The word scam is maybe too strong because it supposes dishonesty from the start, but that's probably the most insane feature creep that the crowdfunding system created to this day and it's very hard not to get the impression the current bait and switch of the funding is purposely engineered. The designer has a reputation of being a big blowhard and / or insanely ambitious but at this point a lot of backers have been reduced to cultish like defenses claiming that the project itself, completed or not, will be a monument to the PC master race.
I need deets and a tldr on all this juicy KS drama.
Dude who made Wing Commander the game (also the movie, during a failed career in Hollywood) crowdfunded a space ship combat game. After the initial kickstarter two years ago he continued to take in funding up to this day for 87 millions, selling access to ships to pledgers sometimes up to several thousand dollars apiece, and the project which started as a new gen Wing Commander apparently devolved into a spaceship game which will also be a MMO in third person which will also be a FPS (when you exit the ship in some situations). There's apparently 200 to 300 persons working on it (which will eat fast through funds) & several other studios have been contracted to do "modules" like the FPS part, modules that are supposed to be released by bits during the alpha / beta then seamlessly integrated into a monster game (Client expected to be 100GB
also game will probably require an high end PC to run properly). The game is supposed to have permadeath (for the ships) so you'll have to buy insurance ingame to not lose everything everytime. On top of the rest, Roberts apparently shoots for a simulationist approach, like you have to put your helmet on before going in the ship, or the fact that he wants the third-person and first-person view to be the same and anatomically consistent. In short the guy wants to create a virtual space world to play in. If you go through discussion of the game, you'll find a thousand kooky ideas being on the table, like how -since they reached all of their stretch goals- they may consider working on pets or animal plant to include into the game.
It's not vaporware, some alpha modules have been released (although buggy, even in controlled presentations), info is given on a very regular basis about the progress, they have slick marketing (like ads in CGI for several ships) but they missed a lot of release dates and it's unclear to this day that they have anything viable in a near future. Funding continues to goes in (some pledgers gave up to 15000$ and there's anecdotes of a guy splitting up with the wifey over this) and the game has a lot of touchy defenders that may have gone all the way down the rabbit hole. Meanwhile, the new Elite has been crowdfunded at the same time, released and and had a good reception (although the scope is of course narrower and the game is still supposed to be augmented via regular updates before shaping up to what it is supposed to be).
Crowdfunding is finance, not a market. Successful crowdfunding demonstrates the existence of people willing to finance in exchange for little (analogous to charitable giving), not the existence of a market.
True. However it doesn't change the possibility that some viable market may be untapped and that the invisible hand may not be perfect at conveying that to videogame producers. Whatever the case, a 90m insane tech demo made as they go is probably folly, whether there's a market or not.
