The Steam Achievement Leaks: News About Squadron 42 Not From Cloud Imperium

I've watched the news over the last few days of a leak of information about Steam achievements for upcoming games. Apparently an issue cropped up involving the API that led to sites like Exophase and SteamDB collecting all the Steam achievements from Valve, not just games that currently are live. And the Star Citizen community is going just a little crazy.

Gemini is getting much better with providing me with news so I'll just use part of the output the AI provided yesterday.

How the Leak Occurred: Following routine maintenance, Steam’s API briefly removed privacy barriers protecting backend achievement lists. Automated tracking databases and aggregators—most notably Exophase—regularly poll the API for new data. Because the backend suddenly returned the private data as public, Exophase automatically indexed and displayed the full achievement sets for various AppIDs, many of which had not even been formally announced or given public store pages.  

Exophase owner Mike Bendel clarified that this was not a malicious security breach or targeted hack, but rather an error on Valve’s end where private attributes were unintentionally exposed to standard API queries. 

The list was pretty extensive, but the one game I'm focusing on today is Squadron 42. I didn't head down the rabbit hole to find out details about the SQ42 achievements themselves. I think the bigger story outside the Star Citizen fandom is that the achievements exist in the first place.

First off, Squadron 42 is not vaporware. I don't think anyone can now argue that the news was just another CIG's marketing department effort to deceive its customer base as part of a decade-long scam. I wrote back in June about the possibility of CIG including Steam as part of the launch of the game.

Instead, I see the event as a kickoff to marketing the game to people outside the Star Citizen community. My big prediction is the announcement that CIG will sell the game on Steam and that players can begin pre-ordering Squadron 42 at that time on both Steam and the traditional RSI website. Since I am assuming a Steam launch, CIG would need to follow Steam's policies. These policies include having a "Coming Soon" page up for a minimum of two weeks before buyers can press they buy button. Steam also requires a build review to ensure the game boots up properly and doesn't contain malicious files.

These Steam requirements explicitly details that Valve requires 3-5 business days to review the store page and a separate 5 business days to review the actual game build. I really don't see CIG setting things up ahead of time and stepping on their big announcement. CIG probably will also want to avoid the launch of GTA VI so I imagine a launch window of June or July 2027 would work well in also meeting all of Valve's requirements to list the game on Steam.

I posted the minimum requirements but apparently CIG is way past doing as little as possible.

Second, not everyone possibly diverted to work on SQ42 was taken from Star Citizen development. CIG needs to integrate their backend systems to work with Steam's. Honestly, that's another reason Chris Roberts may have purchased Turbulent. The Canadian-based subsidiary has worked on CIG's websites, including the cash shop, since 2012. Keeping that activity within the company probably was attractive to Roberts' famously controlling mindset. The fact the work is probably being performed in lost-cost Quebec instead of a high-priced location like the United States is also a plus in saving money.

Third, the move has caught a surprisingly large number portion of Star Citizen customers off-guard. And I consider 10% a surprisingly large number. So many white knights and other hard-core backers have compared the Star Citizen project to Rockstar games (first Red Dead Redemption 2, currently Grand Theft Auto VI) that the attribute the power, size, and wealth of Rockstar Games. And if one looks, RDR2 and the GTA games on PC are all on Steam.

Sorry folks, but CIG does not have the money to conduct a traditional marketing campaign like a major studio. The reason CIG reached out and received outside investment in 2018 was because the company needed $46 million to advertise the 2020 launch of Squadron 42. But with a cumulative net position of $27.1 million at the end of 2024, CIG only had a 2-month cash reserve. 

Thus, an earned media marketing campaign is called for. Avoiding periods where everyone will disregard SQ42 to talk about GTA 6 is one obvious move. The other is to sell through Steam. An actual no-brainer but I've seen some think the idea is horrible.

I've believed for a couple of years now that the latest CIG could launch Squadron 42 was the summer of 2027. The news about the leak shows that Squadron 42 is close to a state to release to the public. While I believe the game is still not ready, I now believe the work is the typical polishing up done by game devs as the game gets closer to release. I really, really hope the game is not in a state to induce panic. But given CIG was incorporated in California on 10 April 2012, the lack of a track record of successful game launches may leave some to wonder if Squadron 42 is solid.

