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money grab machine
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What people did not realize is that the continuity of the funding is not related to anything different than just to acquire a money that the CIG team still does not have.
They use those counters of "Space Sim Fans" and money as ways to boost more sales, for hype purposes, to call attention, so people trust more that the project will be completed, since you could not trust if the project had less money.
They started this approach long ago, since the beginning of the campaign. It was simple to notice that first, many pledgers created hundreds, thousands of multiple accounts just for hype purposes, and probably , even the developers did that, to raise the trust on people that the project would be successful.
Most of fans "pretend" that do not know that, but yes, mainly the first backers knows that. The reaction of the moderation, Staff, against everyone who notice that, by punishing them, putting them out of their forums immediately is another evidence. The Kickstarter campaign had serious difficulties to raise 2 million dollars (Kickstarter is independent and they keep an auditory of the numbers so they get their part), while in the CIG page it was the double, even with crashes in the website in the first days.
They continue to get money only in they website. They manipulate even polls, for exemple, they create a "poll" to people choose if they want to keep the counters. Obviously, they wanted to keep the counter and manipulated that, creating a hype so people wanted to continue with that.
They did not acquire THAT MONEY, but this approach worked to acquire MORE MONEY anyway, so they kept the approach.
Recently, when they released the Hangar, they started to release patch, and such patches came with the number of people who download it. Now, you people possibly know who hungry the pledgers are to at least to download and try to install such thing. But, in the patch notes, after the third week, while the counter shown almost 200.000 Space Sim Fans in the website, less than 50.000 downloaded the Hangar.
I testify a thread opened raising this question in their Forums and it was deleted in seconds. That told me something. Then, I notice that between one week and other (new patches) only 10.000 more downloads, but during the Wingman"s Hangar that week, Eric said that they got more 50.000 new pledgers. That was what revealed how they are not telling the true here. How possibly 50.000 new pledgers would buy the copy of the game and would not have even tried to download the hangar? Just 10.000 including the old ones too? That did not make any sense. And when threads in the forums were opened, they were deleted very quickly.
And... The worst thing happened to prove how they were not telling the true. Next week, they REMOVED the information of number of downloads of the Patch Notes. Clearly it has been used by the build team to check the number of downloads, but due some lack of communication with the marketing team, happened this leak.
But they were very quick to remove that and the fans in attacking everyone who raised questions, until a point were the moderators came and banned such people.
When some threads were opened to ask CIG to prove such numbers, it also was like an heresy in their forums. Of course. Because the fans are pretty aware that all those numbers are not true, since they helped to build the hype. CIG Staff, one time, also send me an email saying that could not evaluate a problem that I had in the forums, because they had to deal with a X number of fans, where this X number was exactly what the counters was displaying that time. An actual lie, that I received in an email from the Staff team, because the things about people creating multiple accounts were already know. Who lies in that, lies in everything, and for those who pay attention, they let a lot of leaks.
They also are not reliable in more things. For example, they say that you can go to their forums and "say what you want to say". Used that in their advertising and continue to use. But if you go there, you have limits. You can't raise too much critics there, because you will be banned. Moderators like, one of the most famous: Toast, already quoted "that people is not capable to give feedback to the dev team" and called those who bring crticicism of "legion". Ben Lesnick, the Community Manager, said that the forums are a privilege and exercise threats with a hammer all the time, trying to limit the feedback's of people there. They put that in their advertisign, as one of the biggest advantages to pledge ealier, to participate of the development, ask questions to devs and so on, through the forums, but they remove your right without any further notice, without explanation, just because "they did not like your opinions" and they send public alerts for those who give feedback that they do not like or do not approve, I mean, feedback which show some mistakes made, mainly when it is a mistake made by their marketing and community management.
In other words, it is very clear that they are doing a great effort to build the game, but it is also clear that they are not telling the true about numbers and doing whatever they can to grab money of the fans that they have, which probably would be today between 50.000 or 70.000 people, instead those overhyped numbers.
By the way, a funny thing to see, was they telling some nice story about additional servers adding more slots for the Alpha. That was fun, since that actual reason, was they still were far of a number that they would like to have in their Alpha, but as the counter of the Alpha was almost done, they had to tell some fairy tale.
Star Citizen marketing is basically a fairy tale, with some people that knows but pretend that does not know, and other just eluded, and those who notice, and start to give some feedback that they should use another approach, and this was not necessary, they are quick to create some scenario in their forums to kick the person out.
The CIG forums have the reputation, actually it is not a reputation, it is a fact (they even created more rules to remove the right of people), to do not allow feedback, except if it is a good feedback. IF you raise any concern or start to point mistakes with the objective of "lessons to learn" to the dev team, they create a scenario where they say that "you are flaming them" and "creating controversial topics is not allowed". They say that their forums are a privilege, but use it all the time in their advertising, to convince people to pledge now, "to participate of the development through the forums".
