Star Citizen Single-Player Delayed Indefinitely

[cesrai]

Investor and Kickstarter 

 

 

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I wonder how long it will take until that game is released and is available to purchase. 

[HalGameGuru]

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

-snip-

This is just VC on a smaller scale. The entire point is 10,000 people putting in 10 bucks rather than 1 putting in 100k. There is nothing morally wrong with the system. Charlatans and liars (which is immoral off the bat, fraud renders consent null) not withstanding, be up front about the risks and there is no immoral aspect to it. Same reason banks and VC's want a piece of the pie and a percentage, there is NEVER a guarantee

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

This is just VC on a smaller scale. The entire point is 10,000 people putting in 10 bucks rather than 1 putting in 100k. There is nothing morally wrong with the system. Charlatans and liars (which is immoral off the bat, fraud renders consent null) not withstanding, be up front about the risks and there is no immoral aspect to it. Same reason banks and VC's want a piece of the pie and a percentage, there is NEVER a guarantee

"There is no immoral aspect to it" and immediately after you mention the immoral aspect "Same reason banks and VC's want a piece of the pie and a percentage"

[HalGameGuru]

People are making the erroneous assumption crowdfunding is by definition investment. Crowdfunding CAN BE investment, but the kickstarter/indiegogo paradigm is more directly, especially without equity, PATRONAGE.

 

THAT is what kickstarter is, it is supporting creators before the fact, rather than purchasing a product after the fact.

[HalGameGuru]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

"There is no immoral aspect to it" and immediately after you mention the immoral aspect "Same reason banks and VC's want a piece of the pie and a percentage"

Yes banks and vc's want equity, or a percentage on their loan for the risk. The risk does not make it immoral. Any more than skydiving is immoral because there is always a risk your chute won't open.

[Misanthrope]

Just now, HalGameGuru said:

Yes banks and vc's want equity, or a percentage on their loan for the risk. The risk does not make it immoral.

No: the disctinct lack of reward and legal protection does.

[HalGameGuru]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

No: the disctinct lack of reward and legal protection does.

No, voluntary and consensual interaction makes that immaterial. Legal protection can be had through many other venues, if you want it, reward is subjective. Equity or a monetary percentage ROI is not a prerequisite for moral interaction.

 

I can link you to "Economics in one lesson" if you'd like, its free....

[HalGameGuru]

Once again, KS/IGG are not investment platforms or securities exchanges. With all the financial regulations we have its unlikely they ever will be. What they are, what crowdfunding is, currently, is patronage. It's supporting PBS and getting a 2 dollar Tote bag.

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

No, voluntary and consensual interaction makes that immaterial. Legal protection can be had through many other venues, if you want it, reward is subjective. Equity or a monetary percentage ROI is not a prerequisite for moral interaction.

Since this is entirely subjective to me it is: you have to be morally bankrupt to request money without even attempting to give returns to people. You just disagree and it's not very clear (and honestly not very important) to me as to why.

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

Once again, KS/IGG are not investment platforms or securities exchanges. With all the financial regulations we have its unlikely they ever will be. What they are, what crowdfunding is, currently, is patronage. It's supporting PBS and getting a 2 dollar Tote bag.

Read my previous posts: there's already legislation that addresses this very issue the Title III of the US JOBS act that allows for equity crowdfunding.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstart_Our_Business_Startups_Act

[HalGameGuru]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

Since this is entirely subjective to me it is: you have to be morally bankrupt to request money without even attempting to give returns to people. You just disagree and it's not very clear (and honestly not very important) to me as to why.

Read up on the NAP and property rights, the Austrian School of economics is very good on this. Or argumentation ethics/universally preferable behavior if you want.

 

Morality is a very easy litmus test to demarcate. Voluntary and Consensual interactions are, by definition, moral interactions. If you agree to offer something in exchange and you don't deliver you have breached your agreement, you have broached morality. Giving money under risk, or asking for and giving money with no explicit guarantee of a return is not immoral. So long as that is disclosed beforehand. 

[Misanthrope]

2 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

Read up on the NAP and property rights, the Austrian School of economics is very good on this. Or argumentation ethics/universally preferable behavior if you want.

 

Morality is a very easy litmus test to demarcate. Voluntary and Consensual interactions are, by definition, moral interactions. If you agree to offer something in exchange and you don't deliver you have breached your agreement, you have broached morality. Giving money under risk, or asking for and giving money with no explicit guarantee of a return is not immoral. So long as that is disclosed beforehand. 

I'd argue that is not properly disclosed by websites like kickstarter.

