Star Citizen Discounts Game Packages after Making Over $7,000,000 in Nine Days

This game has potential to become either the most evolutionary game or the biggest cash grab scheme in history. For crowd funded PC game development's sake I hope for the former, could really put crowd funded development in a very bad light if it never reaches completion.

Since they keep just recieving more and more money it'll only stretch out the development time as more funding is poured in, they probably see no rush to complete it either, why should they as the development team is living their times of their lives...
 
RPGWiZaRD said:
This game has potential to become either the most evolutionary game or the biggest cash grab scheme in history. For crowd funded PC game development's sake I hope for the former, could really put crowd funded development in a very bad light if it never reaches completion.

Since they keep just recieving more and more money it'll only stretch out the development time as more funding is poured in, they probably see no rush to complete it either, why should they as the development team is living their times of their lives...
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Likely there is literally too much invested for this to fail, they have built enough that even if they do tank there is enough there for some other publisher to swoop in buy it up and ship it out.
 
Lakados said:
Likely there is literally too much invested for this to fail, they have built enough that even if they do tank there is enough there for some other publisher to swoop in buy it up and ship it out.
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The problem is that they didn't build enough. Picking up the pieces after someone else is always harder than starting from scratch. if they go under I don't think anyone would want to touch that pile.
 
M76 said:
The problem is that they didn't build enough. Picking up the pieces after someone else is always harder than starting from scratch. if they go under I don't think anyone would want to touch that pile.
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While that is true, they have a pretty well developed engine, solid IP, and a devoted fanbase that may be enough for somebody to be willing to pick it up.
 
B00nie said:
OMG genius, make people pay insurance in a game
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Imagine that, the next COD will feature in-game life insurance that you can buy with real money, otherwise when your character dies you have to start from the beginning. OR Buy the game again to start a new game :D
 
My favorite part of this game is that when it comes out in 2025 I'll be able to pick up the collection edition for $5 on a steam sale. Ill probably still be disappointed.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't have enough the time to become a professional space pilot.
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That's ok, piloting space ships hasn't been a focus of SC for about 5 years. These days it's about seeing how much real money you can spend to gain the respect of your fellow backers and then convincing yourself that something worthwhile is going to come out of it.

If what they had in a "playable" form after 6 years and $200m showed up on Steam as an early access tltle by some bedroom indie dev, it would be rightly condemned. But because Chris "Wing Commander Movie" Roberts continues to feed an unattainable everything-to-all-men dream, it's special and revolutionary.
 
....you guys do know that the "insurance" is an in-game money element right? The equivalent of "gold" or "credits" in MMOs.

And frankly, its a good idea. Yes, some of us actually like it for the immersion factor and the intricate game systems it creates, but even if its implementation wasn't anywhere near as in depth it would still be a simple, common MMO policy - essentially a "gold sink". Its not any really different than "repair costs", "housing payments/rent", "items purchased only from NPCs" etc.. or the other repeating costs in MMOs where players pay game currency in order to take it out of circulation; inflation control to some extent.

Star Citizen is being built with a complex economy in which both PC and NPCs will have access to many of the same elements (ie When a player takes a contract for Welding Corp to deliver Ore, that Ore will then be available for traders of all types to purchase, which are then smelted and turned into components, which are sold/bought and turned into products etc.. So if a key mineral resource somewhere in the galaxy is being interdicted on a massive scale by a NPC, enemy, or even player population then it will affect all the things that mineral is used to create, to the point that ships or equipment may cost more, have longer delivery times, and/or lower stock!) , so it is more important than ever to separate out certain elements not part of the base economy as they can be controlled without affecting things like these.

Insurance means multiple policies the common ship "hull" insurance which is the ship as it comes stock from the dealer, there are also "weapons/upgrades" policies that cover stuff you've done to it afterward, and separately "cargo" insurance for whatever you're carrying...among other kinds. You pay a relative pittance for baseline hull insurance (in game money you get by playing) and you are assured that if your ship gets blown up, you'll be able to get another one without paying for it again. You'll go to the nearest office make a claim and and generally get a new ship pretty quickly. However, its also a proviso to deal with griefers - if you crash your ship into the landing pad over and over again, it will take longer and longer exponentially before you can get a ship restored to you, and you'll probably also get "criminal points" which are another game system entirely. . Ships are big ticket items in game meant to be acquired after a significant amount of play, so if you die without a valid policy you could have to buy one from scratch! Likewise, if you take a mission to courier cargo and get blown up without insurance on it, whatever PC/NPC will be far more pissed at you to the point you'll probably lose faction/rep for blowing up their cargo and/or being irresponsible. There are other aspects to the system (such as what happens if your ship gets stolen, if a thief takes it to have the license scrubbed on a pirate station etc) but overalll insurance is an in-game system that has a lot of important elements.
 