Dawntrail: When The Last Content Drops

Tuesday witnessed what I am assuming is the final content patch for Final Fantasy XIV: Dawnwalker. We might see a patch 7.58 as a preparation for the next expansion, Evercold, in order to clean up a few things, but the content is done. Despite the fact I'm still stuck in the patch 7.4 MSQ I'm still not in a big rush to do the rest of the content. Trying to get the final Cosmic Exploration mount while the content is still relevant? Oh yes! I do need to speed up the grinding for that. But the rest of the content? No.

That also includes the new beastmaster limited job introduced in patch 7.56. I spent years before touching the original limited job, blue mage. But the fact we have four months to go until the launch of the next expansion won't stop many from rushing through the beastmaster leveling grind. I even see multiple people advertising the "fastest beastmaster leveling guide" on YouTube less than 24 hours after the job was introduced. Color me skeptical, but I don't exactly trust guides that come out that fast. But the demand for those types of videos is there.

Looking through the patch notes, the only other content in the expansion (not just patch) is the final four quests of the expansion. Sure, we haven't seen the return of all the crossover content yet, but for all intents and purposes we won't see any new content apart from seasonal events until January. 

The one remaining big event on the calendar is the Tokyo Fanfest on Halloween and All Hallows Day (aka October 31st & November 1st). I might need to actually finish the MSQ before then, but I really hate trials and still need to do the last two. That's right, I'm 11 quests away from finishing and I'm hung up on doing trials. I've been told in the past to just go in as a DPS job, try not to die, and get carried. It feels wrong but I may wind up doing that.

I also need to finish up the Hildebrand questline. I still need to do the last two quests from patch 7.55. Those I like. In fact, I may try to go back and replay each series using New Game+. 

And that's one of the challenges for game developers. They don't need to worry about players like me. I never keep up with the content so always have something to do. But all those people who race ahead and vacuum up all the content in a week? I can expect those people to start complaining by the end of the month, if not sooner.

Chris Roberts Needs A New Ortwin Freyermuth

I've covered Cloud Imperium Games and Star Citizen for quite a few years now. Out of all the figures who have left the company in the past 5 years or so the one I miss most is CIG co-founder and former legal consul Ortwin Freyermuth. The long time entertainment lawyer first worked with Chris Roberts on what I consider Roberts' most successful moving, Lord of War. That 19-year partnership ended when Freyermuth sold off his share of CIG back in the summer of 2024. Freyermuth wore a lot of hats at CIG and, in my eyes at least, some stability and a check on Roberts' worst impulses outside of game development. After reading the latest Letter from the Chairman, I think Roberts needs to find a new Ortwin Freyermuth.

I realize Roberts had to address the 800 pound gorilla in the room: the game engine. After the embarrassing stream of the Siege of Orison run-through with 4 CIG employees one could naturally wonder how an engine designed for FPS games could operate so poorly. But the subject did bring back memories of the CryTek lawsuit.

The basis for the CryTek lawsuit was CIG switching to Lumberyard and CIG creating a second game based on CryEngine 3 (Squadron 42) without a license. As late as January 2020 CIG argued in court that Squadron 42 and Star Citizen were one game as they were accessed from the same launcher. But in February 2020 the two sides came to an agreement, still largely under an NDA, bringing the lawsuit to a close with prejudice, meaning CryTek cannot sue again.

But the following paragraph from the latest Letter from the Chairman had me wondering if Roberts had violated the NDA.

In 2020 we came to agreement with Crytek that gave us a perpetual license for the branch of CryEngine we were on for all our current and future games, giving us full control over the use of Star Engine going forward, which you can appreciate is important due to the investments we have made into our technology.

Then the word "gave" induced a flashback to The Princess Bride.

I've covered CIG long enough to remember this passage from the 2020 financial analysis published on CIG's corporate website.

Capex spend in 2020 was significantly up on 2019, which in part was driven by the headcount increase, but in the year we also purchased a perpetual worldwide license for use of the CryEngine, which provides us greater flexibility in how we develop and deploy the engine within our existing and planned future business.

Perhaps if Roberts had someone like Freyermuth to run the letter against the wording wouldn't have come close to raising any red flags. Just on the face of it, Crytek didn't give CIG anything. CIG had to purchase a second license.

The section of the letter, however, that really raised eyebrows was the claim of when development on Squadron 42 began.

