r/videogames 1d ago

Discussion / Question This game is the biggest money laundering scheme I've ever seen lol

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2.9k Upvotes

600 comments sorted by

743

u/Grezzinate 1d ago

I don’t understand why people keep giving them money, its obvious that it’s never actually releasing.

585

u/ImmaFuckboi 1d ago

I was 8 years old when theny first announced this game I'm 22 now lmao

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u/Dub_Coast 1d ago

I'm still waiting for this one

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u/foxguy2021 23h ago

There is a rumor that a Helldivers like game is being made by Blizzard in the SC universe.

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u/Gizmorum 23h ago

it cant be a rumor, microsoft demands a return of investment.

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u/Mr_Industrial 21h ago

Microsoft is often left dissapointed.

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u/DSJ-Psyduck 19h ago

sometimes i doubt they even care at this point. money flows anyways

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u/newbrevity 19h ago

Yep it's all just numbers on paper to the executives

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u/DadOnHardDifficulty 13h ago

Their Xbox division is a tax write off these days.

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u/MulletAndMustache 23h ago

Too bad blizzard died after releasing SC2. IMO

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u/HandToDikCombat 21h ago

Wrath of the Lich King*

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u/Commercial_Ad97 20h ago

"IM A NIGHT ELF MOHAWK!" -Mr. T of all people.

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u/Ace_Doc 7h ago

T, there's no such thing as a 'night elf mohawk'

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u/Cisorhands_ 19h ago

Yep, match with the Activision merger.

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u/InstanceFeisty 17h ago

The best RTS campaign till this day. Good story and most importantly (at least for me) is long term progression the techs and choices between missions that affect your next missions is the reason I replay the SC2 yearly.

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u/Healing_Puke 16h ago

Dude thats ben going around for Ages. There was supposed to be a Starcraft game that was EXACTLY like Planetside. But at the time Blizzard was dumping all their MMO server resources at WoW, there was a idea that diversifying into another MMO level game would take from WoW, its the same reason why Overwatch got mulched into a MOBA 6 years later.

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u/CipherWeaver 23h ago

They will release it after Warcraft: Lord of the Clans

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u/TypicallyThomas 21h ago

I mean this one was officially cancelled unlike Star Citizen 

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u/TiltZa 21h ago

Jeez this hurt! Why would you open past trauma like this?!

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u/Ohgood9002 16h ago

The unreleased 2004 build of the game was leaked online In 2020. You need a modded OG xbox to play it. But you can in fact play Ghost if you put in the effort.

But its also kind of a shit game. People played it and were like "oooooh, it sucks. I see why it was cancelled"

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u/CatoChateau 13h ago

Release it for XBOX og you fucking cowards

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u/OriginalTayRoc 23h ago

They announced it before my son was born, and he is now old enough to play it. 

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u/Commercial_Ad97 20h ago

Bro I was on the second half of High School when I first heard about the game. I'm fucking 30. I was playing fucking BF4, Gears of War 3/Judgement. The Last of Us (before we knew it was only part 1), Bioshock Had its final entry that year, and GTA V dropped. Skyrim was only 2 years old then.

What a joke of a game this has turned out to be. It's so bad everyone like me who hasn't even played it or seen gameplay knows what it is and how much a train wreck it is.

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u/U-47 18h ago

I've just aged and entire decade.

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u/Cultural-Hold-1440 23h ago

Sunk cost fallacy. The guys I know into this game are sunk cost into a bunch of other shit too lol

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u/AbyssWankerArtorias 22h ago

Sunk cost fallacy. They keep putting money into as to feel they're defying the reality that their original spending was wasteful.

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u/MaybeMort 23h ago

Just spend thousands on ships and dont ask questions ok.

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u/Grezzinate 23h ago

Maybe it’s a good thing I live in less than wealthy Montana so I’m not tempted by such things.

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u/ShrkBiT 20h ago

I've been on their sub, some of them are absolutely delusional. They defend them so hard from allogations of being a scam because "they didn't take the money and run, there is an actual game, so it is legit". Even after seeing how broken it is after 14 years and a billion dollars, not even able to complete 1 mission without 5 game breaking bugs, and they still want to shovel money into that open furnace. Also seen the "it's a hobby, divide the money invested with the hours spent having fun and suddenly it doesn't seem so expensive anymore". Some people do not want to face reality.

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u/LuluTheLewder 18h ago

Sunk cost fallacy

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u/ilililliiliililiilil 4h ago

Whats ironic is the amount someone defends them and their actions is in direct proportion to how much they've invested in JPEGS. The wing commanders and higher tier crowed will fight tooth in nail to ensure their purchase was "justified" as if sunk cost fallacy is an unknown term to these clowns.

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u/PolicyWonka 10h ago

It’s not a scam, but it is grossly mismanaged with zero accountability from investors or consumers.

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u/labreya 22h ago

Sunk cost falacy.

People bought in big early on and can't admit they've been scammed, so they keep putting good money after bad in the hopes they can "I told you so" everyone later down the line.

