Spladam
Member
I'm sure you guys have been reading about the ongoing fiasco that was elevated by a recent Escapist article on Star Citizen. Once you build a timeline for the entire situation of Derek Smart vs Star Citizen, going all the way back to Wing Commander and BC3000AD, to Mr. Roberts starting a new grand project years in the future while Mr Smart is basically still trying to get the spiritual successor to his life's work to the world, things gather some clarity that are not evident when looking at the smaller pieces. Here is a rough timeline, correct me if I get any times and events wrong. Here are the events that lead to where we are now.
Ok, now it gets interesting, correct me if I'm wrong, as this was difficult for me to source, but I thought I remember reading that it's at this point that Derek Smart first starts to exchange tweets with Lizzy Finnegan publicly, in context to his GG fiasco, if anyone can find this for me, I'd like to know. Regardless, this happens:
You guys know the rest.
TL;DR It would be easier to summarize the plot of Game of Thrones
Further reading: THE REDEMPTION OF DEREK SMART- a very well done article written by Russ Pitts over at Polygon back in 2012, very good read.
I would also like to thank Mr. Smart for stopping by the thread to offer his take on events posted here, as well as offering some information on corrections, it was good to hear from Mr. Smart in person with regards to this time line. I am making corrections where needed when I get the chance and have posted Mr. Smart's take on things elsewhere.
-Edit: If any GAFers have any suggestions on something I missed, feel free to let me know.
Note: I would like to say that my intention with this was to give folks an idea of the entire story, and to frame it in the scope of the narrative that is. That said, I have to add that if you are a supporter of Star Citizen, a backer of the Kickstarter, or just someone that would like to see this game become reality like myself, you would be wise to not quickly defend the project or dismiss all of the things Derek and others have brought to light. I think there might be legitimate concern about the state of the project, but we all don't really know what the facts are except where we know the facts. However, there is a way to go about this, as pointed out by some in the game journalism community, and I feel the way the questioning of Star Citizen has been handled by Mr. Smart and Escapist is not the correct way to go about it, but that is just me.
There is something to be said about the history between Smart and Roberts (Edit:This is my take on it, and according to Mr. Smart's post in this thread, this is not the case, as he states "Actually no, there isn't. As Chris himself said in his rant, we don't even know each other. We know "of" each other. This whole thing came to a head when they made it personal. Then completely - and utterly - underestimated my industry reach, influence and resources.", you decide for your self.), but now that you have the story, you can judge how relevant that is yourself. I stated in the timeline where I expressed my opinion that it was indeed just my opinion, as I myself felt that this was more than Mr. Smart just being genuinely concerned about Star Citizen as a backer, given the history, his online personality and his past actions, and he seems to unfortunately worked to somewhat delegitimize his own opinion with references to his own competing game in development (what CIG used to refund his Kickstarter). Again, this is just my take on it and I wish no ill will towards Mr. Smart or Mr Roberts or their respective games, as I love video games.
• 1990 Chris Roberts releases the now famous Wing Commander under the Origin Systems label, to very positive critical reception, and it's an instant success with us PC gamers (it was awesome, in my humble opinion). It's sometime during this period that Derek Smart begins development of Battle Cruiser 3000AD, and allegedly threatens to sue Roberts and company for infringement (they were both space games I guess), and, according to Roberts, their response is "We told him we never heard of him and good luck with that..". I think this is significant because it seems "I never heard of you" might be the worst thing one could insult Mr. Smart with. I think it's at this point that a long term motive begins to establish. Mr. Smart disputes this, stating in this thread that "things were said" but that he never threatened litigation in response to Wing Commander
• 1992, 1994, and 1996 Wing Commander 2, 3, and 4 are released respectively, all are rather well received.
• 1995 After much struggle in development and in finding a publisher, Take-Two Interactive releases v1 of BC3000AD, to poor reception as it's unfinished and riddled with bugs. Derek claims later that he was holding onto a later iteration of source code that fixed many bugs that he purposely did not share with the Take-Two development team, he also refutes allegations that he at this point assaulted his NEW adversary, Coca-cola machines (I don't have a factual source on the Coca-cola machine attack, but it makes for great urban legend). In the years following, Smart releases many more versions, each attempting to fix issues and give the world the game Derek dreamed of making, but in the end this does not happen. It should be stated though, that after the disastrous release of Battle Cruiser 3000AD, Derek Smart continued to patch and fix bugs in the software even when he was not in possession of the rights to the source code. Derek then uses his own money from a settlement with Take-Two Interactive to continue development of BC3kAD on his own, and eventually releases the title for free on the internet. I think, and this is my personal opinion, that this illustrates Mr. Smart's desire to give the world the game that he envisioned, and shows his commitment to making games for gamers, motives we see less and less in the AAA publishing world. Derek develops and release three more titles based on his BC3kAD IP, all of which are received poorly by both critics and consumers. One title, Universal Combat (2004) will see 5 more versions until it's final released version in 2009.
