This is a really weird story. Derek Smart is a game developer who has backed Star Citizen and last week started a blog that was half looking for transparency from Star Citizen and half looking for self promotion. This week he released a second blog that is off the rails nuts. You should read it. http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-discourse/ I can't recommend reading this enough.

He seems really bent on either suing Roberts or at the very least garnering some self promotion. Whatever happens, the drama surrounding Star Citizen never fails to enthrall me.=

No, he seems real bent on "My game can beat up your game."

I'd say what I think about it, but I'm sure the threat of a libel lawsuit would soon follow.

Derek Smart's games never lived up to the hype I still have Battlecruiser 3000AD and Universal Combat and both were barely playable trash on launch. I keep them to remind me never to go near anything he does ever again. I don't even know if they ever got into a good state of play or not.

He would however know about over promising and under delivering so maybe he's on to something (he's not)

I kinda don't want to give this guy's argument any credence since he clearly thinks way to highly of himself.

There's so much in his ramp up that I don't agree with that makes the remaining article seem more sensational than argumentative. He claims this story is huge, he claims the current target for what Star Citizen will be is unattainable (something you could say about half of games when they start development I bet), and he compares it's development to GTAV and Halo.

Not to mention the opening note on the article where he says this is just his personal blog and therefore hyperbole and emotional arguments are fine but then goes into deep rants about how big video games press doesn't cover his stories.

He sounds like a right wing correspondent on Fox News reporting on some hidden story the mainstream media doesn't want you to know.

The whole Star Citizen saga is hilarious. I don't have time to read that whole thing because it's bloody huge but he's right, it's gunna blow up, and when it does I won't be surprised.

Not so sure about him boasting about his own game in that article - not particularly relevant. Ignoring that he raises a good point - why haven't the media asked what the hell RSI are actually doing with all that money? Anyone in gamedev can clearly see what they are promising is insane, and the whole "make a bunch of modules of the separate games we want to make then hopefully jam them together at the end" strategy isn't at all sound.

If you mention Derek's name on an internet forum three times he shall appear.

You've been warned, duders!

Yeah, I think he has some valid points but when he starts arrogantly talking about himself it tarnishes his argument. Self promotion only helps to obfuscate the actual issue. Take yourself out of the equation dude if what you think you are doing is the right thing to do by backers in creating some transparency.

It seemed like he was so certain people would attack him because of this that he needed to preemptively defend himself... Which is only going to make people make this about him? Great logic!

The reddits say he was refunded and is now trying to refute the refund so he can sue them to get a refund?

This is a crazy person. One who's also hard to take seriously when he calls himself "TheDerekSmart", constantly refers to himself in the third-person, and unironically states that he was indie before it was cool. I should have stopped there, but I read the whole thing. It's basically him whining about how they're behind schedule and potentially not delivering on promises, and then phrasing this whining slightly differently over and over again, with some self-promotion and conversations with a straw man constantly sprinkled in. What he's saying could have been accomplished in about a paragraph, and that's coming from someone here who often struggles with brevity. After reading it, I'm of the opinion that he contributed 250 whole dollars just so he could say he did and give himself "the right" to trash a competitor's game and glorify himself while doing it. He might as well have put "STAR CITIZEN DEVS HATE HIM!" on his picture like some shitty clickbait ad. That would have conveyed just about the same message.

Someone referred to him as Uwe Boll of videogames.

How many just thought as coming into this thread "Yup, I'm sure he is."? The Line of Defense MMO's steam forums are still great for a chuckle.

So Derek Smart is made at another company for pulling a "Battlecruiser" on the public?

this is a fight i am absolutely willing to watch happen. the perfect development in the saga of star citizen is that derek smart picks a fight with them lol

I never liked the guy and that post is too freaking huge, didn't read it all, he does make some decent points though... feature creep in this thing has been just fucking insane.