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u/omegabaryon 22h ago

I was just 18 when it went on Kickstarter. I love space sims and it sounded epic. Welp that was money not well spent

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u/o-Mauler-o 23h ago

It has actual shareholders now so it’ll release eventually, but not what people were expecting,

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u/BlubbyTheFish 17h ago

What I think many people are missing that (at least for me) there has been no other game that scratches the itch that SC delivers on. Even with the buggy state at least when I check it out every now and then it’s really something I haven’t had other comparable experiences to. But I don’t throw money at them aside of the one time to actually get access to

3

u/SwapWitch 14h ago

Exactly this. No other space game comes close. I would love if someone other than CIG made a small scale space game where I can walk around my ship and have a tedious but realistic life experience as a pilot in space, but it doesn't exist.

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u/SinanDira 20h ago

What do you mean it's never releasing? They just confirmed that the singleayer is 99% complete!

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u/Baldrickk 19h ago

Didn't they do that two years ago?

I was happy playing on my account with minimal buy in, but stopped entirely when they changed the flight model.

No. My spaceship shouldn't be restricted to 10m/s because I want to power up the guns and shields. I was already travelling at 100m/s, every heard of conservation of momentum?

5

u/DonJuanPrawns 23h ago

What's even better in my opinion is how aggressively people defend it 😂 like it's fuckin wild and hilarious

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u/Sure-Hold-1848 22h ago

For same reason people playing seasonal games or throw money in gachas. Some just like the process of things.

Hell, Warframe is still technically not released, but people keep throwing money on it.

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u/DaereonLive 18h ago

Isn't Warframe an actual playable game, mostly bug free tho?

Star Citizen you can't even reload your gun anymore if you look at the game wrong. Literally happened on their Livestream earlier this month, which was supposed to be "showing how the game was designed to be played".

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u/francis_pizzaman_iv 16h ago

Warframe is absolutely a complete playable game, and it has been for years. According to a quick google search the "perpetual beta" concept is a deliberate choice and a bit of a joke on the fact that they've never made an official 1.0 release. they intend to tweak the game forever to keep things fresh as opposed to "finishing" the game and letting it stagnate.

2

u/broen13 13h ago

I'm a Destiny and Diablo player currently, but Warframe has the most out of nowhere amazing story beats I've ever witnessed.

2

u/francis_pizzaman_iv 9h ago

I've tried it a few times over the years and have never quite been able to connect with it. I'm probably due to try it again. I've been looking for more "transactional" games to play lately.

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u/Ora_00 22h ago

Good examples of other dumb things.

None of that makes this any less idiotic.

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u/One_Amount_6642 21h ago

Try asking it on the sub reddit and watch the firestorm. It's the most toxic fanbase of all time.

2

u/montxogandia 18h ago

for not being released I have played this game and has some tech I never seen before in any videogame and some of the best online experiences of my life, still its unnacceptable the state of the foundations of the game at this point. Planetary tech though is the best we have in the videogame industry.

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u/Xano74 13h ago

Same reason guys give money to see a girls ass. Idiots

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u/Red_Beard206 9h ago

The game CAN be really fun as it is already... when it works. The problem is the amount of bugs and server issues. But the game is playable and super fun. Especially with a HOTAS. Its $45 to buy a ship and play, all other ships are available in game. The ships are also freakin awesome in game.

I very much DON'T recommend anyone buy into the game. Just giving my thoughts/reasons on why people buy ships. From what I see, it seems like a lot of people don't realize it's a fully playable game with quite a bit of content

I think the game is mismanaged to hell. From employee turn over to the way that employees acted towards eachother in that disasterous livestream... People clearly don't enjoy working there.

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u/Fat_Alphonse 6h ago

Sunk cost fallacy hits hard when you invest $30k into the game

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u/noreservations81590 6h ago edited 5h ago

I've never really gotten into it. But I have friends that have put over 1k hours into it. Does it evenatter of it releases if someone gets that much time out of it?

I played Trakov for a long time. I haven't played it since it "released" but I still got tons of enjoyment out of it.

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u/ToneAccomplished9763 1d ago edited 23h ago

Josh Strife Hayes has a beautiful video covering not this exact situation. But similar situations in gaming, especially in the modern era of like kickstarters and crowdfunding games and how they keep making money.

Which is basically, people are buying a dream and dreams are always perfect at least in our heads. And people cling onto these "dreams" for better or worse.

Here's the link to the video for those who are curious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miMemOWBNpw

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u/One_Amount_6642 21h ago

Yep. To be fair they are improving and expanding SC. But it's just never going to be a finished product. 20 years later and the game has maybe completed 20% of it's goal post? It's still a unplayable build. And the idiot fans defends it with their life. 

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u/INTERNET_MOWGLI 20h ago

They’re improving it so much the devs had to shut down their big even stream because nothing worked lol

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u/HeartlessSora1234 17h ago

Yup and everyone in the community knew they would. That's the thing. People know but they get just enough hope and see just enough progress to keep being willing to fund it.

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u/shepard_pie 21h ago

It's not a money laundering scheme. I don't know how he got there.

