You can grow the medium without defending scummy practices and terrible development/management that is becoming a borderline scam (if not already become one).
When the likes of Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky are more feature rich, complete, and have infinitely more to do in them in a quarter of the time Star Citizen has been in development? Things have gone very, very wrong for RSI. I am saying this as someone who has played the most recent builds and spent half a grand when the game was initially kickstarted.
The game isn't in an acceptable state. Its development should be criticized heavily. Its "ambitions" are all on paper with almost nothing to show for it after nearly a decade.
There is no doubt that CIG's management is a mess. There is no other way to explain the five revisions of flight models, fps models and plans that have been missed by years. However, this is also due to the fact that ambitions have risen massively as the game has grown. The level of complexity that the developers are aiming for, whether it makes sense or not, is not even remotely comparable to any other game. Even redefining goals at the point where project leaders should rather not touch them.
Let's take No Man's Sky as a comparison. Yes, I like the game too and I think it's great how it turned out. But sorry, Flight Model is more of a 90s arcade flying game. There are no complex physics, no atmospheric effects or anything other than a few simulated things. The flight model in Star Citizen is almost as complex as that of Microsoft Flight Simulator, at least in terms of physics - not in terms of controls (and hopefully never will be).
Planets are geniusly generated in NMS but sorry, the formula behind it is obvious after 20 planets and it doesn't get any more exciting after that. A lot of content in Star Citizen is still missing due to the complexity of the network code and the demand for persistence - and there is not a single announced or existing game that aspires to the same scope. It was also originally planned to release Squadron 42 in chapters, which would form entire episodes. This plan was abandoned and it was decided to release the entire first part together and not as a preview version but as a complete stand-alone game. As a result, Squadron 42 changed its scope from a 1/5 (or whatever) game to a full game. Feature complete was then also gone.
I think that CIG themselves didn't understand for a long time what they were actually aiming for and what hurdles they had to overcome. The awareness has emerged in recent years, communication has changed accordingly and patch schedules have become much more realistic. Many gameplay functions were developed for the S42 as a sister project and are now slowly finding their way into Star Citizen.
You really have to be patient and I don't see the game being "finished" any time soon. But at least things are progressing and for me personally it's enough to have a few hours of fun every few months and discover new things. The few bucks I invested have been worth it for a long time. Everyone has to know how much they are willing to pay for their hobby.