In the interim period here, from the early 90's to the early 2000's, Mr Smart becomes notorious to various online communities and message boards, including AOL and several Usenet newsgroups as a rather out spoken defender of his games, as well as establishing a reputation for starting and then exacerbating conflict on said forums. • 1992, 1994, and 1996 Wing Commander 2, 3, and 4 are released respectively, all are rather well received.
• 1995 After much struggle in development and in finding a publisher, Take-Two Interactive releases v1 of BC3000AD, to poor reception as it's unfinished and riddled with bugs. Derek claims later that he was holding onto a later iteration of source code that fixed many bugs that he purposely did not share with the Take-Two development team, he also refutes allegations that he at this point assaulted his NEW adversary, Coca-cola machines (I don't have a factual source on the Coca-cola machine attack, but it makes for great urban legend). In the years following, Smart releases many more versions, each attempting to fix issues and give the world the game Derek dreamed of making, but in the end this does not happen. It should be stated though, that after the disastrous release of Battle Cruiser 3000AD, Derek Smart continued to patch and fix bugs in the software even when he was not in possession of the rights to the source code. Derek then uses his own money from a settlement with Take-Two Interactive to continue development of BC3kAD on his own, and eventually releases the title for free on the internet. I think, and this is my personal opinion, that this illustrates Mr. Smart's desire to give the world the game that he envisioned, and shows his commitment to making games for gamers, motives we see less and less in the AAA publishing world. Derek develops and release three more titles based on his BC3kAD IP, all of which are received poorly by both critics and consumers. One title, Universal Combat (2004) will see 5 more versions until it's final released version in 2009.
• 2010-2011 Derek Smart begins development on the latest title in the BattelCruiser IP, Line of Defense, which SHOULD NOT BE considered the spiritual successor to BC3KAD.
• 2011 After a lengthy period away from the industry Chris Roberts announces his intention to develop a new Space Flight Simulator, Star Citizen. In 2012, Chris Roberts launches a Kickstarter campaign to begin serious development on the new IP, a project that will grow greater in scope and more ambitious with each year. Notice here we have what might be a recreation of what occurred in the 90's, Derek Smart starts development of a new Space game to little fanfare, and Chris Roberts does the same to rather greater publicity. I personally believe that this is another instigation to the same motives that started in the 90's for Derek Smart. and that it possible leads to great frustration for Mr. Smart, but that is me speculating.
•November of 2012 Derek Smart contributes $250 to the SC Kickstarter in return or the "Rear Admiral" package, supposedly because he was genuinely interested in the project and wanted to support it, but according to CIG he has never downloaded or installed the software. I can't speak to his intentions, only to his history with the developer of the project.
• 2011 After a lengthy period away from the industry Chris Roberts announces his intention to develop a new Space Flight Simulator, Star Citizen. In 2012, Chris Roberts launches a Kickstarter campaign to begin serious development on the new IP, a project that will grow greater in scope and more ambitious with each year. Notice here we have what might be a recreation of what occurred in the 90's, Derek Smart starts development of a new Space game to little fanfare, and Chris Roberts does the same to rather greater publicity. I personally believe that this is another instigation to the same motives that started in the 90's for Derek Smart. and that it possible leads to great frustration for Mr. Smart, but that is me speculating.
•November of 2012 Derek Smart contributes $250 to the SC Kickstarter in return or the "Rear Admiral" package, supposedly because he was genuinely interested in the project and wanted to support it, but according to CIG he has never downloaded or installed the software. I can't speak to his intentions, only to his history with the developer of the project.
