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Star Citizen has passed half a billion in funding
- ortusdux 4y agoRather impressive considering they have been in Alpha for over 7 years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xen2xen1 4y agoThat seems like it should be a Onion.com title?
- bombcar 4y agoThis has cost more than actually launching rockets into space.
- simonjgreen 4y agoAt this point could it be considered a Ponzi scheme?
- lapetitejort 4y agoIs anything of monetary value being transferred to the initial backers?
- wnoise 4y agoNo. The suckers in Ponzi schemes are expecting to get money payouts from the founders -- and the early ones usually do, payed from investments from the later ones. This doesn't resemble that structure at all.
- birdyrooster 4y agoI think its just a regular con, no Ponzi structure needed.
- Akronymus 4y agoI don't think a con at all, just mismanaged to an extreme degree.
- alexose 4y agoNo way this is real... right? They're inflating their numbers for some reason?
- Arrath 4y agoWell the game sure isn't real. I say that not as a troll, but as someone would loves the idea of the game star citizen is striving for. It'll never get there, unfortunately.
- thepasswordis 4y agoThe game seems real? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z5IklhRFyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z5IklhRFyo
- Arrath 4y agoSure, there's a roughly playable form of the game available. That has yet to deliver on a fraction of the promised design scope or content.
- falcolas 4y agoPersonally, having "played" the "game", I'd consider it a tech demo of the millions they've tossed into systems, not a game.
- barrysteve 4y agoSo odd no-one's eaten his lunch yet. His moat is engine modifications that take more work than indies will do. I guess maybe Starfield from Bethesda will retake the space game genre.
- Animatronio 4y agoHow about No Man's Sky then?
- Arrath 4y agoI'd suggest Elite: Dangerous as a worthy competitor.
- bilekas 4y agoStill less than half a billion people waiting for that game to arrive so they'll struggle on.
- giantg2 4y agoSeems like people would be star citizens if they used that money to solve real problems in their communities.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoChris Roberts is actually a visionary - he invented NFT's (Concept Art Spaceships) before it caught on.
- lucasmullens 4y agoThose are centralized though, right? Digital art that you can own existed in many forms before NFTs.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoGNU Hurd has better chance of being released than this boondoggle.
- blinding-streak 4y ago"There's a sucker born every minute." - PT Barnum
- stephc_int13 4y agoSo far, the cost of development of Star Citizen is about 5% of the money spent by Meta (ex. Facebook) to build the metaverse. Not too bad if you compare the results.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smcl 4y agoWait, did either you or I mess up the maths or has Meta spent $10,000,000,000 (ten billion dollars) on Metaverse? Good grief
- stephc_int13 4y ago10B, yes, that is accurate. That is what Zuck (Meta) already spent on his vision of the metaverse.
- nradov 4y agoI think Zuck stated that Meta had made firm commitments to spend at least $10B over several years on building the metaverse, but some of that hasn't actually been spent yet.
- majewsky 4y agoAre you counting the $2B that Facebook paid for Oculus, and the investments into Oculus since then?
- nradov 4y agoMy understanding is that the $10B investment number doesn't include the original Oculus aquisition but does include Oculus product enhancements going forward. The main point though isn't the specific dollar amount, but that Zuck considers this strategically important and will spend as much as it takes to win. Get rich(er) or die trying.
- dang 4y agoOngoing related thread: List of most expensive video games to develop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915940 - Sept 2022 (11 comments)
- maxfurman 4y agoWho is still giving money to this project? I don't have a dog in this fight, I just don't understand what one is paying for at this point.
- crooked-v 4y agoBasically the same people as the "whales" who sink thousands of dollars into gacha games to get their preferred waifu.
- falcolas 4y agoAnd, IMO, it's a damned shame that most of the whales really can't afford to be spending that money. We picture whales as oil barons and sheiks, but the reality is that most of them are you and me, with a psyops-created addiction.
- Meekro 4y agoAre you sure? There are lots of people with six-figure salaries, people who are increasingly single and childless. They can afford a hobby or two, and becoming a Star Citizen whale is still cheaper than taking up skiing or hobby flying.
