7 ms·

Six years later, Star Citizen is still raking it in

84 points by briatx 8y ago

ducreux 8y ago
Why
- afterburner 8y ago
  Fools
- Shivetya 8y ago
  they are selling a dream that appeals to many gamers. they are doing it very well and it is beautiful at times. I suspect a good number grew up in the days of Wing Commander and Privateer and rose colored glasses remember those days. Now with money to spend it isn't much to fork out a little to relive that experience. * note, I have not bought into the game
  - trynewideas 8y ago
    What's hilarious is that there are no rose-colored glasses necessary. Privateer's on GOG. Just go play Privateer. It's still fun and it doesn't cost $30, $150, or $125 million.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Because it's closer than any other game in the genre to the genre ideal. I have not put any money in, but I have played in their free alpha weekends, and that game is right on the edge of being incredible. (Where "on the edge" is defined as, "Has a crap ton more work to go".) Honestly, that game in its current alpha state has given me experiences totally unlike anything I've seen in another game.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    That's the thing that's insane to me. When I think "hey, can I do this", and it's something the designers didn't expressly intend, but because everything is done to the fidelity that they've made possible... there's nothing mechanically preventing you from doing so. It's missing a lot still, and the scope creep has been incredible. Who knows when or if they'll ever meet even the basics of their original promises. But for example, I found a strategy to board (and steal) spaceships that were intended to be "locked", because I managed to get to an entrance that was not locked, once. I watched some entertaining videos, like where people boarded NPC fighters mid-flight, or parked spaceships inside other spaceships they weren't really intended to fit into. A lot of AAA games "cheat", where the visuals and the actual game mechanics are pretty different. For instance, in Tomb Raider, a dramatic ledge sequence, underneath, is just a couple arrow keys you can use to balance a value and progress forward. All the wind, leaves, character movement, all of that means nothing, it's just the art layer. Meanwhile, Star Citizen has dealt with bugs like the flashlight coming unstuck from a pilot's suit midflight. It's incredibly unique. And maybe it's an incredibly unique tech demo that will never go anywhere. Maybe Crytek will take RSI for everything they have. Maybe eventually someone else will take the reigns after they go bankrupt and finish it up somehow with more manageable expectations. Who knows? But it's the most interesting thing anyone's done in the industry in a long time.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
patient_zero 8y ago
No better way to rustle jimmies than to mention the likely truth that Star Citizen is vaporware and will never see the light of day. The more time passes the more likely that is. Anyone not invested in its success can look at the timeline of moves by the company up to now, the scope of the project and its bloat, and especially the CEO, and reach the same conclusion. Nonetheless, I expect to have this same argument with a starry-eyed dreamer 5 years from now.
- tdb7893 8y ago
  Can't you play the game right now? I thought it was playable in beta to people, which would put it out of the realm of vaporware to me
  - wincy 8y ago
    I think it’s pretty cool. I got the basic pack ($30) as a gift and I’ve had fun flying around in space. I’d probably be a lot more invested and defensive if I’d thrown $2,000+ into the project, though.
- Agentlien 8y ago
  I was astounded when I learned that a bunch of my colleagues, fellow game developers with many years of experience and who have helped ship several AAA games, are big supporters of Star Citizen and have donated money to it on several occasions. Personally, I think it looks really cool but so very optimistic that I wouldn't put any money towards it.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  I agree with you and disagree with you. I am not a hardcore supporter of Star Citizen, and I have not put any money towards the game. But I have played the Alpha during their free weekends, and they are slowly making me a believer. I played a game with three of my friends where we loaded into a space station, jumped into a multicrew ship, and headed out to find our way among the stars. We were able to do things like jump out of the ship on EVAs into open space, jam speeder bikes into the back of other ships and drop them out over the surface of a moon, and generally do awesome (read: silly/idiotic) space adventure stuff. It's not really a 'game' yet, but they are pretty clearly putting together some sort of experience that is very much playable. It's not enough to make me spend money, but it's closer than anything else I've seen in the genre for sure.