I am an original backer and for sure the initial pitch was perfectly fine, I was like "sure I mean, this is the dude that made freelancer after all", and at first it only seemed to me like a better freelancer with perhaps some more online stuff, now it's just.... I don't even... plus all the crazy priced ship selling an all...

I'm sure glad I sold the one ship I bought at the initial campaign for almost 3 times the price I paid, still kept my 60 buck game package though, I just HAVE to play this thing if it ever comes out.

I seem to be in the minority, but I've always been kinda fond of Derek Smart and the games he's made, even though none of them live up to their full potential.

Star Citizen kinda lost me at "Buy a ship for $300" but the drama around it is enthralling.

That's hilarious, and after reading the article by Derek Smart (ahem, THE Derek Smart), I believe it. I look forward to the next chapter of this saga:

UPDATE #3 7/20:

Derek Smart requested that the refund Derek Smart was sent be refunded back to Star Citizen. You may ask, "Why did you do this, Derek Smart, creator of such phenomenalgames like Line of Defense?" Derek Smart knows that this was only issued to try and silence Derek Smart, and Derek Smart will not be silenced. Derek Smart is now a backer of Star Citizen again, and Derek Smart demands satisfaction. Derek Smart fearlessly unfollowed Star Citizen on Twitter, and national media has taken notice. Derek Smart has heard reports that the Star Citizen developers ordered a catered lunch from Subway with extra pickles. Derek Smart expects a detailed explanation and public apology for this, as they must be held accountable, as Derek Smart proposed in earlier Derek Smart articles exposing other wanton spending of money raised by crowd-funding. Derek Smart has also learned that a janitor in the building has resigned, certainly to express his dissatisfaction with the game's lacking progress. Derek Smart awaits Star Citizen's next move.

Derek Smart, DEREK SMART, DEREK SMART

Who the fuck is Derek Smart and why should I care about his opinion?

Oh man, this reminds me of the good ol' Something Awful times

*edit: This guy is basically a patent troll. That video is from the late 90's, if I remember correctly? And he tried that shit back then, too.

Derek Smart's that one crazy uncle you have, who you avoid at family reunions and try to ignore as he shouts about Obama/UFOs/Jews/The Illuminati. Just don't give this guy the time of day.

Any salient point he makes is purely coincidence, as even a broken clock is right twice a day.

It was too long, so I didn't read everything (If someone will post a sort of tl;dr it will be much appreciated).

The only thing I understood from it is that TheDerekSmart is an @-h0le.

The stories that surround Star Citizen continue to be more interesting than the game itself. It's not unlike EVE Online in that way.

My gameography is better than Derek Smart's and I haven't made any. Guy is a massive tool.

Let's not give Derek Smart more attention than he's already had after so many years of this stuff.

Rocket fuel can't melt Star Citizen.

Some guy

Can't take Derek Smart seriously since I first witnessed the Desktop Commander vid...

Any "predictions" he is making anyone with half a brain could make, Star Citizen is going to do one of two things, Blow up into a massive clusterfuck or be one of the most successful space sims of all time. This guy loves his own name.

Derek Smart seems pretty crazy. He's made some pretty bad games.

Chris Roberts seems pretty cool. He's made some awesome games.

Which is why it pains me to admit that Derek is probably right. I think there's a good chance Star Citizen is going to collapse, ala 38 Studios.

Played for the Yankees man, 3000 hits, considered one of the greatest shortstops of all-time.

Edit: Yeah, who the fudge is Derek Smart.

No coke machine is safe.

Yuuup this was worth the 83 mil and counting.

I think he made some video games? I've certainly never heard of anything he's done, but I also wasn't on the internet circa 1998 when Battlecruiser 3000 came out.

But based on what I read from this blog, he sounds like a crazy person. Like, he's on the same level as those people who thought that an army exercise in Texas was actually Obama's secret plot to declare martial law.

You can actually play one of The Derek Smart's games on Steam for free! It was just updated and rereleased this year, if you can believe it.

Universal Combat: Collector's Edition

P.S. it's garbage.