- jdlshore 4y agoDevelopment is ongoing and the game gets steadily more featureful (and presumably, more fun—I’ve never played it myself). Every year, it makes more money than the year before. Average spent per account has been fairly consistent at <$200 during that time. [1] The funding really shot up in 2020, probably due to the pandemic, but also due to increased attention from streamers. That also corresponds to an increase in gameplay; there are now several gameplay loops (combat, hauling, mining, “make your own fun” org battles) and lots of fleshed out and beautiful locations. The core technology is also pretty jaw-dropping, despite bugs, with seamless flight from ground to space, vehicles inside of vehicles, massive capital ships, docking, etc., all in first person and with no loading screens after the first. So I think people are paying for the fun they’re having now and the promise of something even better in the future. Edit: Here’s a recent video showing the state of the game and the kinds of shenanigans orgs get up to. Not my cup of tea, but seems like they’re having fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeeWo6Zd-WE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeeWo6Zd-WE [1] Fan-made crowdfunding tracker: https://ccugame.app/star-citizen-funding-dashboard/funding-dashboard https://ccugame.app/star-citizen-funding-dashboard/funding-d...
- ohCh6zos 4y agoIronically the more people spend prior to the game coming out the less desirable the game is to actually play.
- stephc_int13 4y agoI think that critics should take a closer look at what they really are trying to achieve and what they have done so far. This is not a typical AAA game; the scope is closer to that of a metaverse-level space sim. At this stage, nobody can tell if they are on the path to succeed or to fail. I've seen what development hell look like from the inside and the outside, and I think they had a lot of issues but they somehow managed to solve many of them. Even if they fail to achieve all their goals, I think the development process they used and the technical and organizational lessons they gathered along the way are going to be extremely valuable for the future metaverse building projects.
- smoldesu 4y agoA lot of these critics didn't invest in a metaverse, they paid for a hardcore space MMO that still doesn't exist, 10 years later. If Cloud Imperium wanted to make a metaverse, they should have finished their other projects first and then focused on it afterwards. As it stands, conflating this 'metaverse' concept with the idea of Star Citizen has only threatened it's development status and jeopardized the original investors of the game. > Even if they fail to achieve all their goals, I think the development process they used and the technical and organizational lessons they gathered along the way are going to be extremely valuable for the future metaverse building projects. I really hope future projects don't follow their example. The way their communicated with their community/investors was disgusting, their monetization model is abhorrent, and most of all, their time estimation skills are terrible. They're developing a proprietary product, none of their 'technical and organizational' lessons will benefit the public, not that they'd be useful in the first place. These are the same people who claimed Star Citizen was so big that it needed a custom engine, I don't think many educated, pragmatic developers will be studying their development philosophy in the years to come.
- Ekaros 4y agoTo me it looks like an other vaporware product with moving goalpost and ever inflating budget. Think of Duke Nukem Forever... Haven't followed it to deeply, but what I have understood it is rather disjointed pieces. With some of the meat for actual game missing.
- Ekaros 4y agoMaybe these types of products actually need constraints? Either someone making sure something is actually shipped. Or not endless amounts of money and resources?
- stephc_int13 4y agoWhy? There is a lot of uncertainty in this kind of highly ambitious projects, but the money is used to pay skilled people to build something that could be great. What is wrong with that? This is some kind of gambling, but nobody is forced, and I expect that most of the backers are aware that they are not getting the money back. I find it much more objectionable to see people sinking money into crypto or NFTs, as the work output of those is simply no-existent.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 4y agoBecause without them, they get their release date pushed back 8 years?
- stephc_int13 4y agoDoes it matter? I can understand that people are upset by such a delay, but this is a cool experiment, I am glad that it could be attempted. Not the typical game development process, for sure, and it could fail to deliver, but there are many games made "by the book" if this is what you are looking for.
- smoldesu 4y agoThey're welcome to experiment however they want, but Star Citizen was pitched as a game, not a science project. Their ambition was an afterthought, once they saw how much money they received in their initial round of funding. They deliberately deceived investors by pitching one thing and building another. If you aren't offended by this, I'm glad. It's still deception, and it still erodes my trust in them as developers.
- simonjgreen 4y agoThings that have happened since this game raised their initial funding: - 11 Call of Duty games released - Donald Trump launched his campaign for, won, sat, and lost a presidential term - SpaceX flew their first commercial mission - Covid has been and "gone" - Russia annexed Crimea - Snowden dropped his secrets - Bin Laden was killed - Windows 8, 10, and 11 released
- timbit42 4y agoI thought this was going to be a story about Star Micronics and Citizen printers.
- danielrpa 4y agoThis is the year of Star Citizen on the Desktop!