At CitizenCon 2024 we announced we would ship in 2026. Our plan was to release in Q4 around IAE. But much like the rest of the industry there is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had twelve years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it (we started Squadron 42 development in 2014 as 2013 was opening studios, hiring people and getting the Hangar module out for Star Citizen) launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA6. While GTA6 isn’t launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage. [emphasis mine]

Is it true that development of the single player campaign really didn't begin until 2014? Or did Roberts really just make something up to avoid people thinking that Squadron 42 took longer to develop than Duke Nukem Forever? 

I ask because the date matters. The original Kickstarter campaign gave an estimated date of release of November 2014. In my opinion, not starting development on the single player campaign until 2014 meant Roberts knew that November 2014 date was made up out of thin air and not possible to achieve.

So what should I believe? That Roberts is lying now in order to avoid embarrassment? Or that the original release date was thrown out there in order to entice people to give him money because 2 years doesn't sound that far off? What's the difference if the second case is true? About $35 million, the amount collected from the launch of the Kickstarter to the end of 2013. Without that, does CIG wind up selling $1 billion in digital assets and last 14 years?

Of course, if Roberts had a trusted advisor or lawyer he could run statements past maybe he could avoid making stupid statements that raise more issues than they put to bed. But as long as Roberts continues to make statements in an effort to avoid short term embarrassment, perhaps the staff at CIG should do their best to keep Roberts away from the public. I don't see another Ortwin Freyermuth coming along anytime soon.

EVE Online - Looking At The Summer Slump 2026

The health of EVE Online, like most games, is judged by the number of people playing the game. Or perhaps more accurately, the amount of accounts logged into the global Tranquility live shard. This year up until now I've shown the number using graphs from Eve-Offline.net. I still view the website daily. Throughout August Eve-Offline.net has shown an average of around 23,000 accounts, plus or minus 500, logged in at any one time. Assuming August is the month with the lowest activity, let's look at Jester's charts and graphs for the latest data.

Before I go on I want to explain why I never link directly to Jester's website. The answer is simple. His website is still using http and Google/Blogger doesn't like when I use non-https links. I sometimes get messages warning me I'm linking to an unsafe site. But the link is listed in his charts so anyone can visit and look at the data themselves.

Looking at his yearly average chart I see my prediction of 2026 having the highest average since 2014 is still on track. The number did drop by 500 compared to July but the average should stabilize in September.

Looking at the summer chart from May through the end of September shows the summer slump began later than in 2025 and didn't drop as far. In both 2024 and 2025 the 30-day average dropped by 3000 accounts while in 2026 the number only dropped by a little over 2000.

Looking ahead I'm interested if the major September update for CoW will serve as a bridge to October's Crimson Harvest and we see the summer slump end a bit earlier than normal. I'm not just looking at the situation with rose-tinted glasses. When I logged in to compose this article I checked EVE-Offline.net.

The ACU line had moved up to 24,000 today. A small step but the trend appears to go upward. Now to see what happens in the rest of September.

Cloud Imperium Cash Shop Records $8.5 Million In Sales In August 2026

In August, for just the second time in 2026 and the third time since the beginning of 2025, Cloud Imperium Games' cash shop experienced a year-over-year drop in revenue. Last month's $8.5 million in sales was an 8.2% decline compared to the $9.3 million brought into CIG's coffers in August 2025. For the year cash shop revenue as measured on the CCU Game dashboard is up 28.1% compared to the first 8 months of 2025, coming in at $111.7 million.

The $1040.9 million ($1.04 billion) displayed on the Roberts Space Industries funding page at the end of May was not a comprehensive accounting for all of CIG's revenue since the project's Kickstarter in October 2012. Overall, the company has recorded $1,196.0 million ($1.2 billion) in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2024 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $1040.9 million ($1.04 billion) (through 31 August 2026)
• Other cash shop revenue: $2.7 million (through 31 December 2024)
• Subscriptions: $46.8 million (through 31 December 2024)
• All other sources: $105.6 million (through 31 December 2024)

In addition, the company has received a total of $68.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2023 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020 and another $3.1 million in 2023-2024. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $1,264.2 million ($1.26 billion), or $1.256.4 million ($1.26 billion) when excluding the returned funds. An additional $12.6 million in loans issued in March 2025 and due for repayment on 31 December 2027 are not included in the total.

