To abuse a phrase: it is difficult to make a dev finish a project when his livelihood depends on him not finishing it.
The following links give an overview of the kind of discussion we're hoping for on HN. Please (re)-read them and post civilly and substantively. We're not against campfires, but throwing matches around carelessly in a dry forest does none of us any good.
While there's something to be said about misaligned incentives, half of a dev's reputation and career advancement comes from a track record of finishing projects.
They are one of the best studios in the industry right now when it comes to consumer and dev friendliness. Their blog is a treasure trove of interesting posts on the internal development of the game, far more often and rigorously updated than anything else.
Seriously, keep the unsourced/unresearched flames to Reddit. You'd think that HN of all communities would be more appreciative of what CIG brings to the table.
This is a developer forum more than a gaming forum, so I think it's appropriate, don't you?
> plenty of cash without ever releasing anything
Come on now. I haven't at all kept up with the game for the past year and half and I can still tell you that they are regularly pushing out content simply because my inbox gets spammed with their content update newsletters.
In fact, the latest email is from 17 hours ago, announcing Lumberyard alongside "Alpha 2.6 with Star Marine", their big FPS patch. Saying they "aren't releasing anything" is disingenuous.
If you're saying they're not releasing anything you want to play, then sure - they haven't released anything I want to play either. It doesn't change anything.
That you are unhappy that they're making money before the game is done is another problem. I don't get why you would be; there's far less chances of the game ever being done if they're not making money than if they are.
I dunno what to tell you. Don't buy the ships? I stopped buying the ships a long time ago, nobody needed to tell me to do that.
The fault isn't with CIG, the fault is with open develoment in general. It's just not going to work.
People's criticism isn't that they're releasing Alphas. Sure, they have been pretty consistently. It's instead that that's all they've been releasing. There hasn't really been any indication of a coming final release, and timelines keep on being shifted out.
[1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/descri...
People complaining that they're late, have too much scope creep, aren't releasing good enough content, etc; all these are valid (albeit completely irrelevant to HN) complaints.
But the comments I'm seeing here are essentially just people disliking the game/the company because they're making money "unfairly". I would simply dismiss them as trolls were they not written by regulars and long timers.
Lumberyard being adopted by a AAA studio is huge news and instead of discussing that, people are shitting on the game. Like, what?
I mean, I've seen plenty of tangentially related comments on HN across topics, companies, and products, and people never complain that it's irrelevant to the topic at hand. As long as it has some relevance, it seems to be fine.
I think the SC tech does seem impressive, but when compared to a game in a similar vein like Elite Dangerous, which took a lot of well-deserved heat for not quite meeting expectations, yet still managed to produce an overall fun game that engaged the community while it continues to improve, its hard not to feel like SC could be doing more to give the backers something other than tech demos.
It's clear that you are passionate about the game. I appreciate that you are, because as a developer myself, it's really nice to have people who are enthusiastic about the work that you do.
But having said that, your comments as a whole have been defensive. Phrases like "come on now," "these comments are unworthy of Reddit," and calling others' comments disingenuous are fueling the flames. You're making it hard to have a real discussion with you because I don't feel like also ending up on the receiving end of your comments.
Like what exactly? How to deliver nothing but keep being funded with internets-fedaykins fighting tooth and nail to keep your image unsullied?
I think it's hard to judge that when the game hasn't been released. Prior to release you could say that about Peter Molyneux or anybody else who promises the sun, moon and stars.
I don't think taking people's money and not delivering anything for 4+ years isn't particularly friendly myself.
There is a plethora of information available about the vision of the game and that is very much because of CIG's approach to openness. They make everything available. They release countless youtube videos, blog posts, etc about design work on the game.
The people putting money into this, they're not preordering a game they're expecting to come out 3 months later, and then ending up disappointed because it's still in development.
And I've seen CIG offer complete refunds (sometimes worth thousands of dollars) to backers unhappy with the vision shift.
On these points alone they're doing a hell of a lot better than most game studios out there.
And yes, they're "promising sun moon and stars", but unlike Molyneux's games, NMS or whatever other overhyped project you can think of, they're constantly delivering updates about it, delivering content.
People will always be disappointed. I've been in the games industry long enough to know that gamers never know what the hell they want, and when they see something they think they want, they're usually wrong about it. Opening the gates of game development for consumers to peek inside, try out the product during its earliest days, is a ballsy move and one that simply isn't getting the credit it deserves, especially here.