“It allows us to do things without imposing the framework of a typical video game studio,” Chris Roberts said in an interview with La Presse from his home in Los Angeles. “The players who fund us expect the best game, period. We don’t have to streamline, cut jobs, or change our business model.”
This is false. I am honestly surprised about the cavalier attitude with the truth.
I mean, vaporware would require it to fail to manifest. There is a game. You can play it right now. Has it delivered on everything they promised? Absolutely not. But that was never the definition of vaporware. And, paradoxically, what’s there, despite being far reduced from the theoretical scope, is also one the most technically impressive games ever made. Entire planets in a complete solar system that you can traverse without a single loading screen. Not even a disguised one. It’s also, y’know, a buggy janky mess that still lacks many core gameplay features.
Like, there’s so much that you could legitimately criticise about Star Citizen that resorting to the both meaningless and innacurate claim of vaporware just shows an extreme lack of imagination. If you want to be critical go for it, but surely you can come up with something more coherent than that?
The other commenter, and Roberts in that quote, were talking about Squadron 42, which so far has failed to manifest itself outside of trailers. It’s original planned release window was in 2014, then delayed to 2020, and now 2026.
I mess with SC and S42 every few years, have access from the kickstarter from way back when.
They’re fine. They’re even neat. But Elite Dangerous gives 90% of what their original promises were and has much more demonstrable development progress. Planetary systems without a loading screen is not as impressive as it was in the early 2010s. Kerbal Space Program was created and died since then.
I don't believe they will even release SQ42 by that date, less alone the MMO. I knew the online part has 'issues', to put it mildly, but I really thought I'd live to at least get a decent singleplayer game out of my passionate backing more than a fucking decade ago
It would make little sense for them to release a final version of this game, given that they’ve made Saudi prince money from a perpetual alpha and in-game assets you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for. They’d never tie-off the areola on this big fat milker.
Who cares. If it does fully release I’m sure plenty of people will give it a proper go, until then it will remain the somehow incredibly profitable meme that it is.
We’re like 10 years after the last date when “it’ll release soon, trust us” deserved any kind of trust.
I think Chris should just go back to… well, whatever he’s doing these days and not talk to the press until either of the games finally releases. There were so many promises, dates and pledges that nothing he says has any value at this point. Not to mention the delusions in some of the things he says here.
Let the games do the talking and just watch from sidelines until then, please.
So if it is released, would it be fair to allow “no question asked” refunds on all cash shop items that are in still in JPEG form or de facto don’t work?
Sure, but if SC is actually released, it is only fair to provide a no questions asked refund policy for JPEGs and non-functional cash shop items. Is it not?
At any rate, this discussion is moot, because SC is not released as BlameTheAntifa claims. The overwhelming majority of marketed gameplay, content simply doesn’t exist and a large part of the cash items are either broken or borderline non-functional.
I don’t understand, are you saying they should provide refunds for customers beyond 30 days? The game is accessible, and nothing that is in concept is available to purchase outside of a couple times a year and they are clearly marked as such.
They also allow anyone to return all store bought items for credit forever, and you can swap around to a different package if they put things on sale. Like it’s a pretty decent system, I don’t know exactly what you’d expect to be improved?
If the game is formally released, it is reasonable to provide refunds (irrespective of purchase date) for cash shop items that don’t exist or don’t work.
I kind of wish that Chris Roberts would just take the hint and STFU about release dates for SQ42/SC. There were so many broken promises that any trust that they will hit targets is gone.
I can at least say that, based purely off of what I’ve seen of their gameplay trailers, 2026 is a more realistic release date for Squadron 42 that any of the previous target dates were. The question isn’t if it’s going to be finished by then, it will be if they are going to release it in a playable state at that time.
2027-2028 for Star Citizen is completely unrealistic. The game is nowhere near finished enough to consider that a date that will stick, even if you get all the people working on SQ42 to move over to SC after it eventually releases, the extra manpower can’t make up for the huge hole they’ve dug themselves into. They still have a years-long backlog of content to produce and show no sign of slowing down on offering new pledges. When they catch up with releasing all of the ships that people have paid money for and 10 years later still have nothing to show for it, then we can talk about release dates - ones that give enough time for proper bug fixing, polish, and gameplay balance. 2 or 3 years from now ain’t it.
There are also contractual issue to consider. Their investors have a “one-sided” put option in 2028 that might force them to “release” SC even if 80% of the marketed gameplay doesn’t exist and large number of cash items are de facto non-functional.
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