Even still standing full Starbound output this year?

sure

 

I am almost 90% sure that only the beta will get 2013 release.

 

Nope. It's only "Estimated"

 

Surely this has been said in the first 5 pages, but I didn't see it at all on the first page.

from the FAQ on the main page

They don't have a choice but to release the game this year. We've given them 1.75 million dollars based on this promise. If they don't deliver, they're going to have to give out far too many refunds to disgruntled customers. Then they'll probably have a huge hit on development as they have to take out loans/go bankrupt/who knows what to cover the cost of the refunds for the money they've already spent.

Also: Feature creep, what they've been spending their weekends developing and then it was too cool to not put in the game--Bart's music feature. Omni's magic rope (may have been planned, idk). The music feature is definite feature creep.

 

That's fair enough.

 

Novakids, fossil, music, pets: 2015

 

There is no legal obligation what so ever.

Promises of this nature are not legally binding and the use of the words Estimation and Currently in relation to the 2013 Beta can be argued as clearly implying that changes are possible. The term promise or guarantee has not once been used in relation to Starbound, nor was there a legally binding contract detailing clear deadlines and expectation.
The argument of punitive damages won't stand as as there appears to be no intent to purposefully delay the product or profit from said delay, at best you could get unintentional negligence which would result in little given the development evidence that would show that the game continued to be made before, during and after the currently fictional delay.
The only claim that could be used against Chucklefish is the single phrase from the store Faq that reads.
Q. What if you don't get enough preorders, will the game be unfinished?

A. No, the Starbound is going to make it out in 2013 no matter what. But by preordering you help it get here even faster.

However, the context of this Q&A lies in the completion of the game and not the 2013 release which is mentioned only, any good lawyer would strip that apart.

Chucklefish have been very transparent with their development, listened to the community and owned up to their own mistakes, the least people can do is wait for the end of the damn year before preparing to storm an imaginary castle.

 

Lol, are you serious? Promises never stop companies. Like I said earlier, blizzard frequently promises to release games way before they really can. You guys are just ridiculous. First you get mad that they don't give enough promises, next you same people are mad that they give promises they cant keep. Games take a while to develop. Deal with it. Chucklefish made a promise that they may or may not be able to keep. Unlike many companies, they actually feel bad about it. That's most likely why at i49 they were giving hints that they may not make full release this year. They don't want us to be surprised, feeling lied to. Shit happens, delays happen, and development can and will hit unexpected snags. They aren't making promises now because they don't know if they can keep them. When you pre-order, the FAQ says NOTHING about the game being promised to release 2013. They say that you will be the first to play it, and that it SHOULD be 2013. Nothing about full release. If you pre-ordered the game thinking it would be done on your time table, I'm sorry, but you will be severely dissapointed. Pre-orders always have and always will be dubious about the release date. Its the nature of the purchase. A preorder is dependent on the game being finished on time. If they don't finish it on time, they don't release it. If you want them to release early, go play some other shitty game like edge of space, who releases on the pressure of its fan-base. Enjoy your incomplete half-assed game. Jeeze, you guys are all like little children who can't wait for Christmas to open their presents.

And again, you people who keep saying they work on un-necissary projects, please, pay attention. They have a large team, and they can't all work on the same things to rush it. If one persons projects required for release are done, they have time to work on other projects. And the vast majority of these side projects you hear about are on the sunday updates. Which they do on their OWN time, not payed time. They care about this game enough to work on it for FREE. So please, stop whining about them doing "feature creep" or any shit like that. The music feature you mentioned as your example was done on the weekends you dipshit. NOT feature creep. They are working hard to release the game as soon as they can. They are not slowing it down for unneeded projects. Grow up, and calm down.

 

Regardless of whether or not they 'have' to launch Starbound in 2013 it's pretty likely that they will lose a lot of fans/money if they don't.

I think those losses will be greatly mitigated as long as they release a mostly-playable beta in 2013, though. Most people won't request a refund if they have some version of the game to play.

