G0RF posted:

One of the biggest unknowns right now is CIG's cash position. We've heard they're flush with cash (EightAce) and that they're nearly out (Derek).

We have no line of sight into this matter-- only gossip, and the gossip is contrary.

What we do have-- imperfect as it is-- is a possible means of gauging revenue via their Stretch Goals tracker. And we've watched that pretty closely for a long time-- trying to make guesses about any emerging trends, wondering when we might see capitulation, curious about whether splitting their IP into two sellable assets would be accretive or destructive.

We've also made guesses, Beer most specifically I think, about monthly overhead costs for the entire operation(s). It's hard to believe it's less than $100k a day (~$3M a month).

Recent sales have been lackluster to alarming. Demand refuses to be sustained over the durations of past glory sales. Even without elective spending on $15,000 coffee machines, upgraded international airfare, and new MoCap shoots (already rumored to be running at 12x their original budget) -- CIG may be entering a time of relative famine.

This is why the question of "How much cash do they have?" is especially interesting. Because if they're running on empty, then a bankruptcy or distressed sale is potentially right around the corner. If they're fat with some unknown investor cash, then some shortfall months don't really matter.

We are seeing more and more circumstantial evidence that CIG is widening the doors and blocking the exits. Refunds are denied as a matter of policy when once they were accommodated quickly. The change -- which had no official explanation beyond "sorry no more refunds read your ToS" -- suggests some degree of concern about husbanding cash.

Now-- we also know that, as of the beginning of the year, CIG had NO ROADMAP at all for PTU development. None. They admitted as much on AtV-- happily, in fact. As if that was entirely commonplace as opposed to a warning sign. It IS commonplace at CIG but atypical elsewhere. Then we heard rumors (from Derek and EightAce) that they'd devised their new development priorities after a big confab with senior management. And the order of the day? Making in game asset sales a reality ASAP. Yet back ended by what? Earnable credits? Or actual credit cards (as with their web based means of selling).

Now-- looking at the "unmelt" token policy in particular, it too is very telling. CIG claimed that, for technical reasons, they had to greatly limit the supply and not allow them to be accrued over time. What this really means is quite obvious-- if they granted backers easy means to melt/unmelt they would be potentially damaging the sale of new ships to those same backers.

They are giving more and more signs that they need to restrict their users and plan to continue doing so. What makes matters worse for the backers is that, over the last half of last year, they effectively poisoned the gray market as an outside means of true liquidity. Formerly exclusive ships might've commanded a high price on the traders market- but CIG reintroduced many and thus flooded supply and destroyed demand. Similar gambits took place with LTI.

What is very telling in all of this is that it is so bloody ad hoc. They are making things up as they go-- everywhere-- and this tells us probably that all their thinking is tactical (if that). It's in response to changing conditions on the ground.

If capitulation is really here, and cash is really low, then we are going to see more and more obvious signs of it from a panicked CIG. And if the gambits they devise over panicked meetings don't work, then we will start seeing telltale signs of cash panics. Major cost cutting / office shut downs / layoffs.

All that said-- we still do not know what their cash situation is. To hear Chris and Erin talk, they haven't a care in the world's they e got time to spare. There is not sword ranging over their heads.

Sorry this was rambly but I'm in a hurry and on a phone. This is just meant to help you understand why these little signs-- like stores EVERYWHERE in game as the latest reveal-- might be telling us something. "Alpha UEC" is telling us something (because it will not be permanent).

It seems like they're telling us -- and backers -- quite a bit. And it's good news for people that like bad news.

Chris Roberts: The Pledge posted:

You’ve pledged your money to earn your Citizenship.

Now it’s our turn.

We, the Star Citizen team at Cloud Imperium, hereby promise to deliver the game you expect. You, the tens of thousands of pledgers, have allowed us to cut out the big publisher and build the game on our terms. To let us focus on quality free of the pressure to deliver by a certain financial quarter. To nurture a new original IP. To put fun ahead of shareholder profits.

We, the Developer, intend to treat you with the same respect we would give a publisher. You will receive regular updates about the progress of the game. We will do a show and tell for each major milestone. Your voice will be heard and represented in our development docs and our feature wish list. You will see art and video and learn about how we intend to implement gameplay mechanics well before the rest of the world. The website will be updated and the community will be maintained. Though the limitations of technology may slow us, we will always do the best for you: if it breaks, we will fix it.

