No, just no. You compared it to a very simple game that can run all of that from a single back end. I created a similarly simple economic simulation in an Excel sheet from a single supply/demand curve in college, in a weekend.
And then you go on to knock them for not being feature complete when they tell you that themselves. They absolutely are still developing, they’re releasing the second system in the next big patch.
Nobody is going to argue with you that it’s had issues. But at least give it a fair comparison. That’s what’s got people upset.
I left out features of Merchant of the Skies that are not relevant for a comparison.
The fact is that after 12 years and ~$750M allegedly spent on development, the trading/hauling gameplay is more crude than a indie game developed by two people.
That they are “still developing” is irrelevant. It is not unreasonable to question where the money is going considering how crude the gameplay is (if it even exists as we can see from the journalism spaceship JPEG).
Because they’ve got about a million things to do. So yeah, it’s pretty basic gameplay right now. Nobody is denying that. But to reduce multiple engine switches, court enforced stop work orders, and assets in production to “they spent everything over a decade and all they have is a jpeg”, is just ridiculous.