hartator 8y ago
I got there early (big fan of freelancer), and played a bit. The game is just technically bad for now. Like not even a pleasant alpha to explore. I won't get my hopes up.
Pfhreak 8y ago
There's a lot of negativity aimed at Star Citizen, but from where I stand they are the closest to building the game that a whole lot of people want to play. Note: Closest != close The idea of getting a crew together to fly a large spaceship around is a foundational piece of the sci-fi narrative -- from Leviathon Wakes to Firefly, Star Wars to Star Trek. We want to play those kinds of stories, but that's a challenging game to build. Star Citizen seems to be the first game to seriously try and build it. Do I think they'll succeed? I'm not sure. Am I really, really hoping they do? Hell yeah.
- eximius 8y ago
  Most polished maybe. Space Engineers is like minecraft in space. Some friends and I have been messing around the last two weekends. We've mostly been concerned with getting our production facilities up so I don't know how well it supports multiple crew members controlling the ship independently (i.e., turrent control vs. pilot vs. whatever else)... but then again SC doesn't have that yet either, I think.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Star Citizen definitely supports a pilot, turret gunners, and an engineering station simultaneously being managed on the multi-crew ships. That being said, there's neither PvE content on the scale to need that, nor PvP density to support it either.
    - smcameron 8y ago
      My little one-man indie open source space game supports multi-crew, pilot (navigator), turret gunner, engineering, comms, damage control, science (scanning) and game-master stations. It's called Space Nerds In Space. I also lack sufficient PvE content and PvP density, but I'm raking in $17 a month on patreon.
      - rtisdale 8y ago
        Link? How many players are supported at a time? I frequently get together with friends and chill on some Discord’s and Slack Channels for gaming. I can probably scrounge a few people together to give it a go. Also: shoutout to FOSS game dev. I help out on Cataclysm:DDA, which is also rather large in scope
AWildC182 8y ago
As someone who doesn't play but has watched it through its development, I feel like the developers have a fatal weakness for shiny objects (not that anyone needed me to tell them this). I'd be much more bullish on such an iteratively developed mega game if it started out focusing on an MVP and added stuff from there, instead of this discordant feature vomit. I don't think there's anything wrong with the iterative model for game development (even "boxed" games are doing it; see Overwatch, Diablo etc.) but it needs to be managed sanely and developers shouldn't be afraid to redo stuff when the standard changes or get too caught up in sunk costs.
- rjbwork 8y ago
  Just look at Elite Dangerous or Rim World. Amazing, fantastic games that started off very primitive, with the core of the gameplay at least prototyped. And now, a couple to a few times a year, in both games, we get an update that makes it more awesome. And those effects are compounded - both games are far superior than other games in their genres because they steadily improve and focus on the core gameplay features. Elite dangerous has had a working game for 6 years and has released at least 15 pretty big updates (with another one only like 2 weeks away). Star citizen is focusing on ice cubes and the rest of the game isn't even really a playable game. I feel bad for people who are thousands deep into SC.
  - geoah 8y ago
    Difference is that a lot of people don’t care about ED just because they released a flight simulator first. So for me ED will always just be that. The promise of what SC wants to be is what is keeping people excited. 6 years in and the demos are still amazing. It’s nice to have a game to hang your hopes to. If we actually get to play it one day I’ll br even happier :p
    - rjbwork 8y ago
      That's a really strange viewpoint to me. By that logic we shouldn't really care about most things because of what they once were. The U.S. because it was an up-jumped violent militia. Linux because it was some Finnish dude's hobby project. Nintendo because it was just some family company that made playing cards. Things evolve, improve, and become far more than their initial incarnation. And they may do so for decades. Bringing it back to space sims, I'd rather a solid playable base that can be continuously improved, than a series of half-playable cobbled together tech demos. But hey, only time will tell eh? Maybe I'll revisit this comment chain and feel like a fool in a year. Or 5. Or 10.
