Star citizen a scam?

So I actually started reading up on star citizen after ignoring it for its entire development.

They changed the TOS to say that they can deny a refund if they "already spent your money" then changed it to say you can only get a refund if the company goes under (and they don't release anything, so they can just push out whatever build they want, call it final and be cleared) in which case there's no chance of getting your money back. Is that even vaguely legal?

None of this stuff sounds like it would hold up in court and sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme.

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>muh refund

Way to out yourself as underage. The people who gave them their money won't get it back. If the company goes under then they're out of money. The company's assets will be liquidated and used to pay off senior lenders. Contributors are last in line with shareholders except the shareholders actually have ownership in the company

Why should anyone be able to get a refund after that money has been spent? Who should pay for that? Not to mention the fees involved. The "where's muh game" people would take a sizable portion of the funding out of the game. Fuck them.

If you want to play the game, buy in. If you want to wait and see, wait and see, they don't need your money at this point. That being said, I put in $30 and I've been having fun with it since they started doing the persistent universe stuff.

3.0 will be the make or break moment for me personally. I look forward to professions and more persistence.

Not a scam, they're just incompetent with no game design experience and will likely never produce anything of worth. Judge for yourself.

tried it out last weekend, it was boring af and the controls were shit.

No, it will just turn out to be a mediocre game.

>you just bought this 5 minutes ago?
>I'm sorry you filthy goyi-I mean boy, we already spent the money :^)

That shits illegal as fuck, especially since they have no verifiable public accounting means to show if your money has been spent, and even if they did only the goodness of boys could think nothing was wrong with that considering the legal system in any western country says otherwise

They are just half assed developers that like to piss away money at least they are showing some development for the money. Remember that yogscast game a couple years ago, now that was a scam and they got away with it scot-free.

>buying into a crowdfunding campaign and wanting a refund 5 minutes later

You don't deserve a refund you massive faggot and if I wasn't looking forward to Star Citizen, I would say I hope they crash and burn so you get nothing out of it.

NOT A SCAM

How much money were you conned out of?

Be honest.

>same responses every thread
>Same op every thread
Kill yourself op. You're reposting this thread on purpose.

I already said. $30. Bought in during the Kickstarter campaign and it's fun

>half assed developers
>extensively modifying an open source engine to accomplish their goals
If they wanted to shit something out, they could.

You can say whatever you want about the game but there's definitely effort being put into it.

>developers of a 150 million dollar indie game shouldn't have nice things

Let me guess, American and you believe in 2 weeks of vacation too?

Then go find my exact post being used, shill.

I don't know.
I bought a cheap starter pack with a dumb ship I could fly around in to play with a friend that is balls deep in this. He has like 3 or 4 ships that each cost around 100 bucks but no one to play with, so I got in (he actually payed half the price of my pack lol).
So far we can do this FPS thing and fly around/interact with a persistent universe. This is really cool if you have a group of people to enjoy it with, but impossible to enjoy alone unless you dump a fat load of cash on a ship that can withstand more than 3 shots from some random NPC.
I look forward to the point where they'll fuse these modules together, but I foresee a game that is a little more than Elite:Dangerous.
Their concepts for insurances and what not is dumb as fuck though.

Lotta loyalty for a 30$ pledge.

git gud, my $30 ship can fight off a $200 RSI constellation.

Kill yourself, back to gaf.

They do that stuff to try and frighten people into not getting a refund. The moment actual lawyers are called in they fold like origami as they know that shit won't stand up in court.

I have the Mustang Alpha, but I fail to find good weapon combos for it. What equipment are you using for it?

You're not fooling anyone, Mrs. Roberts

It would stand up in court, but it's not worth sending a lawyer to fight over thirty dollars. The "WHERES MUH GAME THE KICKSTARTER SAID IT'D BE DONE BY 2014" (you know, the campaign that was meant to make 2 million dollars tops and was going to be comparable to Elite Dangerous, no planets/FPS gameplay)

The people who pledge the least are always the most vocal and at that point, just give them their $30 back and save a trip to the courtroom.

You are aware that they've given back nearly a quarter of a million with a lot of multi thousand dollar refunds, right?

Your shilling pretty hardcore right now.

it always was
but never think for a minute people defending it are shills. It's just a bunch of poor souls filled with delusions and anger. You can lick your computer screen in everyone of these threads and taste the butthurt and the buyer's remorse.