"If you want to say something, say it" never was respected there.
They are just deceivers which tell something before you pledge, and then, when you pledge, the history is totally different.
Their communication is really bad. They raise a lot of promotions showing a severe lack of capacity of how to communicate. A PR Student would make it better, but what people could expect coming from a teacher that is having his first experience in the industry, but assuming important roles as Community Manager, leading with communication and design. It's too much for a guy that knows less than a PR Trainee.
Also, what we could expect from an actress/model/secretary becoming VP of Marketing.
These are the reasons that they communication is bad and their marketing is very poor and focused in to deceive people. They are making "more money" in their minds, but as amateurs, they do not bother to evaluate future impacts in their image. Maybe because they are not worried in their image? Maybe because their intention is just to get a lot of money, release the game and you know, maintaining the PU maybe for 1 or 2 years and shutting down with some excuse like "The Publishers paid the press to say bad words" and things like that, "But we give you the Private Servers". Sounds like a good excuse to leave with a lot of profit and still keep their fan base for some future initiative to grab money again.
The own investiment that they DO NOT make in marketing and communication area, overloading these trainees, that are far to be professionals of the area, are actual proof that it seems that their intention is not the long term. They prefer to hold the money, obvisously for profit, while they elude their fans that "tt is for more features". Even with more members raising concerns about communication and marketing, they continue to repeat the mistakes again and again, and not doing anything to solve. It soudns pretty obvious why.
They even use excuses like "it would cost millions" when actually would be just necessary to change some people from some roles and putting one or two more capable persons for the task. But of course, their focus on profit is so big, that they do not care, even because they are getting more money of their big fans, and they do not care in bringing more people, because it seems that they do not care with the future in long term. Probably they already know that they won't have future, but are getting money so the effort to release be rewarded to them. And the fans you know... They release the Private Servers so "they do not be abandoned".
Time for sarcasm,
1) Sandi Gardener has a Masters degree in Business and Marketing....so she shouldn't be a VP of Marketing.
2) You have a thing for the word *profit*. A company that has 3-4 studios, contracting work out to other studios, a work force of 200-300 people and you think they are making a profit on $27 million? played GTA5 lately?
3) You treat CiG as a single body who's soul purpose is to make profit and do evil things. I guess the dozens of employee interviews are all lies. Nobody likes being there. Their only interest is making profit, not a game.
4) Private servers, what good are they...you might be right that private servers are there just so they can shutdown their PU servers 1-2 years after release. Wouldn't it be better to not have private servers, so let's screw the mod community and have only the PU running 15+ years!
...and making you look like one foolish little person.
The internet is chock-full of experts and people with "secret knowledge", "inside info" and the "REAL truth" !
it's all very entertaining, even though it does get a bit tedious at times.
True but you can't let them go rampant. I don't pretend to have secret knowledge, inside info or truth. I only have sources to the words coming out of the mouths of those being accused and you can either choose to believe them or not.
Despite what the naysayers say; many genres are stagnant right now; espcially the mmo market. Hence why people are litterally throwing money to developers whom pledge the world to them. People started to catch on when huge game studios and their titles were doing it over the past 7 years ie; Aoc, WHO,APB, Mortal online, SW:Tor, DCUO... the list goes on and on. BUT WAIT CROWD FUNDING! This new concept of giving our money to a man who has the same wild feature lists and has promised us he can do it. Crowd funding is our savior! Except the same thing will most likely happen. The game will be half assed and missing features/content that was promised to us, with the developers ensuring us that it will come out a month or two after launch. Like most mmo it never will.
Don't get me wrong; I want the next huge, best game, but I've become skeptical over the years from the buttfucking i've received by Indie and AAA companies rehashing the same old trash, failing on promises, and releasing shoddy games;appealing to the casual mainstream players; instead of those whom made their IPs money. I will gladly put my foot in my mouth if this does truely turn out to be an inter-"stellar" game, but until then I, and many others will voice our concerns, skepticism and general hatred towards what mmos/mmorpgs have become.
In case you have not been noticing all the "trolls" as many fanbois have been putting it over the years have been spot on with their doom and gloom predicitons. Its always too late when the fanbois realise that those people complaining about the game in beta and after launch were right. We have become a cynical lot from all the failures we;ve endured over the years and quite frankly during this day and age; for the most part what we want in an mmorpg(or various other player types, like Pvers) should be fully capable of being replicated. Hell older games/mmorpgs have had more depth and interaction than alot of modern mmorpgs, yet the developers can't see why we are mad when their flashy graphics, grind treadmill and half-assed products don't keep us entertained.
