17 replies to this topic

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Quote

More than a year after the Washington State Office of the Attorney General filed a consumer protection lawsuit against a Kickstarted game creator who failed to deliver, a state court ruled against the defendant and ordered that $54,851 be paid in civil fines, fees and restitution to backers of the bungled crowdfunding campaign.

This is especially notable in light of the fact that Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson believes this to be the nation's first-ever consumer protection lawsuit involving crowdfunding, and it happens to be over a tabletop game Kickstarter: Asylum Playing Cards.

As Polygon notes, this likely sets a legal precedent for taking action against people who run successful Kickstarters and don't deliver the goods, though some of the backers of this project reportedly began receiving decks of cards in June, shortly before the court issued its ruling in July.

The whole thing started when the Aslyum Kickstarter ended in October of 2012 at $25,146 in pledges, beating its original $15,000 goal. In 2014 Washington state's Attorney General's office alleged that campaign creator Edward J. Polchlepek III (aka Ed Nash) and his company, Altius Management had collected the money and neglected to deliver either the cards or the various backer rewards.

Since some of the campaign backers live in Washington, the state's legal team was able to get involved.
“Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft,” stated Ferguson in a press release announcing the ruling back in July. “If you accept money from consumers, and don’t follow through on your obligations, my office will hold you accountable.” The release then goes on to encourage people in similar situations to file complaints with their state's attorney general.

Nash and Altius Management have been ordered to pay their 31 backers in Washington a total of $668 in restitution, as well as $23,183 in legal fees and $31,000 (a grand per backer burned) in civil penalties for violating the state Consumer Protection Act, but it's yet unclear whether they've actually done so. Gamasutra has reached out to the Washington state Attorney General's office for further details.

http://www.gamasutra..._to_deliver.php

I hope Chris Roberts and Star Citizen are taking notice.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 11 September 2015 - 03:47 PM.

[Kalimaster]

If this is case I'm thinking of, it would have been one of the hottest games out there. As is, he is simply a con-artist running a scam. I would have enjoyed playing that particular game as I am a fan of said mythos.

[Mister Blastman]

I Zeratul I, on 11 September 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

I hope Chris Roberts and Star Citizen are taking notice.

If they don't hurry up and do something about mouse interactive mode they're going to be ripped apart by a mob of angry gamers. That's the feeling I get from the forums, at least.

[Lily from animove]

lol, kickstarting is not even bound to a guaranteed success, how such a thing, ... oh wait USA

[Unnatural Growth]

Not an SC fanboi at all, so no attempt made on my part to "defend" them. However, they are releasing "content". There are portions of the game you can play, ships you can "own" (not legal ownership, but have parked in your hangar and interact with). They are delivering some forms of a game content product that you (the kickstarter) can visually see and interact with.

Not the same case as in the legal dispute above. They sent in their money, and literally received zero.

I did put in a very small kickstarter pack to SC, but with recent experience in another game's development, I'm reluctant to give more at this time.

[CoffiNail]

Marack Drock, on 12 September 2015 - 11:32 AM, said:

3 Years with less than even Star Citizen is theft. Just face it. If you can't than you know nothing of the US system and should not really have any say in it whatsoever. Given you can barely write comprehensible English sentences says that you probably don't know anything about the USA. No idea why you can't understand English... oh wait.... Foreigners.

Really Marack?

Disappointing to see you talk like that... North America is built upon 'foreigners'. They do all the jobs most Americans feel to privileged to do. Canada & USA would both be shells if their 'foreigners' suddenly disappeared.

[Rebas Kradd]

Physical goods and virtual goods are two different things. It's going to be a lot harder to prove fraud for the latter, especially if the virtual goods do exist, simply in half-finished mode on someone's server.

[CoffiNail]

People complain about rushed games, yet want to rush games because they found out about their development before day 1 and the game is taking to long.

[Iqfish]

Marack Drock, on 12 September 2015 - 11:32 AM, said:

No idea why you can't understand English... oh wait.... Foreigners.