There may be delays and there may be changes; we recognize that such things are inevitable and would be lying to you if we claimed otherwise. But when this happens, we will treat you with the respect you deserve rather than spending your money on public relations. When we need to change a mechanic or alter something you believe should be in the game, we will tell you exactly why.

Your support over the past month has been incredible. You’ve done your part, and we will now do our utmost to live up to your expectations. We will build you the game you are dreaming about.

Signed,
Chris Roberts and the Cloud Imperium Team

ManofManyAliases posted:

The Dragonfly will likely be flyable this year. The Drake pipeline has been completed so we're going to see the Caterpillar this year as well.

SABOAGE

I can't stand it I know you planned it
But I'm gonna set it straight, this Watergate
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
Because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this loving thorn in my side
Oh my gawd, it's a mirage
I'm tellin' y'all it's a sabotage

So listen up 'cause you can't say nothin'
You'll shut me down with a push of your button?
But I'm out and I'm gone
I'll tell you now I keep it on and on
'Cause what you see you might not get
And we can bet so don't you get souped yet
You're scheming on a thing that's a mirage
I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage

Why; our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage
Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage
Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage
Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage

I can't stand it, I know you planned it
But I'm gonna set it straight this Watergate
I can't stand rockin' when I'm in this place
Because I feel disgrace because you're all in my face
But make no mistakes and switch up my channel
I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle
What could it be, it's a mirage
You're scheming on a thing, that's sabotage!

A Neurotic Jew posted:

imagine hating consumers so much that you wrote this ToS.

Just imagine.

flyboi posted:

But seriously though I'm gonna GORF post for a second although not as long as a GORF post.

( I agree with removed)

My prediction? SQ42 chapter 1 will happen whenever, they'll continue with these bullshit "patches" on the PTU and eventually do a hand wave and proclaim the PTU is complete, bugs and all. CIG is setting up everything so they can get the shittiest turd out the door to meet legal expectations while keeping all the cash these idiots are shoveling to them.

IGN posted:

As divisive as the Call of Duty franchise is every year, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare actually has a lot working in its favor. For starters, since the last IW-developed CoD, the studio has picked up some new blood, including a pair of former Naughty Dog designers, Jacob Minkoff (Design Director) and Taylor Kurosaki (Narrative Director) whose works include the Uncharted series and The Last of Us.

Secondly, Infinite Warfare will take place throughout our solar system and include new customizable vehicles for dog fighting, alongside non-linear side missions in its campaign. All that to say we’re looking at a hugely ambitious kind of Call of Duty campaign experience that could be something really special. Plus, more zombies, probably in space. Space zombies.

ManofManyAliases posted:

If it comes out right - great. If not, I'm sure people will get over it.

XK posted:

When Derek told us most of the resources were being diverted, many of us said it seemed like a really bad idea. SC was clearly the cash cow, and what everybody wanted. Now, after throwing 6 months of front burner development into the SQ42 black hole, the whole project looks like it needs to be tossed, including all that expensive mocap. To release SQ42 at this point would be more embarrassing than not releasing it. And now SC has fallen even farther behind, and for what?

CIG just telegraphed their total collapse with this ToS.

Streetroller posted:

Bear in mind, $3k was dropped over the course of 3/4 years, including subscriptions and buying various ships.
I was expecting a fulled supported VR interface, to be honest.

Before anyone tells me how much of an idiot I was or that I should have known, etc. I was always under the impression that SQ42 would release this year.
It was in their original tos, on their trailers, etc...

I've never logged into the game once, because I was not ever interested in testing the Alpha. It wouldn't have even been possible because I need to be able to key rebind to play games.
I have a disability that has progressively made it more difficult to game over the years, and I was excited about the idea of using Oculus to play (It was advertised as being accessible day 1)
I was extremely disappointed to hear that they essentially dropped it, but even that wasn't enough to put me off. I understand things take time.

I still would be backing if I hadn't read the tos changes on Reddit. Anyone with some basic law-crafting will know how absolutely shocking it is.

I've never paid much attention to Derek, he's too abrasive for me. My "descent" originally began when Chris wrote that awful letter to Escapist..
Finding out concierge was being labeled with inflammatory names, the blatant plagiarism...

Derek did none of those things. That was all CIG.

XK posted:

I'm interested on the bets of whether they are going to have a slow collapse, or an instant implosion where the employees get locked out and their paychecks bounce. I'm leaning toward the instant implosion scenario.

