LCL-Dead posted:

It took me two hours but I finally caught up with the 4000+ new comments since stepping out last week.

Holy poo poo.

On the refund front:

Sent original email on 25 Sept, 10 days ago. It took 3 days for Sandi to reply and defend her community team. I took 2 days to confirm refund request.

Received generic "We'll get to you soon! We promise!" email from CIG Support 3 days ago.

Still awaiting refund.

How the hell did some of you guys get your damned refunds so fast?

Recoome posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNlWQ3s5Xc8

Onmi posted:

Hey look just because his cult borrows literally everything from sjws he's not allowed to blame them after trying to play the outrage game with his wife as his shield.

Onmi posted:

Oh hello Jason "Objectivity is a silly thing to strive for" "If you like the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown you are a Pedophile" Schrier, what's your take on all of this.



I'm glad we have such a responsible journalist who is attached to such a wonderful site and- Wait a minute! I thought Gamergate was about harassment! I can never trust Kotaku again!

WebDog posted:

Stuff

It's Monday soon

Thirsty Dog posted:

You're being weird. Stop being weird.

Onmi posted:

I'm bringing the comedy.



Holy crap Smart!

"Derek Smart Derek Smart Derek Smart posted:

They also sent me a C&D letter last week telling me I CANNOT talk about the "Roberts family" ever again. I promptly fed it to my dog

My upcoming blog contains that C&D, my attorney's "gently caress you" response, my emails to Ortwin and ALL my comms with Chris Roberts since July

my blog also excerpts statements from MY sources (which appear to overlap with @lizzyf620) which they have agreed to repeat in depositions

In any defamatory action, the truth is 100% defense. And there isn't a SINGLE thing I have access to that cannot be proven. Not one.

These assholes decided to pick a fight with the one person who isn't afraid of anything or anyone. All they can do now is have me killed

Because there isn't a SINGLE thing on this God's Earth that's going to stop what's coming. ALL of this is going to be exposed to the public

SC has turned out to be nothing but a $90m heist of gamer money. and a bunch of ppl motivated to vilify me while obfuscating the truth

As for that Star Citizen Grey market? I'm going to decimate it because it's a fraudulent enterprise

Onmi posted:

By the way, this is old (from 2006 old and archived for posterity sake) but Totally games were not fans of Croberts way back when

AP posted:

AP posted:

He talks a good game, lets see if it actually happens.

quote:

I promptly fed it to my dog

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Now if only he made one.

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Now if only he made one.

EminusSleepus posted:

Agrajag posted:

that would be the crux of the issue

EminusSleepus posted:

check the conversation, that Dent guy was schooled

LCL-Dead posted:

It took me two hours but I finally caught up with the 4000+ new comments since stepping out last week.

Holy poo poo.

On the refund front:

Sent original email on 25 Sept, 10 days ago. It took 3 days for Sandi to reply and defend her community team. I took 2 days to confirm refund request.

Received generic "We'll get to you soon! We promise!" email from CIG Support 3 days ago.

Still awaiting refund.

How the hell did some of you guys get your damned refunds so fast?

Tokamak posted:

David Cameron hosed a dead pig

Innerguard posted:

Have all refunds been issued by Stripe or are they depending upon payment method?

A Neurotic Jew posted:

I am surprised by the refunds going through as well, but more recently it seems like they're going to try to use as many refunds as possible as evidence that Derek Smart and Escapist have caused financial losses to the company. Another distraction from the fact that they are circling bottom.

BluestreakBTHR posted:

Refund usually has to match payment method.
That's how it was with my refunds - I had to dig up an old pre-paid visa that I used a year and a half ago - they wouldn't let me choose the refund method.

Innerguard posted:

I'm concierge because of putting in more than $1200 dollars, but my refund request is in and I've confirmed that I want a full refund. Being concierge might've gotten a faster response - or might equally work against me, who knows?

