The last Star Citizen blog I wrote was in Summer 2019. I had stopped writing them because quite honestly it became far too depressing - even for lols. Plus I still have friends & peers who are (some gone now) still feverishly working on Chris's pipe dream, and I just felt bad.
As an OG backer of the project, and it's most famous critic (they started it!), I have always had to draw the line between being a critic while deriding someone else's project that they're slaving over. Thing is, Chris is a liar, grifter, cheat - and a complete fraud.
That's what money does to you. Back when I started sounding the alarm bells that this was shaping up to be another Freelancer, Strike Commander, I took a LOT of flak for it. It's now FIVE years + $400M later and we're still having this discussion.
Having disappeared for over a year, without a single word to backers, Chris came out of "hiding" to address a complete NOBODY on the forums about an INCONSEQUENTIAL game feature in game where EVERY DAMN THING IS EITHER FLAT BROKEN OR BUGGY AS HELL.
In case you missed his follow-up derision at the very backers who gave him money, you can read all its glory below. If ANY other dev had written this, we'd be buying Gold nails on eBay for the cross he'd be nailed to. Read it.
It's clear that Chris has completely checked out of the project because what we're seeing is EXACTLY what happened the last time, back when Microsoft kicked him off a project and right of his own company having blown through MILLIONS of Dollars and never shipping ANY project.
And it's not as if he went silent in order to focus on the project. No, that would be weird. The project has been in steady decline this past year during which both him, his ex-wife Sandi, brother Erin et all have just ghosted off the project. It's the classic sinking ship adage.
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I am back to writing aggregated blogs again because I have found a new worthy cause that's filled with intrigue, corruption, abuse, racism, and plundering of a Web3 DAO that went from a $1b cap to $300M in less than 1yr amid a cratered token.
Once again, I have the receipts.
As with the Star Citizen (that's still not a finished game btw - 11 yrs + $600M later) blog series that hit all the headlines and which sparked a media frenzy, including from Forbes and others, my series on @apecoin DAO will take the same periodic format.
@apecoin This time around, instead of starting from the beginning and rolling down to the last blog where I was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the project was FUBAR, I am going to start from present, roll through the history, identify all the players involved, and connect all dots.
Days ago, the Special Council decided to - against procedures and in a blatant conflict of interest, decided to create an interdependent set of AIPS involving the creation of ApeChain via Polygon.
1/
The Special Council is never allowed to do this. Ever. Instead, not only did they author a bidzdev AIP to fund the Polygon AIP, but they're literally pretending that they aren't connected - despite irrefutable evidence.
Here is the first AIP, the Polygon one authored by @sandeepnailwal
Always amuses me that, almost 30 yrs since my first game, Battlecruiser 3000AD (aka BC3K), was released by Take Two, that it's still the go-to comparison for any team making an all-encompassing massive scope space game. Graphics aside, they ALL hit the same wall that I did.
When you build a massive space game, your #2 problem (with #1 being the tech to power it) is going to be how to populate it; and not just because you can, but because of what the game requires. And content repetition is the primary problem.
Every single massive scope space game that has attempted anything of the sort, has run into the same problem with content creation. No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, X series etc. all ran into the same thing because procgen can only go so far.
Well don't look now, but SQ42 no longer has a release date. Wait till you see Chris's response in an AMA on the game's 8th (it's actually 9, but whose counting?) anniversary.
So there's a new Star Citizen controversy brewing and which various parties are diving into. I haven't done much digging, so I will just provide some of my own thoughts.
First of all, I want to make this clear - again...
Star Citizen devolved into an absolute scam years ago. The basis for the scam is that the creators and primaries were busy focused on unjust enrichment by taking money out of the project, rather than putting money into it. This has gone on for years now.
To the extent that not only have they done shady financial things like building a corp with backer money, then selling back that corp to themselves, but also taking out large sums from the venture, even as they run out of money year after year.
For context, you'd have to do some catching up on my tweets since this fiasco started. To be clear, as a veteran game dev for 30+ yrs, as I see it, this battle was a long-time in the making, and needed to be waged.
Though some of my peers & colleagues in the biz are hesitant to publicly opine given the parties involved, my view is that with all the confusion as to the merits of the matter and what it means to gamers and game devs, this discussion is worth having cuz feelz aren't relevant.
To get started, this is what I said on 08/13 when news of the lawsuit went public, and which goes back to what I just stated in the first tweet of this thread.