ManofManyAliases posted:

Nope - and I won't. Having fun outside at the moment, but I'll be on 2.4 live later for some spaceship fun

Preemptive apology about bad grammar.

EDIT: THIS IS MORE THAN JUST A COMPLAINT ABOUT RELEASE TIME.

I backed it quite a while ago and back then had a gtx 770. The game was pretty laggy on it and the motion blur made me sick. All I could do was dick around in a couple hubs and look at my ship in the hanger. I come back a year and a half later with a gtx 970 and not too much has changed.

For a game that promises the universe it's funny that the actual additions are so few. I find myself on the website and am literally being sold some upgrade, some package, some ship- nonstop. I read about how the game was supposed to be done by 2014 but then feature creep kicked in.

I read about the Cryengine being used and find out that it's not so good at creating huge seamless areas. It's also not really good at handling multiple connections so mmo style worlds are very difficult; likely for a project this size a whole new engine would actually need to be created in order to avoid the inherent limitations of the cry engine, that buggyness on my 970 is because the CryEngine can't handle the uber-multiplayer, it's the wrong tool for the job. As an example look at this list of CryEngine games: What do you notice about their nature? Unless, of course the goal is to keep creating shiny assets in the CryEngine creator to sell to backers for hundreds of dollars, again, it's not really the right engine given the goal.

These assets sold to players raise other questions: How will these items be balanced? Will the game just start with some players having OP items or will players that paid thousands of dollars get angry at the revelation that their spending offers no real advantage?

I look at the original kickstarter page and find non-stop comments from angry individuals that the game is failing to deliver, has become a money sucking entity and is missing deadline after deadline. Many want their money back, but you see pledging doesn't offer individuals the same legal protections that investors have. All early backers get is hype and small additions drip fed to them without a real deadline or clear route to success.

Graphically the game is good but then again Star wars battlefront came out this year. The game play is casual but graphically it is amazing. Dare I say, better than star citizen? hell I get 70fps with the mod on. From a conceptual point of view techniques like photogrammetry make it easier to make a game today than than it did 2 years ago. In a way Star citizen is trying to be a game of the future but with the technology of today. Games that set reasonable deadlines that they force themselves to commit to get somewhere before ending up in development hell. You see, ambition isn't a bad thing, but we can't forget that time keeps flowing and technology keeps evolving: Time will be spent, effort will be made and ultimately we will find that new technology has come out and everything needs to be re-done. New cards will come out, new engines, new operating systems will be released and they will all require much code to be re-written, re-optimized, re-patched.The spaghetti will grow.

In addition to that, in the further channels I read reports of heavy levels of censorship in star citizens forums. People asking about deadlines, progress, or anything really related to getting something serious done, towards final goals or to certain questions referring towards allocation of funding are generally swept under the rug. Only posts about 'Ohh shiny' or 'I'm new, how do I do this' or general nerding about are allowed. This is what really frightens me, when organizations have something to hide, you got your MLM's like amway, Scientology, and North Koreas. You know something is off; something is wrong. There is an illusion being created for all those that are within but ultimately they are the ones being hosed over.

You see when games normally develop you work on the core first, you make the world and you use placeholder models and ships and guns so that you know that functionally the game is fine. This is backwards development, I'm not sure this is viable, unless hype is actually the product.

Reading about the history of the creator I find that he has a bit of a tendency to over promise, give grand dreams and ultimately, not deliver. Riding on past successes. He's got that enigmatic L.Ron Hubbard personality that knows what his audience wants to hear and thats what he gives. This game will not be a failure, no, not for Chris Roberts, he's already sold it and made the money there very little legal obligation to actually succeed.

Remember that essay or project in school or college that you had to write and you spent all your time planning it and coming up with cool ideas but ultimately ran out of time and turned in a last minute, hurried up C grade effort? Your heart was in the right place but without discipline, foresight , and reasonable goals it kinda didn't work out too well.