• 2/5/14 Derek Smart publishes his first message via his twitter account with regards to his concerns about SC, calling it a "massive Ponzi scheme" (Thanks to GAFer JoseJX for digging this up)
• 9/16/14 Line of Defense releases on Steam, it currently has 17% positve reviews, rated at "Very Negative", people who complain are banned from the forums, some are apparently banned for bug reporting. Mr. Smart claims later in this thread that the title was "review bombed" due to a mistake in Steam labeling the game as Free to Play even though it required a purchase, resulting in some not being able to play it, he also states that it continued to get "review bombed" afterwards (I think it would be safe to say that many of the reviews were most likely posted by detractors of Derek Smart, as there seems to be many). Mr Smart also refutes the claim made by the Youtube poster and others that the developers ban users making bug reports, stating in this thread "We never - ever - ban anyone for making bug reports. We only ban shit-posters and trolls. It's a tradition that hasn't changed. Which is how I get to make so many enemies over the years." Regardless, it is considered by most to be rather unfinished and by most accounts in reviews, extremely bug ridden. It also appears to have weak server populations.
• 6/6/15 Smart publishes his first of many rants, titled "Interstellar Citizens", on his personal blog with regards to his concerns over SC's development, where he expresses his concerns with the scope and reach of the SC project within it's given budget and his feelings on not being completed withing the kickstarter time frame due to feature creep. He also relates a summary of all his games to date, of course talking about how awesome they are (Mr. Smart states that this was an effort to acquaint a younger generation with his efforts to date, and to demonstrate to them his experience and record of making huge games. Granted, there were probably many that were indeed not familiar with his history and games.) We know however, at this time he has already called the SC project a Ponzi scheme.
• 6/10/15 Smart publishes the second article, titled "Interstellar Discourse", on his personal blog about SC, this time calling for an FTC investigation into the finances of CIG and it's use of Kickstarter funding. A FOIA request to the FTC on September 11 shows that up until that point, no such inquiries have been raised by the FTC. (Mr. Smart claims here that this is just not how FOIA request to the FTC work, and I frankly can't say as I have no idea about the proper way to FOIA FTC investigations) It's at this point that RSI refunds Smart's Kickstarter backing, claiming he violated the TOS agreement by using his backing to promote LOD, Smart describes this action with this statement "That’s when all hell broke loose. I mean, literally".
• 6/17/15 Smart publishes his third article on his personal blog in which he details RSI's refunding of his kickstarter, saying "I was promptly deported by RSI. And to boot, they took all my stuff that I had paid for, and owned." He also states he has hired "researches" at great expense to himself, to assist him in going through "massive amounts of data". He continues to update the three articles on his blog over the coming weeks, notoriously banning and deleting comments that argue with his point of view on the matter.
• 8/21/15 Smart sends a letter via an attorney, addressed to Chris and Sandra Roberts and one Ortwin Freyermuth, co-founder of CIG, stating various concerns with the handling of SC's development, accusing the above of "false and defamatory statements" but most notably making demands for refunds for anyone asking for them, complete forensic accounting of expenses, and release date for all things promised on the kickstarter.
• 8/22/15 Smart publishes an article on his personal blog comparing Line of Defense to Star Citizen in which he extols all the ways in which it is superior (almost every way) and praises all of Line of Defense's virtues. Steam page for LOD, read the reviews.
• 8/24/15 Smart publishes his fourth rant concerning SC on his personal blog, in which he quotes Sun Tzu under the title, apparently it had become a war for Smart and he publicly states his demands from the letter, and further states that this is now a matter for the IRS and the FBI in addiction to the FTC.
• 8/26/15 Roberts and company send a letter to Mr. Smart in response to his letter, questioning his qualifications of questioning the Star Citizen finances, given his past bankruptcy and tax liens, and suggest that he is a "troll".
• 9/14/15 Smart responds to the response via attorney that states blah blah blah blah.
• 9/22/15 Derek composes his fifth and final blog about Star Citizen, but his time it degrades into ad hominem attacks on Chris and Sandi Roberts, in which Smart calls Sandi a liar and a fraud. Smart refutes the tax liens and refers to his bankruptcy as "funny". Smart claims to have sent evidence to state and federal authorities, as he said he was left with no course but legal action. Note: if you follow Derek's adventures, you see a pattern of pulling people into escalating words and action that justify ever more reactions from him, in what ends up being a constant elevation of flames.