-------------To recap yes, everyone wants a great game to be made, however for the most part veteran players are cynical and we are tired of being shit on. May mmorpgs start veering away from the WoW mold and start becoming unique, engaging and whole heartily a great experiece like they once were. Just be weary just because its crowd funded; it doesn't guarentee the game will be good. We all hope CIGC can pull it off for the greater good of the genre both mmo and spacesim.
MurderHerd
Give this man a cookie!
Is the MMO market really stagnant? There's been a lot of new games over the past few years, and several of them are going pretty far off the beaten path forged by WoW and its clones.
I've only played a few of them (who has time for multiple MMOs?) but I like the direction the genre is heading. Aion was basically WoW mechanics polished to a high sheen. TERA was a good attempt at making an MMO actually fun to play (even though the game failed at pretty much everything else outside of combat and fanservice), while I like the direction GW2 took things, discarding a lot of the concepts I previously found so frustrating in MMOs. I'm also quite interested in the new Everquest, which offers a great deal of promise. And that's before we get to Star Citizen itself. And I have a friend who's head over heels for Mabinogi. I wouldn't touch that MMO with a ten foot pole, but it offers a completely different approach to the genre again, focusing on out of combat interactions, and allowing him to build a (very unhealthy IMO) complete second life online, complete with home, family, wife and kids.
So I don't see the modern MMO player lacking for choice. Star Citizen is certainly part of what I would consider that positive direction. Not because it's crowdfunded, but because it's getting away from the mainstream of fantasy MMOs, and taking an approach based on immersion. It may work, it may not, but when it's done at the very least it'll offer us another choice in a growing market.
Ah yes the old, 'there are bad people who promise much and want my money and then there are, 'good' people who only want my money because there making the best game ever!!!!!', argument.
There was a time when developers made games based off capital from investors...then, and here's the crazy part, when it was finished I bought it, or not depending on how the final product turned out!!!
Nuts I know.....
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
+1 I find it hilarious when people stoop so low as to try and compare what CIG has done to anything else on the market. The only thing other companies have done is chase the money. They haven't bothered to notice that there is a formula to chasing that money that works and one that doesn't. SOE proved that again today when they doubled down on stupid with EQNL. Cash grab? Call Smedley...
Ah yes the old, 'there are bad people who promise much and want my money and then there are, 'good' people who only want my money because there making the best game ever!!!!!', argument.
There was a time when developers made games based off capital from investors...then, and here's the crazy part, when it was finished I bought it, or not depending on how the final product turned out!!!
Nuts I know.....
There sure where ppl laughing at the guy who invented the wheel, now it is common. Just because you don't understand it, dosn't make it per se evil.
And what bothers me is the fact that these mmo dev's are asking for money in the first place. I don't know why it doesn't bother more people. I guess its the time we live in. Promise to make an mmo if you give me money first. All these games in beta taking money from players. I guess its the new way.
I really want to put some money into this game, but not until there is something more than a little hangar tech demo, once they have something playable that people can play I will literally be the first one to drop 100USD on it to play.
Until then my approach as with other MMOs is wait and see, I will let others put their hard earned cash into it, if in the end this is what I hoped it would be great! If not no loss, I really dont see anything bad with them taking money in advance, in this day and age I think people already know that they are taking a risk with putting their money on a promise and it is their decision to do so.
That in itself isnt really something new. Handing out cash based on trust is kind of a standard operation.
Whats missing here is a way to get something back if the product turns out not being what you want. After all you get nothing beside the ability to play whatever they create at the end. If you fund the creation you should be able to get hold of art assets / music / code / ... . That's the stuff that would make funding a project even in case of failure interesting.
Sadly it probably will never get offered as most customers seem just want to pay to play.
Pi*1337/100 = 42
i do think star citizen sounds amazing but i've not put a single penny into it.
mainly because what they promise appears to be way and beyond what they will achieve
their will be so many disappointed players come launch day who will have invested hundreds if not thousands of pounds
only to be let down in 2 years time
and if the game turns out to be good i will purchase it but not till it comes out
sadly this sale was a cash grab they clearly have enough money to build the game they want and the money they have received is so much more than they could have possibly ever of expected
if they really wanted to thank you all for your support then why not give you all another free ship as that would have been a thank you
Kain_Dale
there is no item mall don't know why it was changed to that at all and there is NO PAY TYPE. All items that will be in the item shop won't have any effect on the game, given they will be fluff stuff and that's all. Everything else is in the game.
it's a buy 2 play game. Also the OP of this thread is a troll on the forums for SC.
Erm. SC was designed from the very beginning to be a AAA game. Neither of those were. AAA games often have development cycles of up to 4-5 years or more. SC was always going to take longer than either of those two. It is a much larger and more ambitious project.