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I invested $35 dollar way at the beginning for the beginner's package and that's all i'm going to spend on it. I have played it recently and while it may not be extraordinarily revolutionary, (At least at the moment) it was immersive for me. If it fails, then i'm out only a little bit of cash which i've spent on a lunch before, and if it is good i get a copy of it. :cautious:
 
Meh I bouht in years ago and spent too much. But I got LTI on a couple ships.

One of the MAIN reasons I bought though I think is going to be completely abandoned. The ability to run your own smaller instance of the PU and have your friends play on your server.
 
kamxam said:
I invested $35 dollar way at the beginning for the beginner's package and that's all i'm going to spend on it. I have played it recently and while it may not be extraordinarily revolutionary, (At least at the moment) it was immersive for me. If it fails, then i'm out only a little bit of cash which i've spent on a lunch before, and if it is good i get a copy of it. :cautious:
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That's the way most normal people should treat a kickstarter like that being level headed about it. Nothing wrong with what you did at all. Then there is the "RanceJustice" flip-side where you seem to live vicariously through SC.
 
As in the "I live for this game every moment of my existence" person? Or the " I hate this game with every fiber of my being, even if by some miracle it may turn out okay" type of person? (Who'll let you know most vocally as much as possible...lol) As was indicated, i'm a wait and see type for this sort of stuff and i won't say much until it's either gone down in flames or if it's a success.
 
We'll never reach space in our lifetime, and there's nothing to look forward to ( space program sucks ), this game + virtual reality scratches that itch - specially if you are a space fan. If one has the disposable income (and not go overboard), why not? Can't bring money with you when you are dead.
 
ChadD said:
The craziest saddest part of this entire Roberts scam....

This game already exists. Its everything roberts has promised... and its been around for 15 years.

People want to be able to loose their ships.... want to run their own in game scams... wanna play space pirate / marine / do gooder / miner / explorer / space trucker / space bean counter / space griefer. Eve already offers all of that.... its engine has been updated countless times and looks very nice if eye candy is the issue, its Free to Play if you are a masochist... and even if you pay its 1000x cheaper then Roberts scam sink hole of donations. Best of All ITS REAL. (hell they even added Joystick flight controls when back when SC launched its first playable tech demo) Not to pile on but its also using far superior net code that allows for 1000s v 1000s player battles... something that will just never be possible with roberts scam. (even if they are actually working on it... which they are not)

I really never got how people go suckered into this one... the perfect space game everyone (ok space game fans) drools about has been here for 15 years. What is crazy is people believing Roberts was going to somehow launch the "hardcore" space shooter where you need insurance for your ride, but somehow it was going to be friendlier and less troll heavy as 15 year strong eve. I have talked to some gaming friends that have got suckered... and its always no no its going to be way better then Eve cause X or Y, and person X will be convinced there won't be no "Space pirate trolls like Eve", and person Y will say "ya I'm going to be able to play space pirate just like Eve but the tears will be so much tastier." The whole thing is too sad to be funny.
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I can not understand if you are serious or not? Comparing Eve to SC is like humm I don't know comparing Fallout 1 to fallout 3 ? Something in those lines, as EvE is the most sucking space game I've ever played. Mind you I am behind the PC monitor from 91 and my fav. games are sci-fi. Your opinion is plain and simple DoA and stupid af.

That being said, I have not jumped to pay Chris Roberts cause i'm not into the "kickstarter" hype train. However, I played the game for free last week, and what I can tell you is that it has the same bugs as Fallout 76, with the little difference that this is still in Alpha (the other one is "Full game") and so...I would love this to come out and make fools of people that use their sarcasm on people that have jumped to the hype train. Still though...who knows.
 
ChadD said:
You get they haven't created a new game engine... or new network code. Its all licenced code. All they have to do is create content.