Hmmm not cool bro.


Also regarding Star Citizen: We already have a thread to post your concerns into, they never gave a solid delivery date and they have stuff to show already.

This whole 3 year argument is ******** anyways. The first year was staffing up (do you really think a company can go from 4 to 350 employees in no time?), getting their **** together. The game is made from the ground up and not like other games (Battlefield 4 is barely a re-skin of BF3 and took 2 1/2 years).

Even IF they would have already spent 3 years on "making a hangar", 3 years is not bad. Take a look at how long Fallout 4 took them. 6 years? more?

And PLEASE for gods sake, if you want to criticize something as complex as the Project Star Citizen, educate yourself on the topic. READ one of the monthly reports to know what's been worked on, otherwise you just look like an idiot. Content creation is merely 1/4 of the job. Even PGI can release 1-2 mech chassis per month.

Edited by Iqfish, 13 September 2015 - 12:24 PM.

[CoffiNail]

See, they have two options. They either release a buggy piece of crap because you wanted something back up their words they are making stuff, yet then would judge the game based on the fact you are playing a buggy beta. Or they could you know, keep you updated that they are working on stuff... and release the content when it is ready. Rome was not built in a day... They are building a universe to play in.

[Iqfish]

Marack Drock, on 13 September 2015 - 02:00 PM, said:

Or create a Public test like MWO where we can test this stuff ourselves and thus give us the feeling that they are actually doing something,

See that's why I said inform yourself or your arguments look stupid.


Take this (this was today, test for the GIM or Generic Instance Manager)
https://www.reddit.c...n_13_sept_2015/

or the big PTU test for the social module (two weeks ago).
https://www.reddit.c...h_has_gone_out/

Thats two tests on the PTU servers, PGI had two or three this year and the most recent one was shut down because no one gave a ****.


there are and have been many more examples over the past few months.
If you are wondering why the content release front has been so silent this year, they have undergone a big code merge and are now as of last week on a single dev stream.
That means implementation of the work that has gone into FPS (which means new and better animations through the whole game, performance optimizations, network optimizations and much more) is merged into the main branch of the game.

You can find this info and a lot more in this article. I suggest reading it, it would certainls give your arguments more depth.
http://imperialnews....-release-plans/

They also do monthly updates and weekly updates on the most recent module, the FPS module.
https://robertsspace...e-Status-Update

Look, I am not one of those blindfolded fanboys of the project. I got in early 2013 and have a backer number just slightly oer 100.000, so I have been there for a long time. They havent recieved a dime from me since 2014 and I've dumped about 5 times more into MWO than I have into Star Citizen.
I am sceptical, since I know quite a lot about this stuff. I am working with the CryEngine 3 in my daily life and I know its limits. But I know too that they have some of the best guys of the entire industry in their Office here in Frankfurt, Germany. These guys have BUILT the engine.

Just keep my advice in mind, if you want to argue against the project, please inform yourself.

Edited by Iqfish, 13 September 2015 - 04:50 PM.

[Lily from animove]

Marack Drock, on 13 September 2015 - 02:00 PM, said:

Or they could you know maybe do a little of both. Give us just a little bit each month. Or create a Public test like MWO where we can test this stuff ourselves and thus give us the feeling that they are actually doing something, other than saying
"Were getting stuff done! Trust us! See here is what we are working on *shows a photo that may or may not be fake*! See trust us it will be good. Now please give us shitloads of more money!"

Public test could easily solve all of this. Yeah everyone will know its an Alpha or beta so there won't be hate issues, but then everyone who paid is satisfied as they actually get to see that there is an actual product.... I mean seriously there are plenty of things they could do to remedy these problems, but Star Citizen doesn't even want us to see what they are working. They just make some monthly statement about what they are working on, but we never see a product. There is so much they could do to get people off their backs, but their resolve seems to be: don't do anything and just ignore them.