SurrealSoul 8y ago
6 years ago I was 20 years old in college. I got so excited a new a mmo to play in space and drank the kool-aid. Dropped $150, played with my super cool ship in my hanger at 15~fps having a good time looking at all the details on my aegis gladius, watching the stairs come out of the ship and so on. Eventually I could fly it, and it was cool but of course it was alpha and there was nothing to do except drink more kool-aid. More ships, more promises, more stars, more space. Now, my same ship can land on planets, I can walk around and it's great. Honestly it's pretty cool. The only issue is now I am 26, married, spend 75% of my awake time working or with my wife. I don't want an mmo. I am no longer the target demographic, and the majority of the early adaptors are not either.
- spir 8y ago
  Perhaps you will still enjoy Squadron 42, Star Citizen's single player campaign that's an on-ramp to the MMO.
  - Paul_S 8y ago
    Squadron 42 was meant to be released in 2016. It's 2018. It's not getting released in 2018, is it? Want to bet 10$ it's going to be released in 2019?
    - 7000skeletons 8y ago
      That's $10 I'd rather save, my dude.
    - MrMember 8y ago
      I'd be amazed if it releases in 2020 or earlier.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
All this dough and no time to work on the Linux port they promised from a long-met stretch goal, or the only reason I originally backed it, something I now deeply regret.
Dunedan 8y ago
I watched the game play demo they presented at the recent Citizencon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fkMHOyswU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fkMHOyswU). As I don't follow Star Citizens development closely, it was a fascinating view into that universe and the developers behind it. To me it felt they're getting lost in all the little details on the planets, instead of concentrating a bit more on the space and its use with space ships. After all, selling space ships is what they make a lot of money with. They're talking about an incredible level of detail on the ground (e.g. a working subway system, physically correct ice cubes in drinks and plans to receive damage, when you're in a room with a fire, which consumes the available oxygen), but there was literally nothing about new stuff in space (or is that already completely done and working?). Given their ambitions I hope they succeed long term and will continuously develop the game, similar to EVE Online.
- danso 8y ago
  That’s been one of my red flags too, the lack of significant progress on fundamental parts of the game, such as the flight model and even just the combat AI. Nevermind the parts that will require real groundbreaking work, such as the game-wide economy, AI, and shipmate AI. Nevermind the balancing work. That they’re even thinking about how ice cubes are modeled really seems to indicate that work is expanding to fill the time.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Expanding to spend the money that they've raised, perhaps? After all if they've already raised it, it doesn't really matter what they're spending it on. In normal game dev they would have to make a game that people wanted to buy.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Sounds like an incredibly pure form of bikeshedding. Admirable, in a strange way.
- redhale 8y ago
  > physically correct ice cubes in drinks I cannot stop laughing at this. Meanwhile Elite Dangerous is iterating effectively. The difference in philosophy/approach between the two teams with somewhat similar end objectives is stark.
kevining 8y ago
I'm a backer of Star Citizen and I've gotten my value out of backing it just from the community and all of the content that keeps coming out on the game. It's been $50 for me for hundreds of hours of entertainment so far, much better value than two tickets to the movies. I do believe that there has been a bunch of mismanagement, which is a shame, but I still look forward to playing it sometime within the next 5-10 years. No game has ever been as ambitious as the scope of what Star Citizen aims to do.
- freshhawk 8y ago
  I just came in here to sarcastically say something like: "This is a fascinating new business model where the product is DLC trailers and hype and the act of buying DLC but not playing anything". I did not expect someone to say that non-ironically and be happy about it ...
  - wlll 8y ago
    You can play the game though. It's nowhere near finished, sure, but I've put way more hours into Star Citizen than I have some other games.
koiz 8y ago
