for seven years—that’s not how it works. That’s not normal at all.” "

Some in the SC are acting like it is a religion or cult... Dear leader says, therefore it is -not directed at our other Dear Leader Montoya. I have personally seen this on the SC forums... if you don't pull the party line then they sick Jim Jones on you to put you back in your place.

There are many believers. “I have complete faith,” says Dan Paulsen, a backer of Star Citizen since 2016. “If there’s a delay, it’s for a good reason. It’s because they want it to be a better project.”

But the success is not up to us... it is ultimately up to CR,

"Former employees say Roberts gets involved in the smallest details and pushes huge and complex investments in areas that are not worth the effort. "

CD

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I won't bother to read it.

*clicks on link*

I won't read it.

*CTRL+F types 'Complaints'"*

I'm not reading it.

"The Federal trade commission has received 129 consumer complaints..."

I'm totally not reading it.

*CTRL+F types 'million'*

"...$242 million has been contributed by about 1.1 million fans..."

I'm still not reading it.

*goes to Google, types 'Percentage Calculator'*

Not reading.

*Types into calculator '129 is what percent of 1100000'*

Answer: 0.011454545454545455%

Right.

Based on the findings of the above skimming, I've decided not to read it.

Just a question to anyone that has read it: Does it mention the company has been valued at $496 million? Because that's quite the omission for a business magazine to make if they have not mentioned it...?

 

[ColdDog]

*CTRL+F types 'Complaints'"*

Exactly :)

 

[LoicFarris]

Just read the whole thing...

Bringing his personal life into it was to paint his judgement in a dark light. What they're basically saying is that CR left a stable family, married a stalker and then made her an exec at CIG. But they did it in several paragraphs.

As for all the cry-babies who spend between $1000.00 - $24,000.00... guess what, you didn't have to, $45.00 gets you in. You spent it because you wanted to, if you're not immune to marketing, it's a personal problem, not CIGs problem.

Anyway, I read the article and just stared at my screen afterwords....

I don't think CR is perfect he's got his flaws like any other person. I'm sure there is plenty that can be done differently at CIG, but no company is perfect. You just have to hope that they are looking at their own behavior as a company and making improvements along the way.

 

[LoicFarris]

I should seriously do a rant video on that article... I mean okay, I can't discount everything they're saying, I don't know crap about CR's personal life or what it's like to work at CIG... but the game does run. It has content, missions etc and ways to make money. The improvements from 3.4 to 3.5 are there and obvious....

/rant
/stop obsessing

 

[Talonsbane]

I have yet to read this in-depth, So I don't know yet if it's pro or con SC. But the general sense I'm getting is negative.

Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $300 Million—But May Never Be Ready To Play

Video game legend Chris Roberts has spent seven years building "Star Citizen," drawing in money from average gamers in the world's biggest crowdfunded project outside cryptocurrency. The game is still not done.

www.forbes.com

At 1 point, Forbes was a quality source of information, clearly not anymore. Seems to be a trend with the media lately. Such a shame.

It is rather scathing. It's negatively opinionated and draws Chris Roberts in a bad light. There's really no need to include Roberts personal life into this piece, but I guess that follows the Forbes model. Personal attacks to identify character flaws does not help make your point; it just makes you look like an asshole.

For some reason, "journalism" has effectively gone from delivering unbiased information about things & events, into various forms of political propaganda. For the most part anyways.

Last time I interviewed Tila Tequila i lost several days.

Only several days? I've heard that she use to party like a rock star. I hope that you had a wonderful time at least. (If you can remember any of it. ;p )

Im reading it now, this is good shit!

" Roberts said Gardiner had also visited Peterson’s San Diego home and once became violent and tried to strangle him. "

Sandi is into some serious kink!

Here I thought she is all sweet an innocent, but DAYUM... have a safety word ready! :D

I have heard that Australians are a LOT of fun. It would appear that she helps verify that. Cheers!

Seems like a hit piece with a lot of miss information. Like this gem in the first paragraph. while it was initially true for the original kick starter the original backers voted to go big and thus void that release date.
While I agree 7 years is getting on the upper end of a typical game development cycle its still with in average of a standard MMO.

Quality art takes time to create. When I look at the visuals of SC & SQ42 that are out of have been published so far, there isn't any part of me that would not call it high caliber art. The fact that CIG has been open with its backers through this whole process so far & allowed us to help make certain decisions, such as the choice to expand beyond the original scope of the game, as well as allowing us to assist in testing the game as it is able to proves that this is no standard video game being made.

“There’s no two ways about it, man. Star Citizen is nuts,” says Jesse Schell a guy that makes childrens games which take about 9 weeks from start to finish.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Bruce]

the omission for a business magazine ?

I actually wonder - what happened to forbes since times when trees were high for me .. it used to be not so yellow (