Star Citizen Raised $148 Million from Fans, but Now It’s Raising Concerns


What is the point of posting my post from another forum thread here? Not even an explanation, you do understand I do other things on this PC, play other games and do work, right?
 
spaceman said:
Haters gonna hate. I am in for the OG $35. What I see and have played so far is beyond promising. Try a free weekend sometime and check out the dogfighting.

Try it before you talk shit. I am hoping for the best here. True. I just get a feeling it will turn out well. We need a good space game ffs. I want to ride in a big ship attacking a space station.
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BiH115 said:
You've got to take into account not only the size of the project, but how many writers, programmers, etc. there are. It could vary from $50 Million, to upwards of $100+ Million, easily. What they amassed should bring a solid game, generally speaking. This is development alone. Most studios now budget for Marketing/Advertising as well, and those budgets can be the same as the development budgets.

Edit: Found a link to a better explanation, I know it's Kotaku, and we all hate that shit, but let's suck it up for a minute. I was basing my numbers off experience (used to code for a big name video game company that isn't around anymore).
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And also keep in mind they largely had to re-develop massive parts of Cryengine. All games modify the engine to some extent, but adding in the massive MMO portion took / is taking a lot of time. You can't just snap your fingers and have such massive engine development done over night. Then keep in mind they need to stay is business, not just re-cover development costs, if you want the servers to be up post release. Especially as they plan to have no subscription.

$148 million isn't that much money considering the tasks put before them.
 
Now I know someone is going to respond with something along the limes of "that was before x, y, or z" but Star Citizen was supposed to be released what 1 or 2 years ago? And how is squadron 42 working out for all you supporters? That was being hyped for a demo or playable alpha what, 6 months ago?
 
I can't believe their are still people that don't understand Chris Roberts is a scam artist. He always has been... just turns out in his very early days a handful of actual talented people at the company he worked for where able to complete WC when the owner said do it now or I will have to file and none of you get paid. He hasn't done anything since then... every other game has been finished by others. He will never make another movie... as he was only really every good at making 1-2 million dollar pictures for 50-60 million dollars, in tax avoidance schemes for Euro Trash investors. I feel no sympathy for anyone taken by him... its not like his history was unknown previous to this whole thing. I believe his plan was to sell Cloud Imp out to a major publisher 2-3 years ago... but after taking Microsoft for a sucker on their purchase of Digital Anvil he just hasn't had any bites.
 
Dan_D said:
I'll bet most of the money has been spent on stupid shit that isn't related to the game. One day we will see this game and Mr. Roberts profiled on an episode of American Greed.
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It's fairly well known at this point that tons of money has been wasted on poor management of resources. Opening up shop in Texas, but then opening a brand new studio in CA and shutting the Texas operation down. This alone cost millions, not to mention all the talent they've gone through. Never even mind the expensive new cars folks reported his wife driving around, and the new property they personally bought.

Money is being used for things that are so far removed from actual game development. The worst part is that the labor for almost the first two years of the game was basically wasted. The shit we saw at their studio outside Austin when they first started the kickstarter was no different from shit they 'released' nearly two years on, but they would recycle things as 'new' just pull money in.

They are apparently developing new shit now, but at this point they've wasted so much time and money that it's irrelevant.
 
trick_m0nkey said:
I see a lot of people talking shit about this game, but to be honest, it seems like the development team has been very transparent with what's going on. The money keeps pouring into it for that reason. The Star Citizen community as a whole is very engaged. I think people just want to hate on something they don't understand and wish to see it fail. It's silly to me.
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A lot of folks forget that games like GTA take a very long time to build. Strip away the knowledgeable team, the set baseline game-play, engine, mechanics, everything. How long would it take for them start over from absolutely nothing but an idea again? Typical games like that spend 3 to 5 years in virtual silence behind mostly closed doors while they build the systems, prebuilt items, textures, tools and everything they need to start putting the game together. At that point the PR machine may begin to pump some hype up so a year or two later the alpha / beta's begin. This is not GTA but its the closest game of scale to think of. Do really think rock star is sitting on their ass milking V before they start 6? They are probably 2 to 3 years into developing 6. I'm sure its low priority since V is still rolling in money.

With Star Citizen from day one we've seen a huge portion of what they are doing. The Pre alpha modules backers can play now are them building and testing their tools and mechanics. Usually those are less polished and internal only but we the backers get access to them and can help provide a ton of feedback to them.