TLDR:

* The website is pretty much all micro transactions
* CryEngine is not really viable for the scope and MMO nature
* Game balance is a concern with players purchasing thousand dollar ships
* Kickstarter comments show massive evidence of disgruntled backers
* Graphically the game is becoming outpaced by other games because technology continues and evolves as production methods become more efficient
* StarCitizen's forums are heavily censored against 'dissident comments' reminiscent of MLM's, scientology etc.
* Development appears to be backwards
* Creator has a personality cult and a history of over promising and under delivering

TLDR the TLDR: | development hell | microtransactions | Censorship | Wrong engine | Personality cult | Fundamentally issues with Core model

Emotional outro: I don't want this game to fail, it's like watching a failing relationship. You want it to work but you know when it's time to leave it alone and just sort of hope it fixes its poo poo sometime in the future, you highly doubt it but you kinda want it to so you just leave it alone.

Final note: Again I have bad grammar, sorry. Pm me my mistakes and I will update?

Ohtsam posted:

The new TOS is making neogaf turn on the game in a big way

"Without HTC Vive Support, Star Citizen has kind of dropped off my radar

Hi everyone, long time follower of SC, first time contributor to this subreddit.

The HTC Vive has turned my gaming world upside down (in the best way imaginable). I'm not going to bleat on about how amazing it is, I'm sure you've all read enough of that but I just wanted to say that VR has really taken the shine of monitor based gaming for me.

I believe there is supposed to be some kind of VR support for SC (seen some oculus dev kits being used but since then I haven't seen any real evidence of dedicated resource being applied (am I wrong here)? And I've seen no mention at all about support for the Vive and roomscale vr in SC.

After playing Elite in VR and experiencing the share scale and immersion it brings, especially with roomscale (being able to get up literally "walk" around the cockpit), my excitement for the Star Citizen release has diminished markedly.

Can anyone give some idea of what is really happening with VR support for SC?"

Is it just me posted:

"Is it just me that's having trouble finding fun on 2.4? I was so hyped and it just doesn't seem very good at all."

Guy who spent $500+ on spaceships posted:

"If I had above 20 fps I'd enjoy it....

I need a new CPU. That I5-4690K isn't cutting it."

No it's not just you posted:

"Yeap, I have this every patch. The progress is so slow. In big lines, the difference between now and 6 months ago is very small. It's kinda worrying to be honest, it looks like they can't get the fundamentals stable and well performing."

"It's not fun, it's [i posted:

IMPORTANT[/i]"]
I don't think many of the new features are necessarily "fun" features. Shopping, loadout persistence, earning aUEC from missions, and paying for repairs are, of course, all extremely necessary parts of the game even if they are not fun in isolation.

Personally I enjoy the ICC probe missions and exploring, which are still basically the same."

quote:

20 minutes for the SHIP to respawn if your ship gets destroyed. As you may know there is hull insurance on your ship and this mechanic is supposed to simulate that the insurance company can not and will not simply be able to restore a ship on the spot. At least not all of them. You can instantly get back an Aurora starter ship but you will have to wait some time if one of your fancier, bigger, rarer ships gets blown up from under your rear end.

If you only own a bigger ship and have to wait a couple hours (or days, weeks, months, years... final waiting times for specific ships are unknown) in the final game you will have the opportunity to rent a ship or fly for hire so you're not totally out of the game.

So this 20 minute wait time in this latest alpha is nothing out of the ordinary on principle. With that said and considering the very sad, buggy, broken, messed up state that the game is in it is entirely dumbfucking stupid of CIG to put in this mechanic at this time. It is becoming clearer every day that the game is made by fucktards.

Why would you enforce a 20 minute respawn wait time when the game is still in early alpha at best? How about instead giving people the opportunity to actually, you know, fly their ships and test poo poo instead of waiting for a respawn (the mechanic to rent a replacement or fly for hire is not yet in the game, of course)?

Even a three year old would realize that it is the dumbest idea of the millennium to put in a half-assed mechanic that just annoys the living gently caress out of people.

Oh well. Looking on the bright side, maybe more people will now wake up and realize what an entirely incompetent bunch of halfwit monkeys is working at CIG.

And, yeah, great job changing the TOS and launching the latest alpha with more ways to make cash LOL. What a bunch of greedy shitclowns.

BigglesSWE posted:

Mass Effect: Andromeda looks like it could swipe SC from the public interest in one fell swoop.

Hillary Clintons Thong posted:

someone add mass effect Andromeda to that graph they always pull out, make sure to say its development started in like 1998 though, gotta make SC look good.

edit: or are they gonna go with the "console trash" argument

Lazrin posted:

held up? gorf promised the big reveal, the show that would wipe star citizen off the map

and then nothing

Lazrin posted:

i'm waiting to hear more bluster to explain why his previous bluster was pulled out of his rear end

this isn't about cig, this is about what gorf promised and making sure you're all aware what a broken poser he is

Inkel posted:

This is starting to sound awfully familiar to whoever that idiot was thousands of pages ago who kept going on about Derek Smart and stole goon valor.

