Lu Yan posted:

sorla78 posted:

Sure the collective rational minds on this board agree. Still, if she was a source this would have compromised her and if she is not a source, it might raise suspicion and end up being a liability. In the words of Sandi: "She is a traitor we cannot trust her, we don't hire her."

nopantsjack posted:

Its somewhat of a moot point, because they can't. They might end up with an incredibly unstable sorta planetside/E:D game though.

OhDearGodNo posted:

I'm not sure I understand the conspiracy theory.

I mean, a journalist writes an article about two unnamed people being fired for possibly uncouth reasons, and a couple days later that journalist sees that it was Alyssa. And people find this odd that she reached out to her?

Why?

"Oh look, Alyssa was one of the people I wrote about a few days ago. Maybe I should ask if she'd like to comment"

Paladinus posted:

You know, I might have spent millions on lube, but one day I believe my cock will jizz out a previously never seen Fabergé egg and when it happens you all will be sorry.

Agrajag posted:

Yeah, sorry that you destroyed your own urethra in the process.

sorla78 posted:

Sure the collective rational minds on this board agree. Still, if she was a source this would have compromised her and if she is not a source, it might raise suspicion and end up being a liability. In the words of Sandi: "She is a traitor we cannot trust her, we don't hire her."

G0RF posted:

I agree. I mean, hell-- the warning signs have been obvious for so bloody long. Not just of Chris' crazy scope creep / space pixel ponzi con-- but of Sandi's toxic Santa Monica hellhole. Any dumbass journo could've started digging-- hell, Kotaku had multiple reports from employees and they DID NOTHING, despite the fact that racist, sexist workplaces is right in their wheelhouse.

It would've been nice to have a NY Times Caliber journalist researching this crap for months, verifying every claim thrice over, securing physical evidence and turning in an NYT Mag can cover story. Escapist fell short of that-- but nine sources (6 on record) is a LOT more than we usually get from gaming journalism-- and it prompted the most ludicrous spaz reply from Roberts which was itself newsworthy.

CIG has been engaged in outrageous, unethical, sleazy and outright idiotic business practices for so drat long-- and getting nothing but rear end kissing from the Gamespots of the world.

So despite the fact that a takedown could've been better, I'm still delighted Escapist broke the story they did. Blood is in the water, Chris and Sandi are floundering, Derek Smart is gloating, spergs are having conniption fits and methinks this thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Which of course means it's getting better all the time.

AP posted:

That Escapist journalist, I forget her name, said a lot of the sources feel guilty, I can well imagine that, you just have to look at how deluded some of the fans are and the prices they charge for ships. I'm sure it's a lot easier to rationalise that guilt away with money but CIG don't apparently pay very well below VP level.

quote:

$90 million for what he's pitching, even with a competent leadership, you couldn't do,” CS1 wrote. "The thing you have to remember about Chris Roberts is that, before this, he hadn't made a game in 12 years. He has no concept of what can and can't be done today with that amount of money, or for a game like this. Chris Roberts hadn't made a game in 12 years, and he was actively ignoring the input of people who have been in and a part of the industry that entire time.”

CS1 reported that they were instructed to, first, check the education field on a prospective employee's resume. If too much time had passed, Gardiner reportedly informed people not to hire them, because ”they may be over 40, which makes them a protected class and harder to fire.” It was also claimed that Gardiner used race as a determining factor in selecting employees, allegedly once saying ”We aren't hiring her. We aren't hiring a black girl.”

Some expressed concerns that Star Citizen became more about the crowdfunding than the actual project. ”With Star Citizen, the metric is how much money you've made, not what you've done with that money,” CS1 stated.

quote:

The popular consensus among most of the people who reached out is that Chris Roberts is not intentionally a con man. ”He doesn't set out in the morning to screw anybody over. He's just incredibly arrogant,” CS2 stated.

They've spent $82 million dollars, and what is there to show for that? There's a demo, a racing demo, a single first person shooter level, and an area where you can walk around. For $82 million,” CS2 stated.