From version 2.5 to now the tools are pretty much in place and now being mostly cleaned up and finalized to start some of the assembly. 3.0 represents a massive addition of content and mechanics to the game for testing. All of the 3.# releases are supposed to introduce those game play mechanics for further testing as they continue to bring things together. Roughly around 4.0 we'll be near or at the real Alpha stage. And at roughly that point your typical game would spin up the PR machine.

I have been a backer since it was an option post Kickstarter. I was wary of the kick starter but they got tons of funding and had a lot of potential. I've given them some spare cash for additional ships and I am not sorry at all. I have been annoyed at slow progress but again, a studio starting from zero having to hire staff, set up offices, make mistakes and start over in areas takes time. The last year has seen them really push ahead and pump out a good amount of real content and actual information about what is being made and in the pipeline for release.
 
I've never been one who is offended by Sar Citizen's development. I don't quite get why people are throwing out fustfulls of cash at the game, but hey: you do you. I simply don't see anything worth buying at the moment. If the game had a story or some sort of campaign framework, I would be more interested; but from what I understand the game is just "fly around in ships" at the moment
 
T hey literally post their schedules and work progress more then ANY other developer has before.

What more do people want from thoem? Just stop development before the game is finished and release it all unfinished?

GTA, RDR, etc take like 5 years of development, and that's with a pre-established studio who has an engine and didn't have to start from the ground up.

Star Citizen is from a new studio with a scope that's larger (in terms of the tech) then any other game that's ever been made.
 
Stiler said:
T hey literally post their schedules and work progress more then ANY other developer has before.

What more do people want from thoem? Just stop development before the game is finished and release it all unfinished?

GTA, RDR, etc take like 5 years of development, and that's with a pre-established studio who has an engine and didn't have to start from the ground up.

Star Citizen is from a new studio with a scope that's larger (in terms of the tech) then any other game that's ever been made.
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Star Citizen isn't building an engine.... any real studio could have shipped the game they have talked about for around 1/3 of their current 150+ million budget.
 
RangerXML said:
What is the point of posting my post from another forum thread here? Not even an explanation, you do understand I do other things on this PC, play other games and do work, right?
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for exactly the same reason you just wasted my bandwidth with your reply .... because I can
 
Wow, apparently the only thing in existence that is negatively affected by large sums of money is Star Citizen. Who would of though "too much money" would be an issue for something.

Gee wiz.
 
c3k said:
I'd think, from a pure sales perspective, that the crowd-funding group IS the targeted sales group. Meaning, releasing the actual game won't gain much more money.
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OH, I would buy Squadron 42; just waiting for it to be released. I don't give a dime to kickstarters because it is a perfect vehicle for scams. Unfortunately with Star Citizen they are guilty until proven innocent at this point.
 
Flogger23m said:
And also keep in mind they largely had to re-develop massive parts of Cryengine. All games modify the engine to some extent, but adding in the massive MMO portion took / is taking a lot of time. You can't just snap your fingers and have such massive engine development done over night. Then keep in mind they need to stay is business, not just re-cover development costs, if you want the servers to be up post release. Especially as they plan to have no subscription.

$148 million isn't that much money considering the tasks put before them.
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Exactly, there are a shit ton of moving factors, ever-changing really.
 
Stiler said:
T hey literally post their schedules and work progress more then ANY other developer has before.

What more do people want from thoem? Just stop development before the game is finished and release it all unfinished?

GTA, RDR, etc take like 5 years of development, and that's with a pre-established studio who has an engine and didn't have to start from the ground up.

Star Citizen is from a new studio with a scope that's larger (in terms of the tech) then any other game that's ever been made.
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Any project starts with "what do we want to do, and when do we want to do it by". That gets further refined into "here is exactly what we are going to do, and here is exactly when we are going to do it". Star Citizen doesn't seem to have that discipline, they keep getting more money so they keep pushing the goal-posts further out and saying "Ok so that game that was coming this year, is now coming NEXT year BUT it's going to now have a completely-functional FPS built into it!"....then six months later...."We are adding FULL MULTIPLAYER TO THE FPS!" and then six months later "WE ARE GOING OPEN WORLD, this will mean some delays...".

Did people invest in a Star Citizen PROCESS or a Star Citizen game?
 
The only thing I'm surprised about is there has been no news of the Project Ara team tree monkeying over or throwing criticism Star Citizens way. They stroked the dev money/fanboy gravy train for 4 plus years on pie in the sky promises of a vaporware modular smart phone...
 
Lifelite said:
As someone who kickstarted it, the time this game came around, Kickstarter was pretty much brand new. There weren't any space sims out there, and a lot of us were craving the old days with freelancer, freespace, wing commander, etc.