What a lot of people seem to forget is their backers voted to keep going: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13944-Letter-From-The-Chairman-46-Million https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13... To a lot of backers this isn't just a game, they wan't to build a space matrix. Lets also remember that crowd funding is not the only way this game has been funded, primarily yes but there's always been private equity and I wouldn't be shocked if we hear about more in the future. Star Citizen is the excuse to build a platform for a digital universe.
- Krasnol 8y ago
  It's surprising that only 55% voted yes considering how many spend a lot of money for nothing (nice pictures of items that may come) and still voted "no".
Manheim 8y ago
SC is a huge disappointment for me. It is not playable yet, even though there are things to do if you log on. It looks like it has all the features of a bubble - a hype. If this had been a normal project everyone involved would be worried about whether or not they can deliver due to the continuous postponements. It is not a normal project however, people are still "buying the pitch". It's the idea of SC and the vision of SC that keep people enthusiastic, and SC are feeding the hopeful. It is however suspicious that they have changed their TOS to make them less customer (player) friendly in the "rights dep". If they finish the vision I will definitively use my license to try it out, even though they seem to take the "pay to win" concept to new highs. I very much feel that the money I have spent, though, has been lost to someone who did not succeed to deliver. That is not uncommon in early access games, and is what to expect from many projects I and others help by purchasing an early license. SC However is different, though. They seem to keep on building the hype instead of coming out clean and say it as it is. The game will most likely launch one day, but I expect it will be something completely different than originally sold to me and many many others. I hope they prove me wrong, but as of today SC is guilty of promising more than they can keep
Paul_S 8y ago
All this has done was to get Chris Roberts out of debt and now seriously rich, get his wife to star in a film next to Gary Oldman and give his brother a cushy job. Delivering a game at this point would be killing the golden goose. Chris is paying himself literally millions from your money and presumably laughing all the way to bank. He has nothing to gain from ending development as long as you're paying his exorbitant salary.
AcerbicZero 8y ago
I was on the fence when Star Citizen first showed up, but in the end I avoided it because the goal just seemed so absurdly over complicated. The Wing Commander series was great, and Freelancer was tons of fun, but the idea of having a brand new studio turn that kind of skill based gameplay into an MMO was just crazy talk. I spent a fair amount of time in EvE so its not like I hated the MMO idea, it was just too obvious the core idea was overly ambitious at best. If they had started with S42 as a single player game, with a massive universe you could actually have an effect on (like X1/2/3, but you know, good), and then said they were building out a MMO version of it, I'd have thrown my wallet at them.
Havoc 8y ago
> including lifetime insurance, for £536. uhm. Insurance? On your in game digital asset? Really?
- koiz 8y ago
  There's in-game insurance, everyone and anyone can get it for any ship. Some of the pledges have it as a bonus so you get it for free for that ship or for a few months. If you get destroy you can get everything back for basically nothing and faster. Insurance isn't that big of a bonus but it solidifies your pledge. You tend to see lifetime attached to higher priced or rare packages/pledges. Which is a good message to send to backers that are willing to hand over 500+
InclinedPlane 8y ago
The core problem here is how one goes about seeking funding. Star Citizen has been hugely successful in gaining funding, which has been more of a problem than a benefit. Every new round of crowd funding or investment was married to increased promises from the devs to deliver even more. The game had to be all things to all people. Which is always easy to do hypothetically in the future than practically in the here and now.
marak830 8y ago
I'm so frustrated with star citizens development. Don't get me wrong I'm a happy backer (only $20 so maybe that's why haha), but I spent months of my free time writing software to work with star citizen, and due to the glacial pace, I feel like it's a waste of time. Full voice controlled copilot with onscreen overlays, voic support and fully customisable commands - useful for the dozen or so pilots I was able to get to test, but it's quite difficult to gain any sales when the game isn't anywhere near where we thought it would be by now. Oh well, at least I learnt a lot (my first software release haha).
7000skeletons 8y ago
Star Citizen, aka Feature Creep: The Game.