The new account creation number dropped again in August. Compared to August 2025, last month's 48,175 accounts created represented a 19.6% decline. But as I said last month, the numbers are skewed due to the implementation of a new recruitment system in July 2025. The numbers aren't that bad this year because the numbers weren't that great last year.

The delay of Squadron 42. The big news in August was the delay of the release of Squadron 42 from 2026 to the second quarter of 2027. Chris Roberts, as expected, said the delay was to avoid Grand Theft Auto VI from sucking all the attention of the gaming press and content creators. Vocal critics have poo-poo'd the idea, stating that GTA 6 is a console game, Squadron 42 is a PC game, and the games are in different genres.

I go with Roberts' explanation, but only because I think CIG is still in financial difficulty. Back in December 2018 CIG recruited the Calders' first investment of $46 million in order to run a marketing campaign centered on Squadron 42. That money has long been spent, going into the general fund to make sure the company had the cash reserves to keep operating. But with CIG spending $34.5 million more than it brought in during 2023-2024 even that margin ran thin, requiring additional outside funding in Q1 2025.

Honestly, if CIG is going to spend money advertising the game, the company will have to do so using funds from the IAE sale in November, which is one reason for the delay. The other reason is a big part of the advertising campaign will consist of using earned media. Lacking the funds for a major advertising campaign, CIG will rely on the gaming press and content creators to spread the word about SQ42. And if they are busy with the biggest game to hit the market in years, that strategy will fail. Thus, pushing the game to Q2 2027.

The Upgrade of Tranquility To Python 3 Has Begun

A quick if belated post is warranted as EVE Online begins the process of benefiting from the crypto money pouring into EVE Frontier. That's right, last week Fenris Creations began the process of upgrading the Carbon engine running the Tranquility server to Python version 3. Success is simple. The migration will be a success if players don't notice the change happening at all.

Why do the change at all? Fenris is using an unsupported language on Tranquility.

EVE launched in 2003, built on Stackless Python, a version of Python whose lightweight "tasklets" let a single server node juggle thousands of pilots at once. Fenris Creations did not just adopt Stackless; it became one of its most significant contributors.  

Some of you may remember upgrading to Stackless Python 2.5 in 2007, then to Stackless Python 2.7 in 2010. That was the last time EVE changed its Python version. Python 2.7 reached official end of life back in 2020, the rest of the software world moved on, and a whole generation of capsuleers has been born, gone to school, and started flying frigates while EVE stayed on the same language version. It was reliable enough that a large, potentially risky migration never justified itself, until now. 

Sixteen years on the same version says a lot about how well it worked. The Carbon engine helped massively, but it, too, has moved forward now!

Eventually software needs to be updated. The code running EVE Online is no exception.

The short version: staying on Python 2 increasingly holds EVE back, and moving to Python 3 means a healthier, better-supported game for you. 

One reason is performance. Recent Python 3 releases have delivered some of the largest speedups in the history of this language. Over time, that opens the door to a faster EVE, though it is too early to say exactly what that will mean. 

Another reason is the ecosystem. Modern libraries, debuggers, and profilers are all built for Python 3. Every year we remain on Python 2, more of them slip out of reach, and the more we must maintain ourselves instead of improving the game. Better tools mean we can find and fix problems faster. 

The last point is important. Do players want developers to maintain an outdated language, or do they want time and resources spent working on game code and the game engine? Personally I'd like to see less of the budget spent maintaining Python 2 libraries.

I also want Fenris to take their time with the changeover to Python 3 as weird things can happen. In addition to 3300 lines found to block compiling the code, and even larger number can create the definition of weird.

Parsing is the easy part.  

The same scan counts roughly 20,000 lines of code that compile fine under both versions but behave differently in Python 3. The classic example is division: in Python 2, 1 / 2 is 0; while in Python 3 it is 0.5.  

In EVE where those numbers might be damage, ISK, or coordinates, each of those lines needs a human decision rather than a mechanical fix. That work is part of Stage 2, which is why Stage 1 comes first: clear the mechanical debris so human attention goes only where humans are needed. 

I don't expect Fenris to finish the process within the next year. For now I'm just happy the process started. And who knows, maybe we get a lot of unexpected performance gains out of the upgrade.