Still, the first burn hurts the worst lol.
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Kickstarter by nature is stupid, not necessarily just this game.

Look at oculus, idiots provided 100% of the venture capital to get that company started, the company sells itself for 2 billion... and they get jack shit. That's the worst investment ever. I can't believe people hand out money on that stupid thing.
 
Verge said:
Kickstarter by nature is stupid, not necessarily just this game.

Look at oculus, idiots provided 100% of the venture capital to get that company started, the company sells itself for 2 billion... and they get jack shit. That's the worst investment ever. I can't believe people hand out money on that stupid thing.
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What do you mean? The people that kickstarted the oculus not only got the dev kit, but once the consumer model came out, they got the bundle for free. I'd say that was a pretty good investment.

EDIT: Link didn't work, trying a different one...one ironically matches your user name HAR HAR :)

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/1...tarter-backers-free-consumer-headset-ces-2016
 
Lifelite said:
What do you mean? The people that kickstarted the oculus not only got the dev kit, but once the consumer model came out, they got the bundle for free. I'd say that was a pretty good investment.

EDIT: Link didn't work, trying a different one...one ironically matches your user name HAR HAR :)

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/1...tarter-backers-free-consumer-headset-ces-2016
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And the people that used their investment got billions.... So no, not a very good investment :)


I'm trying to sell them my "theverge" snapchat handle... they aren't interested lol.
 
Verge said:
And the people that used their investment got billions.... So no, not a very good investment :)


I'm trying to sell them my "theverge" snapchat handle... they aren't interested lol.
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Ha, that's awesome...I'd hang onto it and even go as far as posting relevant content to see how many followers you can gain at their expense (hehe).

I can see what you mean in terms of actual investing, but I look at Kickstarter almost as "advanced preordering". Not going to get a return on investments outside of the product that you wanted, plus some exclusive goodies. I don't regret the two Oatmeal card games I've preordered (Exploding Kittens and Bears vs Babies).

It's still probably dumb, but it's just as bad as these "early access" steam titles to me.
 
Lifelite said:
What do you mean? The people that kickstarted the oculus not only got the dev kit, but once the consumer model came out, they got the bundle for free. I'd say that was a pretty good investment.

EDIT: Link didn't work, trying a different one...one ironically matches your user name HAR HAR :)

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/1...tarter-backers-free-consumer-headset-ces-2016
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Except in a normal business model, the initial investors own a stake in the company meaning that they would have had a proportional amount of that 2 billion sale. Some simple math: They eventually raised 2.4 million through KS so an initial $100 pledge would have netted you $83,000 after the $2.4 billion sale. A Rift and some knick knacks aren't even close. What a way to grift people.

I've never been a fan of kickstarter for this reason. And because people seem to browse through it like a store....which is not what it is.
 
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Sonicks said:
Except in a normal business model, the initial investors own a stake in the company meaning that they would have had a proportional amount of that 2 billion sale. A few knick knacks and a Rift for helping the company eventually sell itself for 2 billion is complete nonsense. What a way to grift people.

I've never been a fan of kickstarter for this reason. And because people seem to browse through it like a store....which is not what it is.
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Yeah I hear you on that, see my last comment. It's not a smart place to invest money in, but it definitely is a wet dream to early adopters.
 
People be hating but there is constant updates and progress for SC. It raised a lot of money but so what? So many stuff on Kickstarter now are bluntly there to rip you off. SC is actually going great.
 
Sonicks said:
Except in a normal business model, the initial investors own a stake in the company meaning that they would have had a proportional amount of that 2 billion sale. Some simple math: They eventually raised 2.4 million through KS so an initial $100 pledge would have netted you $83,000 after the $2.4 billion sale. A Rift and some knick knacks aren't even close. What a way to grift people.

I've never been a fan of kickstarter for this reason. And because people seem to browse through it like a store....which is not what it is.
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That's is why I stop supporting Kickstarters anymore. It's just people using your money to get rich.
 
Verge said:
derp

These people who throw money away on kickstarter will be the same ones bitching when social security doesn't pay for their retirement.
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The difference is we all pay for social security. It's the most social of all the securities.
 
Lifelite said:
Ha, that's awesome...I'd hang onto it and even go as far as posting relevant content to see how many followers you can gain at their expense (hehe).
.
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I've never posted anything, don't even know how it works. I have a few thousand followers anyway though from confused people :)
 
Verge said:
I've never posted anything, don't even know how it works. I have a few thousand followers anyway though from confused people :)
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Just post pictures of hardware and stuff.