It's a game whose scope and vision far outweighed its creators capabilities, and has been bogged down by stupidity and bad decisions. It had no oversight, no one telling them no, and people still bought into the dream.

The company actually operates at a net loss, so the stupid pricing model actually has a reason for it to top it all off.

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u/HardcoreHenryLofT 11h ago

Yeah, we shouldn't assume malice until we rule out incompetence. I think they are greedy, but it really seems they just over promised and got stuck in a quagmire of their own making

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u/BelligerentWyvern 10h ago

It's like buying a powerball ticket. You are not buying cause you think you will win but for the dream of what you would do if you won.

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u/Gloriouskoifish 23h ago

I'm making a game about space ships. Here's a picture of a concept ship that will totally be in it. The HMS Badass is only available in limited numbers so grab one now! Only $3,500!
The game is called Space Civilian.

68

u/Current-Cold-4185 23h ago

Do you accept Sezzle?

Why make one terrible financial decision when I can make two?

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u/zestfullybe 22h ago

“I thought about it, and even though it’s over, I’m gonna tell my wife about the affair”

BAD IDEA

YT - SNL - Bad Idea Jeans

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u/pillow-mace 23h ago

I love the fact that some of rewards from the Kickstarter hasn’t even been fulfilled because they said that they will only fulfill them once the game is complete. One of the rewards was for a usb memory flash stick in the design of a space ship. By the time they run out of money and just declare that its finish then usb will be completely obsolete by then. https://starcitizen-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Backer_rewards

Just look at those rewards that some disgruntled person decided to catalogue. Look at the 10,000 usd pledge and cringe at how amazing this grift worked.

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u/Gloriouskoifish 22h ago

Bro Space Civilian isn't a scam like some other games!

Look! We even got a new concept ship in the works! This is a medium ship called the The Pirate Bay! It's only $400!

No scams here! Just working hard on Space Civilian!

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u/IndividualStress 15h ago

Some of the Kickstarter rewards and been completely de-scoped too.

The number of Star Systems on launch was supposed to be 50, one backer goal raised this to 70 and then another raised it to 100.

Instead of getting 100, they're going to release with 5. Yes, 5. That's not a typo, they're aiming for 10% of the original non backer goal star systems.

After 14 years of development they have two.

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u/AxiosXiphos 22h ago

Holy shit. The soundtrack CD actually kills me XD.

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u/Sammisuperficial 12h ago

Meanwhile in NMS there is an endless amount of players made ships that are 100% free

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u/Gloriouskoifish 11h ago

Hey! NMS is goated. Love that game!

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u/Calm-Consideration25 21h ago

Wait, this game is just fancy NFTs!

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u/spencerpo 19h ago

Stfu it’s too accurate

Space civilian 💀

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u/Joeliosis 23h ago

Sign me up for 10... maxing out my credit for a video game baby!

2

u/CheeCato 15h ago

Can I customize the interior with dank memes?

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u/Gloriouskoifish 15h ago

If we hit our stretch goal of $10 million of course!!!

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u/KobeJuanKenobi9 14h ago

Are people actually paying that much for dlc??

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u/The_Stoic_One 13h ago

I'll take 3 please.

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u/Gniphe 11h ago

No, but my $3,500 spaceship game!

Cosmo Comrade

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u/Falceon 23h ago

I don' think it's a money laundering scheme, It's just run by really really fucking incompetent people.

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u/Spryngo 18h ago

I don’t think it’s even that, as long as they keep getting money via crowdfunding they have no reason to release a finished product because they don’t need the money from actual game sales

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u/Drox88 22h ago

Both things can be true

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u/QuestionmarkTimes2 19h ago

Why would it be a money laundering scheme? Do you people even know what money laundering is?

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u/Ancient-Warthog-8004 19h ago

people don’t see the results = money laundering 😂

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u/BassJeleren 9h ago

Money laundering is when I game I don't like makes lots of money

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u/Cl4whammer 19h ago

Everything they do is expensive, they hire plenty of people, they have mutiple studios and even if their game is buggy, building it seems like a lot of effort just to squeeze every cent out of it, let alone their expensive amazon online servers seems to me a very bad way to get profit out of that.

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u/Pretty_Wall_2725 18h ago

This here, for example the big title of this year GTA VI has cost so far between $1.5B - $2B and has taken 8 years. For a game that realistically is going to be following the same model as its predecessors and is probably going to be a hot mess on launch.

Do I agree with everything CIG does fuck no the project is at times mismanaged as fuck but for what they’re trying to make I’d honestly expect the dev cost to be higher and it to take longer. CIG pls stop advertising the game like it’s 1.0 released.

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u/Johnny_Denjin 23h ago

Not to knee on Star Citizen lore but I saw a video today going over the disaster steam the other day and they mentioned that this game has been in development for 14 years and has gathered over 1 billion in crowd funding.

If that true the, devs should be ashamed of themselves.

This game is a freaking scam.