Squadron 42 To Release In Q2 2027

Today Cloud Imperium Games announced its upcoming single player game Squadron 42 would release in the second quarter of 2027. The timing of the announcement left me scratching my head as Rockstar's big trailer release for Grand Theft Auto VI definitely will dominate the news cycle. Almost as if CIG did not want to draw a lot of attention outside the Star Citizen player base.

The announcement was made in a Letter from the Chairman with no mention on the CIG corporate website. 

At CitizenCon 2024 we announced we would ship in 2026. Our plan was to release in Q4 around IAE. But much like the rest of the industry there is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had twelve years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it (we started Squadron 42 development in 2014 as 2013 was opening studios, hiring people and getting the Hangar module out for Star Citizen) launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA6. While GTA6 isn’t launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage.

We have taken a look at the release windows at the start of 2027, and decided that Q2 provides a better time for Squadron 42 to release.

We are allowing a small number of original backers and long-time Star Citizen content creators an opportunity to play Squadron 42 this October 9th and 10th. We’ll be making further announcements about our release plans during this time and a specific release date shortly afterwards.

I know a lot of you will be disappointed to not be playing Squadron 42 at the end of this year, but it is the best thing for the project as it is truly something special and so needs to the opportunity to have the focus of the wider gaming world.

I realize Cloud Imperium has missed several delivery dates over the years, but this time I think a Q2 2027 release window is solid. CIG has a £10 million loan due at the end of 2027 to one of the shareholders (most likely Keith Calder's Indus Management LTD). Indus owns 22.4% of the outstanding shares in Cloud Imperium. Chris Roberts may want to ensure the loan is paid back in cash instead of additional equity in CIG. If I'm correct in the assumption Indus provided the loan, not paying the loan off in cash could wind up with Keith Calder's company owning an over 25% stake in CIG.

Roberts may also be feeling pressure from the Calders' in relation to the infamous "put option". Keith Calder in particular probably wants to maximize revenue during the put options final period of 2026-2028 and waiting until the second half of the period to release Squadron 42 would probably make the Calders unhappy. Also, a release in the first half of 2027 would ensure most of the revenue for the game would fall within 2027. A big enough hit would make the shareholders a very large amount of money.

GamesCom 2026 Preview For MMORPGs

Thursday begins one of the biggest events on the video game calendar: GamesCom 2026. Running from 26-30 August, Gamescom 2026 is the world’s largest public video game trade fair and consumer convention, held at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany. The festivities kick off with Opening Night Live on August 25. 

The key pillars of the event are:

• Consumer Entertainment Area (Halls 6–10): The central public show floor where hundreds of global publishers and indie studios host hands-on demo stations, esports stages, themed photo installations, and live stage presentations.  
• Opening Night Live (ONL): The main global broadcast event featuring world-premiere trailers, gameplay reveals, hardware demonstrations, and publisher keynote announcements.  
• Business Area (gamescom biz / Halls 2–4): A dedicated B2B trade hub for developers, publishers, investors, media, and technology partners conducting meetings, pitch sessions, and distribution deals.  
• Gamescom Dev (devcom): The co-located game developer conference focusing on game engineering, art, narrative design, game economy balancing, and production pipelines.  
• Community & Culture: Dedicated thematic zones across the Koelnmesse complex, including the Indie Area (Home of Indies), Retro Gaming, Cosplay Village, and the Gamescom Event Arena for live music and esports competitions.

The opening event will be streamed on both YouTube and Twitch. The times broken down by time zone are as follows:

• Pre-Show (30 minutes): 1:30 PM EDT / 12:30 PM CDT / 10:30 AM PDT / 7:30 PM CEST 
• Main Showcase (approx. 2 hours): 2:00 PM EDT / 1:00 PM CDT / 11:00 AM PDT / 8:00 PM CEST  

As The Nosy Gamer concentrates on MMORPGs I'll pick out some points of interest I want to know about. Those issues stretch from previews of upcoming games to events with a business or financial impact on some of the stories I commonly cover. 

Three major games will have a presence on the show floor with demos:

• Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix – Hall 8): Square Enix features hands-on stations for the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 edition, dedicated community photo ops (such as the Air-wheeler and Dancing Green installations), and an official in-person community Fan Gathering at the booth.
• Dune: Awakening (Funcom / Level Infinite – Hall 6): Funcom has public hands-on stations showcasing the open-world survival MMO, featuring the first public hands-on playtest for its upcoming console edition.  
• Aion 2 (NCSoft): Headlining NCSoft’s showcase, the upcoming MMORPG is featured during Gamescom Opening Night Live ahead of its Early Access launch.