Danakir posted:

That's just, like, your opinion man. (Never stop posting in this thread, please)

Lazrin posted:

i'm waiting to hear more bluster to explain why his previous bluster was pulled out of his rear end

this isn't about cig, this is about what gorf promised and making sure you're all aware what a broken poser he is

peter gabriel posted:

I'm pulling this out of my rear end on behalf of Gorf

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

Inkel posted:

G0RF, why didn't you predict this amazing gameplay footage that CIG showed at E3 and blew everyone away? You are a loving poser and everyone knows it.

Lazrin posted:

it does indeed. but I'm just trying to temper the false alarms because they don't automatically mean 'bad' for cig and are hype in and of themselves. cig is doing that on they're own so i'm not even sure why anyone in this thread needs to somehow thump the chest of another project

no_recall posted:

Here's how I think the funding vs dev played out.

10m - 5m spent - spaceship ads, hangar in the making,
30m - 15m spent - hangar demo, AC tech in the making, spaceship ads
50m - 30m spent - hangar demo, AC demo, AC MP in the making, Star Marine commissioned, parp ball commissioned, spaceship ads
60m - 40m spent - hangar demo, ac MP, SM demo, Parpball in the making, spaceship ads
80m - 60m spent - hangar demo, ac mp/sp, SM / parpball ready - prep for code merge, spaceship ads
100m - 90m spent - hangar demo, ac mp/sp, 64 bits, SM / Parpball shafted, spaceship ads
115m - 100m spent - hangar demo, ac demo, persistent crysis mod with workable SM assets, spaceship ads

quote:

Worth noting is that at every funding milestone, CIG could've taken out a loan based on "revenue earned" from banks. Banks love giving loans, as long as CIG proved themselves to have a revenue stream and could pay interest. So, technically they might've pockets 115m in cold hard cash, and running on deficits. Right uncle derek?

AP posted:

I've been on the internet a long while now and in my opinion Gorf is a funny and intelligent guy who makes the world a better place, while in the short time I've spent reading your whine I'm being to suspect you're a complete arsehole.

How much you in for chief? Most Citizens have to launch the game to find their head up someones arse.

ManofManyAliases posted:

I'm not Toast


My horseshit evidence is at least more readily available, viewable and real than your horseshit counter-evidence. All the AGs, lawyers, FTC complaints and drivel shouting won't dissuade CIG from closing nor would it prevent other people from deciding to back. Good luck with the crusade. It's as admirable as me being here to tell you otherwise.

ManofManyAliases posted:

I'm out for the night after this reply:

SC is squarely in alpha

No Mods No Masters posted:

I love kamiya and wish him all the best but every time they show gameplay for this it looks jank as all hell, hope it works out for him

Ramadu posted:

That office looks horrible to work in

Sperglord posted:

When does infinite warfare appear at E3?

quote:

Also, Gorf, where's the Andromeda? That was a disappointment.

notoriousman posted:

Eh, I don't really see it.

How could a space forklift even hope to compete against a space bulldozer?

Justin Tyme posted:

Even if COD is a linear shooter, who cares? It offers the same story-driven campaign SC does, and it does it better.

I just thought of something: what are the chances CIG/CR saw a preview of the COD gameplay video from a friend in the industry, and realized whatever they had paled in comparison to the point of being utterly embarrassing, and that's the reason they pulled out from E3? Because the whole "we're too busy!" excuse honestly doesn't fly.

G0RF posted:

The thing is-- they can not compete with them. They just can't. It's not just a question of rationality -- it's a question of talent, efficiency, and synergy.



CLOUD IMPERIUM CAN'T COMPETE

CIG can't compete with the AAA Space Games they know about -- and the certainly can't compete with the ones they don't know about. They are a floundering, disorganized studio -- the Ad Hoc-iest game studio in recent memory -- and they've betrayed this very fact repeatedly without intending to in the very shows meant to boost backer confidence in the project.

Over the last month or so, I have been astonished to see how many new faces have appeared on "Around the Verse". This most recent episode features an employee in LA who was on his very first day of work. His very first day.

