Games are changing but unless all interactivity is removed, they are still games.

Unfortunately, the IRL game is a lot less fun and rewarding lol.

1995-2010? Seriously?

Nah. It's immersive sim - open world - permadeath sandbox with infinite possibilities, but no main quest.

Not to be too rude but I think that argument doesn't check out.

Let's be frank, if you actually disliked playing modern games, you would have stopped playing games in 2005, a few years after the last few games you liked came out.

I understand the main point you were making though, and that's that the big super-marketed games are designed to be less involved than Baldur's Gate 2, so you understandably enjoy them less which is completely fair. That said, that's intentional and you know it, they do it to appeal to the mass market, and not knuckleheads like us who would like to play games all day if possible. But what's wrong with that? We have a little less fun, but millions get to enjoy computer games more instead.

And for Baldur's Gate fans like you, well there's Original Sin, Baldur's Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, and dozens of others!

deep does not mean good

wasteland 2 is ok-ish at best, the outer worlds is painfully boring and pillars of eternity bored me to tears (with exception of the dlc content which is actually good)

The corporate side of videogames is shit and the products they produce is a direct result of it.
Back when games cost much less to make in terms of money and human capital the execs let more things slide and we all were impressionable wee lads/lassies so even when the influence of the execs was there we didn't see it: remember when all games on PC had to either be FPS or RTS? Or when the Spacesim genre was all but killed because lack of adertising made Freespace 2 into an acclaimed flop? or what happened to Origin Systems under EA?
That's all stuff that happened back in the day.

At least now we have a healthy enough indie scene thanks to digital distribution and sometimes that indie scene will influence mainstream publishers, I doubt Star Wars Squadrons would have been approved without Star Citizen, Elite and No Man's Sky actually making money.

Star Citizen is making money but to me it is a scam of note. I am by now convinced (and I am an early Kickstarter backer) that the game will never be finished and I will not see my money either. Venture capitalism at its best :)

I'm sure it makes money for Chris Roberts and Co.

Oh, that goes without saying. Though I don't think the scam part is purely intentional on his part. Roberts was never particularly good as a designer beyond the basic idea of doing a cinematic spacesim (first with pixel graphics then with literal movies) and SC is going the same way Privateer 2 did only without a boss telling him to stop dicking around and actually release something.

If you are talking about the MMO part then I can agree but keep in mind that's the nature itself of those games to be constantly updated in a never ending fashion.

The single player part, however, is coming together but, I agree on this as well, it is taking way too much time and there are no execuses even with the weekly status updates.

So the MMO part I can agree with partially on its scammy situation but the Squadron 42's development is going to come to an end sooner or later and they have not much excuses for that.

Yeah, I think you are being too kind to the guy. He has raised over $300 million - three hundred million dollars - and what does he have to show for it nearly 10 years later after starting the campaign? The game is in Alpha and will forever remain in Alpha until it moves to Beta, then Gamma etc. I am willing to bet real money on this.

In a normal multiplayer title, there should be a completed game world that is then a starting point for future development. Here nothing is complete - it's just a poor collection of small demos of the engine - flying version, first person shooter version etc. I stopped tracking this in 2015 - and it still looks the same today.

He might finish Squadron 42 at some point (again, this was meant to be finished when - 2014 or something?) but you can clearly see how he pivoted towards endless monetisation. In fact there is no incentive to ever get this to a finished state, that's why he has gone into a cycle of endless development. Hype is maintained through adding more and more functionality and scope that will just never come.

I mean, selling virtual space ships in a non-existent game for $250 american dollars? Come on.

In finance world this would be classified as typical Ponzi scheme (other than not having to pay out anyone - after all, you don't have to deliver on a promise if you keep on moving the goalpost). Bernie Madoff got 150 years in jail for this, but Chris Roberts will probably just walk off a richer man.

I also fond of playing minecraft now

No it's not.

I clearly stated that the whole thing is dragging on for so much time now, but that aside, the MMO is playable right now and from years and is being constantly updated.

It's not a generic multiplayer title: is an MMO which have longer development cycles, he is (they are) doing what other MMOs have done before nothing more, nothing less.

Squadron 42 development is as well dragging itself from years now and there are not many excuses for that but people often (like to) forget that, like the MMO part, started with a level of complexity unseen before.

Is it right? Is it wrong?
Is it fair? Is it not?
To each their own,

I am an original backer one of the first 2000 backers in the world (I would have been even an earlier one but americans always do stuff in their timezone and not the global one) and golden ticket holder, am I happy with the whole status of the game(s)? Not really, I've grown miildly indifferent from years mostly because of some of their choices along the years that I don't support.

Do I find it a scam? No, at least unless it can be legally called that.

Ah, and 250$ for a ship is really not much if you consider the most expensive ones can go for 2500$ and 1250$ even more if you try to shop in the grey market.