84 points by briatx 8y ago

ducreux 8y ago

Why

afterburner 8y ago
Fools
Shivetya 8y ago
they are selling a dream that appeals to many gamers. they are doing it very well and it is beautiful at times. I suspect a good number grew up in the days of Wing Commander and Privateer and rose colored glasses remember those days. Now with money to spend it isn't much to fork out a little to relive that experience. * note, I have not bought into the game
- trynewideas 8y ago
  What's hilarious is that there are no rose-colored glasses necessary. Privateer's on GOG. Just go play Privateer. It's still fun and it doesn't cost $30, $150, or $125 million.
Pfhreak 8y ago
Because it's closer than any other game in the genre to the genre ideal. I have not put any money in, but I have played in their free alpha weekends, and that game is right on the edge of being incredible. (Where "on the edge" is defined as, "Has a crap ton more work to go".) Honestly, that game in its current alpha state has given me experiences totally unlike anything I've seen in another game.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  That's the thing that's insane to me. When I think "hey, can I do this", and it's something the designers didn't expressly intend, but because everything is done to the fidelity that they've made possible... there's nothing mechanically preventing you from doing so. It's missing a lot still, and the scope creep has been incredible. Who knows when or if they'll ever meet even the basics of their original promises. But for example, I found a strategy to board (and steal) spaceships that were intended to be "locked", because I managed to get to an entrance that was not locked, once. I watched some entertaining videos, like where people boarded NPC fighters mid-flight, or parked spaceships inside other spaceships they weren't really intended to fit into. A lot of AAA games "cheat", where the visuals and the actual game mechanics are pretty different. For instance, in Tomb Raider, a dramatic ledge sequence, underneath, is just a couple arrow keys you can use to balance a value and progress forward. All the wind, leaves, character movement, all of that means nothing, it's just the art layer. Meanwhile, Star Citizen has dealt with bugs like the flashlight coming unstuck from a pilot's suit midflight. It's incredibly unique. And maybe it's an incredibly unique tech demo that will never go anywhere. Maybe Crytek will take RSI for everything they have. Maybe eventually someone else will take the reigns after they go bankrupt and finish it up somehow with more manageable expectations. Who knows? But it's the most interesting thing anyone's done in the industry in a long time.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

patient_zero 8y ago

No better way to rustle jimmies than to mention the likely truth that Star Citizen is vaporware and will never see the light of day. The more time passes the more likely that is. Anyone not invested in its success can look at the timeline of moves by the company up to now, the scope of the project and its bloat, and especially the CEO, and reach the same conclusion. Nonetheless, I expect to have this same argument with a starry-eyed dreamer 5 years from now.

tdb7893 8y ago
Can't you play the game right now? I thought it was playable in beta to people, which would put it out of the realm of vaporware to me
- wincy 8y ago
  I think it’s pretty cool. I got the basic pack ($30) as a gift and I’ve had fun flying around in space. I’d probably be a lot more invested and defensive if I’d thrown $2,000+ into the project, though.
Agentlien 8y ago
I was astounded when I learned that a bunch of my colleagues, fellow game developers with many years of experience and who have helped ship several AAA games, are big supporters of Star Citizen and have donated money to it on several occasions. Personally, I think it looks really cool but so very optimistic that I wouldn't put any money towards it.
Pfhreak 8y ago
I agree with you and disagree with you. I am not a hardcore supporter of Star Citizen, and I have not put any money towards the game. But I have played the Alpha during their free weekends, and they are slowly making me a believer. I played a game with three of my friends where we loaded into a space station, jumped into a multicrew ship, and headed out to find our way among the stars. We were able to do things like jump out of the ship on EVAs into open space, jam speeder bikes into the back of other ships and drop them out over the surface of a moon, and generally do awesome (read: silly/idiotic) space adventure stuff. It's not really a 'game' yet, but they are pretty clearly putting together some sort of experience that is very much playable. It's not enough to make me spend money, but it's closer than anything else I've seen in the genre for sure.

hartator 8y ago

I got there early (big fan of freelancer), and played a bit. The game is just technically bad for now. Like not even a pleasant alpha to explore. I won't get my hopes up.

