Nothing about transparency in project management leads directly to witch hunts, as you say. Transparency in project management, specifically when the money being used isn't the money of the project managers themselves, does not have a general track record of leading to witch hunts that derail progress on the project.
The closest you could make to an argument for that notion is D.C. politics.... But even there, transparency isn't the issue so much as party lines are (which is a huge crapshoot that isn't applicable here).
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
Honestly, I want SC to succeed, because it will help reinforce the idea that KS / crowdfunding is how gamers will get the games we want, instead of games CEO's think we want. What I don't want, is for game companies who utilize this financial avenue to play cat and mouse games or rather cloak and dagger. Constantly hiding information about what the money is being spent on. You want to be respected? Than respect the people who are funding your endeavor.
This doesn't work, it amounts to a witch hunt and wastes everyone's time and money, including the backers. The small group of backers who are crying do not speak for the rest of use, who number over a million now.....lol
That's a slippery slope fallacy.
Nothing about transparency in project management leads directly to witch hunts, as you say. Transparency in project management, specifically when the money being used isn't the money of the project managers themselves, does not have a general track record of leading to witch hunts that derail progress on the project.
The closest you could make to an argument for that notion is D.C. politics.... But even there, transparency isn't the issue so much as party lines are (which is a huge crapshoot that isn't applicable here).
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
But what does that have to do with my point that the claims of business transparency in management of funds to those who are providing the funds results, categorically, in a "witch hunt," is a slippery slope fallacy?
Investors, in general, require transparency in where their funds are being spent. No one said the investors require itemized statements including things such as "K-Cups for office Keurig - $15." They do require enough information to know the money is being spent on task and in the manner that was agreed upon when the money was given.
The only people who would take out their torches and pitchforks over this kind of transparency already have them out. To act as if giving your backers such a yearly breakdown of categorical expenses would result in more pitchforks and torches is the slippery slope I mentioned. Sure, Smart and company would do their sabre-rattling, but reputable gaming media sites would also chime in with a much more unbiased analysis of those numbers based on the information gleaned from the backer reports relative to general industry practices.
Contrary to the overarching belief in certain circles of the internet, the gaming industry, by and large, have no idea who Derek Smart is, nor do they have any reason to take time out of their days to search out his rantings on Star Citizen. The only way this level of transparency would begin to take hold with the general gaming public and, as such, negatively affect the development process, would be if such an expense report seemed amiss by the general gaming media (reputable sites such as Game Informer or IGN, for example). Without their stamp of disapproval, Smart's fuss would reach no further than it has already.
EDIT - By gaming industry in my last paragraph, I meant not only those who work in the industry, but the consumers. I should've said the "general gaming public."
EDIT2 - And, also, our very own MMORPG.com for reputable gaming sites. I neglected to include it originally due to the fear that the discussion might be derailed over "reputable," but, damn it, MMORPG.com is as reputable as they come, in my opinion. /flamesuiton
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
You are making too many assumptions.
No one is asking CIG to hire accountants to "dumb down information." That would be counter-productive to what accountants actually do. The trick is to release something akin to satisfactory disclosure, not to totally ignore it. We all know that the disclosure of information by accountants is always a smoke and mirrors game meant to satisfy those "in the know," not the "people of the internet who arent adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers."
Nothing about transparency in project management leads directly to witch hunts, as you say. Transparency in project management, specifically when the money being used isn't the money of the project managers themselves, does not have a general track record of leading to witch hunts that derail progress on the project.
The closest you could make to an argument for that notion is D.C. politics.... But even there, transparency isn't the issue so much as party lines are (which is a huge crapshoot that isn't applicable here).
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
"Private" is the key word to your entire argument. That may go over some people's heads, but it's a very important word to me.
Crowd funding is a game-changer; it's either a fad or a progression in the world of business that legislation has not yet caught up with. Once you mix in crowd funding, the private / public division becomes at least somewhat porous.