• 9/23/15 It's at this point that Derek becomes embroiled in a small GamerGate feud with Online Abuse Prevention Initiative founder and author of the now famous "twitter auto-blocking tool" Randi Harper. Edit: This is Mr. Smart's first hand take on how this entire event took place.
• 9/16/14 Line of Defense releases on Steam, it currently has 17% positve reviews, rated at "Very Negative", people who complain are banned from the forums, some are apparently banned for bug reporting. Mr. Smart claims later in this thread that the title was "review bombed" due to a mistake in Steam labeling the game as Free to Play even though it required a purchase, resulting in some not being able to play it, he also states that it continued to get "review bombed" afterwards (I think it would be safe to say that many of the reviews were most likely posted by detractors of Derek Smart, as there seems to be many). Mr Smart also refutes the claim made by the Youtube poster and others that the developers ban users making bug reports, stating in this thread "We never - ever - ban anyone for making bug reports. We only ban shit-posters and trolls. It's a tradition that hasn't changed. Which is how I get to make so many enemies over the years." Regardless, it is considered by most to be rather unfinished and by most accounts in reviews, extremely bug ridden. It also appears to have weak server populations.
• 6/6/15 Smart publishes his first of many rants, titled "Interstellar Citizens", on his personal blog with regards to his concerns over SC's development, where he expresses his concerns with the scope and reach of the SC project within it's given budget and his feelings on not being completed withing the kickstarter time frame due to feature creep. He also relates a summary of all his games to date, of course talking about how awesome they are (Mr. Smart states that this was an effort to acquaint a younger generation with his efforts to date, and to demonstrate to them his experience and record of making huge games. Granted, there were probably many that were indeed not familiar with his history and games.) We know however, at this time he has already called the SC project a Ponzi scheme.
• 6/10/15 Smart publishes the second article, titled "Interstellar Discourse", on his personal blog about SC, this time calling for an FTC investigation into the finances of CIG and it's use of Kickstarter funding. A FOIA request to the FTC on September 11 shows that up until that point, no such inquiries have been raised by the FTC. (Mr. Smart claims here that this is just not how FOIA request to the FTC work, and I frankly can't say as I have no idea about the proper way to FOIA FTC investigations) It's at this point that RSI refunds Smart's Kickstarter backing, claiming he violated the TOS agreement by using his backing to promote LOD, Smart describes this action with this statement "That’s when all hell broke loose. I mean, literally".
• 6/17/15 Smart publishes his third article on his personal blog in which he details RSI's refunding of his kickstarter, saying "I was promptly deported by RSI. And to boot, they took all my stuff that I had paid for, and owned." He also states he has hired "researches" at great expense to himself, to assist him in going through "massive amounts of data". He continues to update the three articles on his blog over the coming weeks, notoriously banning and deleting comments that argue with his point of view on the matter.
• 8/21/15 Smart sends a letter via an attorney, addressed to Chris and Sandra Roberts and one Ortwin Freyermuth, co-founder of CIG, stating various concerns with the handling of SC's development, accusing the above of "false and defamatory statements" but most notably making demands for refunds for anyone asking for them, complete forensic accounting of expenses, and release date for all things promised on the kickstarter.
• 8/22/15 Smart publishes an article on his personal blog comparing Line of Defense to Star Citizen in which he extols all the ways in which it is superior (almost every way) and praises all of Line of Defense's virtues. Steam page for LOD, read the reviews.
• 8/24/15 Smart publishes his fourth rant concerning SC on his personal blog, in which he quotes Sun Tzu under the title, apparently it had become a war for Smart and he publicly states his demands from the letter, and further states that this is now a matter for the IRS and the FBI in addiction to the FTC.
• 8/26/15 Roberts and company send a letter to Mr. Smart in response to his letter, questioning his qualifications of questioning the Star Citizen finances, given his past bankruptcy and tax liens, and suggest that he is a "troll".
• 9/14/15 Smart responds to the response via attorney that states blah blah blah blah.
• 9/22/15 Derek composes his fifth and final blog about Star Citizen, but his time it degrades into ad hominem attacks on Chris and Sandi Roberts, in which Smart calls Sandi a liar and a fraud. Smart refutes the tax liens and refers to his bankruptcy as "funny". Smart claims to have sent evidence to state and federal authorities, as he said he was left with no course but legal action. Note: if you follow Derek's adventures, you see a pattern of pulling people into escalating words and action that justify ever more reactions from him, in what ends up being a constant elevation of flames.