If what they have now is 200 MILLION dollars worth of content, oh my. For the money they have burned already Disney could have shot two marvel movies. Roberts has burned millions more then it cost Disney to make a live action Jungle book flick... and the army of animators, and big name acting talent involved with that, MPC and Weta worked on that movie for over a year (with 3x the staff of CIG) even creating brand new software to get the job done. Still they spent 170 million complete.

If you really really like your friend keep your ships and take your lumps.

If your friend is more a "friend" unload everything while you can.

What you are looking at over there is the most expensive tech demo ever made. Roberts produces games the exact same way he produced movies. Using 10% of the funds to finish the project... and using the rest as collateral to secure even more money in the form of loans. If you can secure new funding to make payments on the loans you can pad your own bank accounts quite well, creating shell companies to leasing yourself your own equipment and property. Hell you can even insure your project if you do it right. I mean sure perhaps he isn't doing that again... I mean his previous movie partners went to prison for doing exactly that. But I'm sure Roberts knew nothing about the 100s of millions circling his movie projects, and I'm sure all 200+ million he has been gifted for SC has went into content creation. lol (when he started showing off offices and stuff... instead of being impressed folks should of asked what is the legal name of and who is the owner of the company leasing that space to CIG... 1000 to 1 its owned by his brother GF mistress or mother. lol)
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You haven't followed the development of that game and this is obvious.

First of all they started with the Crytek engine, which they basically almost re-wrote. Dumping it (cause it did not suit their needs) for the Amazon lumeryard(jack?) one. Tell me more about engines and how much do you know ... = )
 
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DTabakov said:
You haven't followed the development of that game and this is obvious.

First of all they started with the Crytek engine, which they basically almost re-wrote. Dumping it (cause it did not suit their needs) for the Amazon lumeryard(jack?) one. Tell me more about engines and how much do you know ... = )
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They switched to lumberyard cause its the same thing. Cry is gone... and CIG doesn't employee anyone capable of engine development.

SC is perhaps the most expensive game ever developed at this point... and without a doubt its the most expensive content only production ever. Most very expensive AAA developments are expensive because they build new engines. Developers reuse the same engine for multiple games, its how they justify spending much more on games where they develop a new engine. Content games built on previous games engines cost significantly less to develop. Coders that cost the most in the game world are engine engineers... content artists are a dime a dozen, and get worked like work horses pulling 10+ hours a day for comparative peanuts. A good engine engineer will easily pull in 100+k a year even in lower rent cities outside Silicon valley... your average content creator is doing good if they break 40k. Not having to hire a team of 100k+ folks to build a new engine is (should always be) a huge savings.

But anyway... yes I am well versed in Roberts latest scam.

His first kickstarter he clearly stated he had investors waiting to give him what he needed to finish the game. He claimed they needed to see proof a Space shooter MMO could sell. He hit his goal... and quickly started adding multiple stretch goals. Basically promising a different game.... coming up with the "ultimate" space game. It was going to be shooter, mmo, single player, open world, scripted, free for all, safe for everyone, offer permanent death, but also not force anyone to play that way.... my point its the best ever game you most ever wanted to play. And if something you want isn't covered don't worry it will be included in the next stretch goal.

Roberts has traded on Wing Commander for years. Everyone seems to forget that game was co-produced by perhaps the greatest living game developer in the world Warren Spector, with the heavy lifting on the coding done by Ken Demarest who is one of the most influential computer game programmers around. Warren also brought us DeusEx, Thief, System Shock, and Ultima underworld. Ken is first programmer to ever 3D map a game character and invented texture mapping. THOSE are the people responsible for WC.

After that roberts traded on his name for a number of years paying other developers to develop and release "roberts" games like star lancer which he had basically nothing to do with. A few years later he worked on his vapor ware freelancer... unloaded his company on MS. They found the game they thought was months away from shipping was really around 20% finished. They did the only thing they could do spending a ton of money finishing that game. Freelancer was produced by Phil Wattenbarger... and there is a reason Roberts isn't even credited anywhere in that game. Any BS wiki entries ect that claim Roberts had some grand vision and only MS had the $ to see it through ect ect ect are 100% BS... and Roberts is happy to spend his "investors" money to bring suit against anyone that dare say otherwise. lol

At that point Roberts got into the movies... and long story short. His movies where all bankrolled by the same German company. That company got shut down by the German gov... its founder went to prison for 5-10 for fraud. The bank Roberts backers (AND ROBERTS) had been loaning against investment money with had a handful of people arrested and server prison time. Roberts was summoned to testify in Germany... and just never went. My guess would be even now 10+ years later he isn't stupid enough to head anywhere in the EU, just in case. I think his partner just got out a year or so ago.