How do you reconcile your staunch belief that 'the internet at large' will misinterpret an independently audited balance sheet with the fact that public companies doing only a fraction of CIG's volume are required to publish their financials openly online? Performing analyses on publicly available 10-K forms, measuring the financial 'health' of a given organization, was a big part of what I did in earning my advanced degree.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
You are making too many assumptions.
No one is asking CIG to hire accountants to "dumb down information." That would be counter-productive to what accountants actually do. The trick is to release something akin to satisfactory disclosure, not to totally ignore it. We all know that the disclosure of information by accountants is always a smoke and mirrors game meant to satisfy those "in the know," not the "people of the internet who arent adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers."
And again I have to remind you they already have disclosure, it's just not YOUR brand of disclosure. The accountants are there to report all their spending to the state and feds, not to hide anything. You accuse him of making assumptions then go about making a huge one yourself.
And again I have to remind you they already have disclosure, it's just not YOUR brand of disclosure. The accountants are there to report all their spending to the state and feds, not to hide anything. You accuse him of making assumptions then go about making a huge one yourself.
Where does that begin to make sense??
As a complete aside, I have to mention: your name gives you great trolling power. When I hover over an "Agree" button to see "howstupidisthis," I kind of giggle a little at the possibility of irony. Note that I'm not saying you're trolling, just that, with your username, you have a unique power to do so on the sly.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
You are making too many assumptions.
No one is asking CIG to hire accountants to "dumb down information." That would be counter-productive to what accountants actually do. The trick is to release something akin to satisfactory disclosure, not to totally ignore it. We all know that the disclosure of information by accountants is always a smoke and mirrors game meant to satisfy those "in the know," not the "people of the internet who arent adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers."
And again I have to remind you they already have disclosure, it's just not YOUR brand of disclosure. The accountants are there to report all their spending to the state and feds, not to hide anything. You accuse him of making assumptions then go about making a huge one yourself.
Where does that begin to make sense??
Your premise falls flat on its face with the "assumption" that CIG has already provided disclosure. They haven't. That is fact. It's not just due to "my brand of disclosure." What do you think all of this hoopla is about?
Nothing about transparency in project management leads directly to witch hunts, as you say. Transparency in project management, specifically when the money being used isn't the money of the project managers themselves, does not have a general track record of leading to witch hunts that derail progress on the project.
The closest you could make to an argument for that notion is D.C. politics.... But even there, transparency isn't the issue so much as party lines are (which is a huge crapshoot that isn't applicable here).
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
"Private" is the key word to your entire argument. That may go over some people's heads, but it's a very important word to me.
Crowd funding is a game-changer; it's either a fad or a progression in the world of business that legislation has not yet caught up with. Once you mix in crowd funding, the private / public division becomes at least somewhat porous.
How do you reconcile your staunch belief that 'the internet at large' will misinterpret an independently audited balance sheet with the fact that public companies doing only a fraction of CIG's volume are required to publish their financials openly online? Performing analyses on publicly available 10-K forms, measuring the financial 'health' of a given organization, was a big part of what I did in earning my advanced degree.
Theres plenty of evidence from SC alone. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it. I am a numbers guy. I do risk analysis regularly. What I'm saying is that I can't blame CIG for not. If there is legislation requiring it, great. However, I don't see the value in CIG opening their books voluntarily given the climate. Do you?
Not really. The first chart is missing critical details about each title's development stages and release time, blindly tracking only one number that misses the fact that SC hasn't even progressed past first stage in the timespan that most were halfway or two thirds.
The first chart is useless in that regard. The second chart at least illuminates what SC is up against more accurately for it's dev cycles.
This really depends on if what's holding them in place is the main hurdle they have to overcome, if it is, in most cases things move much faster once past it. They can't move past pre-alpha stages until they have underlying systems in place. That seems to be the main problem as far as I can gather.
I don't think that is all that uncommon in the video-game space. Especially in games that are more system reliant rather than story/scripted content reliant. The persistent universe will be system reliant more or less ( players using systems as tools to interact as well as provide each other content with... in other words principles games like EVE are based on)
These types of games almost always have long gestation periods, as well as a lot of R&D. The system has to make sense the first time around, otherwise you see train-wrecks like X-rebirth or Rome 2 total war... trying to play catch up with broken systems, systems that aren't cohesive, etc.. and forward progress comes to a screeching halt.