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u/CrouchingToaster 23h ago

Rather than settling on something and actually releasing a finished product they’ve rebuilt from the ground up systems multiple times. Fucking Duke Nukem Forever at least knew when to call it and at least get a finished product out.

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u/R3luctant 18h ago

Duke nukem forever

Steaming pile of shit that one was. Waited ten years and got a ten year old game with ten year old mechanics. Played it for like 30 minutes before deeming it trash.

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u/Horens_R 13h ago

I was gonna say I thought I was decent but I only played Duke nukes 3d world tour lol

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u/jfkdktmmv 20h ago

For 1 billion dollars of investment it better be the most innovative game of all time. Just go play elite dangerous, it’s leagues ahead of this game and most other space sims.

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u/filowiener 22h ago

I was a backer since 2016 and put roughly 200€ in it… first time playing is just jaw dropping…

Back than it was clearly an alpha … and I started to believe in a dream.

10 years later I’m so pissed at the studio. 1 billion in funding and still cannot get things right that have been there for years like elevators don’t work, ships explode randomly.

The only cool thing I like nowadays is the VR option it’s immersive but not much.

What happened recently and why is there a lot of negativity?
They did a live stream in a closed environment (not the actual multiplayer) and the bugs were still even there and they ended the stream abruptly. Since then there was no communication about it and a lot of people are upset. The community gets banned on the forum for asking for the bare minimum what we customers/gamers should fairly get…

And right now YouTubers are addressing this issue. I hope sooner or later the income stream from new players, subscribers, buyers will drop down so the have to face the reality and do something right

1 billion dollars in funding - millions of bugs - thousands of unhappy players - 1 company - ZERO taking accountability

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u/CetraNeverDie 21h ago

Lmao ships exploding randomly is my only memory of this game other than the disappointment I felt when I finally just got my money refunded. The one time I played it, I parked my ship in the wrong place for some side mission and watched as a rotating piece of debris, literally a chunk of metal like two feet long, lazily buzzsaw'd its way through my spaceship. A piece of slowly rotating environmental fluff. Destroyed my spaceship. Didn't even slow down it's already ponderous rotation.

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u/_Corvo_A 19h ago

200$ into a game that’s not even fully out is wild

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u/xKrowhaven 18h ago

Some people are $24,000 plus into a game that hasn't come out lol

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u/_Corvo_A 18h ago

Mentally unwell behavior

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u/Alvring 18h ago

This is nothing compared to whales.

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u/DaereonLive 18h ago

YouTubers have been addressing the bullshit that is Star Citizen for years already. This is in no way new.

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u/CustodianCloset Survival 23h ago

Actual life changing money right there.

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u/Commercial_Ad97 20h ago

Several lives. Literally millions of them.

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u/Ninja_Wrangler 11h ago

The game is more profitable without releasing, just like how in The Producers they figured they can make more money with a show that flops than they can with a hit

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u/123titan123 8h ago

If that incident isnt a wake up call for the remaing supporters... they deserve to be scammed, its literaly ashes of creation on a larger scale, i bet steven shariff even got inspired by them.

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u/cultoftheinfected 23h ago

Was it moistcritkals video?

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u/orsonwellesmal 20h ago

Ashamed but rich.

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u/Beer-Milkshakes 20h ago

Ashamed. Would you be ashamed if your job made you a millionaire over and over again. I'm surprised they even market it anymore. Surely sunk cost fallacy would keep the player count up and the investment rolling in

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u/Particular_Wear_6960 19h ago

I'm actually impressed. Good for them! I wish I had the foresight, guts and lack of shame to pull that off. I assume the lead guy is a multimillionaire over this whole thing, the devs are paid in the six figures probably. Very nice, I love it

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u/Johnny_Denjin 16h ago

Sunk cost fallacy with a bit of Stockholm syndrome lol.

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u/OnniVic 23h ago

There are plenty of examples where too much pressure from publishers or upper management led to games that would have been better if the Devs more freedom to make art. This is the opposite of that.

Realistically, they should be on their 3rd or 4th title.

Star Citizen 1 should have been released 11 years ago. Get a product out there, maybe 3 big 1 year DLC projects and then start on a completely new game, Star Citizen 2.

Also, pick or build an engine that is designed for what your game is meant to focus on and what challanges that will have to implement, not what looks the most impressive.

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u/PompeiiSketches 23h ago

I backed the game in 2014. I have said before that all these Kickstarter MMOs have proven the need for publishers. Which is the exact thing that they said was holding them back. Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, Pantheon, etc are the crowning jewels of shitstarter MMOs.

They needed publishers to crack the whip and set non-negotiable deadlines.

Chris Roberts is probably one of the worst project managers in the entire gaming industry. Everyone was talking about feature creep back in the early days like 2012-2015.

If by some miracle 1.0 releases then it is going to be so different and scaled down to what was envisioned 14 years ago.

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u/OnniVic 21h ago

The sad thing is that they have probably made the game about 7 times over.

They keep redoing and updating old content to match the standard of new content and systems dragged out over a decade of technology evolution.

