10 ms·

Star Citizen has raised $94M – where is it?

75 points by jkaljundi 11y ago

jlebrech 11y ago
perfectionism, you can play it as it is now tho.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  TFA indicated that only a "dogfighting" portion is currently playable.
  - toliman 11y ago
    > only a "dogfighting" portion is currently playable. for most kickstarters/buyers, it's alpha 1.3 which has the hangar (ship previews/ weapons testing), combat (pew pew), flight (racing) and the social module (running around a small city level and emoting to other players). 1.3 is threadbare, but it's not designed for content, but to test server infrastructure and design choices. The UI is horrendous, combat is confusing, but you can get the sense of the art and an outline of how the game would work, if/when it were finished. Realistically, it's going to be 3 more years before the MMO aspect comes along, just to handle the scope creep of being a kickstarter project. (There will always be a new feature to test/design/fund, thus the time will get pushed back, sic.) Alpha 2.0 is being touted as the multi-crew module, but it's also integrating a lot of in development features to flesh out each of the segments in 1.3. The belief is, there'll be a "Persistent Universe" P.U. test solar system with ship movement, open combat areas, travel/navigation, AI crew on ships, trade and quests, before 2016. featuring most of the citizencon demo features from the video. A FPS combat module which will be a lot less polished, is coming out after that, sometime between january 2016 and the Squadron 42 game. Realistically, here's some videos of the current state of the game. i.e. The social Module in 1.3 https://youtu.be/38gofAbkilE?t=60 https://youtu.be/38gofAbkilE?t=60 MultiCrew, as demo'd for the con, is not ready. The press demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk covers some FPS, travel, and landing / takeoff. only recently have they refactored the UI i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNZ6oWAjZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNZ6oWAjZ8
    - darklajid 11y ago
      Press demo for 2.0 (the CitizenCon content mentioned in the article): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk
shultays 11y ago
Would you pay $15,000 for a bunch of virtual spaceships? Not for a single ship but I am sure there are people in EvE that did for a couple virtual ships
- duiker101 11y ago
  But at least they knew what they were getting and they actually got it. This is not just virtual, for now it's straight up imaginary.(also, I believe that most of the value in EvE comes from the in-game credits that can be collected just by playing rather than direct payments, but I might be wrong)
  - nightski 11y ago
    There was a long article about one of the supporters who had paid in $30k towards SC. It was very clear he did not do so purely for the virtual ships but rather identified closely with the project and simply wanted to support Chris Roberts and his vision. I don't think you contribute at that level without understanding that you aren't buying virtual ships but instead supporting a vision that may or may not work out.
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      I've backed roughly $2k (a lot of it which I re-sold to other players, fwiw) and I'm in the same boat - couldn't care less about the actual ships. Game-wise, I worked on a space sim myself and was faced by a lot of challenges I see CIG tackling correctly. Studio-wise, I've explained in my post above that CIG's transparency is the reason I'm rooting for them so hard. I want the model, or at least parts of it, to be successful - not just the game.
- SolarNet 11y ago
  To be fair to EVE players: * They likely bought virtual currency (which you can do legit by the way). * They likely bought (or built!) the ship in question from players, using in game currency, who had made it (or the components) in game, hence it isn't pay to win. * The ship already existed and was available for comparison to other ships and review. * The ship has resale value at the price it was purchased (assuming you don't get blown up without insurance). * Or they purchased (real money only) skins for ships that are already very popular and with known stats.
rurounijones 11y ago
Seems like a very long article based on very little substance and a lot of faux-pondering. (Disclaimer: Yes, I bought an SC ship and want to see the game, and genre, succeed. I also regard anything Mr. Smart says with a dose of cynicism)
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  Yeah at least the critic on the eacapist magazin had actual sources for their claims. Other outlets are just jumpin on the bandwagon
nolok 11y ago
People often forget that this is a not a new situation for Chris Roberts, his last game had more or less the same story: after a great but relatively classic game in Starlancer, he set out to make Freelancer, with grandiose claims and everything ever will be in it in a global universe. After years of development with no game in sight his studio ran out of money, was bought by Microsoft and the game was streamlined and released with a lot of features cut. As a (slightly obsessed) fan of the genre Freelancer has the aura of a "great" game, but in truth it was not top of its line, but good space game were already very rare back then and it touched a lot more people. > The game was initially announced by Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003. > Originally, Roberts promised features such as automated flight maneuvers, dynamic economies, and a multiplayer mode that could host thousands of players, but diminished versions of these features were implemented in the final release. The game's initial technical demos impressed reviewers, but after the Microsoft buyout and Roberts' departure from Digital Anvil, critics had doubts about the game. Reviewers judged the final product technically good but failing to fulfill their initial expectations. Personally I hope SC will succeed, but I backed for the solo campaign (squadron 42) with lot of nostalgia for wing commander and Starlancer, and I have absolutely no hopes of the promises holding for the multiplayer, never had. In the meantime Elite 4 with all its own flaws scratched my itch for multiplayer (I would have loved for that one to be more solo like First Encounter). Note that the game draws extreme and usually critics are very aggressive, and defenders of the game as well, I merely wants to point out the parallel to the last time Roberts did this.