For the most part I agree.
Using Firefall as a reference, the first two years of the game's design was hellishly slow because the content pipeline was not in place. It was only after we were able to finish assembling the internal toolkits and get a clean process for designing, converting, and implementing content that development took off in the third year.
However, that's part of the point people are very blatantly missing. To an gamer pre-alpha, alpha, etc doesn't mean a whole lot and they may think those can be shifted about a bunch, but those terms actually have quite a lot of meaning and they are tethered to the internal milestones that we have to hit on projects in order to progress to the next stage of development.
Being locked in pre-alpha means as you suggested, the toolkit for developing the game and the core mechanics are not implemented yet. In simple terms, if you tried launching the game in a pre-aplha state then traditionally you'd find you, well, have no game to launch. Instead you have a half-finished engine that can launch itself into nothing with a command console for reading our errors and logging tools. Everything else is organized into an asset library awaiting the toolkit to be finished so we can start converting them into in-game assets.
Alpha state is generally several milestones in after the toolkit has been setup and the pipeline for implementing content is in place so that we can actually start in on creating and implementing the game rules on top of the engine.
Exiting alpha generally is the point when the core game rules are in place and mostly modifications and tweaking is to take place. This is when the milestones shift over to beta progress (though beta has becomes a highly fudged state when talking about feature-complete).
etc
It's what Herase and Craz fail to understand. These aren't simply terms being thrown about randomly, there are implications to these terms and milestones that need to be completed to define a game as complete enough to progress, and if a developer can't get a project past pre-aplha state that generally means they are struggling with the toolkit and making the content pipeline work.
For example, the problems SOE faced in trying to bridge the storybrick AI, voxel engine, and forgelight together.
Considering how ambitious a project SC is, it's not unsurprising if they are running headlong into problems in completing the toolkits, engine, etc and getting a good content pipeline together. This isn't a comment damning them in the least, but a point to be made that the breakdown of what state of progress they are in actually has quite a lot of meaning.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Nothing about transparency in project management leads directly to witch hunts, as you say. Transparency in project management, specifically when the money being used isn't the money of the project managers themselves, does not have a general track record of leading to witch hunts that derail progress on the project.
The closest you could make to an argument for that notion is D.C. politics.... But even there, transparency isn't the issue so much as party lines are (which is a huge crapshoot that isn't applicable here).
Not true. I run my group with with a team values statement including transparency and accountability (as well as teamwork, innovation, integrity, communication, and passion). That being said, complete transparency is not an option. If I was completely transparent with my group, I would be fired. Generally speaking, they don't have insight at the same level that I do, and shouldn't. Therefore, by giving them all information that I'm privy to is actually counter-productive. Similarly, I will not always share the reasoning behind me making certain decisions, again, because they don't have visibility to the same information I do. Sorry, but that's management 101 stuff. Shit! That's parenting 101 stuff. Children shouldn't have insight into parental concerns. The Internet shouldn't have insight into business concerns. The reasons are very similar.
No one is asking for "complete transparency." Accountants are adept at finding a balance regarding how much disclosure should be provided to satisfy the masses. That "is" Management 101. It is what they get paid for. A company or entity that adopts a policy of providing no disclosure at all, when the extent of their financial backing is %100 dependent on public funding, is a poorly managed amateur company and not deserving of a 130+ million dollars of public funding. No one anticipated that amount of money to be provided from a crowd funding venture. The future of crowd funding ventures in MMORPGs is pretty much hinging on how this all plays out. Rest assured the powers that be are watching. This is very much on their radar.
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
"Private" is the key word to your entire argument. That may go over some people's heads, but it's a very important word to me.
Crowd funding is a game-changer; it's either a fad or a progression in the world of business that legislation has not yet caught up with. Once you mix in crowd funding, the private / public division becomes at least somewhat porous.
