sounds like Lord Thistlewick Flanders

@selbie: It's good for them that they want to contest this, and I get that things are getting heated over this article that accuses CIG of doing a lot of pretty shitty and illegal things, but they really need to draw back on how they are firing back.

Letter should have been "You willfully slandered us, we have evidence to say that you are wrong. Publicly apologise and retract your statements, or we go to court over this" (maybe not that succinct but you get the idea), rather than this long, salty and bitter tirade that also makes reference to some kind of conspiracy to perform a character assassination. Quite frankly, both parties are beginning to lose my respect, especially after Chris decided to drag and make reference to GamerGate and dumb-ass twitter drama in his initial response.

@lawgamer: Now that I know your profession, I just love the whole name+display picture thing you got going on.

@adequatelyprepared: Yep there is definitely a lot of emotion leaking through in that letter, but I get why they are making those allegations given Mr Smart's history with Chris Roberts. There is some really shady work being done to target Star Citizen when there doesn't need to be. If people really wanted to question CIG on their practices then they would have done it without these scathing attacks.

The way Chris Roberts is acting is.. not something I want from a game developer. I'm amazed at how much credibility has been given to ex-employees from a company but also amazed at how much vitriol has been thrown at the Escapist for actually following up on the ex-employees claims and vetting them.

Chris Roberts lost me when he immediately said "DEREK SMART IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS" and then attacks the reporter and doubles down by mentioning gamer-gate. I would hope if you are a figurehead of your company that you can handle the inevitable articles that question your product without sounding like a lunatic.

I think it's just a little easy for anyone to say they don't need to defend them self in public when they aren't the one being attacked. Being publicly called a racist and basically a fraud is not easy, especially when you are trying to make a real, huge game at the same time. The media will run the piece but I don't think anyone would be willing to defend Star Citizen but the company themselves at that point.

The way things work now I think one story can come out and totally shape public perception. If Roberts can be taken at his word you can understand why he would be angry. He is trying to put his full efforts into the game which he supposedly has been always dreaming of making. He has money coming in but it isn't a giant company. A lawsuit or something could possibly derail the whole game.

Exactly. Max temkin was publicly accused of rape and despite giving a very open and calm response he was still accused of having ulterior motives/being insincere based on the content of his statements. No response is still a response, and any response you give in public will still be criticised. I know I'd rather speak up for myself as my response.

@alistercat: No response may be a response but it is a pretty good one. It says these claims have no merit and to respond to them is a waste of our time and resources.

edit-This is another reason why you don't respond: The Escapist Response to Legal Action

Look, there's one thing Chris Roberts can do to refute all claims. He and his team has to release a playable game, one that justifies 80+ million dollars of spending. He doesn't even have to hit the targets he promised back in the original crowdfunding campaign - he just needs to release something that people can point at and go "that's a game."

The part that makes me believe that there's a fire under all that smoke is all the project date delays. It's the nature of project development -- once you slip more than say, 30-50% of your schedule, it's an indication that somebody screwed up big time somewhere, either in terms of cost or time estimates. Either way, it shows that somebody didn't really understand the nature of the problem being solved, somebody overestimated the ability of the team to solve those problems, or something significant has happened to fundamentally change the issue at hand and make your previous planning obsolete. You can still succeed after a slip like that, but, it's not a good sign at all. (Because, if you didn't understand the issue in the first place, do you have the knowledge and resources to deal with the consequences?)

In the end, if it doesn't come out, it doesn't really matter why it didn't come out. If it doesn't come out, he burned through tens of millions of dollars, and had nothing to show for it in the end except some tech demos. (YMMV, but I don't think people invested in Star Citizen to only get the Hangar module and Arena Commander.) Maybe you can view Chris Roberts with sympathy, maybe you can view him with contempt, but, in the end, all that money disappeared. There are a lot of constructive things you could have done with a hundred million dollars. That's the real tragedy.

This has been a good week to check back in on Star Citizen. Man I hope Austin talks about this on Beastcast.

Fun Fact: I had no idea Chris Roberts was a producer for the legit good Nic Cage movie, Lords of War. Chris was also the Executive Producer on Who's Your Caddy which looks terrible and was one of the first movies to cast Jeffery Jones after his pedophilia arrest.

@fangrim: I mean turns out Derrick Smart was partly behind this soooo

Lol if anything derails this game it certainly isn't going to be some dumbass escapist article. From the sidelines this whole thing looks like children throwing dogshit at each other in the park.

This reminds me of the "Bart's Comet" episode of The Simpsons:

Bart: What's really amazing is this is exactly what Derek Smart said would happen!

Lisa: Yeah, Derek Smart was right!

Derek Smart: I know, kids, I'm scared too!

This is all in in jest but my gut has been telling me from the beginning that something smelled fishy about Star Citizen. The more defensive and combative Cloud Imperium Games gets over these accusations the more it seems like something ain't quite right. I really hope at worst it is just a sub par game and not a Gizmondo style scam.

Well, Star Citizen is FAR beyond anything like Gizmondo at this point. At least there are some parts of the game that are actually playable, and plenty of assets that we know for sure have been created. Personally, I think the people who truly think Star Citizen is a "scam" are those like Derek Smart. No one wants to be a Derek Smart.

If it was a scam then there'd be 30+ people looking at 30+ years of prison or going underground for the rest of their life. Seems pretty obvious that it isn't a scam, whether it turns out good or not we'll have to wait and see but they're obviously trying to make a video game.