Star Citizen Dev Asks For More Money

DPI said:
And therein lies the game's biggest problem: it CR's dream game.

Giving Chris Roberts $150 million to make a videogame is like giving a six year old a million dollars to build a house.
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That analogy holds 0 water, unless you're "6yr old" also had already built multiple houses and proved that he knows how to make good ones in the past.


Also if you're implying that Wing Commander/Freelancer were terrible games, I have to ask, do you even like space sims?
 
DocSavage said:
if it does turn out to fail, I'm sure all the assets they've created will be sold and incorporated into something.
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They'll be incorporated into graphics that will be displayed prominently in an episode of Scammed on the History Channel.

Stiler said:
That analogy holds 0 water, unless you're "6yr old" also had already built multiple houses and proved that he knows how to make good ones in the past.


Also if you're implying that Wing Commander/Freelancer were terrible games, I have to ask, do you even like space sims?
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It's not that the 6 year old hasn't ever built a house. It's that the last time the six year old built a house was well over a decade ago and the house had to be taken away from him and finished by others because the 6 year old wouldn't stop adding on new play rooms and hidden staircases and bidets.

Also the six year old seems more interested in movie making than house building now.

Also the six year old's wife is the VP of marketing and also acting in the movie and likely pulling down fat paychecks for both.
 
Stiler said:
Also if you're implying that Wing Commander/Freelancer were terrible games, I have to ask, do you even like space sims?
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Man, I loved Wing Commander. I was genuinely excited when CR announced a new PC first space sim. But then it got into all of these tiers of payments, once in a lifetime ships, and packages deals. I wanted to just play a good space sim. I never wanted to live in one. Maybe that's how he really needed to do it first. What he's made now I have no interest in. I really do hope that it works out and is successful. I'll never spend cash on it, but I hope it works out for those of you who do.
 
sooo if i buy the 35 dollar package.... do i get to play a game or no?
 
Stiler said:
That analogy holds 0 water, unless you're "6yr old" also had already built multiple houses and proved that he knows how to make good ones in the past.

Also if you're implying that Wing Commander/Freelancer were terrible games, I have to ask, do you even like space sims?
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Straw man. You are aware that Chris Roberts had to be removed from all those projects so his brother or someone else could finish them, yes?
 
Shotglass01 said:
Man, I loved Wing Commander. I was genuinely excited when CR announced a new PC first space sim. But then it got into all of these tiers of payments, once in a lifetime ships, and packages deals. I wanted to just play a good space sim. I never wanted to live in one. Maybe that's how he really needed to do it first. What he's made now I have no interest in. I really do hope that it works out and is successful. I'll never spend cash on it, but I hope it works out for those of you who do.
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Yeah, seems almost like a 2nd job now with all the stuff that is being added in. A whole lot of insurance and the like to deal with, when we really just want to hop in some ships and do some fun stuff. Checking maintenance, insurance, maintaining a balance and the like seems dull and makes you wonder how much time you will actually spent playing the game. It is the only reason I have not joined the [H] org/clan/whatever. I doubt I can play for a few days, take a month or so off and jump back into the game for a few evenings.

Sometimes more is less. I don't think the project is a scam, but it is a massive marketing campaign. Been having a friendly argument with an online acquaintance about this for some time. They claim there is zero marketing, and I say the game is all marketing. All those trailers, sales and the like for new ships is all marketing. But at the end of the day, it comes down to personal responsibility. If someone puts in $2000 of their own money and the game flops they can only blame themselves. With luck the game will be excellent and perhaps revive game crowd funding a bit.
 
Shotglass01 said:
Man, I loved Wing Commander. I was genuinely excited when CR announced a new PC first space sim. But then it got into all of these tiers of payments, once in a lifetime ships, and packages deals. I wanted to just play a good space sim. I never wanted to live in one. Maybe that's how he really needed to do it first. What he's made now I have no interest in. I really do hope that it works out and is successful. I'll never spend cash on it, but I hope it works out for those of you who do.
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I think he should have made a 20 or 30 million dollar wing commander/privateer successor. And if it succeeded, moved onto doing something like SC. Possibly through a combination of the previous games profits and crowdfunding and/or limited publisher involvement.

I think they've managed to sustain their funding up to this point by increasingly questionable/scummy business practices (bait and switch on LTI, more frequent and more expensive ship sales, ship discounts for "new money", PTU access for subscribers, etc).