How do you reconcile your staunch belief that 'the internet at large' will misinterpret an independently audited balance sheet with the fact that public companies doing only a fraction of CIG's volume are required to publish their financials openly online? Performing analyses on publicly available 10-K forms, measuring the financial 'health' of a given organization, was a big part of what I did in earning my advanced degree.
Theres plenty of evidence from SC alone. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it. I am a numbers guy. I do risk analysis regularly. What I'm saying is that I can't blame CIG for not. If there is legislation requiring it, great. However, I don't see the value in CIG opening their books voluntarily given the climate. Do you?
"Value" is a loaded term. I've come to peace with the fact that CIG doesn't have to disclose and they aren't going to, although I do wonder why they continue to report the overall dollar amount they've raised (even if 'it's what the community wants'); colloquially, I call this being a tease. As you have noted, it's been used as ammunition.
I am against making people feel like asking for public, detailed financials is an idiotic request, especially when certain companies do it all the time and there's a very good reason things like form 10-K exist.
Sure, right now, CIG doesn't fall into that category, but I'm not sure the case is so clear-cut. You can bet the FTC are watching, as they've gone after much smaller fish.
Whether or not it would be a good thing to disclose in CIG's case I can't say, although I do think it's an interesting question as it broadly applies to crowdfunding.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Had a check and it seems they no longer regards to it as pre-alpha. "The game is currently in alpha version. It will be constantly expanded as we move toward the completed game."
Personally I would call it a pre-Alpha version.
It is certainly not a feature complete Alpha yet IMHO.
Have fun
I don't know, I feel that phrase is a bit silly. It seems about as weird as trying to sell eggs as "Pre-Chickens".
I think my personal description of what SC currently has is a tech demo. Ergo "This is what the technology of the game will look like, but nothing near what the complete project will look like." Meh call it what you like.
But that's simply not true, we do know what it looks like. We have entire solar systems built, with planets, stations, arrays, repair stations....ect...ect
Are you sure you're following the right thread because you don't seem to know anything at all about SC.
Had a check and it seems they no longer regards to it as pre-alpha. "The game is currently in alpha version. It will be constantly expanded as we move toward the completed game."
Personally I would call it a pre-Alpha version.
It is certainly not a feature complete Alpha yet IMHO.
Have fun
I don't know, I feel that phrase is a bit silly. It seems about as weird as trying to sell eggs as "Pre-Chickens".
I think my personal description of what SC currently has is a tech demo. Ergo "This is what the technology of the game will look like, but nothing near what the complete project will look like." Meh call it what you like.
But that's simply not true, we do know what it looks like. We have entire solar systems built, with planets, stations, arrays, repair stations....ect...ect
Are you sure you're following the right thread because you don't seem to know anything at all about SC.
Can you visit all 100 systems(think it's 100) that CIG has promised? Are you able to land in all of them and explore every single station that is supposed to exist and the cities as well?
Had a check and it seems they no longer regards to it as pre-alpha. "The game is currently in alpha version. It will be constantly expanded as we move toward the completed game."
Personally I would call it a pre-Alpha version.
It is certainly not a feature complete Alpha yet IMHO.
Have fun
I don't know, I feel that phrase is a bit silly. It seems about as weird as trying to sell eggs as "Pre-Chickens".
I think my personal description of what SC currently has is a tech demo. Ergo "This is what the technology of the game will look like, but nothing near what the complete project will look like." Meh call it what you like.
But that's simply not true, we do know what it looks like. We have entire solar systems built, with planets, stations, arrays, repair stations....ect...ect
Are you sure you're following the right thread because you don't seem to know anything at all about SC.
Can you visit all 100 systems(think it's 100) that CIG has promised? Are you able to land in all of them and explore every single station that is supposed to exist and the cities as well?
if you can't then MisterZebub statement is true
Why would you think you visit all the systems in a game that isn't finished? [mod edit]
Had a check and it seems they no longer regards to it as pre-alpha. "The game is currently in alpha version. It will be constantly expanded as we move toward the completed game."
