So they're not going to sell this game then? How is another case of exploitative business practice justification for the same exploitative business practice elsewhere? I love how your argument is always 'well these guys did it so..' the difference is these guys set a budget, they set goals, they meet the budget and goals and make and release the project. Star Citizen reached that point 6 years ago, yet it's still exploiting people for more more more money.
Obviously I understand the situation far more deeply than your surface level 'I want a shiny ship' intellect could possibly grasp.
And sorry Kid, I don't think the issue here is me needing to grow up, I think it's me attempting a discourse with a far inferior intellect. If you can't grasp base level business practice then you're a lost cause.
You 'donate' money to a non-profit organisation for a reason.
You do not 'donate' money to a profit making company, unless you are seriously stupid. Why would you possibly need to donate money to a profit making company? Why would you ever financially fund something without a financial return! It's complete lunacy.
As hard as most of us lot laugh at you lot giving your cash to Cloud Imperium there's a set of people laughing even harder, and that's the bank and cloud Imperium games that are going to be making millions of dollars off the backs of you dumb fucks who are essentially getting nothing at all.
You're a lost cause pal, thank God for people as stupid as you otherwise nobody would ever get rich.
I'm not struggling with the difference at all, because there is no difference, only in name.
Let me put it this way, you 'pledge' money for them to create a ship say. So your money has been invested into creating that ship. They needed your money to create that ship, you paid it, then they created it, then they gave it to you, all good so far.
But then they go on to sell that ship they have created. A ship that you have paid for, with your money. That ship by rights is partly your creation, at least a share of it is along with the company and any other investors that paid for that ship before it's creation.
You therefore should also be entitled to, actually no, have the right to a share of any profit that ship goes on to make.
But that ships profit goes back into the creation of further assets, at which point you have the right to a share of the profits from any additional asset beyond that point.
The fact you waived that right, by pledging money in good faith is completely irrelevant. The banks didn't pledge money, the loan company's didn't pledge money. They invested money. The company got the money in exactly the same way, spent it in exactly the same way, the only single difference is that banks are not as easily exploited as consumers, and when that company begins to profit from it's invested money they will get a return for their investment, as they should.
So actually yes there is a difference between pledges and investments, only it's you that fails to see it, and that difference is one is a predatory exploitation device to fund a profit making business and the other is a valid business decision.
You and every other pledger can be forgiven your ignorance of business, after all the exploited are rarely aware of being exploited, but you should be safeguarded from the practice by people that do understand.
There will come a point that product begins to make a profit, the reason being it was paid for with someone else's money. That person deserves a share of that profit, just like in every other business across the world. You should not be allowed to give money in good faith for a company to profit off later, that is exploitation.
Anybody who has spent money on this should have the right to a detailed financial breakdown of income and expenditure. They should have this right legally for any crowdfunded project. They should receive a YTD PAL report every month.
The reason they should have this right is that, no matter how it is spun, they are investors into a business. Despite what the returns offered for the investment are.
It baffles me how companies are allowed to raise investment with no return offered, the fact you get the final product is laughable as a return for your investment, you have at that point funded a product and should be entitled to a share of the profits.
At best all you are doing is paying for someone else to make a shit ton of money, at worst paying for someone to lose a shit ton of money.
People should be legally protected from blatant exploitation of ignorance, they are pretty much everywhere else, why does 'crowdfunding' get a free pass from safeguarding investors rights?
You really should be making better decisions with how you 'invest' your money, no mater how much you want to play with shiny spaceships.
The only situation this does not become exploitation is if the final product is never sold for profit. I wonder have the banks and loan company's given the project money in return for only the final product, because if they haven't then alot of people should be asking why they themselves have.
What Pyrosa said. Traditional gaming is not dying, the market is absolutely there just look at games like God of War, or Red Dead Redemption, or BoTW, or Mario Odysesy. For all intents and purposes traditional games that blew the doors off across the board.
What is happening is traditional gaming is being killed, by large corporations who have decided they can't make enough money out it, and so they don't make the games and tell their consumers that they don't want single player games, or story modes, or linear action games, or playformers; and what they do in fact want is multiplayer micro transaction business models.
**** the corporations if they don't give you what you want, support the indie developers, experience new things and take less mind of AAA graphical gameplay loops. When you open yourself to games that are not cutting edge you find a multitude of Indie developers and even 1st platform titles from Sony and Nintendo that do still provide a classic gaming experience.
And folks, stop buying micro transactions and loot boxes. Stop buying shitty mobile crap. Stop buying CoD and Assasins Creed every single year for more money and less actual original content with pay walls in front of everything.
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