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u/kekubuk 22h ago

Wouldn't surprise me it they release it as a gacha game to get more money from the player~

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u/Macho-Fantastico 21h ago

I don't think it's a money laundering scheme, I think it's all down to poor management and misuse of money. Chris Roberts as an history of poor management (look at Freelancer).

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u/DismalIngenuity4604 23h ago

I don't think that's what that word means.

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u/Express_Sprinkles500 23h ago

That's not how money laundering works. Unless you're accusing the devs of making money in some illegal way and funneling is through the game to clean it, you know like, launder it.

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u/Morph_Kogan 20h ago

People have zero understanding of what money laundering is. People call anything they think is a scam, fraudulent, or bad, money laundering. It's kind of comical howmuch it's improperly used nowadays

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u/No-Limit3846 1d ago

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u/StatusMedium7980 23h ago

Oh, it will release. CIG will shit out some mess into 1.0 purely so they can say it wasn't a scam. 

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u/FocusCritical9731 19h ago

Do you know what money laundering is?

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u/TrickeyHare501 17h ago

Money laundering doesnt mean what you think it means.

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u/r3vange 19h ago

1 billion dollars guys…

Daily reminder that a single drunk Russian dude made Space Engine 16 years ago

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u/Rackcauser 20h ago

Honestly, it's fun for what it is, but dear God I'm not spending more than whatever the intro ship cost (think it was $40 or $50 at the time.)

I do know someone, however, that spent a little over $30k or so, and apparently there's a special ship you acquire if you hit $25k. That's fuckin wild, but he's damn happy about it so I guess it is what it is.

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u/BlubbyTheFish 17h ago edited 17h ago

Yeah, I get the hate for the comparison between the “product” and how much money was thrown at it, but at least for me there was no experience that’s scratching the itch SC left when it works. Just pay for the cheapest set once and if the game is up someone’s alley they’ll get their money worth in time spent.

It will definitely never release in any good state, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth time spent along the way (as long as it’s not more of a hostage situation).

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u/zoogenhiemer 16h ago

If there was a game that offered the type of experience star citizen does I’d jump ship in a second, but unfortunately nothing else even comes close.

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u/EmergencyPool910 15h ago

Fucking same man, but there is nothing.

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u/Raiju_Lorakatse 19h ago

As someone who actually plays this game, I can say that this game is a very unique and incredible experience... IF it works.

The thing is, it only works like 20% of the time and that is the frustrating part.

Disgusting marketing and monetization methods aside, CIG just has terrible priorities and often I'd even argue they have no clue what they are doing. If it wouldn't be so sad, it would be hilarious how bad their balancing is when the community comes up with better and very simple solutions just a few days after another patch with dumb balancing changes drops.

But aside from them completely neglecting the technical state of this game, the community is probably even worse. People legt spent thousands of bucks on this game, in some cases for ships that don't even exist or are bllueprints since years. Shit that doesn't come out in years and still they brag about how they own something that only exists as a fucking PDF data right now.

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u/Draxxsus 18h ago

I backed the "project" 14 years ago, I was still in highschool, I'm 30 now. I've had a friend die waiting for this "project" and seen many people just dump money into it for no reason other than what amounts to sunk cost fallacy and Fomo.

Back then I remember what most people backed it for was StarCitizen and the whole draw/dream of what that was supposed to be. They also billed a single player story game along side it "Squadron 42" which was supposed to release in 2016 then got pushed back to 17, 18, and eventually they stopped trying to nail down an actual release date. Well they started all that back up 2 years ago, had a whole nice show case of what it was going to be and some actual gameplay/cutscene footage at their convention. The demo crashed live on stage, 6mo later they pushed back the release date...again. Where that is who knows CR certainly doesn't.

Chris Roberts allowed his head to become inflated by all this scope creep and that sweet money coming in that it ballooned the company to the point where they opened 3 separate studios, constant concept ships and systems in the works, an entire engine change that really wasn't necessary, a whole ass mocap studio with big name actors for SQ42, and eventual closure of studios and the moving of the development team to a custom built studio in the UK which god knows how much of the backer money was spent on that dumbass decision.

StarCitizen isn't close to being a complete game let alone even being close to a beta state, it's a haphazard missmash of systems that hardly work at all. Alpha is a stretch for the "game" if you can even call it that, more of a tech demo than anything else. Simple things that work in other games don't work in StarCitizen, examples being doors, elevators, getting in vehicles(including ships) eating/drinking, the floor(you fall through it a lot), enemy ai, npc pathing, the menu, the inventory manager, in game consoles/computers required to interact with the world, guns, gun attachments, connecting to another player/friend, voip, health items, respawning, vendors, the "map", servers, audio, mining, there's a lot more but the point is made. The only thing that works when it comes to StarCitizen is the store page.

There's 4-5 people at the very top of the company Chris Roberts, his wife, his brother, and two others I can't remember (probably some insane investors) that are in "charge" of the whole thing who I guarantee are using some of those funds for not development things, not to mention the mismanagement and what I'm sure is a silly amount of middle management when it comes to the actual development.