And as a matter of facts your threads are also completely useless. These faggots will never ever ever; not even at gunpoint, admit they were a bunch of retards funding a scammer who's, by the way, cruising on his new yacht.
If tomorrow the devs come out in an interview and admite "yep guys, it's a scam, sorry", they would still defend them.

I find it extremely fascinating. It's like watching a skinner box where the mouse keep pressing the buzz button to get electrocuted

Nigga, have you got any idea how valuable a purchase that is for a large office?

I am aware but even a thousand dollar pledge isn't worth fighting. I just wish they'd make the user pay the fees so it wasn't taking money out of the game reasonable people pledged into (and expected delays)

They're only six months behind schedule on any given release date. I think that's more than reasonable.

Go ahead and play it. They do free weekends once every couple months. You'll have a fun time.

How is it a scam if they get what they want?

It's not like development isn't being done.

What's wrong with insurance? AFAIK they're going for the same system as EVE, if you've played that.

Jesus Christ, imagine this game without insurance. It'd be Grand Theft Auto Online but with ships where you could fly into people from any angle since you know, they're space ships.

I don't understand the scam accusation;
They're actually providing new content regularly and have a game that could easily be a twitch-bait-early-access-title on Steam. You can fly around in a ship, even with friends. You can shoot your friends in an FPS mode. You can modify your ship. The graphics look very ok.
Where's the scam? Is the scam that it is not finished yet while still actively being worked on?

My point was, I shouldn't have to have insurance to keep an item that I already paid for in a game that also cost me money to get into.
If I wanted that kind of realism, I'd just buy a car in real life.

The scam accusations are because they delay updates.

Looking back at 2.0, it's hilarious how everyone called the preview stream of it smoke and mirrors, impossible to do, etc. Then they released it a few months later.

Have you ever worked an office job? Coffee=people actually working

I think it's effectively just a tiny money sink, same as durability/fuel/whathaveyou in other games.

Except your "item" could be used to ruin thousands of other people's experience.

If you're unable to maintain that ship's extremely low insurance costs assuming you actually take care of your ship, you don't deserve to have it anymore.

The insurance system is just to make sure people can't ram into a space station and kill everyone over and over and over again.

naysayers are gonna get BTFO again with 3.0 in June

>June

You know full well it's getting pushed back at least once. They can't into deadlines, but they can into good games. worthy tradeoff.

>three con men
>see how they scam

It already got pushed back. People keep saying "add six months to their target release date", their target release date was end of 2016. We're in the six month delay right now.

Not to mention a June release is a HUGE opportunity for them since they'll be able to do the whole "coming in 2 weeks" thing at E3.

Bloodstained and Star Citizen are good though.

If you even need to ask, you're too gullible to be allowed to use money, you should hand your power of attorney over to someone without brain problems.

The real question is: will star citizen beat starbound as most overhyped, overfunded flop?

>91% positive rating
Jesus Christ this place is really as much of a hugbox as Tumblr is

I bet you think Destiny was a flop too.

>Bloodstained and Star Citizen are good though.

LOL

Starbound flopped hilariously when they launched it in beta but it's redeemed now, if that's what he's referring to.

>Why should anyone be able to get a refund
Because consumer rights. Learn the consumer protection laws in your state or country and don't let shitty businesses fuck you over.

That's looking good, what's the problem?

>If you're unable to maintain that ship's extremely low insurance costs assuming you actually take care of your ship, you don't deserve to have it anymore.

Absolute cancer

Average SC backer

People loved Starbound when it went into early access

>consumers should be able to be idiots and get their money back 2-3 years later no questions asked

I'm the most pro-consumer person out there, but that's retarded

>waaaah I can't ram people's ships without being punished

Oh wow, it's Symphony of the Night, I'm truly shocked that a spiritual successor resembles what it was meant to be.

He basically just said "if you can't afford the repair costs on your gear you don't deserve to use it." Not seeing the issue here.

>one hilariously delusional poster
i still want that game though

>waaaah I can't ram people's ships without being punished

It's more about people being afraid of legit pirates in this game. Think about it: someone who has too much money will most likely buy crass upgrades for their ships and just hunt newbies.
It's a punishment for people being griefed as well.

