With the mammoth game Star Citizen the trouble doesn’t stop. Chris Roberts is fighting back against what he believes are unfair attacks made by Derek Smart.
Update 15.4. 2017: This story has taken a turn two years later. To recall: In October 2015, a highly critical article about Star Citizen appeared on the website “The Escapist”, casting Chris Roberts and his wife in a negative light. They were accused of mistreating their employees and misappropriating funds from the crowdfunding of Star Citizen. Anonymous sources were cited, claiming to be former employees of Star Citizen.
Roberts then bitterly complained, questioning the integrity of the journalist from whom the article originated. She was said to be the mouthpiece of a smear campaign by indie developer Derek Smart. However, “The Escapist” maintained that they stood behind the article. The matter threatened to go to court.
Both the article on “The Escapist” and Roberts’ response disappeared from their respective sites in early 2017 without a legal dispute occurring The indie developer and self-proclaimed Star Citizen critic, Derek Smart, says: He had inquired about what had happened and received the response that both sides had decided to remove comments about each other and work towards a “more pleasant working relationship” in 2017.
Original message from October 2015:
On October 1, a multi-page article with cutting sharpness appeared at “The Escapist Magazine.” Seven former employees of Cloud Imperium and two current ones were cited as sources. These individuals had contacted the author after a critical article about Star Citizen. Their names are not disclosed, and it will later be emphasized how exactly their identities were verified.
Severe allegations against Roberts and his wife, a queen bee and Sauron
The article reports on disastrous conditions at Cloud Imperium, the company that aims to tackle the mammoth project Star Citizen . The management is described as amateurish and unprofessional.
Many attacks are aimed personally at Chris Roberts and his wife Sandi Gardiner. She is referred to as a “Queen Bee,” an alpha female whose emails are full of obscenities. Everyone around her must walk on eggshells, or else she would explode. And no one is allowed to mention that she is married to the boss.
Roberts himself is also attacked. Emails from employees to Roberts would be edited multiple times so that nothing is included that would anger him. It is compared to the eye of Sauron that one would not want to awaken.
Roberts suffers from overestimation and megalomania. He runs around as if he is a genius, while he is actually a fraud. The emperor has no clothes.
Cloud Imperium does not develop a game, sells digital spaceships
Further allegations made anonymously revolve around how the money of the Star Citizen backers is being wasted. The bosses are paid princely salaries. Huge sums are spent on cosmetic improvements. Hollywood stars are brought in for voice work and so on.
The Star Citizen project is described in the article as a kind of beautiful facade. They are constantly making commercials to collect more money from the backers. They are not developing a game but selling digital spaceships, creating brochures, demos, and images. Rushing from major event to major event.
Roberts’ statement landed in the spam filter, not in the article
The article has, as one can imagine, sparked a fierce controversy. Especially because it reports so one-sidedly. For doubters, it is fuel for their mills. Everything is as bad as they had imagined and even worse.
Fans of the game, in which such great expectations are placed, are dismayed, accusing the magazine of throwing all journalistic principles overboard. It’s only about clicks and inciting emotions. They will cease reading the site from now on.
Indeed, several things went wrong ahead of the article. Roberts was contacted whether he wanted to comment on the allegations. His response, which came three hours before the article was published, ended up in a “spam filter” and was only included later.
Thus, the article appeared unfiltered, without Roberts having a chance to address the severe allegations.
“The Escapist” is not a tabloid either, but rather a voice that is heard.
Roberts worked 8 hours on the response, believes Derek Smart is behind it
Immediately after the article was published, Roberts made a very long post on the Star Citizen homepage addressing the allegations. He attacked the magazine, calling it a “hit piece”, a smear article, and claims it couldn’t be called anything else. It would have been ethical to wait for his response.
The author of the article behaves in an “unethical” manner. Roberts then tries to prove that the author is in connection with people who have clearly positioned themselves hostile towards Star Citizen and who collaborate with Derek Smart.
The sources quoted by the journalist are likely some bitter former employees with whom there was a parting on bad terms.
Roberts believes: Derek Smart is behind it, wants to destroy Star Citizen
And in general, Roberts believes that Derek Smart is responsible for all this drama. Smart aims to attack Star City to gain publicity for himself. Although it is said that nothing in the article comes from Derek Smart, everyone knows that this is the case. The name “Derek Smart” appears 19 times in Roberts’ response.
Many of the allegations from supposed employees correspond to what Smart has written in his blogs in recent months. The current article is clearly a “mouthpiece” for Smart.
At the end of his response, Roberts addresses the mentioned allegations factually. Much of the article is simply invented and untrue. Roberts’ responses are then later incorporated with a delay into the article by “The Escapist.”
At the end of his response, Roberts writes that he has now worked eight hours on this text. Time that he is missing for work on the game. And he is most disappointed that someone is giving Derek Smart so much attention that Roberts is forced to deal with Smart and his transparent PR tactics.
He offers the online magazine to come to the studio to see how hard they are working on the game. That will convince doubters.
The online magazine has announced that it will accept this invitation.