Pfhreak 8y ago

There's a lot of negativity aimed at Star Citizen, but from where I stand they are the closest to building the game that a whole lot of people want to play. Note: Closest != close The idea of getting a crew together to fly a large spaceship around is a foundational piece of the sci-fi narrative -- from Leviathon Wakes to Firefly, Star Wars to Star Trek. We want to play those kinds of stories, but that's a challenging game to build. Star Citizen seems to be the first game to seriously try and build it. Do I think they'll succeed? I'm not sure. Am I really, really hoping they do? Hell yeah.

eximius 8y ago
Most polished maybe. Space Engineers is like minecraft in space. Some friends and I have been messing around the last two weekends. We've mostly been concerned with getting our production facilities up so I don't know how well it supports multiple crew members controlling the ship independently (i.e., turrent control vs. pilot vs. whatever else)... but then again SC doesn't have that yet either, I think.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Star Citizen definitely supports a pilot, turret gunners, and an engineering station simultaneously being managed on the multi-crew ships. That being said, there's neither PvE content on the scale to need that, nor PvP density to support it either.
  - smcameron 8y ago
    My little one-man indie open source space game supports multi-crew, pilot (navigator), turret gunner, engineering, comms, damage control, science (scanning) and game-master stations. It's called Space Nerds In Space. I also lack sufficient PvE content and PvP density, but I'm raking in $17 a month on patreon.
    - rtisdale 8y ago
      Link? How many players are supported at a time? I frequently get together with friends and chill on some Discord’s and Slack Channels for gaming. I can probably scrounge a few people together to give it a go. Also: shoutout to FOSS game dev. I help out on Cataclysm:DDA, which is also rather large in scope

AWildC182 8y ago

As someone who doesn't play but has watched it through its development, I feel like the developers have a fatal weakness for shiny objects (not that anyone needed me to tell them this). I'd be much more bullish on such an iteratively developed mega game if it started out focusing on an MVP and added stuff from there, instead of this discordant feature vomit. I don't think there's anything wrong with the iterative model for game development (even "boxed" games are doing it; see Overwatch, Diablo etc.) but it needs to be managed sanely and developers shouldn't be afraid to redo stuff when the standard changes or get too caught up in sunk costs.

rjbwork 8y ago
Just look at Elite Dangerous or Rim World. Amazing, fantastic games that started off very primitive, with the core of the gameplay at least prototyped. And now, a couple to a few times a year, in both games, we get an update that makes it more awesome. And those effects are compounded - both games are far superior than other games in their genres because they steadily improve and focus on the core gameplay features. Elite dangerous has had a working game for 6 years and has released at least 15 pretty big updates (with another one only like 2 weeks away). Star citizen is focusing on ice cubes and the rest of the game isn't even really a playable game. I feel bad for people who are thousands deep into SC.
- geoah 8y ago
  Difference is that a lot of people don’t care about ED just because they released a flight simulator first. So for me ED will always just be that. The promise of what SC wants to be is what is keeping people excited. 6 years in and the demos are still amazing. It’s nice to have a game to hang your hopes to. If we actually get to play it one day I’ll br even happier :p
  - rjbwork 8y ago
    That's a really strange viewpoint to me. By that logic we shouldn't really care about most things because of what they once were. The U.S. because it was an up-jumped violent militia. Linux because it was some Finnish dude's hobby project. Nintendo because it was just some family company that made playing cards. Things evolve, improve, and become far more than their initial incarnation. And they may do so for decades. Bringing it back to space sims, I'd rather a solid playable base that can be continuously improved, than a series of half-playable cobbled together tech demos. But hey, only time will tell eh? Maybe I'll revisit this comment chain and feel like a fool in a year. Or 5. Or 10.