>>developers of a 150 million dollar indie game shouldn't have nice things
>buying luxury coffee machine with crowdfunding that you're going to write off as a business expense
You just like being fucked by shitty business practices don't you? I mean, you're already investing in a company via means that ensures you get zero return on your investment, that's pretty fucking retarded.

Reputation system is going to fuck people over hard if they keep breaking the law anywhere it can be reported.

Keep downplaying this as much as you want, but it will affect legit players more than people who're just in it for a quick lulz.

You do realize there's a legal/reputation system right? Those people will get fucked by their insurance far more than you'll get fucked by replacing your ship.

It's unsustainable.

If there's one thing that is justifiable as an office expense for hundreds of top-tier developers, it's a high-end coffee machine and you'd know that if you weren't a NEET

I bet you believe that these people should be in the office 60 hours a week too.

See

But it really won't. There's pretty much zero penalty for being on the receiving end of a griefer and there are huge penalties for people who grief. Permanent penalties.

Might it be a problem for the first day? Sure, beyond that? The idiots will fuck their accounts so hard, they'll have to buy another account and I figure they'll have learned their lesson at that point.

>ram people multiple times
>marked as criminal
>anything from "you cannot enter certain areas" to "enjoy those bounty hunters"
>insurance starts costing exorbitant amounts because of criminal activity/repeated usage where you're at fault

I'm not seeing how this doesn't deal with the problem.

This. The penalties will solve this problem pretty much immediately.

I played Ultima Online. I played EVE, I know how sandbox MMOs work and griefers are going to get fucked. hard.

You are not buying a product you are making an investment.

Furthermore, Star Citizen is perfectly within its rights not to offer refunds for change of mind even if it was a product. To the extent that they can lawfully deny you refunds, they absolutely have the power to deny you refunds.

The only way you'd be entitled to a refund (in Australia) would be if the product was not what was advertised, or if the product had a major failure. I think with the level of transparency involved in the development process it's hard to argue that their advertising is deceptive, and I don't see any major failures.

And that's all besides the point because they're not selling a fucking product. You are making an investment. You pay in X dollars and receive payment in kind later on for your money when the investment pays off. The government doesn't exist to bail you out of your shitty investments unless you're a bank or a Jew.

>You are not buying a product you are making an investment.

By its very definition, no kickstarter is an investment.

Well they're certainly not selling a product.

It's in the fucking name: crowdFUNDING, not crowdBUYING.

You are FUNDING a project. That's investment, not purchase.

>but kikestarter's TOS says
TOS are irrelevant. Legislation > contract. If contracts contradict legislation the contracts are invalid.

Nigga, do you have any idea how much a regular industrial coffee maker costs, not a SUPER EXTREME ESPRESSO MAKER 9000?

early access is the dumbest thing and it ruins games

I figured that price included the kind of support you'd expect at a business, i.e. same day repair/replacement. You aren't just buying the machine.

If you were getting stock in the company, it would be a legal investment. As it stands, all kickstarters are definitely not an investment under law, CIG wouldn't be bending over backwards to come up with ways of trying to avoid giving refunds.

How is early access dumb? It allows devs to tell publishers/venture capitalists to go fuck themselves and in most cases, it means far more transparency.

It's not the system's fault that you bought ARK and didn't use the refund system when you discovered it was shit.

Kickstarter is more like a donation with perks, like one of those dumb charity wristbands. Investment implies you're getting equity in the project i.e. a financial return based on its success.

>It allows devs to tell publishers/venture capitalists to go fuck themselves

Too bad this rarely happens and in most cases they end up using the money to build a demo that they then use to go to publishers to fund the rest of the game.

>why didn't u just get a refund?
>meanwhile all these cucks in this thread are crying about how refunding from roberts is theft

jej

My office bought a coffee maker for everyone that cost less than a hundred bucks.

People use it regularly and are happy with it.

Just face it, shill. CIG is irresponsible as fuck.

>rarely happens
the vast majority of early access games do not have a publisher, even if we're strictly talking about the notable ones.

this sums up the average scam citizen victim, just needs more crying about some other incompetent developer named smart as the reason for everything bad happening

>Investment implies you're getting equity in the project i.e. a financial return based on its success.
Copies of the game would be payment in kind. Certainly enough to count as consideration.

Your office is likely filled with people that think $13-15 an hour is amazing.

