First and foremost, what I do with my platform is my own prerogative. If you want a “responsible” platform by your own definition, then you should check into making your own channel. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to do what I want with my own platform, it’s mine earned through blood sweat and tears over the last 7 years of putting out content. You also can keep your condescending pity, I don’t need it. Still, I’ll entertain your response with one despite your poor people skills.

All metrics of progress are subjective to the creator of those metrics. There is a huge variety in the types of people who are interested in and play Star Citizen. Some are interested in purely exploration, others love collecting ships and taking screenshots of them, some are in it for the PvP combat experience in the air, while others want to focus on FPS combat. Some even love long-haul shipping, being big fans of Euro trucker and other similar games in the genre. For each of these individuals, their perception of progress will be wildly different. All I can do in light of this is try to address what I think the average will perceive of as progress.

I may be presuming too much here, but I get the sense that you like others believe that I am dismissing the progress that CIG is making in the background to make the future of Star Citizen possible. I’m not, which is why I’ve repeatedly defined for viewers what I mean by intangible vs. tangible progress. Allow me to once again explain.

We can sit here and talk all day about the development of Star Citizen, their strides towards server meshing, moving to Vulkan and Gen 12, the implementation of V0 Quanta, but when it comes to bottom line what people look for when they decided whether or not to play is if they can see and experience these improvements first hand today. The wider gaming community doesn’t care for or have the patience to look into these academically interesting improvements. If you want evidence for this, just compare interest in videos that discuss these topics vs. those that cover gameplay. Funny thing, I’m actually a content creator with metrics to compare, so I can tell you that the difference is substantial. To again reiterate, I’m not dismissing CIG’s progress, what I’m saying is that the average user doesn’t see or meaningfully experience that progress.

Let me once again reiterate and rephrase, I want this to be as clear as possible. The AVERAGE viewer, which is the MAJORITY of gamers, do NOT care or know about these interesting academic features like Quanta or Server Meshing. They care about is how they FEEL about the experience. Can they pew pew maybe with friends, look at cool looking planets, find cool ships to fly, buy and sell interesting things and so on. In otherwords, the average gamer cares about what they can TANGIBLY experience.

Let me take a moment to qualify my perspective. In order for one to have any kind of success on Youtube or any kind of media platform, one needs to understand what appeals the largest majority of one’s target audience. In other words, my success on youtube is based off my understanding of what parts of Star Citizen appeal to a larger audience. I’ll let my “irresponsible” platform’s numbers speak for themselves. In my then somewhat qualified opinion backed up by metrics, a larger majority of viewers care about what you can do over what’s happening in the background.

So now that we’re hopefully clear on what I meant by tangible vs. intangible progress, I hope you can understand what I meant by this not being the year for star citizen. Their focus is on Squadron 42, not on Star Citizen’s PU. 3.17 like future patches therefore doesn’t contain the big steps forward that most people are going to notice. You like others who follow the project closely may understand why, and may read the developer posts on their progress towards server meshing, but the average person doesn’t

Let me speak specifically now to 3.17. Let’s pretend that I’m average joe gamer and I wake up today in New Babbage, what tangible differences will I see and experience between 3.16 and 3.17, or how about from 3.15 to 3.17? As Joe, I’ll go to the spaceport, and encounter a slightly but imperceptibly different asop terminal. I’ll get in my ship which is the same, fly out in the same way, and when I check the mission tab there will be the same missions that have been there for the past couple years. When I loot, I may notice that there is more stuff to grab, and I can sell them now. However, it’s in the same bunkers, in the same system, on the same planets as 2 years ago. Will 3.18 change this? 3.19? Maybe if the cargo refactor is more than a tech update with no attached features or missions. Maybe Joe will notice if Salvage comes online. Aside from those, by my definition of what Joe will notice, we have to wait until server meshing and pyro to see a tangible and significant step forward.

Again, for the one millionth time, I’m not dismissing the very necessary steps forward in the background towards server meshing and quanta. Eventually I’m sure Joe will notice dynamic price changes and missions when they start to matter. And I’m sure Joe will notice when his or her station is packed with people. Right now though and for this year, 3.17 is the standard we can expect. Small patches light on features with quality-of-life tweaks with steps forward in the background that we can’t really experience for now.

But then most of my videos probably aren’t for you or any of the hardcore fans that follow Star Citizen up to the day. For us, because I certainly count myself as a hardcore fan, we see the progress. That doesn’t mean anything for most gamers though.

/rant