A public test could even give them critique and help them to know what people want and how to improve stuff.

thats not how it works, tbh. You ened to make the base coding firts its the biggets part, if you start making visual assets too early graphics will be outdated before you release, whcih makes thinkgs either look ugly, or you have to do them TWICE. Most of the time when games have the chance they use low ql graphically primitve assets for alpha testing. But woudl that be done in SC peopel would go mad, since most won't udnertsand this. The entire creating of maps and models and Skins is the last part to be done. because then you cna use the latest tech available and bring out something being at the state of the art.

Marack Drock, on 13 September 2015 - 05:05 PM, said:

No need to do this for games anymore.

I have no time for games right now. MWO is no exception and Star Citizen, has gone with the wind in my books. I won't make anymore opinions on this game and most likely not on these forums for a while. I am going to college 6 days of the week with one day to do homework. So have a good day (or night for you in Germany?), I won't be bothering these forums for a long while.

thats good focus on the college, when it's done see what happened and enjoy what is there. Or something else if the thing you expected isn't what you wanted. There are too many games and too less time to get mad about a few games beign lost or screwed up.

[Alreech]

Marack Drock, on 13 September 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

People want a good balance. I wouldn't say anything against Star Citizen if they had started releasing this stuff a year and a half ago (they have 80+ million dollars... you are telling me it takes them 3 years so I can walk in a hangar?). Star Citizen has had little to barely any development at all in the past.... 3 years now. It took that amount of time to give us Elite Dangerous. A game currently 10 times as large and it had a budget 8 times smaller. Star Citizen is unrealistically slow, and is pissing people off because they see all these other games that are complete, made in the same time *with a studio about the same size that was also working on 2 other games, talking about the Elite Dangerous company* and are way better so far. Star Citizen has done nothing to warrant a good thing to say.

Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous have a different approach.

E:D was released as Core Game, and features like planetary landings, multi crew ships, first person combat ect... are planned to added later with addons.
Star Citizen is planned to have all these features at the release, and a single player campaign.

E:D was also in development since 2006 - on a low level, because no publisher wanted to publish it, and because of that frontier was able to go quickly to the alpha phase after the successful kickstarter campaign

[Gremlich Johns]

Marack Drock, on 13 September 2015 - 02:00 PM, said:

Or they could you know maybe do a little of both. Give us just a little bit each month. Or create a Public test like MWO where we can test this stuff ourselves and thus give us the feeling that they are actually doing something, other than saying
"Were getting stuff done! Trust us! See here is what we are working on *shows a photo that may or may not be fake*! See trust us it will be good. Now please give us shitloads of more money!"

Public test could easily solve all of this. Yeah everyone will know its an Alpha or beta so there won't be hate issues, but then everyone who paid is satisfied as they actually get to see that there is an actual product.... I mean seriously there are plenty of things they could do to remedy these problems, but Star Citizen doesn't even want us to see what they are working. They just make some monthly statement about what they are working on, but we never see a product. There is so much they could do to get people off their backs, but their resolve seems to be: don't do anything and just ignore them.

A public test could even give them critique and help them to know what people want and how to improve stuff.

I don't know what you've been reading or who you've been listening to - perhaps he who shall never be named, but they have been doing exactly what you are asking for several months, since February in fact. Before the rest of the backers get new stuff, it is put into what is called, and I'm not making this up "Public Test Universe" for testing by a limited number of backers and the developers. And contrary to what you believe, CIG has been giving backers more information than any other game development company, past or present, since the kickstarter began.

You say you read the monthly details - I call baloney. The products - arena commander, racing module, area 18 and the social module are the alphas that we are testing every single day. They are being what is termed "merged" meaning that they will all be combined to function together. When 2.0 comes out, it will actually be the alpha of the Persistent Universe and the result of the combination of those modules I cited in addition to the Star Marine module. If you'd seen the Gamescom demo of the multi-crew capability, you would have seen what we've been talking about. Even in their alpha state, the modules function better than a lot of games out there at full release (like the garbage 3000AD games) - even better than MW:O which I consider to still be in beta.