Personally I would call it a pre-Alpha version.
It is certainly not a feature complete Alpha yet IMHO.
Have fun
I don't know, I feel that phrase is a bit silly. It seems about as weird as trying to sell eggs as "Pre-Chickens".
I think my personal description of what SC currently has is a tech demo. Ergo "This is what the technology of the game will look like, but nothing near what the complete project will look like." Meh call it what you like.
But that's simply not true, we do know what it looks like. We have entire solar systems built, with planets, stations, arrays, repair stations....ect...ect
Are you sure you're following the right thread because you don't seem to know anything at all about SC.
Can you visit all 100 systems(think it's 100) that CIG has promised? Are you able to land in all of them and explore every single station that is supposed to exist and the cities as well?
if you can't then MisterZebub statement is true
oh my god I'm laughing my ass off right now!
Hey I know... why cant I drive my car that isnt built yet? LOLOL!!!!!
I think you watched a different video, because it clearly said, there is nothing wrong with sharing your criticism, be it negative or positive, but there is a problem with those who go above and beyond, those who make it their goal to smear and drag the game down.
If you see yourself as a critic then thread isn't about you, continuing criticizing the game be it negative or positive, this video shouldn't offend you in anyway, that's unless you see yourself as someone the Ops video mentions?
But then the video clearly makes it look like any form of criticism is baseless trolling. Then debunks the criticism with invalid arguments.
I'm sorry you felt that way. What I took out of it is what I've seen time and time again here, which is people going outside what would normally be considered logical thinking. Things like dwelling on a door, a coffee machine, a painting. Things like outlandish claims of money laundering, mass speculation about working conditions, claims of malfeasance.
If people want to talk about things like technical challenges, I think there could be some interesting debate, but that's rarely the central theme to most/any of these threads.
But to make a video saying how stupidly harsh some people are towards this game. Then to deny all criticism just shows he is the opposite. Yes he said there is nothing wrong with sharing critism but then made a video and didn't name one valid criticism without debunking it.
I thought he actually did. I think it was a very quick, though, and they were criticisms which were already resolved. I think could have sworn there were one or two, though.
He did, he pointed out selling so many ships can be seen as money grab and the other is that there are so many goals made, can they all really be achieved? Many of these points have been brought up numerous times and are fair questions, then he goes on to say, but there are people who go beyond asking such questions. People who, with out fail, find and use what ever information they can to discredit the project. which at that point stops being criticism. This is the point he makes in the video
which brings up a disturbing question:
If Donator A is pleased with his ship and the price he paid for it, does Donator B have the right to tell him that he should feel otherwise and perhaps get a forced refund or something? no
Its something I have seen specifically around KS and Early Access projects. There is a set of people who want to dictate to others what they should and should not be spending their money on even if they are pleased with how they are spending it. Most of these people dont even spend money on KS or early acceess but some do. regardless of that point I makes me think of people who want to dictate what you can and can not buy even when it doesnt affect health and safety.
i find that creepy but to be fair to them I think the deep subconcious reason they do it is because the changes in the industry scare them because they do not understand them and they do not understand how else to react
That and/or the very real possibility that some of the doom-saying against crowd funding is being intentionally manufactured by big publishers who see their stranglehold on the industry slipping away.
Dude if someone is hiring trolls then where's my freakin money?
"and cutting off communication is what needs to happen and people who want to jerk off to 'communication simulator' should just find a different project to follow and not donate to"
This is ridiculous but also ironic, as it represents the type of gamer I would hope never gets involved in crowdfunding projects and would just wait for release (ie just find a different project to follow and not donate). This along with those wanting to see 'hard deadlines' adhered to. Crowdfunding definitely isn't for everyone.
As someone who remembers the dismal time period when corporate publishers were the sole gate keepers of game development, rushing releases before the developers were ready, etc I love the fact that crowdfunding allows indie developers the time they need to realize their vision without those corporate shackles. I also appreciate the transparency SC gives us backers because I've been burned when communication went from sporadic to completely black until the devs pulled the plug and went on to sell the unfinish game anyway (Spacebase DF9). Transparency is huge as far as my confidence level goes with crowdfunding projects.