P.P.S. please don't sue me

Well his post is as long winded and convoluted as the instruction manuals for his games (which he credits himself with making, so perhaps there's a reason for that).

But ... he does make a few decent points. The licenses, the expanding scope of the game, the quote from Roberts about how all of the 80+ million is to go directly to funding development (and Derek Smart's use of that as evidence for the game being a run-away train in development) ... which, doesn't stack up with the rival claim that there's a mismanagement of funds for such things as private jets; but, hey, whatever.

And through all of the ranting and rambling ... he continues to come back to a solid point I have to agree with. Neither Star Citizen nor Squadron 42 are actually games yet. While he is probably the wrong person to be a messenger? He might be accurate in his assessment of the likelihood of success to deliver on the currently proposed Star Citizen, and how this expanded scope has doomed the originally proposed game along with the companion Squadron 42.

Not that he has much of a leg to stand on while making these claims. Some would argue that Battlecrusier 3000AD Gold Edition isn't actually a game, either.

I've never heard of the guy, but I don't think his arguement is without merit.

Star Citizen is the most ambitious game of all time, nothing comes close. The crowd funding has peaked and is nowhere near the budget of a modern Assassin's Creed or GTAV. (GTAV was $265 million dev and marketing budget)

If they want to keep it as the crowd funded behemoth, there may be problems. The funding already peaked and how many more KS could they get away with before people say enough. Of course they could probably get a huge backing from a Ubi, Activ, or EA. But that would probably involve selling a huge chunk of the IP and likely annoy the current backers. They could get other 3rd party backers, but either way, theres nowhere near enough money for the current vision.

It's always fun to catch up with Mr. Smart. Being a mod in the GameDev section of CIS in the 90's was... interesting...

So is a Derek Smart what you get when you don't listen to the old Asian guy and feed your Peter Molyneux after midnight?

The marketing budget for GTA V matches the development budget at least (and possibly exceeds it). Therefore a conservative estimate of the development costs of GTA V are 132m dollars. Star Citizen will probably hit 90m by the time the Squadron 42 is released.

(I mean, just last week it made 200K+ and and a few weeks before it made 400k)

Derek Smart was infamous for coming along and posting angry defensive and insane rants whenever someone mentioned his name. Didn't matter if it was on a BBS, some blog with a readership of three, if his name was brought up tangentially in some discussion on star trek in a newsgroup somewhere, Derek would come along and troll and scream and act like an insane person.

And he did this for YEARS.

That eventually turned into a crazy man's ranting.

Lord of War is a pretty good movie, also.

I couldn't read the rant, but his bio is pretty great. http://www.dereksmart.org/about/

the oldest living indiedev fossil. was indie before it was a thing. science & sci-fi aficionado, gamer, writer, entrepreneur, the Battlecruiser guy.

I imagine he wrote it himself?

Pretty much this, dude has been around for years. More recently, he's made some garbage video games or re-released them, attempted to rig the steam reviews and abused and/or banned anyone who talks ill of his games (or him) on the steam forums.

Here's CIG's response. Hilarious.

I don't disagree, but Star Citizen is much larger in scope than a GTA style game.. or any game ever. It also isn't going to get the huge multiplatform numbers of a GTA. If bungie spend their rumored $500 million budget, on however many games it's for. Even after they are all complete, it still won't come close to Star Citizens proposal.

I'm not writing the game off, infact nothing makes me happier, than someone in 2015 saying fuck consoles and making a hugely ambitious PC game. I just think people get starry eyed and ignore or don't realise that 85 million is likely a small fraction of what would be needed.

German site GameStar did a preview of Smart's Early Access game Line of Defense. The gist of it: LoD is vaporware/hot garbage that should be taken off Early Access by Valve. After doing the preview, the author submitted a few bug reports and was eventually blocked because of "trolling". Hilarious read (even in the Google translation).

GameStar Preview: Line of Defense [Google Translation]