[Kyone Akashi]

OldOrgandonor, on 13 September 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

Not an SC fanboi at all, so no attempt made on my part to "defend" them. However, they are releasing "content". There are portions of the game you can play, ships you can "own" (not legal ownership, but have parked in your hangar and interact with). They are delivering some forms of a game content product that you (the kickstarter) can visually see and interact with.

Indeed. It may not end up being what some of its backers hope for with their inflated expectations, but the comparison doesn't sound valid at all. People need to understand that Kickstarter isn't some sort of preorder deal, it's about funding a vision.

It's a tricky topic as it sounds like there is potential for a huge grey area, but I do think a case can be made for creators who take the money they raised and don't even try to put it to the intended use, and this is what the story seems to be about.

Still, it's kind of ludicrous how "justice" is being served here. Out of almost 55k, only 31 backers (the ones located in a single state in a single country on a single continent) get a few hundred bucks in total, with the rest disappearing into government pockets. Sounds like a more efficient scheme than parking tickets.

Alreech, on 14 September 2015 - 09:13 AM, said:

E:D was also in development since 2006 - on a low level, because no publisher wanted to publish it, and because of that frontier was able to go quickly to the alpha phase after the successful kickstarter campaign

Sort of true. What was in on-and-off development was the dedicated/optimised game engine, based on a comment in an interview regarding Elite 4 (which would ultimately become Elite Dangerous) years before the kickstarter. But since Elite is using the same Cobra engine as all their other games (Zoo Tycoon, Outlander), it probably didn't take that much to tweak it for an open worldgalaxy space game. Certainly one of their biggest advantages, if you'd want to make it a race.

The people who kickstarted and who played the Alpha know how "much" of Elite was actually done back then, though. Especially the kickstarter video, which was a very, very far cry from what the game ultimately turned into. Considering that we can safely assume they'd pick the best they have to show to promote the game, it should allow for a good estimate on the development.

I'm still convinced that the biggest "showstopper" for SC was their choice of engine. They may have saved some time by not having to code their own, but as it turned out, now they have to put in what sounds like an equal amount of work just to bash it into shape for a type of game it has never been intended to be used for. Not too much of a reason to get worried about, though. Game development can be incredibly costly, but even with their massive spending, I think they should be good for at least another two or three years -- especially as they are still getting money. So, just a matter of patience.

Ultimately, the entire thread sounds a bit like bait, though.

[Alreech]

Cloud Imperiums choice of the engine is IMHO less a problem than the hype of the fans.
The expectations are so big, that it is almost impossible to fulfill them.

Especially the points of critic that are common for Elite Dangerous will be also apply to Star Citizen.
Lack of content (compared to EvE), no real simulation of the economy (compared to EvE), small instances (compared to EvE), well, over all the fact that Star Citizen isn't EvE.

Some other points of critic are also clearly predictable.
The grind. Grinding for a big ship will take to long (new players without ships pledge packages) / is to fast (players with expensive ships from pledge packages).
Modding and private servers kill the open world galaxy because each player community has it's own server / mod....
No need for a cristal ball to see that coming....

[Big Tin Man]

The big difference between SC and this kickstarted game? SC moved off of kickstarter quickly and you've been pledging directly to CGI/RSI. They limited their liability to the first month's worth of pledges.

[Kyone Akashi]

Alreech, on 17 September 2015 - 08:31 AM, said:

Modding and private servers kill the open world galaxy because each player community has it's own server / mod....

You could say that's an advantage, actually -- SC's universe will be a lot smaller, so it could feel severely overcrowded on the public server if everyone would play there!

Private servers should also ensure that all types of players can play in an environment suitable for their preferences. I've got a lot of fond memories from back in the days when I was playing Ultima Online and NWN on private shards.

Agreed about the expectations, though. And the "EVE comparison mistake" that a lot of interested parties seem to make.