Though I agree with the basic premise of your post, your use of the word "transparency" does not ring true as it applies to CIG/Roberts. "Transparency" and accountability, and the lack thereof, is what all the recent hoopla surround CIG/Roberts is all about. The primary reason for most of the increasing criticism of CIG/Roberts is due to the deterioration of confidence due to their lack of transparency.
That said, I do agree it to be a ridiculous notion to suggest that cutting off all communications for up to a year is the proper way to go. If this were a privately financed venture then I would agree with that tactic. This is, however, a crowd funded project that relies heavily on voluntary public financing to accomplish its goals. The only way to manage such a venture and continue to gain support and financing is to communicate with your supporters on a regular and steady basis. CIG has done well in that regard as is evident by their record setting crowd funding effort. As a matter of fact, communication as it pertains to the development of the game is the one aspect of their development process that they should not tamper with or change. It is fundamentally the only thing they really have going for them at this point.
Actually, as far as I can tell, the primary reason for most of the drama surrounding CIG/CR in recent months is rooted in Derek Smart's thinly veiled sabotage attempts of manipulating the [sarcasm] awesomely fantastic and objective gaming "journalism" sites[ /sarcasm] who were more than happy to oblige a guy who is little more than a scammer masquerading as a failed game developer. Thanks to the chicken little effect, that sabotage attempt has snowballed and that's why I really appreciate the video posted in the OP. So much of it is spot on.
From what I've seen as far as Let's Play vids and other SC footage, I'm very pleased at the progress thus far. I also know that CR is not the only founder of CIG, he also has a very business savvy European lawyer who co-founded CIG with him. When they open satellite development branches all over the world, they do so carefully and select the countries that will give them more bang for the buck with subsidies. I haven't seen anything yet that makes me start to worry that the money from pledges is being mismanaged. And I'm not saying some of the criticisms aren't warranted, I just think that most of the 'hoopla' is a bunch of stuff and nonsense from people whose focus on CIG is more than a little unhealthy and most likely due to other issues that have nothing to do with Star Citizen.
It's all about spreading lies and misconceptions disguised as "absolute truths" lol , when you really look into them there is nothing there except a hate campaign.
It's all about spreading lies and misconceptions disguised as "absolute truths" lol , when you really look into them there is nothing there except a hate campaign.
There are many shades of grey in all of this but people looking to protect what they believe in choose to solely focus on the most infantiile arguments as a method of sweeping all complaints under the same rug.
As per usual in this type of thing, 2 sides of the same coin.
It's all about spreading lies and misconceptions disguised as "absolute truths" lol , when you really look into them there is nothing there except a hate campaign.
There are many shades of grey in all of this but people looking to protect what they believe in choose to solely focus on the most infantiile arguments as a method of sweeping all complaints under the same rug.
As per usual in this type of thing, 2 sides of the same coin.
Approximately fifty shades. Both sides make gratuitous use of straw men and suffer the extremes of confirmation bias. The people so staunchly defending SC and attacking naysayers in this thread are no better than the so called "obsessive Star Citizen critics".
Approximately fifty shades. Both sides make gratuitous use of straw men and suffer the extremes of confirmation bias. The people so staunchly defending SC and attacking naysayers in this thread are no better than the so called "obsessive Star Citizen critics".
Well, those in favor of Star Citizen usually do not wish those who are against Star Citizen to die in a fire. Maybe thats the difference between interested backers and (some) obsessive Star Citizen critics ?
It's all about spreading lies and misconceptions disguised as "absolute truths" lol , when you really look into them there is nothing there except a hate campaign.
There are many shades of grey in all of this but people looking to protect what they believe in choose to solely focus on the most infantiile arguments as a method of sweeping all complaints under the same rug.
As per usual in this type of thing, 2 sides of the same coin.
