Okay I kind of get what you are saying there, I do disagree because you contridict yourself in your points and have missed/ignored clear points.
I contradict myself less than CIG have gone back on their clear word regarding what they would and would not be doing, a couple cases in point being the once-only LTI thing and the MMO+Solo campaign package that they said would not be separated...
But if there's something important I've missed, it's because CIG have not effectively informed me about it, choosing instead to bury it beneath a metric ****ton of fluff and guff.
I would suggest that the biggest group that shout foul are those who backed but are not actively following and thus they are misinformed or going on rants without even looking at what is there.
It's more that I don't care what is there any more. I've given up.
To begin with, it was all going very well - News updates, a couple of features, plus loads of interaction on the forums.
Suddenly everything kicked off and it became a real mission just to keep up on a quarter of the updates and goings on, until eventually it just got boring. Same things said over and over, with what felt like meaningless padding to distract from the lack of actual output.
A mass TL;DR, if you like, but across every platform.
And for the record, I never looked to any other place than CIG for news, really.
That is THE big problem for CIG, to control the information and make sure everyone can see it.
Simple - Cut it down to something more concise and straightforward, instead of running multiple news streams. It's too much guff with no focussed content.
You need to associate a cost with showing the community what you are doing and how because that is what the community wanted
Does everything always need an über-high definition hour long video and set of interviews with everyone, livestreamed conference calls between offices, trailers and SUCH high detail, though..... or can we just have a few pics and a couple of articles in a newsletter that still inform people just as well?
This is why it looks like they're going over the top and blowing loads of money on the glitz and guff.
Just because it isn't in your hands and playable does not mean they have not shown progress.
It's the progress they were shouting so loudly about that got people annoyed -
And to say that you are not expecting things to change, re-iterate and even get scrapped completely and reworked is then just misunderstanding what development means.
I do not expect to back one thing and then have them change it to another, though. The fundamentals are what we signed up to.
Unfortunately it is something CIG have to deal with but it should be the responsibility of every backer who put monies into the game to know that it will be a long hard road, there will be lots of road blocks, forks in the road and similar.
Yes, but people gave them money because they had faith that CIG would deliver.
Currently, I don't believe they have hit a single deadline in the history of this project and given that this nice big company couldn't even manage to get a set of plastic cards printed up and mailed out for many many months after they said they would, I imagine you can see why peoples' faith in CIG is quite shaken at this point...?
If anyone went in going awesome in 2012 I can see what CR wants, he said it will be done in 2014 I am in and want it then as that is what he has suggested as a goal and didn't think knowing the scope even then with 6 people currently in his team that they were being optimistic and best case were honestly fooling themselves.
Yes indeed, because every member of the public is a fully versed expert in the intricacies of game development finance and management, production timescales, work involved, yadda yadda yadda....
NO.
That is not what people signed up for and that is not how it was presented. If everyone knew it was going to be this much of a faff at every turn, CIG would have gotten very few pledges.
Most people likely don't care, though. They want what is being offered, when it is being offerred.
Again though even if it has been delayed. There a number that got delayed 2 years, a number that got pulled for 'X' years and then started development again. A number that got developed for 3 years, a new studio came in and then redeveloped it for another 3 years but they get a pass as (or a short period of being shouted at by press or public at worst) because it isn't public monies.
That's another thing - Chris Roberts's reputation following Freelancer, several years late and only released after Microsoft effectively booted him out because it was stuck in feature-creep.
There's all the stuff you've said, but also the faith aspect and people are again losing faith based on what they're seeing.
They are human building a massive multi-country company from 6 people. That is significantly hard work. The growth rate they have shown compared to most companies is exponentially faster. There will be issues with teams, management and similar.
And what these humans building a company have to understand is that people will only stay with them, stumping up huge sums of money for non-existent junk, for so long....
These are major factors to consider and people don't often consider them.
Again, it's how it *looks* and how it's being handled that matters to people.
CIG could take another 10 years to complete this, but if they keep faffing around and plugging the guff instead of presenting something a bit more concise and useful, they will lose more customers.