- e12e 11y ago
  > In the meantime Elite 4 with all its own flaws scratched my itch for multiplayer (I would have loved for that one to be more solo like First Encounter). Are you talking about "Elite: Dangerous"? Any particular grievances with the "solo play"? (My grievance is that it looks like they'll never "port" to the most recent versions of the oculus SDK/DK2 -- although I can understand why they'd want to settle for a (solid) proof of concept for now, and then wait with porting until APIs are finalized and consumer ready devices come out)
  - 11y ago
aikah 11y ago
People give that much money because they want to feel "they are part of a special experience of making something special happen".I get it. The game has a budget of roughly 100M now, which is a big budget. (Metal Gear Solid V was 80M , which also included the Fox Engine development). I'm afraid that this episode might kill crowd funding for video games, if the result ends up being catastrophic.
Guthur 11y ago
In my opinion SC has suffered from extreme feature creep. They should have stayed focused on a core of space sim functionality (whatever was in the initial KS promise). Talk of FPS functionality, for example, was a needless distraction.
- jagermo 11y ago
  Disclaimer: SC backer here. As I see it, the FPS always was part of the original promise (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/descri...) and I think it will be good. To be honest, I'm tired of space games like Eve or Elite:Dangerous where you basically play as the ship. From the beginning I had hoped, that it would be possible to EVA and fight onboard of a ship - and what was a little hope turned into a solid part of the game. Do I think my money is wasted because there is nothing to play yet? No, not at all. The goal of crowdfunding is to give the developers the time and money they need and safe them from cutting corners. Elite, for example. Its great flying, but there is no story and nothing to do besides grinding for the next ship. They rushed the game out of the door and its "nice", nothing more. Even if everything fails, even if SC is crap or vaporware, I won't be disappointed. Roberts and the others tried and, to be honest, if they pull it off, they might give the industry the kick it needs to get back from yearly updates to FIFA, Battlefield or CoD. Oh, and BTW: Nobody complains when Blizzard runs late with their games :)
  - lentil_soup 11y ago
    "Oh, and BTW: Nobody complains when Blizzard runs late with their games :)" To be fair, they're not charging you years before the game is actually released
    - jon377 11y ago
      That's not really fair because CIG is not charging you, but rather you are pledging for it.
      - 11y ago
jug 11y ago
The Chris Roberts + Kickstarter combo has worried me from day one... But he can still raise more money since a majority of backers still seem to believe in him, quite aggressively so, too. Even if this ends up being a great game, I'm sure many will be sorely disappointed (and the higher the stakes are raised, the more will be) when they learn it is still just a computer game. A piece of software in an artificially constrained sandbox, necessary shortcuts taken during game design, etc., something with a period of excitement, peak, and lifetime.
chkuendig 11y ago
relevant: http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-citizen-is-likely-going-to-be-a-complete-disaster http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-citizen-is-likely-goi... (previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840425 )
scrollaway 11y ago
I'm a backer with extensive game development experience, maybe I can offer some insight as to the game's state. 1. Feature creep Most features were announced in the kickstarter. Things such as "hollywood voice actors" or "motion capture" were all part of the initial stretch goals. This is CIG delivering on the promises they made, there's been a bit of feature creep here and there certainly but not as much as people claim. I'm certain not all of it will make it to the release, FWIW, such is life in game development. 2. Finances The game is extremely ambitious but it most definitely has the money for it. Its total budget is looking on-par with GTA5 which had a much, much more expensive marketing campaign and added costs. SC has the advantage of being crowdfunded and having an existing userbase, making it somewhat-riskless for anyone who would want to invest into it. CR has a lot of money of his own as well. 3. FUD The studio has been repeatedly attacked by various parties that stand to gain if the game fails. One of those parties comes from a personal vendetta against Chris Roberts. If you enjoy drama, I highly recommend reading into it, it's fascinating (and quite depressing as well, you've been warned...). Quite a few mediocre news websites just want to jump on the Star Citizen hate-train because it's an easy shot and drives clicks, I find that appalling. Reading starts here [1]. 4. State of development The game is just about where you'd expect it to be. It's lacking content but they're pushing out the tech pretty hard. Parts of it are already playable, dogfighting/racing is a lot of fun. I don't play it myself. Most of the tech is out or about to be released; I estimate that, from the point where they'll start adding the actual content, maybe a year to release. I don't think they'll meet their deadline (autumn 2016 iirc?) but they've surprised me before. 5. Development process CIG has been the most transparent game studio in the world. The blog [2] is regularly updated with tech, finance, design insights, in-game news etc. This sort of transparency and insight into the difficulties of running a game studio is why I'm rooting for them so hard. It's a model I want other studios to adopt. I highly recommend reading that blog even if you're not into the game, skip to the technical articles, they're great. [1]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14... [2]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link PS: Someone else said in the thread, "even if it's a great game, many will be disappointed". Quite right. I'm very concerned by that; I think SC's greatest flaw is that it makes everybody think the world is being promised to them, and a lot of people are not realistic about the results. I personally think that even if they deliver on 20% of their promises, it'll be a kickass game, so I'm excited either way... but a lot of people won't feel that way. I don't think the game will "kill" crowdfunding. From an investment point of view, it'll be regarded as a success no matter what happens. Maybe it'll kill high-budget crowdfunding but, remember, the game initially, on KS, asked for about 1% of what it has today. The crowdfunding discussion is a fascinating one to have, but SC is an outlier in every single category so I'm not sure it's fair to judge on that.