Approximately fifty shades. Both sides make gratuitous use of straw men and suffer the extremes of confirmation bias. The people so staunchly defending SC and attacking naysayers in this thread are no better than the so called "obsessive Star Citizen critics".
The thing is that many of the haters here are not backers hence they have no personal experience with SC. They just reproduce rumors and in many cases portrait their own wishful thinking. Contrary to many of us fans - backers who play the alphas, visit CIG forums, watch the many developer reports etc..
Comments
That's the whole point. ACCOUNTANTS. Your assuming that the people of the Internet are adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers. That's usually not the case. If you're feeling like a fun and interesting example, just google "WoW is dying" and read through each of the hundreds of reasons why it's dying from a lack of subs to a new game that's going to kill it, yada yada.
CIG is showing you how much money they are making from backers, on a monthly and daily basis even. That's more disclosure that the vast majority of privately-held companies and/or privately-funding crowd sourcing campaigns.
To address your other concerns. Accountants do NOT get paid to dumb down information to provide to the public. Your assertion of complete non-disclosure is completely unwarranted and baseless (see previous paragraph). If you disagree, please enlighten us as to which private companies disclose their company earnings to anyone with a web browser. The fact this tiny bit of transparency is used continually as ammunition against the game, it doesn't really promote transparency as a good practice.
Finally, yes, I agree, there are people watching, as they should be. I would also acknowledge that there could be major changes to the way crowdfunding operates should SC fail. I would agree with you on that.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Investors, in general, require transparency in where their funds are being spent. No one said the investors require itemized statements including things such as "K-Cups for office Keurig - $15." They do require enough information to know the money is being spent on task and in the manner that was agreed upon when the money was given.
The only people who would take out their torches and pitchforks over this kind of transparency already have them out. To act as if giving your backers such a yearly breakdown of categorical expenses would result in more pitchforks and torches is the slippery slope I mentioned. Sure, Smart and company would do their sabre-rattling, but reputable gaming media sites would also chime in with a much more unbiased analysis of those numbers based on the information gleaned from the backer reports relative to general industry practices.
Contrary to the overarching belief in certain circles of the internet, the gaming industry, by and large, have no idea who Derek Smart is, nor do they have any reason to take time out of their days to search out his rantings on Star Citizen. The only way this level of transparency would begin to take hold with the general gaming public and, as such, negatively affect the development process, would be if such an expense report seemed amiss by the general gaming media (reputable sites such as Game Informer or IGN, for example). Without their stamp of disapproval, Smart's fuss would reach no further than it has already.
EDIT - By gaming industry in my last paragraph, I meant not only those who work in the industry, but the consumers. I should've said the "general gaming public."
EDIT2 - And, also, our very own MMORPG.com for reputable gaming sites. I neglected to include it originally due to the fear that the discussion might be derailed over "reputable," but, damn it, MMORPG.com is as reputable as they come, in my opinion. /flamesuiton
You are making too many assumptions.
No one is asking CIG to hire accountants to "dumb down information." That would be counter-productive to what accountants actually do. The trick is to release something akin to satisfactory disclosure, not to totally ignore it. We all know that the disclosure of information by accountants is always a smoke and mirrors game meant to satisfy those "in the know," not the "people of the internet who arent adept enough to interpret the most simple of numbers."
Crowd funding is a game-changer; it's either a fad or a progression in the world of business that legislation has not yet caught up with. Once you mix in crowd funding, the private / public division becomes at least somewhat porous.
How do you reconcile your staunch belief that 'the internet at large' will misinterpret an independently audited balance sheet with the fact that public companies doing only a fraction of CIG's volume are required to publish their financials openly online?
Performing analyses on publicly available 10-K forms, measuring the financial 'health' of a given organization, was a big part of what I did in earning my advanced degree.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
The accountants are there to report all their spending to the state and feds, not to hide anything.
You accuse him of making assumptions then go about making a huge one yourself.
Where does that begin to make sense??
With great power comes great responsibility, sir.
Your premise falls flat on its face with the "assumption" that CIG has already provided disclosure. They haven't. That is fact. It's not just due to "my brand of disclosure." What do you think all of this hoopla is about?