Then after you get around 100k followers, throw everyone a curveball by snapping a dick pic.
 
Articles like this crack me up. This "new" article basically says nothing and has had a second-line headline change from various "news" sources. Once you read the article you will see that this is bullshit. You know we ALL fall for clickbait and others are making money off of our stupidity whether it's about Star Citizen or any other hot topic. Enuff about that...

Meh, to each his own. I have a neighbor that has a Ferrari that just sits in the garage and I see him get much less enjoyment out of it than I see myself and some of my friends get out of backing Star Citizen. Once you mature, you realize that the value of some things are not measured in money, they're measured in the value of entertainment you received. Yep, I am a backer and came in late (2015) but of all my hobbies, regardless of how much I have spent, the return with just an "alpha" game has been an experience of a lifetime in regards to what it has added to my life - and trust me, I have and can afford many different hobbies. It's so easy to feel entitled or be uninformed and bash a project such as this, however, the unbridled ambition of this project has to impress even the most cynical critic. Is it a realistic goal? Only time will tell and white knighting and trolling Star Citizen won't make or break the project at this point. If you actually spend some time and get to understand this whole ball of wax, you will see that it is moving along at an ever increasing rate. The devs have provided a never before seen transparency which allows all the backers and public to see how it's moving or not moving along. As a 30+year gamer (shit! almost 40 years), I have become very disillusioned by the traditional model of gaming and what it has done to creativity. You who are younger have no idea what we went through as gamers, the peaks and valleys, since the late 70's till now. But that feeling, oh that rush, when some new ground in gaming was broken... I miss it. At present I personally only find a few games per year that are actually worth their weight in salt let alone $60.00. So when Chris Roberts outlined his new project in 2012/2013, I was interested and decided to watch from afar, but it "sounded" incredible. Taking risks is something that we are all too afraid of and this guy was going to put his neck out on the block for all to chop and attempt something never done before. Well, quite honestly, he's doing it and holding up his end of the bargain. I also won't deny and be ignorant of some of the bumps along the road - that's learning and to be a fly on the wall of a 400+ person company has been both cringe-worthy and triumphant. Time is relative so that's why it's so easy to compare SC to other traditional games and such. The reality is that it's quite different in nature than any other game I have been involved with and the experience thus far has been unique unto itself. There are so many choices in this day and age as to where one spends their time and money and truly caring for and following a project like this is not for the faint of heart so I can see why so many dismiss it and find "easier" prey as their hobbies. But I would like to invite you all to at least take a look, watch a few of the devs vids and see for yourself, you might just be surprised that your opinions about Star Citizen change. If not, fuck off, (just kidding) if it's still not your cup of tea, no worries I am sure you have other interests you are more passionate about and like to support and indulge yourself with. I for one, as I am getting older, have found something in this project that has restored that "kid in me" feeling that we all seem to be questing for and so many fail, and never find.
 
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I hope it does turn out to be a great game but as of this point the odds are against it with all the mishandling of moneys.
 
I think the big downside of having a release date for Star Citizen is Roberts either has to break his promise of no "pay for play" after release or give up his golden goose of income.
 
The problem here is not the money and how big they want to make the game. But the actual progress or lack thereof they had shown so far. The game (the part that is clearly visible, public version) is still years from being a full game. It's in a shockingly early stage of development when you consider the money and time they already spent on it.
Now some claim that "behind the scenes they're actually much further ahead" but that sentiment has zero proof. We can only judge what we see, and if they're actually making great strides it would be in their best interest to show it.

The studio seems more like a propaganda machine than an actual game developer, more focused on keeping the hype going and quelling dissenting voices. Putting out press release after press release, all of which uses walls of text to convey almost zero information and bullshit their way around each milestone NOT met, features postponed, and pushing back of dates.

And before the fanboy mob zooms in, I tried the game, I'm in it for $150 and, what I saw so far is an SDK with a few functions tacked on, with tons of placeholder assets. It's in a state that I'd expect 2-3 months into development when the staff still doesn't have a clear vision on what they want so they're just throwing things into the engine to try out.

The vibe I get from the "alpha" is of stunning amateurism to large projects. When you're familiar with game development perhaps even worked in it you can see all the small indicators that show how far the "game" is from being in any shape or form release ready.
I have completely lost faith in their abilities. And I'm not even sure if they are sincere anymore. I'm starting to believe that they know they have next to nothing and can't produce the game they promised within any reasonable timeframe.
They can prove me wrong whenever they're ready. But I'm not holding my breath. I don't need that $150 for bread so in the unlikely case they ever produce anything resembling an actual game I'll be back. Until then I remain skeptical.
 
