Somehow I got rerouted to FraudInvestigatorsWithJobs.com 
This is an entertaining thread that really gets me thinking about other massive media-related investments. There's probably alot of this going on.
I disagree with the money-laundering interpretation. It simply isn't required to explain Star Citizen. Cowardice and venality will suffice.
Cowardice, because no one at a senior level on the project wants to admit that what was promised is undeliverable. Venality, because life-changing sums of money are being 'earned' by those same senior people, and they are willing to act in whatever way is required to remain on the gravy train.
And who can blame them? The money keeps rolling in no matter what is (or isn't) delivered each year. And - equally importantly - the companies earnings effectively insulate it from cycle of growth and retrenchment that normally bedevils the game development industry.
If I were a, say, 50 year-old developer earning $150,000 per year, I'd ride this horse until it collapsed underneath me...
I rather have a real boat/ car/ vacation house.
I disagree with the money-laundering interpretation. It simply isn't required to explain Star Citizen. Cowardice and venality will suffice.
Cowardice, because no one at a senior level on the project wants to admit that what was promised is undeliverable. Venality, because life-changing sums of money are being 'earned' by those same senior people, and they are willing to act in whatever way is required to remain on the gravy train.
And who can blame them? The money keeps rolling in no matter what is (or isn't) delivered each year. And - equally importantly - the companies earnings effectively insulate it from cycle of growth and retrenchment that normally bedevils the game development industry.
If I were a, say, 50 year-old developer earning $150,000 per year, I'd ride this horse until it collapsed underneath me...
Those aren't mutually exclusive. SC doesn't have to be directly involved in the laundering to benefit from it, they just have to continue not doing anything to prevent it, which is where the cowardice and venality comes in. Roberts knows the majority of the money isn't coming from people who care about playing the game he's making, but it allows him to continue buying mansions/boats/etc and working on his magnum opus, so he doesn't take any steps to stop it. The money laundering interpretation does an excellent job at explaining the large disparity between the huge amount of money they've raised vs the actual amount of player interest there is in their product.
The money keeps rolling in
And WHY does "the money keep rolling in" for a perpetually undelivered game in one of gaming's smallest genres? Why are users dumping unholy amount of money into the game, but then not playing it?
It's like if some underground noise rock artist suddenly had the highest selling album, but nobody was streaming them on Spotify and they were still playing to mostly empty rooms in small clubs.
detroit20 wrote:The money keeps rolling in
And WHY does "the money keep rolling in" for a perpetually undelivered game in one of gaming's smallest genres? Why are users dumping unholy amount of money into the game, but then not playing it?
It's like if some underground noise rock artist suddenly had the highest selling album, but nobody was streaming them on Spotify and they were still playing to mostly empty rooms in small clubs.
I think a better analogy to this is the underground noise rock artist suddenly having the highest selling album and buyers could only listen to part of the first song.
I think a better analogy to this is the underground noise rock artist suddenly having the highest selling album and buyers could only listen to part of the first song.
Is there actual proof that the 1100 employees are legit? Money Laundering is easily done if a sizable chunk of those employees are offshore outsourced resources. Say I need millions laundered. I first get all the necessary layers setup and have a “development shop” that gets a multi-million dollar contract to assist in the development of some aspect of SC. I then through other entities purchase and sizable amount of SC digital goods via a digital transaction. That money is eventually funneled back to me via my development shop that really may only actually employ a few real people if any at all.
This whole conversation reminds me of this:
This the money-laundering catch all, right?
This the money-laundwring catch all, right?
I just tuned into the Bruins game at the Drug Cartel Money Garden and was about to post that same article.
Edit - or as my wife just said “Maybe instead of the garden, it can be called the laundromat”.
At least $3B is a sizeable chunk (10%) of their annual revenue.
Also, something something Star Citizen.
12 Years and $700 Million Later, What’s Going on With Star Citizen’s Development?
Money laundering? 
This, though...
Earlier this year, CIG quietly laid off an estimated 100-150 staff members at its Austin and LA offices. The company had hoped the move would go under the radar because affected employees were told to sign Non-disclosure agreements, which prevented them from announcing their departure on social media. Former employees said those who refused to sign were told they would not get any form of severance.
That strikes me as not entirely legal. Or if it is legal, it shouldn't be.
12 Years and $700 Million Later, What’s Going on With Star Citizen’s Development?
According to sources who believe backers’ money could be spent much more efficiently, the coffee bar is just one example of CIG’s unnecessary spending habits. Spending tens of thousands of pounds on custom furniture and oversized props isn’t unusual, sources say, with management justifying its spending habits because it’s “pushing the boundaries of game development.”