[HalGameGuru]

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Read my previous posts: there's already legislation that addresses this very issue the Title III of the US JOBS act that allows for equity crowdfunding.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstart_Our_Business_Startups_Act

Then hopefully this mechanic will become a more common occurrence. I'd love to buy handfuls of shares of a company at cost without having to pay out for a broker or trade transaction. and when you have your shares and the company still goes under you can be happy having shiny toilet paper, people who owned Atari stock will sympathize.

 

All shares do is give you a voice and a cut of potential profit, its no more or less moral a tact than any other. Moral and legal are two very different things, and moral is dictated by consent and non-aggression, not legislation.

[HalGameGuru]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

I'd argue that is not properly disclosed by websites like kickstarter.

which bit? that its a risk or what level of risk? I agree any and all risks should be disclosed as fully as possible, but it is also on the investor to know their platform and the terms of their agreement before they hand over money.

[Bouzoo]

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

Investors can support projects they believe in and risk their money to help a vision come to fruition. But as a society we recognize that said trust should be rewarded with a cut of the profits. 

 

There's nothing stopping a crowd funding campaign to offer a small percentage of profits or a handful of shares on the company. Not even very substantial but something that says "thank you for believing in us"  instead  of the current "fuck you nerd go wear this t-shirt while I get rich thanks to your money" 

And that is/should be the purpose of crowdfunding. Backing up what you believe in. 

As far as profits go, it's a problem for many projects since they are focused on creating something only once, and not reselling it again, so no profits to return to investors. If someone wants to invest in RSI particularly, they'll find a way as a business partner. As for other projects that don't have these kind of now "big companies" that will be reselling their stuff, it might provide to be more difficult. From legal side and everything, even if they provided that option for highest tier of backers.

I absolutely understand where you're coming from, but at the same time I understand the other side. 

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, HalGameGuru said:

which bit? that its a risk or what level of risk? I agree any and all risks should be disclosed as fully as possible, but it is also on the investor to know their platform and the terms of their agreement before they hand over money.

Is not even presented as an investment and pushes "reward" levels on the projects that are not obligated to fulfill at all, it allows for dishonest behavior like setting unrealistic base goals so they get funded for only a partial and unrealized project, etc.

 

You need to look no further than this very thread to see how much people are actually deceived to think it's an investment or that they have any kind of legal resource if the company fails to deliver since it's just unregulated and kickstart washes their hands off it (not before collecting their 5% comission)

 

But I suppose that you're going to cherry pick both the informed users and successful cases and ignore the vast majority of uninformed users and failed projects like most people because hey, you've gotta have another fucking space game right?

[HalGameGuru]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

Is not even presented as an investment and pushes "reward" levels on the projects that are not obligated to fulfill at all, it allows for dishonest behavior like setting unrealistic base goals so they get funded for only a partial and unrealized project, etc.

 

You need to look no further than this very thread to see how much people are actually deceived to think it's an investment or that they have any kind of legal resource if the company fails to deliver since it's just unregulated and kickstart washes their hands off it (not before collecting their 5% comission)

 

But I suppose that you're going to cherry pick both the informed users and successful cases and ignore the vast majority of uninformed users and failed projects like most people because hey, you've gotta have another fucking space game right?

I'm not arguing the Star Citizen case, I'm arguing the platform. If its not presented as an investment your argument falls apart and it falls back into my presumption of patronage. Rewards not being delivered is an  issue, and a risk, and whether or not KS/IGG do anything about it the courts should support such backer agreements, if they dont... see my later paragraph. And in the end social funding also allows for the strongest recourse, social economic ostracism. A person defrauds, stop interacting with them, at all levels. Leave them penniless and with no further support or options. 

 

Many of the issues you speak about are not problems of the platform or mechanic, they are the foundational state of the system. Corporate personhood, corporate liability, courts that rule in favor of concerns rather than victims, etc. Its been a problem in the US since the 19th century. Predatory practices only exist and continue because the wages of malfeasance are shielded from the actors. Same thing with politicians not seeing prison for corruption/collusion, bankers and CEOs not seeing prison for malfeasance, cops and judges not seeing prison for victimization of those they are supposed to serve.  

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, HalGameGuru said:

I'm not arguing the Star Citizen case, I'm arguing the platform. If its not presented as an investment your argument falls apart and it falls back into my presumption of patronage. Rewards not being delivered is an  issue, and a risk, and whether or not KS/IGG do anything about it the courts should support such backer agreements, if they dont... see my later paragraph. And in the end social funding also allows for the strongest recourse, social economic ostracism. A person defrauds, stop interacting with them, at all levels. Leave them penniless and with no further support or options. 