M76 said:
The problem here is not the money and how big they want to make the game. But the actual progress or lack thereof they had shown so far. The game (the part that is clearly visible, public version) is still years from being a full game. It's in a shockingly early stage of development when you consider the money and time they already spent on it.
Now some claim that "behind the scenes they're actually much further ahead" but that sentiment has zero proof. We can only judge what we see, and if they're actually making great strides it would be in their best interest to show it.

The studio seems more like a propaganda machine than an actual game developer, more focused on keeping the hype going and quelling dissenting voices. Putting out press release after press release, all of which uses walls of text to convey almost zero information and bullshit their way around each milestone NOT met, features postponed, and pushing back of dates.

And before the fanboy mob zooms in, I tried the game, I'm in it for $150 and, what I saw so far is an SDK with a few functions tacked on, with tons of placeholder assets. It's in a state that I'd expect 2-3 months into development when the staff still doesn't have a clear vision on what they want so they're just throwing things into the engine to try out.

The vibe I get from the "alpha" is of stunning amateurism to large projects. When you're familiar with game development perhaps even worked in it you can see all the small indicators that show how far the "game" is from being in any shape or form release ready.
I have completely lost faith in their abilities. And I'm not even sure if they are sincere anymore. I'm starting to believe that they know they have next to nothing and can't produce the game they promised within any reasonable timeframe.
They can prove me wrong whenever they're ready. But I'm not holding my breath. I don't need that $150 for bread so in the unlikely case they ever produce anything resembling an actual game I'll be back. Until then I remain skeptical.
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This seems to be the most objective post from an actual $150 backer. Not having placed any money into this I'd agree with this view on where it stands. I've seen the videos, I've seen the news, I've been following it and it all doesn't add up. Definitely not when you consider 5 years of development and 148 million dollars.

It's a far cry from the others with blinders who seem to be overly justifying their 'investment'. "I feel like for meee the money couldn't have been spent worse...", "I feel like for meeee I've had more fun with the dog-fighting than full games", "I feel like for meee I've wasted money for less fun....", etc...
 
Paragraphs, please.
M76 said:
The problem here is not the money and how big they want to make the game. But the actual progress or lack thereof they had shown so far. The game (the part that is clearly visible, public version) is still years from being a full game. It's in a shockingly early stage of development when you consider the money and time they already spent on it.
Now some claim that "behind the scenes they're actually much further ahead" but that sentiment has zero proof. We can only judge what we see, and if they're actually making great strides it would be in their best interest to show it.

The studio seems more like a propaganda machine than an actual game developer, more focused on keeping the hype going and quelling dissenting voices. Putting out press release after press release, all of which uses walls of text to convey almost zero information and bullshit their way around each milestone NOT met, features postponed, and pushing back of dates.

And before the fanboy mob zooms in, I tried the game, I'm in it for $150 and, what I saw so far is an SDK with a few functions tacked on, with tons of placeholder assets. It's in a state that I'd expect 2-3 months into development when the staff still doesn't have a clear vision on what they want so they're just throwing things into the engine to try out.

The vibe I get from the "alpha" is of stunning amateurism to large projects. When you're familiar with game development perhaps even worked in it you can see all the small indicators that show how far the "game" is from being in any shape or form release ready.
I have completely lost faith in their abilities. And I'm not even sure if they are sincere anymore. I'm starting to believe that they know they have next to nothing and can't produce the game they promised within any reasonable timeframe.
They can prove me wrong whenever they're ready. But I'm not holding my breath. I don't need that $150 for bread so in the unlikely case they ever produce anything resembling an actual game I'll be back. Until then I remain skeptical.
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I'm in it for $45 I believe. Whatever the base package was back in the day. I wanted to support the return and development of a genre of games I miss not having around. I was a big fan of games like Wing Commander, Privateer, and Descent Freespace. In any case, I've known a lot of people in the game industry over the years and have a sense of the game development process. Concerning the post above, I couldn't agree more. I think this is a spot on assessment of the situation.

I don't believe Chris Roberts necessarily intended to scam anyone, but I think the lack of oversight in both creative and financial areas have led to unrealistic feature creep, over promising, under delivering and mismanagement of finances. I seriously doubt this game is going to get finished. I think we'll see a scenario in which he won't be able to ride the gravy train anymore as no one will back the game. With no money to finish it, the game will end up in limbo.
 
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