BluestreakBTHR posted:

Refund usually has to match payment method.
That's how it was with my refunds - I had to dig up an old pre-paid visa that I used a year and a half ago - they wouldn't let me choose the refund method.

CrazyLoon posted:

In that case, I'm gonna be on their rear end 24/7 if my already confirmed refund doesn't come before the end of this year, when my card expires. Thanks for that info. Makes me more determined to hound 'em over it.

Michymech posted:

I am freeeeeeeee!!

gently caress this stupid game and bring on the megadrama

BluestreakBTHR posted:

Refund usually has to match payment method.
That's how it was with my refunds - I had to dig up an old pre-paid visa that I used a year and a half ago - they wouldn't let me choose the refund method.

Not Chris Roberts posted:

Employees have indicated that Star Citizen and all of the promised stretch goals, “even with competent management,” could not be made for $90 million.
We are confident in the ability of our staff to produce the game within the bounds of the funding provided. Many game budgets SC is compared to include the significant cost of advertising (which we do not do). It is also extremely unlikely that your sources have access to the appropriate financial information to make such a claim as such information is limited to a few key personnel within CIG. Backers are not our only funding source, as CIG makes extensive use of tax incentives and product partnerships that we do not discuss publicly for obvious reasons. Even if all funding were to dry up we maintain a healthy cash reserve to ensure the game will be produced.

Concerns expressed over the planning of the project prior to launching the Kickstarter, namely related to Roberts’ extended absence from the video game industry.
The project was developed for over a year before the crowdfunding campaign was even began, including prototyping of a core concept, and that core team remains with CIG. Given that we remain the most successful crowdfunded project in the world it is clear that a significant number of people do not share those concerns.

In 2012, a Kickstarter FAQ indicated that the high cost of stretch goals was in order to ensure a 2014 delivery date.
The initial goal of the Kickstarter campaign was to demonstrate sufficient interest as to encourage several investors (that we had already lined up) that funding Squadron 42 and Star Citizen would be a profitable endeavor. Our original plan was to fund Squadron 42 and then use the revenue from those sales to fund Star Citizen, which is why the original funding goal was so low. As we received more funds we believed it would be possible to create the game exclusively through crowdfunding and the campaign proved that was true.

Allegations of a “toxic” work environment, including ignored Human Resources complaints against Sandi Gardiner (including accusations of discriminatory hiring processes, vulgarity and personal insults during both public disagreements and email exchanges).
All personnel and HR matters are obviously completely private and we can’t comment on this as a matter of principle.

Accusations of the mismanagement of money, including: using crowdfunding money to pay for couple’s Pacific Palisades mansion, using crowdfunding money to pay for personal vehicles, using crowdfunding money to pay for personal vacations, using company resources and employees to create videos for films and auditions (Sandi Gardiner).
No crowdfunding money is used for any personal purposes.

Accusations of entering into a joint venture partnership with Turbulent, and using crowdfunding money in order to assist with the continued creation of the crowdfunding platform that was used on the RSI website to market to other companies.
Developing the infrastructure necessary to manage the influx of millions of dollars was a necessary part of expanding the campaign past the original scope of a small effort funded by private investors. We utilized Turbulent, who manages our website to this day, because they already had pre-existing software that was tailored to our needs. As with any development effort lessons were learned, and our agreement does allow them to apply those lessons and technology to other ventures.

Accusations of “irresponsible spending” of money, including the use of “big name” Hollywood actors for voice-overs for the commercials, the hiring of inexperienced “movie people” to work on certain aspects for large fees with minimal to no experience.
It is unlikely that your sources have access to the financial information necessary to support such an accusation. CIG has been a good steward of the money they have been entrusted with and utilizes appropriate rates for voiceover work. It should be noted that a high quality cast for Squadron 42 was a stretch goal of the original campaign.