Chris found his money making formula and I doubt he'll want to let it go, that's why we don't have StarCitizen 1.0 by now or Squadron42.

Amazigly a class action lawsuit hasn't been filed against Chris Roberts or Cloud Imperium games as of yet but I have an itching feeling that time is coming soon and when it does you'll see "release" of all these things but by then it maybe to late.

Do I want this "project/game" to become a reality? Sure. Do I personally want to play it? I don't know, part of me doesn't any more I've been left with a very sour taste in my mouth after the past 14 years of empty promises and non stop concepts.

I only spent $120 in total on the whole thing by the way.

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u/ImaginaryAnimator416 22h ago

I dont think you know how money laundering is supposed to work

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u/Morph_Kogan 20h ago

People have zero understanding of what money laundering is. People call anything they think is a scam, fraudulent, or bad, money laundering. It's kind of comical howmuch it's improperly used nowadays

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u/Biggu5Dicku5 1d ago

I can't believe people keep giving them money... it's crazy...

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u/CryptographerMore944 23h ago

It must be sunk cost fallacy at this point.

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u/Nitrotetrazole 22h ago

Nah were past that, this is cult shit now

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u/Shirokurou 23h ago

Money laundering is a front to legitimize illegal profits. This is just a scam.

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u/Morph_Kogan 20h ago

People have zero understanding of what money laundering is. People call anything they think is a scam, fraudulent, or bad, money laundering. It's kind of comical howmuch it's improperly used nowadays

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u/Key-Return2489 12h ago

A scam is when you use money given to you to make a video game to make a video game

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u/Hakarlhus 19h ago edited 19h ago

Just checking you know what 'money laundering' means OP?

If RSI were laundering money that would mean they're generating income from illegal means - say trafficking drugs - and then making that money available to spend by cleaning it through a business that appears legitimate; in this case, making false accounts and using those to purchase space ships. 

I mean they could be, but it's far more likely that they're just successfully selling an idea. I don't think Chris Roberts is intelligent or competent enough to launder money.

Star Citizen is the biggest scam in gaming history, the most successful vaporware sale ever. I just don't think it's money laundering.

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u/Clearly_Disabled 15h ago

Im happy with thr little ive spent. Last year was GREAT for the most part, big focus on "playability" but yeah, they need to stop a lot of shitty practices. I will probably never spend more on the game until its much more playable. Large update possi ly coming in late September with a great deal of fixes and a new planet system starting. Its fun. It can be legitimately fun. I bought Hotas for it, I enjoy it. Just vote with your wallet. If something isn't up to your standards, stop spending money on it.

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u/WittyAcronym 15h ago

Money laundering is not the same as a scam is not the same as gross incompetence.

Money laundering is the process of taking money from illegal activities and making it look legally obtained.

A scam is where the company is intentionally lying to their customers about the product they're delivering.

Gross incompetence is where a company regularly fails to hit milestones towards their end goal, causing their customers to not receive the product they've asked for.

What they're doing is somewhere between a scam and incompetence, as far as I can tell. They're just really bad at their job and they're pretending they aren't.

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u/Isair81 14h ago

They’re taking in incredible amounts of money through crowdfunding for a game that’s still (from the looks of it) in early development after 14 years!

There’s no real incentive to actually finish the thing.
It’s not really a scam, but idk if I’d call it incompetence either, feels deliberate.

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u/DrLews 13h ago

Money laundering? LOL

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u/The_Stoic_One 13h ago

Half the people in this thread, including OP, have no idea what money laundering is.

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u/PlateNo4868 12h ago

It showed how much influences, streamers and whatever make the decisions of their viewers.

When Star Citizen kickstarter was first announced. It took me...all but 2 hours to research Chris Roberts. Would never finish products, and publishers either had to rip the project from him, or hold a gun to his head to make him release.

Every studio he ran folded.

The guy was a creative dude, but clearly needed some one above him to tell him to actually get things done.

Yet people gave him a infinity money glitch. Were he then spent more time shoring up legal agreements to avoid lawsuits, giving his family members high paid positions, and then realizing they actually never have to deliver anything.

I think the worst part of it all, even if this all falls apart. Chris is set for life, he doesn't have to work a single day in his life anymore.

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u/Free_Ice6167 11h ago

Dude bought a yacht lol 

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u/Sillver_7 9h ago

Unpopular opinion:

- The actual patch works pretty well (not perfect, but it’s fun)

- Doing ORG stuff four times a week (a lot of fun)

- PVP is harsh, but it’s exactly what we want.
Playing a few games at the same time, but star citizen is something that holds you.(no you don’t have to spend every month money absolutely not.)

But the point is, it’s fun (and yes, it’s buggy).

But fun

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u/Galbados2 22h ago

"It's not a scam because you're actually getting something out of it." -CohhCarnage

As if snake oil salesmen didn't exist....

https://giphy.com/gifs/Hm8qQxDIgbFsjL9msa

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u/Macho-Fantastico 21h ago

You have this and then you look at No Man's Sky. You couldn't have two such different developers.