Meanwhile CIG is hiring from top tier studios like Valve and Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios

You want to hire people like that? You better have a fucking awesome espresso machine

Because consumers are dumb, so the devs take advantage of it and don't make good games. Having early access anywhere in your plans without the purpose of a non-promotional alpha or beta should be synonymous with shitty practice.

A reward for donating is not the same as a dividend.

>$13-15 an hour is bullshit
>Espresso is the best currency

You're dumb as fuck.

Think of it like a bond. RSI issues bonds to the backers to get funding. At a later date the bonds mature and RSI repays them in kind with the game.

...

>muh thousand dollar coffee

CIG is not Valve, numbnuts. They haven't even finished their first game yet, and they're behaving as if they have cheese to burn.

Also, you forgot to mention that many of the senior people either left for Blizzard or left for greener pastures elsewhere, shill.

Nigga, what did you expect. He gave money to SC.

This is why you don't kikestart or buy early access. You're investing in a product and you have no guarantees that it will be finished or to your liking.

Good for them, if people are too stupid to refund a dogshit game, they deserve to be taken advantage of.

$13-15 hourly is dogshit. Maybe not for the average wage slave but in tech?

My first job in IT I was making $28 an hour and that was below average in my area (Phoenix Arizona, not Silicon Valley or anything like that)

CIG employees are likely making $60-$120 an hour.

>You want to hire people like that? You better have a fucking awesome espresso machine

Fug, nevermind you're shitposting. You're good, user.

You guys need to have more faith in Chris. The game will deliver don't you worry.

I heard his wife is fucking the black guy in the office

Yeah well if he went on to say that employees at CIG make more money that would've been fine, but he said CIG needs the espresso to hire good people. Which is bullshit as they probably have a Starbucks around the corner.
And we all now, that none of those hip people can really differentiate the taste of Starbucks vs some douchy cat-chewed-and-pooped-coffe bullshit.

I'm not shitposting. When you're competing with Silicon Valley, you better have an awesome food court, an awesome expresso machine, a stocked kitchen with hundreds of red bulls, not to mention tennis courts and pools (or at least membership to a high-end local gym/country club)

I know this is a difficult thing to explain to wage slaves but when you're in demand, you get treated like royalty.

>instead of keeping your employees in your office, just send them down the block to starbucks

Or you could buy an espresso machine and list it as a perk as to why someone making $150,000-$300,000 a year should make $150,000-$300,000 a year with you instead of Google or Valve or Blizzard.

Shitty taste. There are PS2 games that look better than that. The fucking PS2 castlevania games look better than that.

>I'm not shitposting. When you're competing with Silicon Valley, you better have an awesome food court, an awesome expresso machine, a stocked kitchen with hundreds of red bulls, not to mention tennis courts and pools (or at least membership to a high-end local gym/country club)


Don't forget the complimentary treatment for type 2 diabetes

>HURR YOU HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE TO GIT COFFEEEE
Or you could organize a fucking in-house starbucks-lease or a fucking delivery service.
You don't need a $13K machine. Stop justifying it. It heats water to near boiling and drops it over coffegrind. Nothing in this is worth $13K.

>all of these anons that drink the seattle jew

You're all faggots.

I've been to the Valve offices where they do this shit. People are fit because they're working 30 hours a week in Bellevue Washington and they spend tons of time with their families doing outdoorsy stuff.

Surprising given a look at their kitchen
youtu.be/YR0WN55p_zI (Valve's snackbar)

That would cost more you dipshit. Cloud Imperium's offices have like 100-250 people per office. Do you know how much that would add up to? And don't you dare say "make the employees pay for it"

No such legal agreement is made though. RSI isn't obliged to pay out backers in the case of failure to deliver or bankruptcy, which effectively makes it like a donation. They offer you rewards in exchange for your pledge, but it's more like a promise rather than an actual transaction. Besides a bond is more like a loan than an investment.

I'm sure you know better than Gabe Newell though Mr. Armchair gamedev/businessman :^)
youtu.be/YR0WN55p_zI

>That would cost more you dipshit.
It wouldn't, but I can see how you have your handsful with CIG-cocks to jerk off.
At least admit that $13K is too much for a glorifier water heater.

the problem is, they're making progress

>Cloud Imperium's offices have like 100-250 people per office.

They have 300 people over 4 offices.

kys shillboi

>200 people need their shitty coffee everyday
>5 bucks each
>Pays for itself in less than a month