The broader gaming community often perceives it as a scam, criticizing it for its long development timeline, delays, monetization model, and ongoing technical issues.

That’s because it is a scam, full stop. The game will never leave alpha. It’s been 13 years, what you see is all you’re gonna get. They’ll keep releasing several hundred dollar ship “DLC”s every year or so just to keep the money flowing, but they’ll never deliver a finished product. Damn shame too.

If you look into Chris Robert’s history you’ll know it’s not a scam. You’ll also know he should never be given full control of any project or it will turn into exactly this; something that never finishes.

idk some of the ships are literally just single concept art images and have been for years, kinda hard to imagine that can possibly be in good faith.

Good faith, no. There’s about as much good faith as a silicon valley tech bro looking for venture captilists.

I don’t think Chris Roberts doesn’t believe in what he’s doing. I genuinely think he wants to make what he’s promising because he’s been trying to do that since the 90s. But he’s also milking the development time/funds as hard as he can.

He’s also using the funds to live out his dream of being a movie producer, something he desires as much (if not more than) being a game developer, with the Squadron spinoff mainly being an excuse to hire big-name actors he likes to deliver his script.

Not that that’s a bad thing, but he hasn’t really changed much over his decades-long career, flaws included.