SurrealSoul 8y ago

6 years ago I was 20 years old in college. I got so excited a new a mmo to play in space and drank the kool-aid. Dropped $150, played with my super cool ship in my hanger at 15~fps having a good time looking at all the details on my aegis gladius, watching the stairs come out of the ship and so on. Eventually I could fly it, and it was cool but of course it was alpha and there was nothing to do except drink more kool-aid. More ships, more promises, more stars, more space. Now, my same ship can land on planets, I can walk around and it's great. Honestly it's pretty cool. The only issue is now I am 26, married, spend 75% of my awake time working or with my wife. I don't want an mmo. I am no longer the target demographic, and the majority of the early adaptors are not either.

spir 8y ago
Perhaps you will still enjoy Squadron 42, Star Citizen's single player campaign that's an on-ramp to the MMO.
- Paul_S 8y ago
  Squadron 42 was meant to be released in 2016. It's 2018. It's not getting released in 2018, is it? Want to bet 10$ it's going to be released in 2019?
  - 7000skeletons 8y ago
    That's $10 I'd rather save, my dude.
  - MrMember 8y ago
    I'd be amazed if it releases in 2020 or earlier.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

All this dough and no time to work on the Linux port they promised from a long-met stretch goal, or the only reason I originally backed it, something I now deeply regret.

Dunedan 8y ago

I watched the game play demo they presented at the recent Citizencon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fkMHOyswU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fkMHOyswU). As I don't follow Star Citizens development closely, it was a fascinating view into that universe and the developers behind it. To me it felt they're getting lost in all the little details on the planets, instead of concentrating a bit more on the space and its use with space ships. After all, selling space ships is what they make a lot of money with. They're talking about an incredible level of detail on the ground (e.g. a working subway system, physically correct ice cubes in drinks and plans to receive damage, when you're in a room with a fire, which consumes the available oxygen), but there was literally nothing about new stuff in space (or is that already completely done and working?). Given their ambitions I hope they succeed long term and will continuously develop the game, similar to EVE Online.

danso 8y ago
That’s been one of my red flags too, the lack of significant progress on fundamental parts of the game, such as the flight model and even just the combat AI. Nevermind the parts that will require real groundbreaking work, such as the game-wide economy, AI, and shipmate AI. Nevermind the balancing work. That they’re even thinking about how ice cubes are modeled really seems to indicate that work is expanding to fill the time.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Expanding to spend the money that they've raised, perhaps? After all if they've already raised it, it doesn't really matter what they're spending it on. In normal game dev they would have to make a game that people wanted to buy.
FooHentai 8y ago
Sounds like an incredibly pure form of bikeshedding. Admirable, in a strange way.
redhale 8y ago
> physically correct ice cubes in drinks I cannot stop laughing at this. Meanwhile Elite Dangerous is iterating effectively. The difference in philosophy/approach between the two teams with somewhat similar end objectives is stark.

kevining 8y ago

I'm a backer of Star Citizen and I've gotten my value out of backing it just from the community and all of the content that keeps coming out on the game. It's been $50 for me for hundreds of hours of entertainment so far, much better value than two tickets to the movies. I do believe that there has been a bunch of mismanagement, which is a shame, but I still look forward to playing it sometime within the next 5-10 years. No game has ever been as ambitious as the scope of what Star Citizen aims to do.

freshhawk 8y ago
I just came in here to sarcastically say something like: "This is a fascinating new business model where the product is DLC trailers and hype and the act of buying DLC but not playing anything". I did not expect someone to say that non-ironically and be happy about it ...
- wlll 8y ago
  You can play the game though. It's nowhere near finished, sure, but I've put way more hours into Star Citizen than I have some other games.

koiz 8y ago

What a lot of people seem to forget is their backers voted to keep going: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13944-Letter-From-The-Chairman-46-Million https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13... To a lot of backers this isn't just a game, they wan't to build a space matrix. Lets also remember that crowd funding is not the only way this game has been funded, primarily yes but there's always been private equity and I wouldn't be shocked if we hear about more in the future. Star Citizen is the excuse to build a platform for a digital universe.