Grue3 11y ago
Even if he actually completed the game, clearly at this point it's basically pay-to-win. Who wants to play against the guys who spent thousands of dollars on all the best ships? So the gameplay is flawed from the start. What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money.
- fmavituna 11y ago
  Aren't all pay-to-win games are like this yet we see they keep succeeding commercially? (i.e. Clash of titans and tons of F2P+P2W PC games) Based on your assumption they all should've failed but clearly (and unfortunately) this business model works.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  It's no more pay-to-win than eve online, where you can also essentially spend $$ on virtual spaceships. I see a lot of people bringing this up but in a game where you don't actually "win", more money doesn't actually make you win. > What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money. I've never seen the lost sale fallacy and the fallacy of relative privation combined like that, that's fun. Anyway this is completely irrelevant - it's also money that could have gone to cancer research.
  - cma 11y ago
    >I see a lot of people bringing this up but in a game where you don't actually "win", more money doesn't actually make you win. You don't the guy who spent $30,000 on ships (recent article) is going to win encounters more often than the guy who spent the minimum?
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      Is the guy going to cruise around on an invincible $10000 spaceship? (None exists, fwiw) What if he bought 300 $100 spaceship, what's his advantage over the guy who has one $100 spaceship + insurance? Are you able to tell me what the guy's advantage is? I'm sure he has more ships, but that's not useful for an individual. Maybe he'll hand them out to his guild? Who knows. The economy and ship performance layout of the game is similar to Eve: Bigger/More luxurious ships cost more, but are not necessarily mean they're more powerful. The Banu Merchantman is a trading ship which costs twice the price of a Hornet, the top dogfighting ship. You can bet a Hornet would win against five of the former. PS: The studio is not stupid, they know they can't just go the pay2win route if they want the game to actually be playable.
usrusr 11y ago
Roberts has, accidentally i assume, found a unique niche of selling the game utopia of their youth to people who now absolutely would not have the time and dedication to really dive into a game world as they did. The product is the dream of reliving a memorable part of the customer's youth, but now in 4k instead of VGA. Obviously, bumping the resolution won't make anybody young again, but that very profitable dream can be kept alive for as long as they can keep the "coming soon" signs standing. A finished game however, no matter how good it would be, will bring the reality shock that people who spend hundreds on virtual goods from a producer who peaked in the 1990ies just are not 14 anymore. Until then it it's the perfect simulation of actually waiting to be allowed to play. Kind of like World of Warcraft, but without the side effects.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  That is a ridiculous assertion. The game has over a million backers. That is neither a niche, nor is it fair to say the majority of backers fit the demographic you just gave. And would downvoters actually provide any reasoning to such a senseless assertion? Or is this just supposed to be the cool new thing to say?
zamalek 11y ago
Let's take Grand Theft Auto 5 as a comparison point as it's probably the only game at the moment with a scope comparable to Star Citizen - out of the two Star Citizen likely has the larger scope. GTA 5 cost $137 million to develop and, due to the comparative scopes, it can be estimated that Star Citizen would cost more. People are unbelievably ignorant about how much a AAA title costs to produce. SC is going to need much more money if it is ever going to meet Robert's grandiose plans. However, Chris seemingly has virtually no discipline in terms of product management. The scope of the game is accelerating in the face of decelerating sponsorship. Where has the money gone? Probably to the features that he has promised - sadly, not enough to any one single feature. $94 million simply isn't enough. If Star Citizen doesn't get more money it might end up being a bag of half-implemented features and is going to be a text-book example of runaway scope creep.
- chucknelson 11y ago
  Agreed, and it's basically like watching Battlecruiser 3000AD [1] happen all over again... "Battlecruiser 3000AD (also known as BC3K on Usenet) is a science fiction computer game, noted for its long, troubled development history." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD
  - pavlov 11y ago
    Derek Smart, the author of BC3K, has been writing about Star Citizen for a while: http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/ http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/
    - kosmic_k 11y ago
      Derek Smart has had a long standing and documented vendetta against Chris Roberts. He's most certainly not a neutral party and his actions have been malicious at the least.
      - zamalek 11y ago
clavalle 11y ago
Spent on development. They'll probably need about $40m more. Funny thing is that I know of at least one guy they fired for telling them they'd need $100m to release a product anything like Roberts vision. I hope they send him an apology.