Once again, this game is a SPACE SIM. Nobody but hardcore nerds play these. It will never have the audience of even a mediocre first-party Sony game. The money being dumped into this project (and lit on fire) and the actual audience size for the game do not match.
By the way, we're 4 days away from the 1-year anniversary of Squadron 42 being declared "feature complete". And it was 4 years ago this month that the Squadron 42 beta was supposed to release.
Bad management is much more banal but equally believable.
Chaps my hide that Chris Roberts gets away with this crap, but 38 Studios were given almost no slack. Kingdoms of Amalur had good bones.
Came here to post that article. I wonder what sort of nuggets could be gleaned from an audit of the contractors building out that custom Manchester office. That shot of the office wall made up as a spaceship interior and that coffee bar sounds.. Expensive. Who is cashing those checks?
I might have a wander past next time I'm in the city centre, see if I can find it.
CitizenCon Con is live today, currently running the prologue to Squadron 42. 90% cut scenes. It crashed once during an on rails turret gunning sequence and then again during a cut scene. Guess it's ready to launch!
More like Citizen… Con, amirite?
More like Citizen… Con, amirite?
as I said
CitizenCon Con is live today...
Now on to FPS gameplay sequence. Frame rate in space was generally smooth, but now in ship it is chunking.
Looked at the Star Citizen subreddit to see their reaction to that expose article claiming the game is an endlessly churning tech demo that's not making meaningful progress towards completion, and they dismissed it as false and "poorly researched".
Then looked at the posts of CitizenCon reveals, and saw them drooling over new tech demo features.
But we've got a new date for Squadron 42! The game that was "feature complete" this time last year is now once again 2 years away. Ironically, given that expose's reports on layoffs and other signs of funds drying up, I actually believe the 2026 release date. By which I mean, I believe a product named Squadron 42 will get farted out during the 2026 calendar year, with all the telltale signs that the actual game part of the game's development was done in a 9 month scramble prior to release. At which point, the focus of the Star Citizen subreddit will turn to discussing how great the game will be once it gets the No Man's Sky years of patching treatment.
You know I think this maybe the most fascinating thread on GWJ. From the pure excitement on page 1 all the way through the full biggest mismanagement of a game ever. I really hope there is a book about this game some day from a good journalist.
What I find strangest about Squadron 42, and the discussion around it, is how staggeringly out-of-date the entire concept feels.
The internet tells me that the game was initially announced in 2012 for release in 2014. At that time, the single-player military FPS genre was huge. Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honor were all robust franchises in the contemporary warfare space. Killzone and Resistance were seemed to be similarly strongly positioned in the future warfare space.
Fast-forward a decade and only Call of Duty remains. Battlefield 2042 is multiplayer only, I believe. The other 3 franchises have been dead since around the time Squadron 42 was announced. I cannot help wondering, therefore, who exactly this game is for. The most fervent Star Citizen devotees are themselves a decade older than they were when they first pumped pound coins into this fruit machine. Are they desperate to turn back the clock and single-player like it's 2012? or is there a large untapped market of young gamers keen to get their retro FPS on? I'm genuinely baffled.
Whenever this single player thing becomes playable I anticipate a huge influx of game streams of folks breaking the script in unexpected ways and the finely crafted 'experience' crashing face-first into a wall.
My favorite video game trope is "crisis freezes in time until an arbitrary threshold is passed."
Give a player agency and they'll spend the dramatic cut-scene in the bathroom trying to clip into a closed stall.
I'm here for it.
One further thought on Squadron 42: do we have any idea what the playtime of this game is going to be? if there was one weakness of the 'old' military shooters, it was the length of their campaigns.
From what I remember, and from what 'How Long To Beat' tells me, this was the land of the sub-10 hour experience, because campaigns tended to serve as extended tutorials for multiplayer. That world is now also long gone. I'm not sure that a, say, 9 hour campaign will cut the mustard with people that backed Star Citizen financially.
I wonder how much they paid Henry Cavill to use his likeness...
I wonder how much they paid Henry Cavill to use his likeness...
To quote myself from 4 years ago:
Roberts' movie making was basically all financed through tax loopholes, and hit the skids once the loophole was closed.
And so now he's got a new loophole: take your crowdfunding money pile intended for a game and make movies with it instead. Just make the movies loosely about the game and call it "marketing"!
Founding Cloud Imperium Games and getting started on what would be the Star Citizen Kickstarter was the very next thing Chris Roberts did after his movie studio was sold off.
Videos have been far and away the most steady and reliable deliverable of this project over this decade-plus of time.
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