Those were both side games. Like how Fallout New Vegas isn’t Fallout 4.

The claim that it was a fake chest is such a weird one.

One time I got an “in between” job at a local business. The first day I showed up and the place made me sign a 17 page front and back NDA.

I’ve signed actual, legitimate NDAs. They are like 3 pages, max. Some people are just preposterous.

Keep in mind Freelancer was released after Microsoft acquired Roberts’ company, kicked him out of a leadership role, and drastically slashed the scope.

Star Citizen is what happens when there is nobody above Roberts to say no, and now after years plenty of people under him with an interest in keeping the development churning.

People are buying the dream. There is personal investment now- this isn’t a game, this is their game. Supporters tend to talk like this is a community project, not a transaction between a customer and a studio.

Whenever the studio finally folds, I guarantee there will be whales lamenting that if they’d only spent a little more they’d have kept the game afloat.

I’m personally a fan of the Grimdark Firefight rules as an entry point. This is an offbrand ruleset for a skirmish game (same size of 10ish models as Kill Team) but it suited to using generic 40k minis and less focused on the special operators like Kill Team has been sliding into.

You can build a list on the software and get an idea of what you want. Box contents or used lots are available on eBay for much less than MSRP. Depending on what faction you are interested in, there are various viable 3rd party minis. If you find yourself somebody with a 3D printer, then the world just got even bigger. (I can provide more precise details if you know what factions you are wanting.)

Terrain can easily be whipped up with a little DIY. Craft paint, hot glue, and cardboard to make some walls and simple buildings. You can go nuts from there.

I’m only but one person.

Hey wait a minute, that isn’t Reginald, it’s Reg! He’s a big phony!

‘Hollow Pursuits’.

The black rage color scheme on a dreadnaught is worrying.

Across worlds beyond counting, the forces of the Imperial guard move forward to kill and die in the Emperor’s name. The guard hold back the darkness that encroaches upon mankind from every direction. They are not the venerated heroes of old, nor are they the glorious superhuman space marines. The guard is a mighty mass of humanity formed into a universe spanning weapon.

You want to know where the warhammer is? You’re looking at it.

Wikipedia isn’t the end all, but in this case I think it provides a working definition.

Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

There’s a danger in any game where it might be largely designed and marketed to be one thing, and then has lengthy mandatory sections where it becomes another.

Poorly made stealth sections are a prime example. Game designers want to change things up, but if the game isn’t made to do stealth, it can easily turn into an annoying mess. There are a few (not a ton, but a few) games where the mandatory stealth sections are well liked, but they were made to carefully take advantage of the game’s strengths and knew when to end.

Hold up, “enshitification” is just turning into a buzzword now.

Enshitification has from the beginning described a service or product which is first released one way, and then over time is made worse for the users in ways designed to squeeze more profit out of them.

Without some serious mental gymnastics, forced stealth sections tend to just be bad design choices. Not every bad thing is the same kind of bad thing.

If you can’t wait:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/fallout-sonora-english

Indeed.

Its an educated wish.

“What makes money” is always relative to how much it costs to make though.

Season passes, microtransactions, and DLCs. Additionally creating brand recognition among the masses along with flashy trailers. These are all reasons that AAA behemoths are still banked on to make huge net profits.

Sometimes these massive games fail and lose money in spectacular ways, but it happens a lot less than us enlightened good taste gamers would like to imagine. Money gets shoveled into creatively safe massive games because they usually make a huge profit. I love say, Wasteland 2, but that game probably has made less money in its entire life than the newest Fifa game made in a week.