The thing I noticed when I started was that we were making commercials. We weren't making a game,” CS2 said. ”It was all about what was on the screen behind [Roberts] during the presentation.”

"Fans would come into the studio, and I wanted to be like 'Dude, run. Take your money and run.' I felt like I was part of a con,” CS2 added. ”This could really severely damage crowdfunding, at least for games. Who's going to want to do that again? People will look at everything and think 'but what if it's another Star Citizen?’”

”Games are made like houses. You want to make the foundation first and the wallpaper last. With Chris Roberts, everything is the wallpaper,” CS2 added. "I think there will be a game. But it will be a shell of what was promised.”

”Chris Roberts thinks he's George Lucas. He thinks he's a genius,” CS2 asserted. ”He's a fraud, pure and simple. If he was just a salesman, or he worked in marketing, or he was answering to a producer, he would do well. But the emperor wears no clothes. Anybody who has worked with him will tell you the same thing. The difference is that lots of people have a dream, but only some can communicate it. I don't think he's sinister, or a bad person. He's Donald Trump. He thinks that if he wants to do something, he can. Because he's Chris Roberts.”

quote:

”I realized it was affecting my health, my home life. I needed to get out. So I left. I had no job lined up. I just had to get out. I looked at my situation, I had enough in savings, so I left,” CS3 told me. ”I couldn't take it. It was by far the most toxic environment I have ever worked in. No one had clear direction about how to do their jobs well. No one was empowered to do their jobs well. Everything was second guessed, and the default reaction to everything was blame and yelling and emails with all capital letters and curse words.”

”Sandi is very jealous. She has to be the queen bee at the company. Whenever I was around her, I felt like I was in the presence of a cobra who, at that moment, might not have been inclined to strike but was completely willing to. You don't get on her bad side,” CS3 added. ”There were two things you were told, when you were hired. One, you don't talk about [Roberts and Gardiner] being married, to anyone. Ever. And two, you don't make Sandi mad.”

CS3 stated that it wasn't uncommon practice to round up four or five people to review an email intended for Roberts, to make sure there was nothing potentially upsetting in the wording. ”His immediate response to everything was to insult people, and accuse everyone of being idiots,” he said. ”It was like the Eye of Sauron. You never wanted to say anything in an email or a meeting that would bring the Eye of Sauron on you. He couldn't control his temper, and had no problem making a public scene of it.”

”Personally, I felt like the company was understaffed for what they were trying to do,” CS3 stated. "Building these spaceships - every ship is equivalent of a game level. They're supposed to be something where you can examine the entire outside, and then go inside and walk around the entire inside. And that's a huge amount of work. And they had just a handful of people working on this.”

”He's letting go people (sic) necessary to complete the game, but then wants to hire a professional linguist to create three brand new alien languages. He's making this entire project impossible," CS3 added.

”A lot of people would be like "Where's the game? When is this going to turn into a game?” CS3 added. ”It was all about making pretty spaceships and brochures and commercials and hiring big name Hollywood actors to do voice-overs for the commercials. We were never working on a game.”

There was a grim and near-universal feeling of guilt that almost all of the people who spoke out shared. ”You have to ask 'at what point are you taking advantage of someone?' There's a certain responsibility,” CS3 said in regards to the backers who have contributed large sums of money. ”Like, I felt like we should have gone to their homes and made sure their kids were eating and dressed. It starts to feel like a gambling addiction after a certain point. It was hard not to feel guilty.”

”I’m guessing something will come out,” CS3 said. "What format or who will publish it, I don't know. I think it's unlikely that CIG will put something out. They will be bought, or some angel investor will come in. I just really don't see them coming out with anything as they are. They need to be bailed out.”

quote:

”She would write emails with so much profanity. She would call people stupid, retard, human being. Accuse men of not having balls. And she was incredibly hostile to other female employees,” CS4 stated. "Sandi is very jealous. She has to be the queen bee at the company. Whenever I was around her, I felt like I was in the presence of a cobra who, at that moment, might not have been inclined to strike but was completely willing to. You don't get on her bad side.”