 

Many of the issues you speak about are not problems of the platform or mechanic, they are the foundational state of the system. Corporate personhood, corporate liability, courts that rule in favor of concerns rather than victims, etc. Its been a problem in the US since the 19th century. Predatory practices only exist and continue because the wages of malfeasance are shielded from the actors. Same thing with politicians not seeing prison for corruption/collusion, bankers and CEOs not seeing prison for malfeasance, cops and judges not seeing prison for victimization of those they are supposed to serve.  

I fail to see how exploiting legal loopholes and favorable litigation is any kind of justification for my moral objections. Yes there's many legal ways to run scams: diploma mills, multi-level marketing, etc. Doesn't makes them moral, just legal.

[HalGameGuru]

4 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I fail to see how exploiting legal loopholes and favorable litigation is any kind of justification for my moral objections. Yes there's many legal ways to run scams: diploma mills, multi-level marketing, etc. Doesn't makes them moral, just legal.

Morality is easily defined, legality can protect or legitimize the immoral. THe big problem, the reason why so much of this is as it is, is because the system ditched protecting victims in favor of protecting concerns (corporations/state interests) 

 

Good primer:

Spoiler

 

The platform, the mechanism, of supporting creators without a stake in the company or a contractual ROI is not immoral. It is entirely moral to seek donations, patronage, or venture backers. And if you promise rewards for this backing you SHOULD, to retain your moral status, deliver on those promises. And if you do not deliver you should find a way to provide restitution/compensation for those defrauded, to make them whole to their satisfaction. Legal "contracts" and "guarantees" don't mean anything to the immoral. and are unnecessary for the moral. But, so long as the risks are disclosed and people enter into the exchange voluntarily the system is not immoral, even if rewards go undelivered. So long as it was a disclosed and accepted risk.

[Misanthrope]

13 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

Morality is easily defined

No, morality is entirely subjective.

 

Quote

The platform, the mechanism, of supporting creators without a stake in the company or a contractual ROI is not immoral. It is entirely moral to seek donations, patronage, or venture backers.

Misrepresenting your reasons, your goals and ultimate ability to obtain funds otherwise when asking people to abandon legal resource or a right to obtain a return is immortal to me: Plenty of developers are big enough to gather normal investors support, sometimes they even intentionally hide the fact that they do have some form of third party funding (i.e. Shenmue III) or fail to invest their own personal funds even though it's a matter of public record said funds are plentiful enough vs the requested funding goal on crowd funding (Richard Garriot).

 

Ultimately though, it is my position that if you can't get a traditional investment where you can promise a return then you should not be funding most project, particularly not very large projects like Star Citizen. If more legitimate investors don't help you then it's for a good fucking reason (Refer back to my 60 to 89% of failed crowd funded projects stat earlier) and whenever you inform people properly or not you're still taking advantage of a situation usually by exploiting something like nostalgia (Mighty No. 9) or people's overall ignorance on the subject matter for feasibility (Solar roadways)

[HalGameGuru]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

No, morality is entirely subjective.

 

-snip-

Yours may be, read up on the NAP or argumentation ethics. It's pretty easy to get to a solid moral foundation, thru universal and reciprocal theorems. Good or bad, better or worse, normative values are going to be subjective, but what constitutes moral action is pretty easy to delineate.

 

I agree charlatans should be held accountable. Fraud is immoral, and agreements reached through it are non-consensual and criminal.

 

The system of patronage or non-investment financial backing is not immoral and the platform should not be demonized as such.

[Misanthrope]

10 minutes ago, HalGameGuru said:

The system of patronage or non-investment financial backing is not immoral and the platform should not be demonized as such.

Except it is not presented as a system of patronage. If it was I would have not nearly as many problems with it given how I don't have any problems with Patreon.com for example in which the matter at hand is more clear: support aritsts, entertainers, content creators, etc. Since they want to be able to do content without depending entirely (or at all) on add revenue or marketing in general.

 

If Roberts was to say "we want you to support us while we develop this game" and asked people for good will donations then we'd bypass most of this drama entirely. But instead it's presented (as most projects of this kind are, even on the very name of the most popular platform "kickstarter") as a pseudo investment platform that does not openly states this is not an investment in the traditional sense, they do not mediate issues, you should NOT expect a product in return (even if "promised" by them there's nothing legally binding) and it's just a good faith donation. That's buried in the faqs and ToS and it has mislead people enough that this subject keeps coming up, people keep making videos warning people about the dangers of kickstarter projects, etc.

