Internet Warlord Derek Smart is at it again: This morning, the dev behind Alganon and Line of Defense ramped up his crusade against Star Citizen and Chris Roberts with a demand letter from his attorneys and the threat of a class-action lawsuit.
“I have decided to make good on previous statements calling for accountability,” he writes. “Aside from the FTC guidelines on crowd-funding, as well as actions they have taken against companies that seek to defraud consumers, and because I have reasons to believe that this entire project now borders on consumer fraud, regardless of the risks to myself, my family etc or the amount of aggravation (attacking the messenger is an exercise in futility) that this is no doubt going to cause me, I am going to continue fighting this, while working with the Federal authorities, including the FBI, to get to the bottom of what is going on with this project and where backer money is going.”
To that end, Smart claims he’s instructed his attorneys — this batch at De La Peña & Holiday, LLP — to deliver a “demand letter” to RSI, one that requests “complete forensic accounting” paid for by Smart, a completion date for Star Citizen, and a refund for all who request it.
Smart, however, says he expects no compliance. “As all previous calls for accountability have failed, we don’t expect RSI to co-operate (hence the need to contact the Federal authorities), with us,” he writes. “Which means that the next steps, depending on how they respond to the letter, would be for a class-action lawsuit (already in various stages of preparation), to move forward and be immediately filed.”
Last week, Smart penned a post stating that “comparison [between Line of Defense and Star Citizen] is futile,” in which he then went on to compare the two feature for feature, unsurprisingly finding Star Citizen wanting.
You're probably wondering does he have a legal point to stand on? I'm a certified paralegal so I can kind of tackle this. Keep in mind I'm not a lawyer. I'm a paralegal. What that means is I can do legal research, write pleadings for lawyers, but I cannot give legal advice nor represent someone in trial. A lawyer is more qualified to speak about the issues then me. I can only give you the basic ground level information. I'll address if Derek Smart has any legal grounds to stand on based on the law that I know. The short answer is no. When CIG refunded Derek Smart, he lost all rights to filing a lawsuit or complaint against them for himself. He cannot file a class action suit against them. A class action means multiple parties so other backers in a joint lawsuit filed by Derek Smart. He could fund the lawsuit but he could not be a party of the lawsuit. What about defamation? Defamation is extremely hard to prove in the court of law, especially when you are a public figure. What about Harassment? Nope, he can't make those claims. CIG has not in anyway harassed Derek Smart. Could CIG file suit against Derek Smart? Yes. All his blog post could be used in a lawsuit of harassment. It would be hard to prove still though.
Honestly, just ignore Derek Smart.
edited: I'm not a lawyer. I can only gave you a basic overview. A lawyer would give a much better analysis, than I could.
If you were a party in the lawsuit, yes. Although in class action lawsuits, you want to know who gets most of the money? The lawyers, which means you might end up with less. Also you could have claim to the winning because the case is be filed on behalf of all backers (technically), you would have to call and file paperwork and you could end up with less. Example: Remember that Class Action lawsuit against Sony for PSN outage that lasted three months. I didn't file it but I had a claim to it. So I claim to having a $25 check sent to me. It's going to be months before I see that check.
I've been around for a long time in this gaming space. I've never played any of D. S. games, and upon looking at the game list, I've never heard of any of them either.
Polygon had an interview with him in 2012. It gives a very clear picture as to what type of person he is. The interview was way before him going after CIG. He just wants attention and is desperate to get it by any means based on what I have seen.
dunno why he's trying to incur the wrath of the internet. we don't look kindly to lawsuits. looks like hes asking the starcitizen faithfuls to nuke the ratings on his games to hell.
July 6, 2015 is when he started this from a blog post of his. Edit: When I first read that post, I thought hmm. Why is he Derek Smart doing this and what for. It also appeared as way for him to promote his own game, which put his critical analysis against the game as null and void.
While reading that early blog post. I found this most interesting.
The quickest way is to ask Chris these questions in a public session:
Do you consider Star Citizen to be one game, or several derivative games? <— this is going to be an absolute blast if he answers it. Here’s the thing, he’s pretty much answered it in the affirmative if you go back through his many dev and video logs.
Do you have the CryEngine license to make derivative titles? <— If he says yes, now you have recourse to go ask Crytek because arguably, Hangar module, Arena Commander module, Star Marine module, Squadron 42 game, Star Citizen game, can all be regarded as different (derivative) products
Do you have the CryEngine license that allows you to use their VR integration, even if your own engineers were to implement it in the engine? <— If he says yes, again, now you have recourse to go ask CryTek
What I find interesting about these bits and bobs, mainly #2, What I find interesting about this bit, is, we are talking pieces of a game that is still in Alpha.
If the finished product is "Star Citizen" A Persistent Universe game with a single player military themed "Tour of duty" as an introduction to the PU MMO-SpaceCombat-FPS-RPG, then there is no "derivative work." If you think of Squadron42 and StarCitizen as two games that share all the same assets and code base, then What is the derivative? SC or S42?
Arena Commander, and Star Marine are both "Built in Simulators"
As with all of the Wing Commander in game Training Simulators, that were really just a fancy way to get players to replay past missions without altering the current story mode.
Like most big arguments of this nature, this takes a slice out of a larger picture and examines it with scrutiny. (not unlike what I'm doing here.)
Yet, I'm not betting my livelihood on tearing an entire company apart.
What I think is the most annoying, is while he and many others may be all up in arms about the progress and wish to file a lawsuit, it's MY money that is going to be used to fight the lawsuit if it comes to light, instead of making my damn game.
The other aspect of the Training SIMs that I want to point out, (i.e. Arena Commander + Star Marine) They are Alpha/Beta segments to a larger game. They are kind of a teaser to people who put money into the game. They were never really intended to be representations of the finished game. They are Vital pieces to a much larger program. The PU can't work without all the testing and bug fixes that go with AC, and will go with SM. The point of these pieces is to give backers something to sink their teeth into while providing valuable bug testing and resolutions.
The downside from what I have gathered from all the commentary from the dev teams (mainly CR), is that SM was created in a bubble that's attached to another bubble. They have gotten to a point where they need to make sure both of these bubbles need to become one bigger bubble and it's a delicate process that can and will (has already) generate it's own series of code conflicts. It's a big project, it's going to happen. Isolating, fixing, testing (repeat until it's right) is a rather annoying process. Especially when "IT WORKS!" just not when it's combined with it's sibling code.
The PU is an entirely different subject. AC and SM and the Hanger, are just scratching the surface as to what needed to be implemented into the Cloud infrastructure to create and sustain the PU.
I would love to have the demo build they showed at the Gamescom party. Just to test out some of the things they claimed. Like, It would take 3 hours at normal thrust to get from Point A (the space station) to Point B (the derelict.) I would set the ship to go, and see how long it would take, and how badly it could break. How much of that demo was for show, and how much of it was implemented code.
The concept with Star Citizen, is that you are not purchasing it before it is done. You are investing your money in the development of a game. That's what it was pitched as, that's what many people spent their money on. The fact that Crysis3 cost 60Million USD to make, then you look at the scope of what they are building with SC... How can one call it vapor ware.