”Games are not a professional environment by default, by their nature,” CS4 said. "That's one of the great things about working on a game. But there are certain levels of unprofessionalism that you don't go beyond. Chris and Sandi made it part of their job to go beyond those levels.”

“We were always building towards the next event,” CS4 stated. "It wasn't about making a game. it was about a flashy demo for Gamescom, or PAX, or the next commercial. It never felt like they were trying to make a game, as much as digital spaceships to sell.”

quote:

CS5 stated that Gardiner would be out of the country on vacation or auditioning for movie or television roles, allegedly paid for with company money, but would post images of the office - taken by another employee - to make it appear as though she was at work. Multiple sources confided that several videos were filmed using company resources and employees, both in Cloud Imperium Games' offices and in the couple's home.

Other sources expressed concern over what they call "irresponsible spending." Complete portions of the game have been stripped down and entirely redone, utilizing extra time and resources, and often with minimal or no reward. The company also allegedly hired "big-name Hollywood actors" to do voice-overs for commercials. ”This isn't going to make the game better. This is throwing away money because, deep down, Chris Roberts wants to make movies,” CS5 stated. "He failed in Hollywood, but he never made peace with that.”

”There won't be a game. It's not going to happen. But then again, I am a pessimist,” CS5 chimed in. "The entire production process is circular. You spend six months proving that what you said wouldn't work won't work. There is no progress happening.”

quote:

”The firings are both saving and costing money,” CS6 said. "The money is running out and they're cutting wherever they can - but they're cutting people, not frills. Chris Roberts wants a certain game - practically a movie - and doesn't want to compromise on anything but staff.”

quote:

CS7 indicated that Cloud Imperium Games Montreal entered into a joint venture partnership with Turbulent to continue to develop and sell the crowdfunding platform that was built for Star Citizen to other companies - and that backer money was being used for this project. HEAP C3MS is described as "the first platform to combine content, community, and commerce within one integrated platform," and was used for the design of the RSI website.

AP posted:

The thing about bitter ex staff making a story up is that, sure what you say is possible, especially with how easily people can communicate online nowadays, but they'd have to be really really pissed off to go through with it.

The only type of thing that I can see pissing a group of people off enough to make up some stories that your old boss and his wife are breaking the law and were a complete nightmare to work for would be if your old boss and his wife were a complete nightmare to work for. If they were potentially breaking the law too, that would just increase the chances you went public because in part you felt it was the right thing to do in addition to the whole revenge motivation.

Personally, I think it's all pretty much true because if we ignore the escapist for a moment, it being true also helps explain why Derek Smart didn't really need much time to get warmed up but went nuclear with his first blogpost, which was way before a lot of the layoffs.

Jethro_E7 posted:

see the game "made" on the bones of crushed employees

Octopode posted:

I'd agree if not for other circumstantial evidence. If Chris really did run such a toxic environment, why would all these people who have worked with him before agree to come work with him again after leaving already established careers? If the environment is so toxic, why are people still working there for reported below average industry wages? When there are names attached to the comments, why don't any former employees, whether fired or quit, corroborate the story? Why was it not item #1 in the artist's complaints about why he left, or at least mentioned?

I fully believe there is a micromanaged perma-crunch culture at CIG. The crazier stuff seems much less credible.

corn in the bible posted:

You could have spent that 1000 on a canoeing trip in Puerto Rico but instead you spent it on bullshit

blablablabla posted:

Anybody remember that vaporware mmo with Baby Fetus launchers?

Octopode posted:

I'd agree if not for other circumstantial evidence. If Chris really did run such a toxic environment, why would all these people who have worked with him before agree to come work with him again after leaving already established careers? If the environment is so toxic, why are people still working there for reported below average industry wages? When there are names attached to the comments, why don't any former employees, whether fired or quit, corroborate the story? Why was it not item #1 in the artist's complaints about why he left, or at least mentioned?

I fully believe there is a micromanaged perma-crunch culture at CIG. The crazier stuff seems much less credible.

blablablabla posted:

Anybody remember that vaporware mmo with Baby Fetus launchers?