I think what they've added to the PU over the last full year is laughable. No mining. No jump points. No trading. No character creator. No second system. Not even one completed system. The list of major mechanics they need to add is immense and the list of ones they've actually managed to add in the last year is essentially zero.

I think that despite some here saying SQ42 was 90% completed FIFTEEN MONTHS ago, it is still not even 90% completed right now. That's actually probably a fact, rather than a think, as I believe Robberts has recently said that there is still "core tech" to be added to SQ42. Plus it's apparently not complete enough for them to demo at their citizencon thing?

They need a SQ42 with an 8+ metacritic, stat. If it continues to be delayed over and over again, or comes out and gets raked over the coals by reviewers, or comes out and gets decent reviews but sells poorly due to already having come close to saturating their market, then they're screwed.

And I personally doubt SC will ever be worth a shit. Even if it's "finished" at some point years from now. Games that try and be all things to all people end up shit to everyone. It's better to do fewer things very very well than tons of things very shittily.

I also think that SQ42/SC, which according to Robberts should feel like a 600m dollar game due to not having a publisher, is going to end up feeling like a 50m dollar game due to Robberts redoing shit over and over and over again, spending way too much money on mocap and big name actors, and in general just pissing money away at nearly every opportunity.
 
Wasn't GTA V built with a $200 million budget? That game had tons of developers, actors, motion capture, full SP and MP. If star citizen is pushing $100 million they should have a complete MP game by now. The fact that they are barely rolling out persistent MP and fps is a joke and you're being scammed if you fund this so called game.

What will inevitably happen is they will run out of cash like DNF and then a publisher looking to make a quick buck will take the assets, package it up in a shiny box and sell a half assed product for $60. All those suckers who dropped thousands into ships will cry their double chins to sleep every night.

BTW there's a small indie developer making a game called Identity that only got $200k funding with a team of around 9 people and they already have made more progress in building a persistent world game than SC. Even Identity has very little chance of finishing with a complete product. Reality is that without an experienced publisher backing the product and breathing down their necks, most of these ambitious games fail.
 
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5150Joker said:
Wasn't GTA V built with a $200 million budget? That game had tons of developers, actors, motion capture, full SP and MP. If star citizen is pushing $100 million they should have a complete MP game by now. The fact that they are barely rolling out persistent MP and fps is a joke and you're being scammed if you fund this so called game.

There's a small indie developer making a game called Identity that only got $200k funding with a team of around 9 people and they already have made more progress in building a persistent world game than SC.
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GTA Vs dev budget was 137m. SC/SQ42 has already passed it.
 
DPI said:
Straw man. You are aware that Chris Roberts had to be removed from all those projects so his brother or someone else could finish them, yes?
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Roberts made (and finished) Wing commander 1, 2, 3, and 4. He left thereafter because EA wouldn't give him the time/budget he wanted to make a full fledged game with his vision.

He went on to form Digital Anvil which made Starlancer and then started Freelancer. It was here where microsoft bought them and then he left near the end and his brother and others took over to finish the game (with features planned earlier cut or stripped away to finish it).

Do you see a common theme here? EA/Microsoft did not allow him the true creative freedom he wanted to make a game, the ENTIRE point of him kickstarting Star Citizen and doing this entire thing was to finally realize his epic space sim without being burdened by a publisher holding him back

This is original the pitch video:


This is a recent demo from 3.0,



They are TOTALLY not "making" a game, nope, it's all a giant facade to scam people, a very elaborate facade that.... actually requires them to....make a game to show a video of said game in progress.....but it's still not technically "making" a game until it's finished...am I right?

Seriously, the amount of people who keep trying to say this whole thing is a scam really has me scratching my head. Don't throw money at it if you don't believe they can deliver a game, no one is forcing you to give money to it.

However to actively try and say it's a scam when they are constantly showing demos of progress, have now made their internal dev schedule visible for anyone to see (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) , it just boggles my mind that so many people seem to be latching on to crying scam.

What more can they do for people? I mean really...

They only have two choices, finish the game and take the time to fully develop it for release OR release the game NOW unfinished and stop development.

If they did that and released it unfinished THEN you can say "they scammed" people, but until then it's not a scam.

