Evidently, the number of things being added to Star Citizen's next alpha build is enough that it requires a whole new label. That's right, don't call it alpha 4.11; call it alpha 5.0 instead. Which is totally indicative of what's going into it and surely not a smoke screen for its possible delayed release. Cynicism aside, the [...]
I really don’t see it as a scam. I think I paid $30 for the game and they’re continuing to develop it. I’ve played it a bit and while it definitely feels unfinished, I’d say they’re certainly onto something, it has serious potential to turn into something cool.
So one thing to mention here, these planets exist at a nearly realistic scale, most a have about a 2000 km diameter, which puts their surface area around 12,600,000 square km. You can’t sculpt every inch of that by hand and make it look good, you just can’t. At some point you need to leverage procedural methods to fill in the space between crafted areas.
The “scam” thing is just a meme people repeat because they think it’s important to have an opinion about SC and that’s the only one they’ve ever heard. And yeah, it really doesn’t make any sense. There so many actual valid things you could criticize about the game and the company making it. I could make you a list but we’d be here all day.
But objectively, scam is literally the only complaint that is instantly disprovable, because you can log in and play the game and see that they put the work into it. It’s a buggy mess, they desperately need a proper UX lead, the project is atrociously mismanaged, but like… They did the work. As a scam, it would be the worst scam in history; you’re supposed to run away with the money, not actually spend it making a game.
I think you nailed it right there. That’s the thing.
They are making a game. And as long as people keep supporting that effort, they’re gonna keep doing it. I think that’s pretty straight forward!
I don’t believe anyone (in this thread at least) claimed that one can’t get the client for $45 or run it in trial during their relatively common trial periods (that’s how I tried the client several times).
This isn’t really related to why people call it a scam.
There is no possible way the majority of the money is going into the game. It’s simply not plausible.
And moreover both things can be true, it can be a scam where the leadership is pocketing most of the money and also a decent game locked in production forever simply to make more money.
So here’s what I don’t get… CIG is a notoriously mismanaged company running an incredibly bloated game that has been feature-creeped beyond all recognition from its original pitch, run by a self-important auteur egomaniac who frequently costs the company time (and therefore money) by exercising a truly obsessive level of control over every single aspect of the game’s development…
… And they’re also so shockingly good at everything they do, so efficient, so clever and smart that they can spend 13 years very publicly producing a ridiculously high concept, broadly scoped, overly ambitious money pit of an MMO, whilst actually secretly siphoning off the majority of the money they’ve received into their own personal accounts. They are, in fact, so good at this that they can make a game bigger and more complex than GTA 6, on the same kind of budget, whilst actually needing to only spend a fraction of that budget on the actual game development, and they’re so good in fact that they can do all of that whilst convincingly running the pretense of being a shockingly mismanaged company.
Do I have that right?
Look, I get the urge to turn everything into a conspiracy, but bro, it ain’t that deep. They’re just a bunch of nerds with bad people skills and a lot of money to burn.
Correct.
14 years of development does not imply good or efficient. There’s no secret about it, keeping it on permanent development gives them a job for as long as they can keep the grift going. You’re implying everyone thinks the game is good, worthwhile or innovative, I do not agree on most of those points. That said again both things can be true.
No, you’ve added your opinion and tried to pass it off as objective fact.
It doesn’t need to be that deep, it’s just fraud with a fan base which could be said of a lot of games just none this expensive or developed as long.
Where did I say that?
Again, where did I say that?
I’m honestly wondering if you replied to the wrong comment by mistake, because I can’t see how you got any of that from what I said.
Literally “good at everything they do” aside from stick to a release date obviously.
All you had to do was look for the word good in your comment boss.
You mean the paragraph that was very clearly written as sarcasm to highlight the inherent contradiction in your theory? Would that be the part you’re referring to?
I do not think any of those things therefore they weren’t in my argument, that’s your argument at that point. It’s a red herring you wrote yourself, it is odd you’re confused by it though.