75 points by jkaljundi 11y ago

jlebrech 11y ago

perfectionism, you can play it as it is now tho.

jessaustin 11y ago
TFA indicated that only a "dogfighting" portion is currently playable.
- toliman 11y ago
  > only a "dogfighting" portion is currently playable. for most kickstarters/buyers, it's alpha 1.3 which has the hangar (ship previews/ weapons testing), combat (pew pew), flight (racing) and the social module (running around a small city level and emoting to other players). 1.3 is threadbare, but it's not designed for content, but to test server infrastructure and design choices. The UI is horrendous, combat is confusing, but you can get the sense of the art and an outline of how the game would work, if/when it were finished. Realistically, it's going to be 3 more years before the MMO aspect comes along, just to handle the scope creep of being a kickstarter project. (There will always be a new feature to test/design/fund, thus the time will get pushed back, sic.) Alpha 2.0 is being touted as the multi-crew module, but it's also integrating a lot of in development features to flesh out each of the segments in 1.3. The belief is, there'll be a "Persistent Universe" P.U. test solar system with ship movement, open combat areas, travel/navigation, AI crew on ships, trade and quests, before 2016. featuring most of the citizencon demo features from the video. A FPS combat module which will be a lot less polished, is coming out after that, sometime between january 2016 and the Squadron 42 game. Realistically, here's some videos of the current state of the game. i.e. The social Module in 1.3 https://youtu.be/38gofAbkilE?t=60 https://youtu.be/38gofAbkilE?t=60 MultiCrew, as demo'd for the con, is not ready. The press demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk covers some FPS, travel, and landing / takeoff. only recently have they refactored the UI i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNZ6oWAjZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNZ6oWAjZ8
  - darklajid 11y ago
    Press demo for 2.0 (the CitizenCon content mentioned in the article): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk

shultays 11y ago

Would you pay $15,000 for a bunch of virtual spaceships? Not for a single ship but I am sure there are people in EvE that did for a couple virtual ships