Accusations that the majority of the crowdfunding money has been used, with minimal progress made. Sources state they “feel like they were making commercials, not a game.”
Your sources likely do not have the access required to get a complete picture of Star Citizen's financial state. With any technology development there are significant hurdles that must be overcome, and in the case of Star Citizen those hurdles primarily center around programming the "foundation" of the game such as networking code, physics, and animation. None of those aspects are particularly "sexy" or visible, but they are crucial to the overall success of the project. I will be the first to admit that we are not where we would like to be, but I can assure everyone that progress has been significant. With respect to the more visible work (the literal ship commercials), those served as a fun milestone to move certain ship assets to final quality and also prepared the art teams for work in Squadron 42. We have not released a ship commercial in a year specifically because all of our resources have been allocated towards getting SQ42 shipped.

People feel the company is understaffed for what is being asked of them
In every project I’ve done and others I’ve witnessed it’s a very common tendency for people to want more staff to help finish the job. It’s always that way until the game is finally done. Under Erin’s leadership at head of Global Production we’ve re-organized to make things more efficient and we are in a hiring mode (which you can see by our open positions) which shows that we are working to address these concerns. We have ten confirmed new hires that will start this month alone and offers out to several more candidates.

Employees are concerned that Roberts is not listening to the advice of people who have worked in the industry during his absence, and that they will have to waste time and resources attempting something impossible just to prove it would not work.
I have a very strong vision for Star Citizen, which is why I believe we have been backed to the level we have. I have no doubt what we can achieve. Now that most of the base technology is in place we will be able to get with the Large World and MultiCrew milestone a game experience that will allow you to seamlessly go from foot, to boarding a fully realized spaceship with your friends, take off, fly thousands or millions of km in space, exit your ship in EVA and explore derelict space stations or wrecks, engage in FPS combat, return to your ship, engage in space combat and return to your home base to share the tales of your adventures with your other friends. All with no leading screens, all at AAA first person fidelity that you can’t even get on a next gen console. This is the core of the Squadron 42 and Star Citizen experience that we will continue to iterate on and add content to, but even the first release will be more “game” than most commercially released space games. In terms of not listening to the advice of people that have worked in the industry that is not true. I have a very strong executive management and design team with huge experience in AAA titles that all contribute to the decision making of the company. I listen to everyone – from our top level all the way through to our QA testers and community giving feedback on gameplay and features. I care and want to build the best game possible. Now that doesn’t mean I agree with everyone’s opinions and feedback as a project director I owe it to the community to stay true to my vision and pick the things that I think will make the game better.

Allegations indicating that there are not currently any complete character builds for the game.
I'm not entirely sure what this question is referring to. Many assets are in a complete state including character assets. Naturally we may go back and tweak things as necessary, but that is not unique to Star Citizen.

Statements made that the Austin office will be closing, as is understood by employees.
The Austin office is not being closed. As part of our continued efforts to improve efficiency several positions currently in the Austin office are being relocated to LA or Europe and we have made public statements to this fact. The majority of CIG employees at Austin will remain there. It should be noted that Austin is primarily responsible for a key part of Star Citizen (the Persistent Universe) and none of that will be affected.

Accusations that Star Citizen became more about crowdfunding than about making a game.
It’s about making a great game. Crowd funding is just a tool that allows us to do it with freedom that you would not normally have with a traditional publisher. So no it’s always about the game.

Employees feel as though they are “part of a con”.
I could not possibly disagree with this more. I consider it a privilege and an honor to have so many people support myself and the team in making the game of all our dreams. I have nothing but gratitude to our backers for their support and patience and nothing but respect for the CIG team giving their all to make this game. Anyone who doesn’t feel this is welcome to the door.

Onmi posted:

I'm bringing the comedy.



Holy crap Smart!

Moogle posted:

Oh Christ, it's this, isn't it. It's people who want to completely replace existence - everything, family, friends, life experiences, the lot - with being a virtual pilot in a virtual spaceship doing the same thing over and over again.

Put that way, it doesn't really matter how much money you spend on it. Not really. It's just silly numbers in a life that you're wholly uninterested in.

Well now I just want to find everyone who's pledged more than a couple of hundred and give them a hug