4 ms·

It's not fair to say SC doesn't have a product. They have an alpha that's fun to mess around in and gets big updates 4x a year. There are plenty of games that

It's not fair to say SC doesn't have a product. They have an alpha that's fun to mess around in and gets big updates 4x a year. There are plenty of games that cost $60+ that are worse than SC for $45 and the promise of bigger updates. If CIG folds after a decade, that's not a scam... that's just a mismanaged studio. CIG has delivered a product. You can judge whether it is a good product, but they have delivered and continue to deliver.

cbozeman 6y ago
$363,500,000 and no finished product. LOL, Jesus Christ if this isn't proof-positive that Modern Monetary Theory has corrupted everything I don't know what is...
- madamelic 6y ago
  $300MM isn't even an absurdist number for a AAA game [0]. Cyberpunk 2077 single-player was $121MM and they have multiplayer planned so probably add another $50MM - $60MM on top, if not more. I have no doubt that GTA 6 and Elder Scrolls 7 will both come near or break $300MM. $300MM is an absurd amount, but that's just where the market is headed; big and expansive games. I am not defending CIG necessarily but scoffing at a number out of context is disingenuous. But yeah, the price tag is likely to be $500M - $750M but their goal isn't to put out a rehash of a rehash for $80 then rinse-repeat next year. CIG is pretty upfront they are trying something crazy and Chris Roberts (SC creator) is well-known for his scope creep + desire for perfection. It's not like CR is demanding monthly subscriptions to play or that everyone spends $x / year on SC. If you want to buy an overpriced ship, go for it... but you can buy most, if not all, ships in-game for in-game currency that's easy to get. It looks like the most expensive ship purchasable in the game is an "890 Jump" which costs 32M aUEC or $950. You can get 300k aUEC every two hours so like 212 hours of grinding (but seriously, this ship is purely a status symbol. Just like those crazy rare flying mounts in World of Warcraft.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g...
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    I really like SCs transparent model and generally open development, with lots of material to release and learn from. I also like that they at least have a product they can put in the hands of the players. But the scope creep is pathetic. I used to support them early on and for quite a while; however they have lost all incentives to do anything other than string the backers along. They haven't actually set to deliver something properly playable and at this point the only people enjoying the game are the hardcore fans who HAVE to enjoy it otherwise they feel like they haven't got their money's worth. Scope creep itself is fine, but if it perpetually delays your initial release then what's the point? I think they know that by now.
  - sli 6y ago
    You're not necessarily wrong but $170M completed and $275M still in alpha are two pretty considerable differences. Given that one extra piece of context, I'm perfectly willing to scoff at that number. I find it interesting that there are currently zero Bethesda games on the list despite their fairly broad scopes, which is... telling, considering the reputation of their games. That said, I have doubts that ES6 will hit $300M. Maybe ES7 as you say, but that's not the next Elder Scrolls game.
    - madamelic 6y ago
      Hmm. For some reason I had thought Skyrim was Elder Scrolls 6. TIL.
- Scandiravian 6y ago
  I'm confused what MMT has to do with any of this MMT is a model used to explain how the economy will be affected by certain governmental policies So I'm not sure how it's supposed to have "corrupted" everything. Care to elaborate?
waste_monk 6y ago
>They have an alpha that's fun to mess around They've spent nearly 10 years and close to half a billion dollars, and all they've produced is a glorified model viewer with some extremely buggy and half-baked gameplay mechanics tacked on. There is no visible progress towards a viable MMO or indeed of server instances supporting more than ~30 concurrent players without breaking in bizarre ways. >If CIG folds after a decade, that's not a scam... that's just a mismanaged studio It became obvious years ago to anyone but the wilfully ignorant that CIG are incapable of delivering, and to continue to take people's money in this circumstance is indefensible. If they cannot deliver they should gracefully admit it and refund backers and investors as much as possible. Instead they continue to pump out new ship models while making no progress towards core tech required to actually deliver something resembling the game they promised. >CIG has delivered a product. You can judge whether it is a good product, but they have delivered and continue to deliver. That is the problem - they continue to deliver eye candy to attract new victims, but nothing of substance. Star Citizen is vapourware with just enough bait to keep luring gullible whales into dropping cash on ship models.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen. You can argue whether the product is worth the price as it stands, but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made. You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be. I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part.
  - waste_monk 6y ago
    >There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen There's plenty of similarly priced or cheaper games which have far more substance (in terms of delivered scope, not promised scope). >but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made Star Citizen's kickstarter originally promised to release in 2014/15 [1], and they continue to push back that date with no end in sight. This behaviour is literally illegal in my jurisdiction - there are reasonable exceptions for things outside the supplier's control, but scope creep is not one of them. >You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be. I mean, they've claimed to be able to deliver a game and have failed pretty spectacularly at that. They claimed to deliver an accurate flight model which accounts for centre of mass, individual thrusters, etc. and as I understand the current flight model is basically "noclip mode but with collisions". They've sold so many ships for various lifestyles (journalism etc.) but show no progress towards even a vague idea of how those game mechanics would work, let alone implementing them. User created content and modding tools, land claims, private servers, all have been promised and then silently dropped in favour of spruiking newer and shinier ship models. They've claimed to deliver a universe of star systems and are still manually grinding out content for the first star system. > I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part I'd advise you hold off until they deliver something close to a finished game, or even just hit beta, but you do you. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20121019000754/http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/ https://web.archive.org/web/20121019000754/http://www.kickst...