AP posted:

That Escapist journalist, I forget her name, said a lot of the sources feel guilty, I can well imagine that, you just have to look at how deluded some of the fans are and the prices they charge for ships. I'm sure it's a lot easier to rationalise that guilt away with money but CIG don't apparently pay very well below VP level.

shrach posted:

CIG are clearly morally bankrupt. At some point someone is going to be held accountable for the fact that they have taken 25 grand+ off a clearly unstable individual, going so far as to parade him around and have him buy the team pizza? That's some Victorian levels of abuse towards the mentally ill.

SelenicMartian posted:

Are those unshaven mikes or...

Octopode posted:

I'd agree if not for other circumstantial evidence. If Chris really did run such a toxic environment, why would all these people who have worked with him before agree to come work with him again after leaving already established careers? If the environment is so toxic, why are people still working there for reported below average industry wages? When there are names attached to the comments, why don't any former employees, whether fired or quit, corroborate the story? Why was it not item #1 in the artist's complaints about why he left, or at least mentioned?

I fully believe there is a micromanaged perma-crunch culture at CIG. The crazier stuff seems much less credible.

Dusty Lens posted:

I'm sure the people working there for below average industry wages are doing so because they value the life experience. Likely they're all trust funders who don't feel that a job that pays better would provide a superior life experience and therefor turn up their noses at the hundreds of job opportunities that assault the average laborer on the daily.

That or they're just trying to pay the bills. Which is pretty hard for me to understand as I've been holding my breath for the past seven minutes and I'm basically as intelligent as pretty smart fish right now.

Jethro_E7 posted:

Look, it either happened or it didn't. People get carried away with trying to compromise, or say that it was "probably in the middle". It's rubbish. It either happened or it didn't. If you think something specific didn't happen, say it. What didn't happen? What did? You can't just accept some of the tamer stuff and dismiss everything more damning because it is too "out there". If you think something was made up, you need to argue motive. That's hard to find, it is not like they are getting anything out of this, unless you vlaim revenge for firing, but that doesn't add up given the consensus and current employees that contributed.

WM confirmed to me that he won't comment on what happened when he was there. Bit of a shame. I think he has a lot of credibility, but doesn't want to get into a meat sandwich with his community he has there, plus he is a friend of Chris. Understandable.

Justin Tyme posted:

I dunno why and I know I have said it a lot before but the fact that they have shown absolutely nothing in terms of how they are actually making space in this space game really makes me laugh considering how many people are so invested. Hey guys we're making an age of sail pirate game, here is a bunch of sailboats you can buy, but whoops we haven't ever shown you the ocean or any islands.

Justin Tyme posted:

The fact that he won't comment is itself somewhat of a validation. If it was all patently untrue he risks nothing in saying that/defending his friend. I can understand not wanting to get involved in the drama but even a short passing comment on it seems reasonable if there wasn't more to the story.

Adventure Pigeon posted:

on the note of age of sail pirate games, I'm getting pretty excited about Naval Action. Its alpha is actually looking pretty decent from everything I've heard, though it's gotten kinda quiet since they're not letting people in for money.

nopantsjack posted:

Is that Croberts calling E:D bullshit?

Justin Tyme posted:

That game looked cool, is it just going to be War Thunder with sailboats or will there be actual organization/economic stuff to it?

Jethro_E7 posted:

It was just "I have no comment on what is going on at CIG - I wish them luck.". I wouldn't have commented on it at all, but I guess I can comment on no comment without breaking confidence.

Octopode posted:

I'd agree if not for other circumstantial evidence. If Chris really did run such a toxic environment, why would all these people who have worked with him before agree to come work with him again after leaving already established careers? If the environment is so toxic, why are people still working there for reported below average industry wages? When there are names attached to the comments, why don't any former employees, whether fired or quit, corroborate the story? Why was it not item #1 in the artist's complaints about why he left, or at least mentioned?

I fully believe there is a micromanaged perma-crunch culture at CIG. The crazier stuff seems much less credible.

blablablabla posted:

Anybody remember that vaporware mmo with Baby Fetus launchers?