In addition, NCSoft will be present in the B2B/business area for industry and partner meetings about Guild Wars 3 while NetEase will feature new reveals and Closed Beta information for Sea of Remnants during Gamescom broadcasts.

Square Enix will have a major presence at GamesCom beyond just Final Fantasy XIV.

• Show Floor Booth (Hall 8 | A-21): Square Enix is hosting a large consumer area featuring hands-on stations and community activities.  
• Playable Titles: FINAL FANTASY XIV (including the new Nintendo Switch 2 edition), Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, and Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. 
• Photo Spots & Activities: Themed photo ops for Final Fantasy VII Revelation, FFXIV (Air-wheeler and Dancing Green activities), FFX/X-2, and Dragon Quest's 40th Anniversary. 
• Official Merchandise Store: A dedicated retail area selling Square Enix merchandise and apparel. 
• Showcase Presentations: Square Enix is featured during Gamescom Opening Night Live, with director Naoki Hamaguchi appearing to present a new look at Final Fantasy VII Revelation.  
• Community Events: Square Enix is hosting an official FFXIV Fan Gathering directly at their booth on the evening of Thursday, August 27. 

Another company from East Asia, Pearl Abyss, will also have a major presence at GamesCom. Investors should pay close attention as the news coming out of Cologne will probably lead to a spike in PA share prices next week. At least, the C-Suite probably hopes so.

• Consumer Show Floor (Hall 09.1 | Stand B020–C029): Pearl Abyss partnered with Samsung Electronics to host a large interactive exhibit.  
• Playable Demos: Visitors can play hands-on demos of Crimson Desert running on Samsung's latest display hardware, including the 32-inch Odyssey G8 6K gaming monitor.  
• Stage & Community Events: The booth features live developer presentations, cosplay appearances, and exclusive merchandise giveaways.  
• Gamescom Awards 2026: Crimson Desert is nominated in two major award categories: Best PC Game and Most Epic.  
• Gamescom Dev (Developer Conference): Pearl Abyss technical leads hosted two deep-dive sessions exploring the technology behind Crimson Desert:  
• "How We Filled the Vast Continent of Pywel" (world-building workflows, procedural pipelines, and environmental storytelling).  
• "Scaling Open World Creation in Crimson Desert with an In-House Engine" (technical architecture and rendering systems of the proprietary BlackSpace Engine).  

Some of the other companies I follow do not have a big presence at GamesCom. Fenris Creations studio leadership and production staff (including EVE Online Executive Producer Snorri Árnason) are registered and participating in GamesCom biz and the co-located developer events for industry meetings and networking. But that's about it.

Cloud Imperium Games will have no official presence at GamesCom. The studio's next major event will occur in Manchester in October involving Squadron 42. Players may decide to hold a Bar Citizen, but that is about all that may occur.

A Tempest In Star Citizen's Teacup

A couple of weeks ago the Cloud Imperium Games' marketing department dropped the ball and conducted a walk-through of a new version of the Siege of Orison. The nearly two hour stream went rather poorly.

The AI generated summary gives a decent description of the stream.

Jared Huckabee hosts a session with the Star Citizen development team to showcase the redesigned Siege of Orison mission. Using an internal build, the crew demonstrates the intended gameplay flow, group dynamics, and technical goals for this updated encounter.

This is what Huckabee had to say at the beginning of the stream...

Uh, what I was going to say, oh yes, so uh, as we announced earlier this week, we are playing Siege of Orison. There's been a lot of conversation about whether we're going to be playing live on the servers or on a private build and whatnot. We recognize the current state of the PTU. Let's just say that. It's why Siege of Orison was originally scheduled for 4.9 uh, last month. It's been delayed a whole month. It still needs time to cook. 

Uh basically we know we see the reports we play it ourselves we hear you what not. Uh playing today on the PTU doesn't really do what we wanted to do today. So we will be playing on an internal build. This is the game as it's designed to work uh as the wonderful engineers of the project work to harden the brand new instancing system which is the current source of the various performance issues that you're experiencing with Siege of Orison.

The nearly two hour stream went rather poorly, attracting a lot of attention from people outside the usual Star Citizen community. I think the first major YouTube creator to notice the stream was Kira. If one wants to hear about sketchy video games, Kira is a much watch.