cbozeman 6y ago

$363,500,000 and no finished product. LOL, Jesus Christ if this isn't proof-positive that Modern Monetary Theory has corrupted everything I don't know what is...

madamelic 6y ago
$300MM isn't even an absurdist number for a AAA game [0]. Cyberpunk 2077 single-player was $121MM and they have multiplayer planned so probably add another $50MM - $60MM on top, if not more. I have no doubt that GTA 6 and Elder Scrolls 7 will both come near or break $300MM. $300MM is an absurd amount, but that's just where the market is headed; big and expansive games. I am not defending CIG necessarily but scoffing at a number out of context is disingenuous. But yeah, the price tag is likely to be $500M - $750M but their goal isn't to put out a rehash of a rehash for $80 then rinse-repeat next year. CIG is pretty upfront they are trying something crazy and Chris Roberts (SC creator) is well-known for his scope creep + desire for perfection. It's not like CR is demanding monthly subscriptions to play or that everyone spends $x / year on SC. If you want to buy an overpriced ship, go for it... but you can buy most, if not all, ships in-game for in-game currency that's easy to get. It looks like the most expensive ship purchasable in the game is an "890 Jump" which costs 32M aUEC or $950. You can get 300k aUEC every two hours so like 212 hours of grinding (but seriously, this ship is purely a status symbol. Just like those crazy rare flying mounts in World of Warcraft.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g...
- scrollaway 6y ago
  I really like SCs transparent model and generally open development, with lots of material to release and learn from. I also like that they at least have a product they can put in the hands of the players. But the scope creep is pathetic. I used to support them early on and for quite a while; however they have lost all incentives to do anything other than string the backers along. They haven't actually set to deliver something properly playable and at this point the only people enjoying the game are the hardcore fans who HAVE to enjoy it otherwise they feel like they haven't got their money's worth. Scope creep itself is fine, but if it perpetually delays your initial release then what's the point? I think they know that by now.
- sli 6y ago
  You're not necessarily wrong but $170M completed and $275M still in alpha are two pretty considerable differences. Given that one extra piece of context, I'm perfectly willing to scoff at that number. I find it interesting that there are currently zero Bethesda games on the list despite their fairly broad scopes, which is... telling, considering the reputation of their games. That said, I have doubts that ES6 will hit $300M. Maybe ES7 as you say, but that's not the next Elder Scrolls game.
  - madamelic 6y ago
    Hmm. For some reason I had thought Skyrim was Elder Scrolls 6. TIL.
Scandiravian 6y ago
I'm confused what MMT has to do with any of this MMT is a model used to explain how the economy will be affected by certain governmental policies So I'm not sure how it's supposed to have "corrupted" everything. Care to elaborate?

waste_monk 6y ago

>They have an alpha that's fun to mess around They've spent nearly 10 years and close to half a billion dollars, and all they've produced is a glorified model viewer with some extremely buggy and half-baked gameplay mechanics tacked on. There is no visible progress towards a viable MMO or indeed of server instances supporting more than ~30 concurrent players without breaking in bizarre ways. >If CIG folds after a decade, that's not a scam... that's just a mismanaged studio It became obvious years ago to anyone but the wilfully ignorant that CIG are incapable of delivering, and to continue to take people's money in this circumstance is indefensible. If they cannot deliver they should gracefully admit it and refund backers and investors as much as possible. Instead they continue to pump out new ship models while making no progress towards core tech required to actually deliver something resembling the game they promised. >CIG has delivered a product. You can judge whether it is a good product, but they have delivered and continue to deliver. That is the problem - they continue to deliver eye candy to attract new victims, but nothing of substance. Star Citizen is vapourware with just enough bait to keep luring gullible whales into dropping cash on ship models.

himinlomax 6y ago
There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen. You can argue whether the product is worth the price as it stands, but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made. You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be. I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part.
- waste_monk 6y ago
  >There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen There's plenty of similarly priced or cheaper games which have far more substance (in terms of delivered scope, not promised scope). >but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made Star Citizen's kickstarter originally promised to release in 2014/15 [1], and they continue to push back that date with no end in sight. This behaviour is literally illegal in my jurisdiction - there are reasonable exceptions for things outside the supplier's control, but scope creep is not one of them. >You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be. I mean, they've claimed to be able to deliver a game and have failed pretty spectacularly at that. They claimed to deliver an accurate flight model which accounts for centre of mass, individual thrusters, etc. and as I understand the current flight model is basically "noclip mode but with collisions". They've sold so many ships for various lifestyles (journalism etc.) but show no progress towards even a vague idea of how those game mechanics would work, let alone implementing them. User created content and modding tools, land claims, private servers, all have been promised and then silently dropped in favour of spruiking newer and shinier ship models. They've claimed to deliver a universe of star systems and are still manually grinding out content for the first star system. > I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part I'd advise you hold off until they deliver something close to a finished game, or even just hit beta, but you do you. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20121019000754/http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/ https://web.archive.org/web/20121019000754/http://www.kickst...