Star Citizen: Chris Roberts’ SCAM
I should have known better. Knowing CR from his days at EA, I should not have used my money on his SC, back in 2013. Four years later, with another alpha update delayed, I reinstalled the game to discover that the so called REALITY it promises is broken as soon as you step inside Star Citizen’s universe.
Star Citizen which, in fact, is a SCAM. No, it may not be that kind of scam or even a scam in Chris Roberts mind; somewhere in his mind, he might believe he will someday deliver on his promises — although many of us doubt it — but it is nonetheless a SCAM from where I see it.
Before I explain why it is a SCAM, let’s look back to the past. I am one of those that backed the game in 2013. In fact, I backed it July 2013, so four years ago we were promised a game that would mix the classic Wing Commander idea with a huge universe. Sounded good. Delay after delay, in 2016 Chris Roberts announced that the original game was to be split in two, Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Early backers, until 2016, would get the two games — in fact initially promised as one — but newcomers to the money machine that is Star Citizen, would have to pay extra for Squadron 42. Some have, I believe, I stopped following the development of both games many months ago, tired of my paper towel and fish bowl.
As it is now, Squadron 42 seems to be delayed again, with promises of new updates continually being broken, a process in all similar to the one of Star Citizen. No one really knows when any of the games will be delivered… and some people say they will never be, at least not with the magnificent tones that CR paints on each game event.
Squadron 42 is closer to my idea of Wing Commander on steroids, and that’s, after all, the one that interests me most, but I’ve not seen any of it. What I saw from Star Citizen, which also transformed into a Doom-like FPS, does not appeal to me, and the fact that the team behind it keeps changing everything from code to the rest, does not help to keep track of things, if you’re not a follower of the — bad — news about development.
I am glad I don’t have to pay to play Squadron 42, as anyway I would never pay, if CR’s decision was to not include the game in the early backers package. Still, the way things are going, Squadron 42 may never leave the early alpha stage, or whatever stage it is at. After all, we’re in alpha for Star Citizen, still now, and there is no way I see it moving in any direction. Or better, I see it moving in multiple directions, reinventing things, readjusting, removing and incorporating things, as if the game is an ongoing lab, and not something you’ve to deliver within a certain time. Oh yes, I remember now why CR left EA…
So, what we have in STAR Citizen is a complete SCAM. Or, to explain it as I see it: Star Citizen’s Aimless Motion… SCAM! Because it moves, it moves, but in fact it goes nowhere. Yes, I know there is a religious cult around this game — and some people that have invested a fortune and don’t want to admit they could as well have burned the dollar bills — but c’mon, sit down and think. Another stage of alpha — 3.0 — is delayed again, and the promises made by CR shattered again.
I’ve not played the game for some months now, and yesterday I decided to reinstall it, just to check. Besides not finding my paper towel and fishbowl, I discovered that there is not much to do in this alpha of a game. Well, I found out one funny thing. When you crawl, your hands go through the floor, in some odd way that suggests me there a breach in the REAL universe that we were promised. C’mon, go to your hangar, get on your four and move… For a moment I thought I was inside another game, with the two initial changed, to be CS or… Crawl Simulator.
So, maybe in the end what SC is is a Crawl Simulator. It surely does seem it is crawling, at the pace things are going. The most recent news about SCAM confirm why I name it this way. According to a note published today in Massively OP, “Star Citizen’s 3.0 alpha appears to have been delayed yet again”. The article says that “In April, CIG estimated 3.0 for this summer, achieved mainly by pushing off many of its features to later in the year. Earlier this month, we found out that 3.0 would be delayed into August following a month in Evocati testing. And this week’s production schedule report suggests it’ll be even further delayed.”
It does not surprise me that more and more people are angry at CR and team. How can it be that delivery schedules pointed by CR are constantly broken, and still the flow of money into the game continues, in a way that I only see happen with some religious sects? And on this one, there are no miracles happening. Except, I believe, for those hands going through metal…