I feel for people taken by Roberts I really do. In the same way I feel bad that Kevin Bacon has to take crappy roles these days to make back the money he lost to Bernie Madoff. lol
 
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RanceJustice said:
....you guys do know that the "insurance" is an in-game money element right? The equivalent of "gold" or "credits" in MMOs.

And frankly, its a good idea. Yes, some of us actually like it for the immersion factor and the intricate game systems it creates, but even if its implementation wasn't anywhere near as in depth it would still be a simple, common MMO policy - essentially a "gold sink". Its not any really different than "repair costs", "housing payments/rent", "items purchased only from NPCs" etc.. or the other repeating costs in MMOs where players pay game currency in order to take it out of circulation; inflation control to some extent.
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Wait, people actually pay for that stuff? :D

The insurance is just a scam just like real world insurances are. A mechanism to make you pay a steady amount of money to a company. Unlike real insurance companies, the virtual one will probably actually grant you a new ship for the broken one but still, it's a mechanism built to the game which essentually is a subscription fee. They mask it as being voluntary but who are they kidding.
 
Gorankar said:
Just here for the inevitable fireworks.


I have to admit, after seeing this trailer,

had it not been for the trailer's title, I would have thought that Wing Commander was making a come back. Complete with Blair.
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I assume that's all cut scenes. They look good, but until there's a released game, I'm not biting. Fortunately for Roberts, others aren't as cautious. As for the trailer itself, I guess Gillian is the new Ginger Allen (unless Ginger got a call back).
 
kamxam said:
I invested $35 dollar way at the beginning for the beginner's package and that's all i'm going to spend on it. I have played it recently and while it may not be extraordinarily revolutionary, (At least at the moment) it was immersive for me. If it fails, then i'm out only a little bit of cash which i've spent on a lunch before, and if it is good i get a copy of it. :cautious:
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35 isn't too bad...but those ships are ridiculous. If it's hard to get ships without paying, then MMO version will not interest me....but I've always been more interested in the stand along game.

kamxam said:
As in the "I live for this game every moment of my existence" person? Or the " I hate this game with every fiber of my being, even if by some miracle it may turn out okay" type of person? (Who'll let you know most vocally as much as possible...lol) As was indicated, i'm a wait and see type for this sort of stuff and i won't say much until it's either gone down in flames or if it's a success.
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I think most who are critical want this game to be great, but expect the worst, because it's so late and the few who are game devs seem to think what we've seen is probably less than a years worth of development.

I'm very skeptical, but I really want it to be great, because WC was probably my favorite game.
 
ChadD said:
I feel for people taken by Roberts I really do. In the same way I feel bad that Kevin Bacon has to take crappy roles these days to make back the money he lost to Bernie Madoff. lol
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I can't say I've seen him in much (if anything) in many years, but looking on Rotten Tomatoes, most of the movies that have a rating from 2011 on (probably the first ones he agreed to after Bernie)have positive reviews. I didn't count the ones prior to that, but I suspect it's worse.

Sorry for going off topic...I mostly agree with your post...but that last sentence peaked my curiosity.
 
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ChadD said:
They switched to lumberyard cause its the same thing. Cry is gone... and CIG doesn't employee anyone capable of engine development.
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Um, CIG has multiple engine developers including a number of people who actually worked on cry engine at Crytek. They've made some rather significant changes to the underlying engine not limited to complete redoing the entire coordinate system to support 64b coordinates and completely refactoring the physics integrations to support the complex interactions required to support seamless global and local physics.

At that point Roberts got into the movies... and long story short. His movies where all bankrolled by the same German company. That company got shut down by the German gov... its founder went to prison for 5-10 for fraud. The bank Roberts backers (AND ROBERTS) had been loaning against investment money with had a handful of people arrested and server prison time. Roberts was summoned to testify in Germany... and just never went. My guess would be even now 10+ years later he isn't stupid enough to head anywhere in the EU, just in case. I think his partner just got out a year or so ago.
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Roberts has been to the EU and specifically Germany many times over the past couple years and CIG even has an entire team in Germany.

Now any other unsubstantiated BS you want to spread? There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Roberts/CIG but you are just making up complete BS.
 
