Updated: Comments from Ben on published article.

(Citizen Star News) - 2014-10-14 - We talked with community manager Ben Lesnick about a question that was asked for me to take to CIG at Citizen Con 2014. This one is both a little bit on the paranoid side and very valid:

How does CIG plan on preventing preferential treatment to gpu and cpu companies? We have seen alot of AMD in the past and recently such as mantle being adopted but not physX. AMD sending computers to CIG and being publicized but not NVidia computers that were sent. Finally and most recent the AMD ship. It is understood that these are AMD giving and approaching CIG, but accepting free gifts is a step away from accepting a bribe. N[ot to] accuse them of [actually accepting] bribes. There are also other low level api such as intel accelerated processing, NVAPI and more. There is more tech out there than just mantle, mantle was lucky enough to get the boulder moving. I like mantle though I wi[s]h they would change the rules of how to acquire mantle on products. My question is how doe[s] CIG know it has crossed the line with a company, and why hasn't any other tech company been so spotlighted. Is AMD more involved, or have NVidia or Intel just waiting their time for another ship that hasn't been released like Intel wanting to sponsor a electronic combat ship and NVidia wanting a heavy fighter. ~ Seta8967

Freebies and swag are a part of life, really not much of question. I know Logitech, AMD, Nvidia, Saitek, and probably many more have sent over equipment for use in the development of Star Citizen. Both in the sense of just for general use, and for specific equipment evaluation to insure compatibility with the game. We as backers benefit here by not having our money spent on such things but instead on actual work done, and we certainly want wide device compatibility. It becomes payola or bribes when specific terms and privileges are granted in exchange. What has recently gotten people a bit more paranoid about the issue is the co-marketing being done with AMD in the "never settle" campaign, resulting in the Mustang R9 Omega, custom made ship that introduces a Company with AMD name and logo into the official game lore. The CitizenCon event started out with giveaway featuring AMD graphic cards as well.

When talking to Ben (not on camera, sorry the club atmosphere was a difficult venue to get any real usable recordings) he made it clear that CIG is only interested in what's best for the game, and not going to allow any company to hijack them into supporting one CPU/GPU over the other. Individual technology initiatives and marketing opportunities are looked at on a case-by-basis. The AMD project was a case were a confluence of mutual best interests came together and the were able to build a win-win scenario with no sacrifice of integritry for either side.

And in fact Ben tells me the R9 is not to be the only Mustang Racer, the R9 is just a bonus reskin for marketing purposes. So you don't have to be on AMD "team" to race in a Mustang. Ben didn't remember the designation of the other racer during the discussion, but we'll find out soon.

Part of the responsibility for equality of support would have to lie in the partner company's realm. If NVIDIA or INTEL are not seeking out partnerships or comarketing, it's going to skew the perception of who CIG is "favoring", but again CIG is committed to making a great game that runs well on the PC, not just one particularly build of the PC. NVidia having a heavy fighter or even another racer would be great, but some sort of cooperation would be required from their side. I am sure if they were interested CIG could figure out a way, within their in game advertising policy. Having AMD v NVIDIA races inside the game sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Also as a note, CIG has done appearances with INTEL and NVIDIA recently and in the past. PhysX has been announced as being supported for example.

So how does CIG know what's too far? Two things: first they follow their own conscience when protecting the game that they are working so hard at building and secondly, there's the community keeping them honest.

So here's to you, Seta8967 and people like you. Keep following up on those Frequently Questioned Answers.

Update:

CIG Community Manager Ben Lesnick had been queried about this story and wasn't able to comment on before publishing, but was able to respond to the published story:

Ben Lesnick: Hey! I'm sorry for not getting back to you sooner; still a little crazy here. The article looks good, and I think it gets the spirit of the thing. If you're interested, I'll go ahead and answer your followup questions:

CSN: PhysX support? (Actually you seem to be supporting PhysX, aren't I seeing that correctly?)

Ben Lesnick: We are supporting PhysX. I'm not sure about NVAPI, but if we aren't then it was a development decision and not a marketing one. The real beauty of the Star Citizen project is that we can put the game first.

CSN: Is AMD more involved, or have NVidia or Intel just waiting their time for another ship that hasn't been released like Intel wanting to sponsor a electronic combat ship and NVidia wanting a heavy fighter? Or have Intel and NVIDIA not approached you about this kind of thing?

Ben Lesnick: We're interested in working with anyone! I can't comment on deals in progress, but we work with plenty of competing hardware manufacturers (just track the booths we've appeared at in trade shows over the past year!)

CSN: As far as donor computers and peripherals and such, I've seen them listed on occasion for specific events. Who has donated to CIG, are there any terms? Or just show up and use them if you like them?

Ben Lesnick: There's a wide range of things! For big shows, companies like Dell/Alienware are interested in showing off their hardware, so it's a mutual thing - they let us use top of the line PCs and we show off Star Citizen on them. It saves backer money because we don't have to purchase/rent PCs and it doesn't detract from the game in any way I can imagine. (At other events, we'll partner with whoever is available; at DragonCon, we had a local internet café lend us computers for the tournament.)

See Also

RSI Forums - Ben commenting on the AMD offer

AMD Never Settle Campaign

Reddit Discussion of the Never Settle Campaign and its Implications