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.

But we don't know if time even had a beginning, thus the contract is unenforceable.

I hope you told them to go fuck themselves.

Sunken cost fallacy maybe.

I haven't bought into it or anything, but I followed the development for a while in the 2010s because I was really excited for what they showed.

Speaking personally, I just want a game that would let me feel immersed in a spacefaring future human civilization. I'm never gonna live to see that. So, I'd like a game where I can at least pretend.

EvE doesn't work for me. I'm not interested in spreadsheets, and I want to be able to fly my ship instead of just clicking to move (I assume that's still how it controls? I only played briefly in the 2000s)

Starfield is..Starfield. I just appreciate that they tried something, honestly. No Man's Sky seems pretty neat, although I don't really know what you do in that game outside of just collecting resources. I need to try it sometime.

Elite Dangerous is great. It comes the closest to scratching the itch. Zooming through the galaxy looking for different astral phenomena and sights to see is a really chill way to spend an afternoon. But, it only really gets so deep. The space legs (I mean, the Odyssey expansion) only do so much to make you feel present. Space stations and outposts really only consist of two or three different layouts of one big room with the same shops. Settlements mostly only exist to be mission objectives. You get 8 guns and 3 pistols to choose from. That's about it. Not super immersive once you step outside of your ship (personally speaking).

But, pretty much the main thing they've been trying to accomplish with Star Citizen is to make it the most immersive experience they can. It's right there in the name, isn't it? You get to play at a citizen of an interstellar civilization. That's the idea. I'm not sure if that's the reality.

So, yeah. Speaking personally, I've got a dream I'll never see realized, and (it feels like) no one stepping up to offer a proper simulation. I imagine a lot of folks are clinging to Star Citizen out of desperate hope, since there's not really a proper alternative if it ever goes away.

I had an argument with someone who kept claiming that it was all okay because it was "in alpha", all the developers have to do is claim that the game isn't finished yet and is still in development and then they can sell it for whatever price they want an idiot will buy it and defend it.

Because it's in a genre that has no good alternatives?

EVE is spreadsheet simulator, Elite Dangerous is space-truck simulator, NMS is all planets not space, StarField is StarField.

The only viable alternative I found was X4. Even that is slightly different from what Star Citizen promises (it's more empire management than solo flying in the endgame, vanilla balance is also questionable: you can "luke skywalker" a destroyer with a scout with pure dogfighting skills)

It's a bubble.

A friend of mine who bought it clearly states that that's never going to get anywhere. But he's only paid a regular amount and accepted the risk and loss.