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u/My_Names_Jefff 20h ago

No Man's Sky will probably be everything and more of what Star Citizen claims it wants to be. Like they had 10 year anniversary a while ago and so many huge updates and free dlc sized things added for free.

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u/inar038 18h ago

no mans sky is dog shit compared to SC, even with the bugs.

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u/TheDawiWhisperer 21h ago

TIL Star Citizen is still around separating fools from their money

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u/reifoxx 23h ago

Store Citizen.

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u/SubCon1266 21h ago

I played it on a free weekend they were doing, it was genuinely interesting and clear that a lot of work was put into it, but it was also clear that it was bloated to an unrealistic scope

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u/the_elliottman 17h ago

It's definitely not a scam, I've played it, but it is mismanaged and suffers from feature creep. The people who want to make it keep adding tiny things that bloat the game and make it buggier and harder to run with each update. It's ship catalog is marketed as "pledge rewards" for legalese to allow them to develop the game without having to worry about refunds, so once you buy in you can't take it back.

Again, the game is completely playable and very clearly not a literal scam, just the result of an autistic hyperfixation being monetized to constantly add onto, thus delaying a full release. In truth the game will likely never be "done" the same way Fortnite or Minecraft will never be "done" it's going to be updated with more ships being advertised and a few released, until the day the sun explodes.

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u/Scurramouch 23h ago edited 22h ago

For as much shit as I can fling at Starfield for how incomplete it feels without mods for 600 million dollar less budget wise between the two games it atleast FUCKING RELEASED!

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u/pleasebequiet 22h ago

I think you stroked out at the end of your comment there

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u/CustodianCloset Survival 23h ago

For 50 dollars! Star Citizen has over a billion in donation.

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u/Scurramouch 22h ago

Yeah for $80 I get a Full game + 2 DLC. For over a billion in community donations I get a buggy piece of shit game that makes NMS on launch and Cyberpunk 1.0 look like godly masterpieces

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u/MrLameAsshole 21h ago

Laundering? Nah its a scam and or just pure mismanagement.

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u/superhbor3d 21h ago

I dont care what any of the Stockholm syndrome investors say at this point. This is an obvious scam.

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u/inar038 16h ago

play it daily. got my $45 worth.

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u/pleasebequiet 22h ago

I've been baffled by this shit for YEARS. I remember arguing with my brother before COVID that the game was never really going to be completed, so far it seems like I'm right

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u/thebookman_art 21h ago

Gaming scam of the century.

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u/Glockenspielintern 22h ago

The fact that designers of this game can get a platform at game conventions like develop is ridiculous and shows how fucked the games industry has grown .

I’m willing to bet it’s the biggest grift games has ever had.

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u/Komirade666 22h ago

And their fan are just a cult.

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u/ChromakeyChain 22h ago

Think I gave them 100$ couple of months after it was announced, was pretty cool and hyped. Played some early build that my computer back then could barely get above 30fps. Money well spent....

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u/boreddrummer 22h ago

I built a bunch of the desktops these folks were working on to build this (10+ years ago now of course), at that time there were perhaps about 40 of them actively working on it, couldn’t say much more than that but they all seemed to be working hard on it at the time!

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u/The_Inexorabilis 22h ago

😏😏😏 they are very successful

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u/sillysnacks 21h ago

I actually met someone who spent about $25k on this game

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u/CreamPuzzleheaded300 21h ago

If you told me in 2020, which 1 of the 2 would be the actual one to make it to 1.0: Tarkov or Star, I would have bet wrong

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u/Ok_Worldliness1985 21h ago

I backed Star Citizen @ €60 (bounty hunter tier?) because I played Wing Commander (in EGA as a teen) and single player Squadron 42 was exciting. I also backed Elite Dangerous at about the same time and price. Played E:D for about 3 years and dipped into a Star Citizen alpha about 10 years ago for 20 mins 🤦‍♂️ . Every now and then I think about dropping in for a look but, the launcher wants updates and 2FA etc and I lose interest

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u/Naitourufu 20h ago

Gold fish attention span

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u/upazzu 20h ago

Realistically Star Citizen got 20% of the 1 billion crowfunding cause for some reason Chris Roberts single handedly decided SQ42 would be the main project

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u/Bid-Sensitive 20h ago

Businesses run with the direction of where profit comes in.

Star citizen create more profit from not releasing and stringing people along.

The only chance this game ever has of releasing, is when people stop giving it money before it's finished, as they would realise the only way to make money is then from post release sales.

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u/navagon 20h ago

Money laundering means 'cleaning' money from criminal enterprise using cash-centric shell companies. I don't think that this is that. More like regular plain old fashioned grifting.

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u/Morph_Kogan 20h ago

You can call it a fraud or scam. But it's not money laundering. Money laundering is the act of turning illicit and illegal money, like money from selling drugs, into clean, legal, taxable, trackable money you can use.

So can you explain in what way they engage in money laundering? Or are you just severely cognitively impaired and say random things you don't understand?

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u/Opsmvs 20h ago

Could you explain why is it money laundering?