I don't mean by mentioning him to impugn his talent or question his worth. He might be a great hire-- as might be all the new hires. But CIG is a Gaming Studio whose revolving door spins like a top -- so many leaving, so many coming in. It might take 3-6 months before a new hire reaches something approximating productivity. Yet CIG is not a well-tuned engine made faster or more efficient once new employees learn the ropes, it is a bucket brigade. Some fight fires, others try to keep the thing afloat.

Rockstar, Bethesda, Infinity Ward, Bioware-- these are machines. Work doesn't grind to a halt because some guy broke his arm, or because they lose a key employee, or because they can't fill a position. They may occasionally push a release date back three months, they may occasionally even lose a badass. But deadlines matter to them because they make their money AFTER release, not before.

And the most successful of them hardly lose employees at all. Bethesda Softworks has 100 employees. Some have worked together 5,10 even 20 years. Todd Howard touched on the mysterious shorthand that emerges between people who've worked together closely for that long in a recent speech at DICE. There are synergies CIG can't even dream of once a studio achieves that level of cohesion. It took 100 people 4 years to put out Fallout 4-- and they made nearly $1B in 24 hours upon release. CIG can't compete against such studios because they can't compete like them.

"YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GAME DEVELOPMENT!"

"Why, it's just the way the Games Industry works!", the backers always retort, as some did when Mark Skelton's surprise departure was announced only days ago. "You know nothing about Game Development if you don't know that!"

Alas, would that that were true. Would that it all were true! Than the steady flow of CIG arrivals and departures was a sign of the relative health of the company; a sign of good things to come for Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

Yet the perpetual turnover and ad hoc development habits of Cloud Imperium Games are not typical of every studio.

Nor are logjams where two years of motion capture animations pile up undeployed because there's no Technical Animator on-hand to port them into the game.

Nor is starting a new year without a development roadmap for the year ahead, necessitating ad hoc spitballing sessions between management power players spread across the globe.

Nor is prioritizing the addition of in-game Spacedoll clothes shopping when your tutorial is broken, your flight model ludicrous, and your FPS so bad you can put a clip full of bullets in an opponents head, only to watch him strike a T Pose and hover away.

THIS IS WHAT FLOUNDERING LOOKS LIKE

It explains quite neatly why Star Citizen remains in an unstable Alpha state, 4.5 years in, with less than 10% of its promised content and features available for players. A company like CIG does not have time to anticipate and then respond to their competitive threats because...

...Their Developers are too busy lining up all of Chris Roberts promised game features and deciding which ones to shoot in the head...

...Their QA teams are documenting bugs squashed months ago somehow resurrected with new patches...

...Their Customer Support folks are busy sending canned "too bad, so sad" replies to people asking for refunds...

... Their Community Team is too busy putting out weekly tv shows about Wing Commander arcana while denying viewers answers about delivery dates for content...

... Their Visionary Leader is too busy shooting even more footage for a long overdue single player game unlikely to ever recoup its development budget...

...and their Marketing Team, such as it is, continues to pursue her Hollywood dream while not even bothering to stay abreast of basic game developments like Evocati testing...

How can they respond to threats from without when fighting threats from within is a fulltime job?


I know this was true for the last few years, when Chris Roberts thought the Space Game race market would be fought over between him and his Frenemy of old, David Braben.

But 2016 has been a wake up call. and from what I can tell, yesteryear's sense of Manifest Destiny is beginning to crumble in the senior leadership. It is one thing to make offhand claims about developing a shooter on par with Call of Duty when you're primary competition is a space game that hasn't yet added space legs. It is quite another when the latest "Call of Duty" game is set in space and includes space dogfighting missions and Zero G combat.






"I sense a disturbance in The Farce..."

Except they may not have anything super impressive to show. They unfortunately now live in a world where the Admiral Bishop speech will be compared with Infinite Warfare cutscenes. It's going to be really hard to compete against that kind of polish, especially when Infinity Ward specifically prioritized improving the CoD storytelling elements and brought in some of the creatives behind "The Last of Us" and "Uncharted 4" to do just that.

Chris Roberts told us that AAA studios make creatively compromised games and subordinate creative visionaries to beancounter concerns. And in 3 years time, one of the biggest AAA franchises in gaming history has cooked up a Dogfighting and FPS movie game that Squadron 42 must now prove superior to, lest Chris' narrative be repudiated. I'm going out on a limb here, but I kinda think he's parped on that front...