The developers of space sim Star Citizen are now talking about the 1.0 launch being within sight, some 12 years after the game launched its first crowdfunding drive.
It’s not a scam in the sense they are deliberately taking your money and not deliver anything in return. I am confident the people at CIG want to create something unique and amazing.
It is a very complex project though and you can argue about if it has been managed properly.
I check this game out once a year maybe, but there are lots of people playing this game daily and enjoying it even in its current alpha state.
In no way in hell is it worth the amount poured into it. Which leads to the only conclusion that the money is being mishandled. Put simpler: it's a scam
I wonder if now they have enough money to refund me the 40usd I spended back then on their kickstarter, when I still believed I could get the next Privateer/Freelancer.
Call it an unintended scam, just like Peter Molyneux.
I do think that the amount of money people have poured in does show that there is legitimately a lot of consumer demand for a new Freelancer (well, or Wing Commander is maybe more apropos for Star Citizen).
Frankly, I'd rather have one done with minimal assets, and then go back and sell aesthetic DLC packs to make it pretty if people want.
Freelancer scrimped pretty hard on the out-of-cockpit assets. I feel like a lot of newer space games have blown a lot of work on building a pretty world that doesn't add a lot to the actual core flying around and fighting bit, like X4 (particularly relative to earlier games in the series).