Kira took the time to type out his own description.

Star Citizen is going super well. They're likely to reach 1.1 billion dollars of public crowdfunding by the end of 2026, their live version of the game has massive netcode problems and they decided to run an unscritped live gameplay demo of a mission on a private server dev build...The result was one of the most cringe, self destructive events of the game's history.

Kira's video caught the attention of Charlie White (not to be confused with The Space Pope Charles White who retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)). From the videos I've watched, Charlie represents the common person with little knowledge of Star Citizen. 

Also known as MoistCr1TiKaL, his rather critical take shook many in the Star Citizen community because of his 18+ million subscribers. AI added onto White's short description of "This is the greatest Star Citizen stream of All Time."

penguinz0 analyzes a recent promotional live stream for Star Citizen that showcased severe technical instability. The broadcast featured uncomfortable interactions between developers as they attempted to demonstrate mission gameplay, highlighting ongoing concerns regarding the project's long-term development status and its unconventional crowdfunding model.

Next up is a segment from Phillip DeFranco's daily news show. 

If the Star Citizen community didn't appreciate Cr1TiKaL's take on the stream, then they probably hated DeFranco's description of the stream as a "sadomasochistic humiliation kink ritual". His comment about "Never mind GTA 6, GTA 5 hadn't been released yet" to reference the project's age certainly addressed a defense used by many Star Citizen white knights to justify the development costs and time of Star Citizen so far.

Finally I want to bring up a video by ObsidianAnt.  The YouTube creator with over 330,000 subscribers usually concentrates on sci-fi video games that feature spaceships.

ObsidianAnt actually points out some of the things in his video that have bugged me about Star Citizen. His description of his video I think points out, if not an issue, then the irony of the current situation.

The dream space game has been something people have chased for decades. Star Citizen is at the front of the pack for trying to achieve that dream.  However a recent livestream ended in disaster, going viral to millions of people, and not even showing any space content.

But despite the controversy, does anyone in the general public really care? Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to release in less than 3 months. Take-Two has suffered GTA 6 leaks for 6 days in a row. With initial sales data starting to make its way public, the studio has sold 4.38 million units for $429 million in preorders. Analysts are estimating preorders could reach 20-25 million units, bringing in up to $2 billion in revenue. One of the biggest video game stories of 2026 & 2027 will be GTA 6.

So that begs the question. Is anyone really going to care about Star Citizen, a game that will launch sometime in 2032 if things go right? Squadron 42? Sure. That may launch in the next 6 months. But 6 months is a huge difference from 6 years. Unless SQ42 is a disaster Star Citizen still has a long time to cook.

Flying Solo In EVE: Filling Time With MCT

I didn't get much playtime in EVE Online last week. I took the week off work and did grown-up things like getting my car fixed, reviewing my retirement finances, and taking my mom out for her birthday. When I did play video games, I dedicated most of my EVE time to EVE Frontier. I also did some sillyness in Final Fantasy XIV, but that was mostly just doing general crafting stuff, which is what I do a lot of in EVE. And of course I did a look back at Pearl Abyss and how our old overlords are doing financially.

I may need to start paying more attention to EVE as I've seen a slight increase in activity over the last two weeks. No, the summer slump is still ongoing but the average concurrent users on Tranquility has been 23,000 +/- 500 accounts for two weeks now and the PCU for the week exceeded 32,000 for the first time in a month. I haven't really seen a special reason like an event to come back so I'm assuming the summer slump has bottomed out. The U.S. still has one more big summer holiday so the potential for a double-dip remains.

If activity were only tracked through the global PLEX market I'd have to say activity is steady. The total volume of PLEX sold remained even with the average price of a PLEX increasing by approximately 50,000 each during the week. I didn't see any promotions or sales that would have enticed any major activity.

Since I've spent the last week or so just training my newest character, multiple character training is on my mind. I have run out of MCT on both accounts. I was hoping to get a better deal than the current one, but 3 months of multiple character training and one month of Omega time for $24 doesn't sound too bad. I was really hoping for a better deal but I have the feeling we'll see some big PLEX and subscription sales when Labor Day in the U.S. rolls around in three weeks. In the meantime I really do need to finish up the level 1 epic arc before then so I'm ready for what comes in September.