 

To me it's like the difference between someone saying "Come to this website to gamble!" openly and risk legal repercutions if they're not legally authorized to do so vs a website stating "Come to our "high rollers" club when you can organize yourself with other users to competitively predict the results of sporting events!" No technically if they don't provide a way to make money change hands they could skate by and not be called a gambling operation but morally they know exactly what the fuck it's going on.

[kirashi]

So the fact that backing projects through Kickstarter and IndieGoGo do not guarantee you'll receive anything is (unfortunately) true.

Case in point: Coolest Cooler Kickstarter - now the subject of an investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice.

(Links ordered by date)

http://www.oregonlive.com/window-shop/index.ssf/2016/09/coolest_cooler_timeline.html

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/coolest-coolers-oregon-investigation/

 

According to the article, Star Citizen's Kickstarter campaign actually requires them to fulfill their rewards, since it's subject to the older Kickstarter terms of service prior to October 2014. (This ad-verbatim copy pertains to the Coolest Cooler campaign, but would apply to ALL Kickstarter Campaigns prior to October 2014.)

http://www.oregonlive.com/window-shop/index.ssf/2016/10/coolest_cooler_nothing_wrong.html

Quote

He and his fellow Coolest employees have been clear about their efforts to get coolers to remaining backers and are following Kickstarter's terms of service, he said.

 

But that's where things get murky.

 

Kickstarter has two sets of terms of service: one set in place in July 2014, when Coolest Cooler launched, and one set that took effect in October 2014.

According to Kickstarter, Grepper's company is still beholden to the first set of terms. And when it comes to refunds, these terms – while still pretty vague – aren't so forgiving to creators.

 

"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill," the terms say.

 

However, the terms don't specify a timeline for this refund. 

 

Future Kickstarter Campaign terms now specifically remove responsibility from Kickstarter for any rewards advertised to backers, and place the responsibility entirely on the Campaign creator.

 

This means that when you're backing anything on Kickstarter, you really are throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.

 

It's akin to investing your money in stocks that your financial adviser has no idea whether or not will actually give you a return on your investment, but either way your adviser makes some money through investment fees.

[ACatWithThumbs]

On 10/12/2016 at 7:48 PM, Carclis said:

For reference, Chris Robert's words were "It’s really important to do it right. ... As much as we wanted to have Squadron 42 for this year, it is not going to be this year because, for all the polish we need to do, it still needs more time".

 

If you missed Citizencon here is the footage with the first half hour being completely new and unseen footage (could be more but I haven't had time to watch it all). There is also the Star Marine portion of the game which was demoed quite some time ago and is supposed to be released with the next patch and much improved mechanics and head stabilisation.

 

I backed in 2014 and progress is definitely slower than I had hoped, but from the footage and content being showed now the process appears to be speeding up a fair bit.

It's kind of slower than expected and at the same time it's also faster.
I backed in 2013 and the game was no where near the scope of what it is today.
As an example procedural generation was simply a concept planned for long after the full game release , but now it's already coming in the alpha.

When I backed the game looked like this:



Now the game looks like this:



And the development really picked up steam since the Frankfurt Studio opened.

[HalGameGuru]

44 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

-snip-

If Roberts was to say "we want you to support us while we develop this game" and asked people for good will donations then we'd bypass most of this drama entirely. But instead it's presented (as most projects of this kind are, even on the very name of the most popular platform "kickstarter") as a pseudo investment platform that does not openly states this is not an investment in the traditional sense, they do not mediate issues, you should NOT expect a product in return (even if "promised" by them there's nothing legally binding) and it's just a good faith donation. That's buried in the faqs and ToS and it has mislead people enough that this subject keeps coming up, people keep making videos warning people about the dangers of kickstarter projects, etc.

 

-snip-

Definitely Roberts should have been more disciplined in his grand standing and how he promoted the entire deal. Except its not really sold as an investment platform, its more like a tiered early access program. He never offered an interest or stake in the concern, he offered in game products for differing levels of financial support in a development endeavor. And if he made absolute promises, that was his mistake and he should be held to it, but the initial promotion also did not include all the stretch goals and additional content that was added after the fact.

 

Mediation or arbitration can be agreed to outside of KS/IGG, but I don't think it is necessary for them to be required to offer such services.

 

The risks and dangers SHOULD be more prominently advertised, but the individuals involved also need to be doing their due diligence. I might not bother if it was 2 or 5 dollars, but if I was thinking of putting a hundred or 2 hundred up to support something coming to fruition I would check on those things of my own volition. It is important for disclosure to happen, and for them to make such information readily available and ACCESSIBLE but no fraud has been realized until such time as the cycle has come to its end and victims are to be found.