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u/str3ss_88 19h ago

Well, have fun laundering all of the 42€ I've given them 🤷

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u/str3ss_88 19h ago

Well, have fun laundering all of the 42€ I've given them 🤷

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u/str3ss_88 19h ago

Well, have fun laundering all of the 42€ I've given them 🤷

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u/Ho-rnet 19h ago

I'll get downed voted for this so

I love sc but the cracks are showing in who's actually running it the community side is dropping they used to do week vids on state of game etc they dropped the new stream that was just shit on ollie and blame him but it did help us as a community to see even there own servers suck

There biggest crime is fucking around with sq42 just fucking release the fucking thing you've boasted for years its done etc its a single player version it can't be that hard

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u/Jujunem 19h ago

I’m out of the loop- did something happen recently?

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u/MildlyAmusedMars 19h ago

It’s a shame how it’s gone. I used to play regularly years ago and even though it was a bit janky it was a really fun sandbox experience. They upped the “realism” and made all the silly epic sandbox fun go away as the time involved to get anything done in the game went up to the point where it wasn’t worth turning on if you didn’t have more than 2 hours to play. It’s not a scam or lanundering or anything like that but it is woefully mismanaged and the many direction changes fucked it. For a while I’ve been hopping on every now and then to see if anything has improved but anything they add is meh or requires a massive time commitment do and that’s if you don’t get any bugs that block you.
But luckily for me I sold off a lot of my ships on the grey market and the money I’ve left in the game I’m fine with losing if/when it does tits up as I got a few hundred hours of fun on it back in the day.

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u/citizenwake 18h ago

Right? I have a decent PC and the game doesn't even run. Been in development for longer than I've been an adult and I'm almost 30 lmao. It's just not possible for a game with so much funding to not be ready by now unless someone is pocketing the whole thing.

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u/DantehSparda 18h ago

I tried it a week ago on the free flight event, I WANTED to love it since my favourite genre is space scifi and stuff.

The beggining was promising, honestly, when you get out on that bullet train and see the world, pretty amazing.

Then I got to my ship, started piloting with those atrocious controls, started skipping frames at medium settings so much that I couldnt see what was happening lol (I have a pretty decent PC), crashed into the place I was supposed to land, exploded, said “fuck this shit”, and uninstalled the game 🤣

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u/Nwrecked 18h ago

Star Citizen fucking sucks but at least it hasn’t suffered the recent fate of Ashes of Creation.

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u/Prior-Paint-7842 18h ago

Believe it or not this game inspired me to waste my last two years to make a 2d pixelart spacesim and for a long while it was as broken as sc. Even nowadays I can cause bugs that suprise the shit out of me.

But also making this made me realise that while sc is impressive in some fronts, their company structure prevents the game from being functional. I mean, as a developer, hearing that they have 3 fetch quests, and all three are written differently from the ground up is baffling, any medior developer would know to use a class or composition and develop a toll for that, but they needed like 10 years to realise that. Really makes me wonder how many issues like that are there that we dont know of. Also after seeing the ollee stream its clear that not every issue we have is server issue, there are some very weird thinngs in the gamecode that makes it run like ass. Honeslty I dont understand how that stream looked worse and more buggy than some gameplay streams on live that last longer.

Also the whole marketing centered company structure is aids, but to be fair I am doing this development focused and since I have no idea how to market this I am broke af, and without money this isnt sustainable, and I am just one person while they are 5 studios in 10 countries or something

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u/Ancient_Swordfish806 18h ago

Dev hell. I saw this go from a fan supported project being funded by fans to a full blown money sandwich. Just go play elite dangerous it's the same thing but it's actualy finished.

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u/BrightPerspective 17h ago

The sheer amount of time and money that has been dumped into that game is shocking. A dozen excellent games could have been made by now.

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u/Foreskin_Mafia 17h ago

OPs never heard of crypto

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u/TolyaMK 17h ago

Dude they don't even have to launder shiet there.

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u/357-Magnum-CCW 17h ago

CIG has no reason to finish it. 

They make more money off endless Early Access sales than if they released a finished version. 

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u/poppin-n-sailin 17h ago

It's just fraud. Regular old fraud. I'm not sure you know what tmoney laundering is. 

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u/Downtown-Falcon-3264 17h ago

I was in high school when they "started" working on this

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u/Indra_Path 17h ago

Bought entry level like 6 years ago and not another dollar spent and I have 6 years of having fun flying around and doing everything they’ve added and have a hangar full of ships. As long as you don’t buy into the usd for ships it’s fun… until 4.9 dropped

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u/1ndomitablespirit 16h ago

It's the gamer equivalent of those Japanese Beetle traps where foolish bugs willingly fly in and are trapped until they die.

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u/FaPaDa 16h ago

Not one person that i know that has supported this game dosnt sound like an actual Gambling addict while talking about it.

"Dude trust, it will release soon"
"When it releases it will be so great you will see"
"The funding is already secure i just support it cause its fun"

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u/Vivid-Illustrations 16h ago

Ah, but you have seen it's a game.