It's the "new way" because a lot of indie and smaller game companies have realized that can do it without publishers. One of the main points of SC is Chris Roberts proving that a community can come together and fund a game from scratch. I don't see what the big deal is. CIG has been very transparent with the entire development process, we've seen everything step-by-step with huge mountains of info and communication.
You're right that it's a relatively new thing, but I see nothing wrong with it. You just have to be careful where you put your trust and show some restraint, just like you'd have to with any other game.
When there is a game, it might get my money.
Until then, all the promises and hot air and hype are worth exactly nothing.
Maybe I'm getting old, but I prefer to pay for something when I get it.
Remember when the hype machines would run rampant and an actual game would arrive and everyone would buy it then realize how wrong or right they were, like SWTOR, some people love it but the majority grew bored fast and moved on, flaming it to death on the way out.
At least the hype was free back then.
Now you have to pay for the hype, literally, with real money for a game that doesn't even exist, you have to pay to feel like your in the crowd, spend more money to feel like your keeping up.
The industry has looked upon us all and realized that the time to grab the cash is when they hype is high and our imaginations are running wild dreaming of what could be, what it'll be like, and how it's going to be the greatest game ever.
Then the game launches and all those dreams are crushed, but hey no problem they've already cashed in on all your hopes well before they were squashed.
If it turns out to be a great game I'll buy it then, but until then, i think I'll keep my money where it belongs. You know i can't even make a prediction on whether it'll be good or bad because "reality check here" THERE IS NO GAME, only a rampant hype machine.
Crazy thing here though is that this is almost entirely community driven hype.
No marketer in the world would even dare dream of actually be able to create something of this proportion.
30 million would be nowhere near what would be required to artificially make that happen.
People who think RSI has somehow masterminded this give them WAY to much credit.
All of sudden money started to get thrown at them, and no one would refuse to pick that up, no one!
Being, I think, 75 dollars into it I do not really care, if they deliver then awesome, if not then I am out 75 dollars, that will probably not make me go hungry, or even register.
But we needed at least one of these projects, because way to often do you here that if only an indie dev got AAA money we might see something incredible, now here it is, and if this fails?
At least now we will know, and the fallout from this if it crash and burn is not going to be pretty.
And lets not forget, they might be indie but they are very very far from unexperienced, these are gaming heavy weights.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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Look it's obvious this game will not be everyone's cup of tea but lets face it anyone in business who can make more money by selling assets will do so. So why the big deal they are probably the most successful kick starter program to date, though don't quote me on that as I cba to go and check. I'm as bad as the next person when it comes to paying for gaming I've been gaming online since the mid 80's and will no doubt be doing so into the mid whatever's and if more money means better return for game play then I'll keep pumping money into the system as it's my hobby.
As long as it does not do what X-Rebirth has done and fail miserably and rip off the customer base then that's all cool imo. They even have fans paying subscription for the game which is not even out yet and imo that's unheard of in this industry so you can bet your bottom dollar that they will get it right as they have the monthly income to back up and pay people wages to make this what I believe will be an EPIC game unheard of in the industry. I would even go so far to say it could be spaces answer to Wow omg I used that word and must now wash my mouth out with salty water...
Also talking about paying wages they can now afford to keep people in the gaming industry PAID in secure employment for 10 years how cool is that, can you imagine the talent they are bringing into this game. While other companies who are failing or failed are laying off staff left right and centre can only be a good thing for people with the skills I don't have to help makes games I want and will pay for...Up to now I am in SC @ $1405.00 and set my self a limit of £1500.00 so there you have it.
Game on!!!
Asbo
I agree, i played Wing Commander games and loved them, but the biggest heavy weights in the gaming industry, "Bioware" produced SWTOR. Below is not directed at you Umbrood
Yes i'm disappointed, because now the industry simply relies on carbon copy games and now literally is cashing in on your hype, dreams and hope. If we reach this stretch we'll add this or that, honestly the scope of this is well beyond any businesslike, down-to-earth, practical grounded foundation, but hey, lets dream up even more unrealistic goals and make more money. It's like forums gone wild of what could be, wouldn't it be cool if posts.
The fall out of this is going to be unparalleled, and no one gets their money back. lol
What bothers me the most is my son, whom has zero concept of money wants the $5000 dollar package, or he believes their is no point in playing the game. WHAT F'IN GAME??? LOL He's a kid so i completely understand the "falling for the hype" but they didn't make 34 million on kids i'm sure. That's the scary part.
All this is going to do is ruin the entire kick starter concept. Remember kick start is to "KICK" start the development, not make has-been's rich. Who knows maybe i'm so wrong it's not even funny, but what we have to wait a couple years to find out, lol.