 

And people seem to forget that they want a FULLY playable beta release. That means all the core features from top to bottom accessable and functioning. Beta will essentially be a full release. Just pretend its bethesda. ignore all the billions of bugs

 

Look, I don't care when the game is released. I don't care whether or not they're "feature creeping" or not. I can wait as long as the next guy. But the facts are they said they'd release the game 2013. You may be reading a different FAQ than I, because, as quoted above, it clearly says "But rest assured we will release in 2013". Will I be disappointed if I don't have it by the start of next year? Probably. Am I going to moan and complain about it? No. They can take as long as they want to make their game and I'll gladly play it when they're done. That being said it does clearly say 2013 release. You can not believe if it you choose, or believe they're straight up lying to us, but it's written there plain as day for all to see.

I don't care if they add unplanned features (feature creep--bart's music) but that doesn't meant it isn't what it is. Too much motion not enough logic in this thread.

 

With all due respect, your logic seems flawed to me. While I'm not an attorney or lawyer, there appears to be a big difference in what Chucklefish did and what Blizzard or other game companies do. Blizzard or major game studios don't usually offer pre-orders directly. In most situations, if you want to pre-order a game it's predominately done through a 3rd party retailer like game stop, EB games, Frys, Amazon, etc. To clarify, the Point of Sale is not affiliated with the game studio in any way.

If a game studio does offer pre-orders directly, they generally do not mention any release estimates within a certain time frame of the pre-orders being launched (ie. they offer pre-orders immediately once game is announced knowing development is expected to take another 2-4 years), and they refrain from having release estimates anywhere near the pre-order page or even on a company site. In other words, they have entire legal teams scrutinizing to make sure pre-orders aren't intentionally bolstered by release estimates. If a release estimate is out there, it's usually in a forum post which can be easily dismissed as unrepresentative of the companies business unit decisions as a whole or made during a public investor meeting where the information could be said to have only been released in a semi-confidential manner to investors so any judge would indicate that discretion was followed.

Chucklefish didn't want to accept the pre-orders themselves because not only would it be an accounting nightmare, it would legally put them too close to the Point of Sale. The problem though is that Chucklefish has consistently set release estimates of varying voracity all over their site, and they announced pre-orders too late. Everyone, including themselves, fully expected the development process to be mostly done by this time. If you read the FAQm it clearly says Starbound will be out in 2013. This was up before pre-orders was announced and can cast a reasonable shadow of doubt that the 'estimated 2013' release verbage was an after-though, considering it really was (Tiy added 'estimated' after the fact).

Despite all of that, I still feel Starbound is worth the wait and that the developers are doing the best they can; however, I wouldn't ever agree that they are immune from a massive up-roar if they do not release by 2013 regardless of whether you or I think a promise was made.

As others have said, you need to re-read the FAQ page on the main site. This is about as iron-clad as you can get without adding, "... on my first unborn child's life..."

 

For both release and beta, it says in many different places, "2013" and it has been reinforced as that by Chucklefish even more so.

I would not be surprised if this changed and the devs ignored all backlash and acted with no accountability like they usually do, however, because that used to be "2012"

 

Oh I completely agree there will be an uproar. People are impatient and want what they want, when they want it. The major difference between this and blizzard though, is this is the preorder for the beta of the product. That alone should give some indication that it will give you some time to wait. If the beta isnt out yet, logic stands that the game will take longer. Honestly, the best thing chucklefish could do right now is just make some small statement on the current estimated timeline, and an small appology if it isnt what people want to hear. They shouldnt have to, but it's what people are expecting. if they are on schedule, then they can dispell the complaints, and if not, give people a little forwarning, for those who can't make logical conclusions.

 

Only creep I have seen are all the comments towards molly lol

 

I have faith in Chucklefish, and I believe they will deliver Starbound to us in 2013 or at the very least the beta. I do believe that beta can't be too far away, it's common logic that by showing Starbound at i49 it will inevitably create more hype among the fans who have been following it since whenever.

 

I really don't think so.

 

I have to disagree with you in part, here, as well. The statement that the pre-order was solely for beta access is totally bunk. In fact, if you read Tiy's post, the Pre-order was about many things, one of which just happened to be beta access to sweeten the deal. The main pre-order focus , as clearly stated, was to help the developers become full-time. If you also read further down, Tiy even publicly asks if the 2013 time frame is too large... in other words, as of that post, even Tiy fully believed Starbound would be released in 2013.

 

Honestly, I wonder sometimes if this should have been called a pre-order or a crowdfund.

 

Best post in the whole thread.