duiker101 11y ago
But at least they knew what they were getting and they actually got it. This is not just virtual, for now it's straight up imaginary.(also, I believe that most of the value in EvE comes from the in-game credits that can be collected just by playing rather than direct payments, but I might be wrong)
- nightski 11y ago
  There was a long article about one of the supporters who had paid in $30k towards SC. It was very clear he did not do so purely for the virtual ships but rather identified closely with the project and simply wanted to support Chris Roberts and his vision. I don't think you contribute at that level without understanding that you aren't buying virtual ships but instead supporting a vision that may or may not work out.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    I've backed roughly $2k (a lot of it which I re-sold to other players, fwiw) and I'm in the same boat - couldn't care less about the actual ships. Game-wise, I worked on a space sim myself and was faced by a lot of challenges I see CIG tackling correctly. Studio-wise, I've explained in my post above that CIG's transparency is the reason I'm rooting for them so hard. I want the model, or at least parts of it, to be successful - not just the game.
SolarNet 11y ago
To be fair to EVE players: * They likely bought virtual currency (which you can do legit by the way). * They likely bought (or built!) the ship in question from players, using in game currency, who had made it (or the components) in game, hence it isn't pay to win. * The ship already existed and was available for comparison to other ships and review. * The ship has resale value at the price it was purchased (assuming you don't get blown up without insurance). * Or they purchased (real money only) skins for ships that are already very popular and with known stats.

rurounijones 11y ago

Seems like a very long article based on very little substance and a lot of faux-pondering. (Disclaimer: Yes, I bought an SC ship and want to see the game, and genre, succeed. I also regard anything Mr. Smart says with a dose of cynicism)

LoSboccacc 11y ago
Yeah at least the critic on the eacapist magazin had actual sources for their claims. Other outlets are just jumpin on the bandwagon

nolok 11y ago

People often forget that this is a not a new situation for Chris Roberts, his last game had more or less the same story: after a great but relatively classic game in Starlancer, he set out to make Freelancer, with grandiose claims and everything ever will be in it in a global universe. After years of development with no game in sight his studio ran out of money, was bought by Microsoft and the game was streamlined and released with a lot of features cut. As a (slightly obsessed) fan of the genre Freelancer has the aura of a "great" game, but in truth it was not top of its line, but good space game were already very rare back then and it touched a lot more people. > The game was initially announced by Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003. > Originally, Roberts promised features such as automated flight maneuvers, dynamic economies, and a multiplayer mode that could host thousands of players, but diminished versions of these features were implemented in the final release. The game's initial technical demos impressed reviewers, but after the Microsoft buyout and Roberts' departure from Digital Anvil, critics had doubts about the game. Reviewers judged the final product technically good but failing to fulfill their initial expectations. Personally I hope SC will succeed, but I backed for the solo campaign (squadron 42) with lot of nostalgia for wing commander and Starlancer, and I have absolutely no hopes of the promises holding for the multiplayer, never had. In the meantime Elite 4 with all its own flaws scratched my itch for multiplayer (I would have loved for that one to be more solo like First Encounter). Note that the game draws extreme and usually critics are very aggressive, and defenders of the game as well, I merely wants to point out the parallel to the last time Roberts did this.

e12e 11y ago
> In the meantime Elite 4 with all its own flaws scratched my itch for multiplayer (I would have loved for that one to be more solo like First Encounter). Are you talking about "Elite: Dangerous"? Any particular grievances with the "solo play"? (My grievance is that it looks like they'll never "port" to the most recent versions of the oculus SDK/DK2 -- although I can understand why they'd want to settle for a (solid) proof of concept for now, and then wait with porting until APIs are finalized and consumer ready devices come out)
- 11y ago

aikah 11y ago

People give that much money because they want to feel "they are part of a special experience of making something special happen".I get it. The game has a budget of roughly 100M now, which is a big budget. (Metal Gear Solid V was 80M , which also included the Fox Engine development). I'm afraid that this episode might kill crowd funding for video games, if the result ends up being catastrophic.