• 9/23/15 It's at this point that Derek becomes embroiled in a small GamerGate feud with Online Abuse Prevention Initiative founder and author of the now famous "twitter auto-blocking tool" Randi Harper. Edit: This is Mr. Smart's first hand take on how this entire event took place.
Ok, now it gets interesting, correct me if I'm wrong, as this was difficult for me to source, but I thought I remember reading that it's at this point that Derek Smart first starts to exchange tweets with Lizzy Finnegan publicly, in context to his GG fiasco, if anyone can find this for me, I'd like to know. Regardless, this happens:
• 9/25/15 Escapist writer Lizzy Finnegan authors an article entitled "Eject! Eject! Is Star Citizen Going to Crash and Burn?" that seems to be sourced from Derek himself and his blog rants, as she quotes both Derek and his blog, links to it in the article, and claims that Derek allegedly (she likes that word) has a leaked letter from former CIG employee David Jennesin, which claims less then desirable working conditions at the studio and is critical of Roberts leadership. She quotes Derek at length, and mentions that four people have left or were fired since Derek posted the leaked letter on his blog.
Lizzy's article, like most publications on this fiasco, makes no mention of Derek's and Robert's history in the game development industry, which I think is more significant than people reporting seem to think it is, maybe I'm wrong.
• 10/5/15 The infamous "Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes" article is published by the Escapist, authored again by Lizzie Finnegan, which claims, as you all know, to have information from questionably vetted anonymous sources that parrot the claims made by Derek in his last blog plus more sever allegations of illegal hiring practices and fraud. Other journalist call into question methods used by the Escapist to vet sources in addition to the manner in which the article is presented. It is published without a response from the person that it is accusing of illegal activities, as the Escapist seemed to be in a hurry and not able to wait more then 24 hours for a response. Mr Roberts did indeed respond, and manages to publish his somewhat awkward and rambling response online before the Escapist puts it into the article.
You guys know the rest.
TL;DR It would be easier to summarize the plot of Game of Thrones
Further reading: THE REDEMPTION OF DEREK SMART- a very well done article written by Russ Pitts over at Polygon back in 2012, very good read.
I would also like to thank Mr. Smart for stopping by the thread to offer his take on events posted here, as well as offering some information on corrections, it was good to hear from Mr. Smart in person with regards to this time line. I am making corrections where needed when I get the chance and have posted Mr. Smart's take on things elsewhere.
-Edit: If any GAFers have any suggestions on something I missed, feel free to let me know.
I added some more historical and wiki links, check the "Derek Smart interim period" of the mid 90's to the early 2000's for the Flame War history of the AOL and Usenet period. I've also added some history about Derek's continued development of Battle Cruiser 3000AD after the disastrous release by Take-Two Interactive, something which I feel also speaks to the motives and intentions of Mr. Smart.
Note: I would like to say that my intention with this was to give folks an idea of the entire story, and to frame it in the scope of the narrative that is. That said, I have to add that if you are a supporter of Star Citizen, a backer of the Kickstarter, or just someone that would like to see this game become reality like myself, you would be wise to not quickly defend the project or dismiss all of the things Derek and others have brought to light. I think there might be legitimate concern about the state of the project, but we all don't really know what the facts are except where we know the facts. However, there is a way to go about this, as pointed out by some in the game journalism community, and I feel the way the questioning of Star Citizen has been handled by Mr. Smart and Escapist is not the correct way to go about it, but that is just me.
There is something to be said about the history between Smart and Roberts (Edit:This is my take on it, and according to Mr. Smart's post in this thread, this is not the case, as he states "Actually no, there isn't. As Chris himself said in his rant, we don't even know each other. We know "of" each other. This whole thing came to a head when they made it personal. Then completely - and utterly - underestimated my industry reach, influence and resources.", you decide for your self.), but now that you have the story, you can judge how relevant that is yourself. I stated in the timeline where I expressed my opinion that it was indeed just my opinion, as I myself felt that this was more than Mr. Smart just being genuinely concerned about Star Citizen as a backer, given the history, his online personality and his past actions, and he seems to unfortunately worked to somewhat delegitimize his own opinion with references to his own competing game in development (what CIG used to refund his Kickstarter). Again, this is just my take on it and I wish no ill will towards Mr. Smart or Mr Roberts or their respective games, as I love video games.