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Lakados said:
Likely there is literally too much invested for this to fail, they have built enough that even if they do tank there is enough there for some other publisher to swoop in buy it up and ship it out.
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Problem is Roberts ran that scam once before. No doubt he has been trying to sell CIG for the last few years. The way he burned MS... no one else with the money to buy him will touch anything from Roberts.
 
nilepez said:
I can't say I've seen him in much (if anything) in many years, but looking on Rotten Tomatoes, most of the movies that have a rating from 2011 on (probably the first ones he agreed to after Bernie)have positive reviews. I didn't count the ones prior to that, but I suspect it's worse.

Sorry for going off topic...I mostly agree with your post...but that last sentence peaked my curiosity.
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I just remember him doing promo work for the Xman movie he was in and he looked so uninterested and almost heart broken. It was around the time he admitted he and his wife Kyra Sedgwick lost a ton of their savings. Made me appreciate that movie in a different way. I thought he was great I love the Bacon... but I did wonder after did he just do this thing cause he burned his wives nest egg ? lol :) Seriously though I think they said they where still ok... but it stung.
 
Just wait till it comes out that we are currently living in a simulation and this is how it all started...
 
ChadD said:
Problem is Roberts ran that scam once before. No doubt he has been trying to sell CIG for the last few years. The way he burned MS... no one else with the money to buy him will touch anything from Roberts.
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When/If they file for Bankruptcy the cost of buying it out will go down significantly buying him at this stage where they think/hope they have a leg to stand on would be silly, once the bank owns it it will be parted out wholesale.
 
ChadD said:
I just remember him doing promo work for the Xman movie he was in and he looked so uninterested and almost heart broken. It was around the time he admitted he and his wife Kyra Sedgwick lost a ton of their savings. Made me appreciate that movie in a different way. I thought he was great I love the Bacon... but I did wonder after did he just do this thing cause he burned his wives nest egg ? lol :) Seriously though I think they said they where still ok... but it stung.
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Ah well Ic an't say whether he likes the movies he does, but even that X-Men movie got mostly positive reviews (though I can't say I've seen it..but then I only think I saw one or 2 in the series).

He does a fair amount of touring with his brother, so I've got to assume he's got enough money to live on, because even though they probably make money, I'm sure he'd make more doing movies or TV.

But enough, we're way off topic. ;)
 
OMG just imagine if Eve Online was given the amount of cash Star Citizen has gotten. That game would rule. Try to imagine a Eve universe about 100X bigger and during huge battles the servers don't slow the game down as much.
 
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Geef said:
OMG just imagine if Eve Online was given the amount of cash Star Citizen has gotten. That game would rule. Try to imagine a Eve universe about 100X bigger and during huge battles the servers don't slow the game down as much.
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Honestly if Eve online was given the amount of cash start Citizen had in one fell swoop or over 8 yeas... (Not sure of their subscriber base but I wouldn't be surprised if they had this much cash move through the company already.) I don't know... 200 million dollars (isn't that what we are talking about.) I don't think it's that huge of an influx... but lets say it's CRAZY cash for a company in this case Eve online.

They would either do a slow burn at upgrading their current engine and environment to grow and be able to support greater amounts of activity with larger internet pipes, servers and feature sets for customers. I think that would fit the nature of the company as I have seen as an outside observer.

But lets say they want to develop a super feature rich expansion... grow the universe by leaps and bounds... there is the possibility they would get into the same feature creep problem that tears down other otherwise beloved franchises.. (Looking at you duke nukem ) Or rockstar developers (Looking at you Dikatana.).

We have a real problem as humans when given an amount of capitol to execute to we plan to execute to that capitol level with little planning for oversite and overspend and other side expenses.

IF Star Citizen had been budgeted to be a 100 million dollar game with appropriate buffer all along the game would be in my mind at least... near complete. Not stuck in development hell with iterative alpha cycles.

It wasn't... they just kept spending and adding as they grew... untiul they stopped taking new features.. THEN they started retracting on the feature set they had agreed to.

As someone that bought in early... not even the ORIGINAL FEATURES are being held to be true at this point.

I've asked for and been denied my refund request. So I'm stuck with my LTI Connie and LTI (at this point) Mustang. What will happen with this game is anyones guess. Other than threads like these that remind me.. Oh yea I have near 300 bucks tied up in this since 2012... Damn if I had invested that in IBM I'd be sitting on thousands already.... sigh.
 
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