Guthur 11y ago

In my opinion SC has suffered from extreme feature creep. They should have stayed focused on a core of space sim functionality (whatever was in the initial KS promise). Talk of FPS functionality, for example, was a needless distraction.

jagermo 11y ago
Disclaimer: SC backer here. As I see it, the FPS always was part of the original promise (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/descri...) and I think it will be good. To be honest, I'm tired of space games like Eve or Elite:Dangerous where you basically play as the ship. From the beginning I had hoped, that it would be possible to EVA and fight onboard of a ship - and what was a little hope turned into a solid part of the game. Do I think my money is wasted because there is nothing to play yet? No, not at all. The goal of crowdfunding is to give the developers the time and money they need and safe them from cutting corners. Elite, for example. Its great flying, but there is no story and nothing to do besides grinding for the next ship. They rushed the game out of the door and its "nice", nothing more. Even if everything fails, even if SC is crap or vaporware, I won't be disappointed. Roberts and the others tried and, to be honest, if they pull it off, they might give the industry the kick it needs to get back from yearly updates to FIFA, Battlefield or CoD. Oh, and BTW: Nobody complains when Blizzard runs late with their games :)
- lentil_soup 11y ago
  "Oh, and BTW: Nobody complains when Blizzard runs late with their games :)" To be fair, they're not charging you years before the game is actually released
  - jon377 11y ago
    That's not really fair because CIG is not charging you, but rather you are pledging for it.
    - 11y ago

jug 11y ago

The Chris Roberts + Kickstarter combo has worried me from day one... But he can still raise more money since a majority of backers still seem to believe in him, quite aggressively so, too. Even if this ends up being a great game, I'm sure many will be sorely disappointed (and the higher the stakes are raised, the more will be) when they learn it is still just a computer game. A piece of software in an artificially constrained sandbox, necessary shortcuts taken during game design, etc., something with a period of excitement, peak, and lifetime.

chkuendig 11y ago

relevant: http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-citizen-is-likely-going-to-be-a-complete-disaster http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-citizen-is-likely-goi... (previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840425 )

scrollaway 11y ago

I'm a backer with extensive game development experience, maybe I can offer some insight as to the game's state. 1. Feature creep Most features were announced in the kickstarter. Things such as "hollywood voice actors" or "motion capture" were all part of the initial stretch goals. This is CIG delivering on the promises they made, there's been a bit of feature creep here and there certainly but not as much as people claim. I'm certain not all of it will make it to the release, FWIW, such is life in game development. 2. Finances The game is extremely ambitious but it most definitely has the money for it. Its total budget is looking on-par with GTA5 which had a much, much more expensive marketing campaign and added costs. SC has the advantage of being crowdfunded and having an existing userbase, making it somewhat-riskless for anyone who would want to invest into it. CR has a lot of money of his own as well. 3. FUD The studio has been repeatedly attacked by various parties that stand to gain if the game fails. One of those parties comes from a personal vendetta against Chris Roberts. If you enjoy drama, I highly recommend reading into it, it's fascinating (and quite depressing as well, you've been warned...). Quite a few mediocre news websites just want to jump on the Star Citizen hate-train because it's an easy shot and drives clicks, I find that appalling. Reading starts here [1]. 4. State of development The game is just about where you'd expect it to be. It's lacking content but they're pushing out the tech pretty hard. Parts of it are already playable, dogfighting/racing is a lot of fun. I don't play it myself. Most of the tech is out or about to be released; I estimate that, from the point where they'll start adding the actual content, maybe a year to release. I don't think they'll meet their deadline (autumn 2016 iirc?) but they've surprised me before. 5. Development process CIG has been the most transparent game studio in the world. The blog [2] is regularly updated with tech, finance, design insights, in-game news etc. This sort of transparency and insight into the difficulties of running a game studio is why I'm rooting for them so hard. It's a model I want other studios to adopt. I highly recommend reading that blog even if you're not into the game, skip to the technical articles, they're great. [1]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14... [2]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link PS: Someone else said in the thread, "even if it's a great game, many will be disappointed". Quite right. I'm very concerned by that; I think SC's greatest flaw is that it makes everybody think the world is being promised to them, and a lot of people are not realistic about the results. I personally think that even if they deliver on 20% of their promises, it'll be a kickass game, so I'm excited either way... but a lot of people won't feel that way. I don't think the game will "kill" crowdfunding. From an investment point of view, it'll be regarded as a success no matter what happens. Maybe it'll kill high-budget crowdfunding but, remember, the game initially, on KS, asked for about 1% of what it has today. The crowdfunding discussion is a fascinating one to have, but SC is an outlier in every single category so I'm not sure it's fair to judge on that.