Theres plenty of evidence from SC alone. I'm not saying I'm opposed to it. I am a numbers guy. I do risk analysis regularly. What I'm saying is that I can't blame CIG for not. If there is legislation requiring it, great. However, I don't see the value in CIG opening their books voluntarily given the climate. Do you?
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Using Firefall as a reference, the first two years of the game's design was hellishly slow because the content pipeline was not in place. It was only after we were able to finish assembling the internal toolkits and get a clean process for designing, converting, and implementing content that development took off in the third year.
However, that's part of the point people are very blatantly missing. To an gamer pre-alpha, alpha, etc doesn't mean a whole lot and they may think those can be shifted about a bunch, but those terms actually have quite a lot of meaning and they are tethered to the internal milestones that we have to hit on projects in order to progress to the next stage of development.
Being locked in pre-alpha means as you suggested, the toolkit for developing the game and the core mechanics are not implemented yet. In simple terms, if you tried launching the game in a pre-aplha state then traditionally you'd find you, well, have no game to launch. Instead you have a half-finished engine that can launch itself into nothing with a command console for reading our errors and logging tools. Everything else is organized into an asset library awaiting the toolkit to be finished so we can start converting them into in-game assets.
Alpha state is generally several milestones in after the toolkit has been setup and the pipeline for implementing content is in place so that we can actually start in on creating and implementing the game rules on top of the engine.
Exiting alpha generally is the point when the core game rules are in place and mostly modifications and tweaking is to take place. This is when the milestones shift over to beta progress (though beta has becomes a highly fudged state when talking about feature-complete).
etc
It's what Herase and Craz fail to understand. These aren't simply terms being thrown about randomly, there are implications to these terms and milestones that need to be completed to define a game as complete enough to progress, and if a developer can't get a project past pre-aplha state that generally means they are struggling with the toolkit and making the content pipeline work.
For example, the problems SOE faced in trying to bridge the storybrick AI, voxel engine, and forgelight together.
Considering how ambitious a project SC is, it's not unsurprising if they are running headlong into problems in completing the toolkits, engine, etc and getting a good content pipeline together. This isn't a comment damning them in the least, but a point to be made that the breakdown of what state of progress they are in actually has quite a lot of meaning.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I am against making people feel like asking for public, detailed financials is an idiotic request, especially when certain companies do it all the time and there's a very good reason things like form 10-K exist.
Sure, right now, CIG doesn't fall into that category, but I'm not sure the case is so clear-cut. You can bet the FTC are watching, as they've gone after much smaller fish.
Whether or not it would be a good thing to disclose in CIG's case I can't say, although I do think it's an interesting question as it broadly applies to crowdfunding.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
We have entire solar systems built, with planets, stations, arrays, repair stations....ect...ect
Are you sure you're following the right thread because you don't seem to know anything at all about SC.
if you can't then MisterZebub statement is true
[mod edit]
Even funnier ... why would you pay for it before it is even built ... with no clue in sight as to whether it will ever be finished being built at all.
I'll spare you the silly LOL's.
From what I've seen as far as Let's Play vids and other SC footage, I'm very pleased at the progress thus far. I also know that CR is not the only founder of CIG, he also has a very business savvy European lawyer who co-founded CIG with him. When they open satellite development branches all over the world, they do so carefully and select the countries that will give them more bang for the buck with subsidies. I haven't seen anything yet that makes me start to worry that the money from pledges is being mismanaged. And I'm not saying some of the criticisms aren't warranted, I just think that most of the 'hoopla' is a bunch of stuff and nonsense from people whose focus on CIG is more than a little unhealthy and most likely due to other issues that have nothing to do with Star Citizen.
There are many shades of grey in all of this but people looking to protect what they believe in choose to solely focus on the most infantiile arguments as a method of sweeping all complaints under the same rug.
As per usual in this type of thing, 2 sides of the same coin.
Maybe thats the difference between interested backers and (some) obsessive Star Citizen critics ?
Have fun