Krasnol 8y ago
It's surprising that only 55% voted yes considering how many spend a lot of money for nothing (nice pictures of items that may come) and still voted "no".

Manheim 8y ago

SC is a huge disappointment for me. It is not playable yet, even though there are things to do if you log on. It looks like it has all the features of a bubble - a hype. If this had been a normal project everyone involved would be worried about whether or not they can deliver due to the continuous postponements. It is not a normal project however, people are still "buying the pitch". It's the idea of SC and the vision of SC that keep people enthusiastic, and SC are feeding the hopeful. It is however suspicious that they have changed their TOS to make them less customer (player) friendly in the "rights dep". If they finish the vision I will definitively use my license to try it out, even though they seem to take the "pay to win" concept to new highs. I very much feel that the money I have spent, though, has been lost to someone who did not succeed to deliver. That is not uncommon in early access games, and is what to expect from many projects I and others help by purchasing an early license. SC However is different, though. They seem to keep on building the hype instead of coming out clean and say it as it is. The game will most likely launch one day, but I expect it will be something completely different than originally sold to me and many many others. I hope they prove me wrong, but as of today SC is guilty of promising more than they can keep

Paul_S 8y ago

All this has done was to get Chris Roberts out of debt and now seriously rich, get his wife to star in a film next to Gary Oldman and give his brother a cushy job. Delivering a game at this point would be killing the golden goose. Chris is paying himself literally millions from your money and presumably laughing all the way to bank. He has nothing to gain from ending development as long as you're paying his exorbitant salary.

AcerbicZero 8y ago

I was on the fence when Star Citizen first showed up, but in the end I avoided it because the goal just seemed so absurdly over complicated. The Wing Commander series was great, and Freelancer was tons of fun, but the idea of having a brand new studio turn that kind of skill based gameplay into an MMO was just crazy talk. I spent a fair amount of time in EvE so its not like I hated the MMO idea, it was just too obvious the core idea was overly ambitious at best. If they had started with S42 as a single player game, with a massive universe you could actually have an effect on (like X1/2/3, but you know, good), and then said they were building out a MMO version of it, I'd have thrown my wallet at them.

Havoc 8y ago

> including lifetime insurance, for £536. uhm. Insurance? On your in game digital asset? Really?

koiz 8y ago
There's in-game insurance, everyone and anyone can get it for any ship. Some of the pledges have it as a bonus so you get it for free for that ship or for a few months. If you get destroy you can get everything back for basically nothing and faster. Insurance isn't that big of a bonus but it solidifies your pledge. You tend to see lifetime attached to higher priced or rare packages/pledges. Which is a good message to send to backers that are willing to hand over 500+

InclinedPlane 8y ago

The core problem here is how one goes about seeking funding. Star Citizen has been hugely successful in gaining funding, which has been more of a problem than a benefit. Every new round of crowd funding or investment was married to increased promises from the devs to deliver even more. The game had to be all things to all people. Which is always easy to do hypothetically in the future than practically in the here and now.

marak830 8y ago

I'm so frustrated with star citizens development. Don't get me wrong I'm a happy backer (only $20 so maybe that's why haha), but I spent months of my free time writing software to work with star citizen, and due to the glacial pace, I feel like it's a waste of time. Full voice controlled copilot with onscreen overlays, voic support and fully customisable commands - useful for the dozen or so pilots I was able to get to test, but it's quite difficult to gain any sales when the game isn't anywhere near where we thought it would be by now. Oh well, at least I learnt a lot (my first software release haha).

7000skeletons 8y ago

Star Citizen, aka Feature Creep: The Game.