Wagner James Au / New World Notes

The comment thread to last week's "Why Do So Many Gamers Passionately Want Star Citizen To Fail?" was definitely more civil and thoughtful than the brigade of Star Citizen hate that my first post on Chris Robert's crowdfunded MMO attracted. While the level of rage remains a mystery to me, I do have some more insight on its critics. For instance, from this comment by gaming YouTuber "Bootcha":

There have been very few people who have been financially invested in the Star Citizen project (I would know, I was one, I'm in the now-conspicuously-missing picture of "The Pledge" with Roberts and everyone back in 2012.). Everyone else is just a customer. Emotionally invested is a different matter. We are certainly witnessing a different brand of futurism. The game-ification of crowdfunding, as described by Roberts, if you will.

I don't question that the possibilities dreamt by the Star Citizen project are exciting, and no doubt they would be appealing to a customer or potential designer hire looking to do something new. However, I would wonder what the reaction of a programmer or engineer friend would be if you asked them about the project's technical needs. Nearly all of them give the same chuckle, the one where they're thankful they're not on the hook to deliver such massive needs. We of course have that one friend who is brilliant enough to try on the condition they're in charge of every little detail, or unwise enough to try for the sake of showing off.

The dialogue of either someone proselytizing for the project or condemning it to burn is only tangentially interesting, like watching two grackles fight over a piece of bread on the sidewalk. And if you want to study that in a sociological framework, I'm all for that. But if that's not your intent, what squabbles the fans and critics have distracts from the stranger situation of a company run by [allegations of questionable corporate governance that I'm unable to fact check at press time and so will just elide – WJA ] , all while the product of both side's concerns constantly faces years of technical delays and even media "editorial issue" problems that create an inconsistent narrative of what work is being done, during a reported funding explosion entering unprecedented territory.

Now, THAT'S an interesting story.

I definitely agree the behind-the-scenes of Star Citizen's development is one very interesting story to tell. But a story of corporate bungling would not necessarily mean the final product is a failure.

To make a movie comparison, the production of Mad Max: Fury Road – which cost about as much to produce and market as Star Citizen — was beset by cost overruns, ridiculous unforced errors by the studio, corporate politics and in-fighting, and delayed for years. And yet in the end, Fury Road still went on to become a modest hit — and critically, one of the most acclaimed Hollywood movies of all time.

The other interesting story is why Bootcha's thoughtful opinion can co-exist with opinions like this one, below:

It's quite possible that both opinions are correct. But again, the mystery is why detractors and promoters both don't equally hope that Star Citizen somehow, perhaps against the odds, still goes on to become the Fury Road of MMOs.