Grue3 11y ago

Even if he actually completed the game, clearly at this point it's basically pay-to-win. Who wants to play against the guys who spent thousands of dollars on all the best ships? So the gameplay is flawed from the start. What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money.

fmavituna 11y ago
Aren't all pay-to-win games are like this yet we see they keep succeeding commercially? (i.e. Clash of titans and tons of F2P+P2W PC games) Based on your assumption they all should've failed but clearly (and unfortunately) this business model works.
scrollaway 11y ago
It's no more pay-to-win than eve online, where you can also essentially spend $$ on virtual spaceships. I see a lot of people bringing this up but in a game where you don't actually "win", more money doesn't actually make you win. > What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money. I've never seen the lost sale fallacy and the fallacy of relative privation combined like that, that's fun. Anyway this is completely irrelevant - it's also money that could have gone to cancer research.
- cma 11y ago
  >I see a lot of people bringing this up but in a game where you don't actually "win", more money doesn't actually make you win. You don't the guy who spent $30,000 on ships (recent article) is going to win encounters more often than the guy who spent the minimum?
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    Is the guy going to cruise around on an invincible $10000 spaceship? (None exists, fwiw) What if he bought 300 $100 spaceship, what's his advantage over the guy who has one $100 spaceship + insurance? Are you able to tell me what the guy's advantage is? I'm sure he has more ships, but that's not useful for an individual. Maybe he'll hand them out to his guild? Who knows. The economy and ship performance layout of the game is similar to Eve: Bigger/More luxurious ships cost more, but are not necessarily mean they're more powerful. The Banu Merchantman is a trading ship which costs twice the price of a Hornet, the top dogfighting ship. You can bet a Hornet would win against five of the former. PS: The studio is not stupid, they know they can't just go the pay2win route if they want the game to actually be playable.

usrusr 11y ago

Roberts has, accidentally i assume, found a unique niche of selling the game utopia of their youth to people who now absolutely would not have the time and dedication to really dive into a game world as they did. The product is the dream of reliving a memorable part of the customer's youth, but now in 4k instead of VGA. Obviously, bumping the resolution won't make anybody young again, but that very profitable dream can be kept alive for as long as they can keep the "coming soon" signs standing. A finished game however, no matter how good it would be, will bring the reality shock that people who spend hundreds on virtual goods from a producer who peaked in the 1990ies just are not 14 anymore. Until then it it's the perfect simulation of actually waiting to be allowed to play. Kind of like World of Warcraft, but without the side effects.

scrollaway 11y ago
That is a ridiculous assertion. The game has over a million backers. That is neither a niche, nor is it fair to say the majority of backers fit the demographic you just gave. And would downvoters actually provide any reasoning to such a senseless assertion? Or is this just supposed to be the cool new thing to say?

zamalek 11y ago

Let's take Grand Theft Auto 5 as a comparison point as it's probably the only game at the moment with a scope comparable to Star Citizen - out of the two Star Citizen likely has the larger scope. GTA 5 cost $137 million to develop and, due to the comparative scopes, it can be estimated that Star Citizen would cost more. People are unbelievably ignorant about how much a AAA title costs to produce. SC is going to need much more money if it is ever going to meet Robert's grandiose plans. However, Chris seemingly has virtually no discipline in terms of product management. The scope of the game is accelerating in the face of decelerating sponsorship. Where has the money gone? Probably to the features that he has promised - sadly, not enough to any one single feature. $94 million simply isn't enough. If Star Citizen doesn't get more money it might end up being a bag of half-implemented features and is going to be a text-book example of runaway scope creep.

chucknelson 11y ago
Agreed, and it's basically like watching Battlecruiser 3000AD [1] happen all over again... "Battlecruiser 3000AD (also known as BC3K on Usenet) is a science fiction computer game, noted for its long, troubled development history." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD
- pavlov 11y ago
  Derek Smart, the author of BC3K, has been writing about Star Citizen for a while: http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/ http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/
  - kosmic_k 11y ago
    Derek Smart has had a long standing and documented vendetta against Chris Roberts. He's most certainly not a neutral party and his actions have been malicious at the least.
    - zamalek 11y ago

clavalle 11y ago

Spent on development. They'll probably need about $40m more. Funny thing is that I know of at least one guy they fired for telling them they'd need $100m to release a product anything like Roberts vision. I hope they send him an apology.