Star Citizen is a game that exists, so sure, maybe "scam" isn't the right word for it, but they're still insanely sketchy. They constantly make promises they never meet, constantly beg the community for more funding when they already have an outrageous amount of funding, add insanely overpriced microtransactions to try to profit off whales, etc...

SC is driven by hype and nothing else. So many years later it still runs like ass and is very barebones, there's a giant question mark on where all that money went and how the project is being handled. No Man's Sky had a fraction of the budget and size and they managed to do so much more.

At best it's the worst managed video game project of all time.

[+] Cagi@lemmy.ca -8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Ten years on and you think their growing players count and revenue is still just hype? No. The people who try the game are sticking around. If it was just hype it would have died years ago. It is genuinely fun to play right now. I can tell you this because I'm having lots of fun in it right now. When is the last time you played it?

Where does any game spend it's money? That's not ever public info. The fact that SC is publicly posting its revenue is opening them up to this double standard they are better than other companies with. We know they just bought a massive new building to hire more devs, so the evidence suggests they spend their money on development. They don't spend any of it on dividends for any already rich ultracalitalist investors because they don't have any, so they already have every other AAA company beat. (Those investors also invest in gaming journalism).

[–] Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

They do have investors. And at any rate, it makes no difference if the money is instead going to the founders family members. He hired his unqualified spouse (openly admitted to not know what SEO was and how metrics worked) for a senior position and they changed her surname and told employees to not reveal that they were married.