It’s impossible to develop the kind of game CIG is trying to develop under the traditional investor/publisher model. The technology has to be invented, and this cost sink on its own is an unacceptable risk to these kinds of people. “Too much time, not enough profit and not soon enough!” they say. They don’t invest in order to make good games, they invest in order to take money back out of it all for the next round of investment. If you really want to hold yourself to this kind of scheduling, go play COD 20.

I didn’t back the game because I knew I would have a space shooter to play in 5 years. I backed the game because I knew this was the only possible way we would get the kind of mechanics I want to see. That seamless and full simulation of environment inside and outside your space ship, in which you are a person existing in a fully simulated universe, as opposed to being a camera that clicks on a bunch of menus. Seriously, that’s what most of the “game loops” you compare this game to boil down to, flying between A-Z, never leaving your chair, and clicking on menu item after menu item. That experience is dead ass boring, I’m sorry. I don’t want it. But when I get an itch for it, there are plenty of risers to that challenge.

What I want is what CIG is making. I don’t care about how long it takes, in fact, I hope they take as long as they need to to make this, because if they don’t, nobody else will. There are too many impatient vampire investors and self-important CTOs out there who think entirely according to schedules and business cycles. This is one of the few opportunities we have to invest in a development where it is truly the game that comes first. Not as a secondary concern to profit extraction. Not as an attachment to a release date.

Get mad about trailers being delayed. Get mad about estimates not being deadlines. Maybe go play all those other games that are more than happy to stay inside the realm of the already possible? What is it you really want, here? Scream against the wind! The funding model exists to be free of demands like yours.

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Long ago, a storm was heading for the city of Quin’lat. Everyone took protection within the walls except one man who remained outside. Kahless went to him and asked what he was doing. “I am not afraid,” the man said. “I will not hide my face behind stone and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me.” Kahless honored his choice and went back inside. The next day, the storm came, and the man was killed. Kahless replied, “The wind does not respect a fool”.