5150Joker said:
Wow then that's even more pathetic. How can anyone still believe in this farce is beyond me; No wonder things like cults exist, there's a sucker born every minute.
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GTA V was developed by a studio that already had a pipeline/engine and things in place for development, on top of not having to build a studio around the game they also didn't have to make new technologies for their game systems and things.

GTA V, while a great game, doesn't really bring anything new to the open world game design compared to GTA 4/RDR/Witcher 3, etc. Not nearly as ambitious in terms of technology or game systems as Star Citizen.

 
The problem is some people can get carried about with their "vision" and never see it to fruition.
 
NickJames said:
The problem is some people can get carried about with their "vision" and never see it to fruition.
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Yeah but that's kind of the point of this entire crowd funding. He wanted to make his "ultimate" game without a publisher holding it back or taking creative freedom from him, that's what many people (including myself) bought into, the "ultimate" space sim from a guy who has shown multiple times that he knows how to make space sims but this time being able to(with the technology and funding) build a game without it being held back in various ways and finally see his ultimate vision through to the end.

Now it seems many people (a lot of which have no interest or stake in the game) are trying REALLY hard to make people think it's a scam or they are doing something nefarious with the money when there is zero proof behind any of that.

The only thing they've done is have some feature creep from the stretch goals, that made the game even more ambitious then originally planned (which they ended up stopping the goals and locking in said features with no more to get them off track), now they just need time to actually finish the game.
 
Can't wait until you spout the same reasons again next year at this time. 70% done right?
 
Bowman15 said:
Can't wait until you spout the same reasons again next year at this time. 70% done right?
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I never said how close it was to being done.

They can take another 3 years for all I care, as long as they finish it and it ends up being one of the best space sims of all time., i have patience.

All I've said is that they are actively working on the game and showing progress, which a lot of naysayers and "it's a scam" people seem to want to ignore, or say that it's all part of some overly clever ruse to mask some hidden agenda they have to keep making money.
 
Fallout took four years, skyrim three, witcher 3 took two, but I guess people will just keep saying five years. I expect it to go up to six next year.

Anyways, what's up with the GTA comparison? Is SQ42 actually gonna be GTA big? I thought it only had 20 hrs of gameplay, or that's what was said last year.
 
I think people need to realize that a lot of us original backers are pissed off because Roberts and his ambition has hurt this project a lot. If he would have stuck with the original scope and timeline that you can read on the original kickstarter webpage this game would already be out, and be a success. The problem is that he didn't, and frankly it's a fucking mess.

A year ago i'd have been happy just to see a well done singleplayer game w/ SQ42. Now that isn't even happening. I think most of the original backers have moved on from this abomination at this point, and we really should have known better given his track record with all the prior games and needing to be forced out of the projects so someone else could finally execute on his vision.

I think Roberts is a great salesman and has a great vision, but he can't plan/execute worth a shit. The amount of money they've wasted on this project is pretty insane if you think about it.

Had he ran the business properly and kept the original scope/timeline we'd have a very different story. All the additional funding should have been set in a different pool and then tapped into to continue active development of the game after the original timelined project was released. Instead all the money has been wasted on expensive PR campaigns, continuous rewrites/scrapping/additions of various features, and expensive real-estate in California when they had a perfectly good development location and tax/wage advantages in Texas.
 
Mchart said:
I think people need to realize that a lot of us original backers are pissed off because Roberts and his ambition has hurt this project a lot. If he would have stuck with the original scope and timeline that you can read on the original kickstarter webpage this game would already be out, and be a success. The problem is that he didn't, and frankly it's a fucking mess.

A year ago i'd have been happy just to see a well done singleplayer game w/ SQ42. Now that isn't even happening. I think most of the original backers have moved on from this abomination at this point, and we really should have known better given his track record with all the prior games and needing to be forced out of the projects so someone else could finally execute on his vision.

I think Roberts is a great salesman and has a great vision, but he can't plan/execute worth a shit. The amount of money they've wasted on this project is pretty insane if you think about it.

Had he ran the business properly and kept the original scope/timeline we'd have a very different story. All the additional funding should have been set in a different pool and then tapped into to continue active development of the game after the original timelined project was released. Instead all the money has been wasted on expensive PR campaigns, continuous rewrites/scrapping/additions of various features, and expensive real-estate in California when they had a perfectly good development location and tax/wage advantages in Texas.
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If you want a decent space sim that's out right now that they keep adding features to, go play Elite. I'm fine with SC taking its time to do it right.
 
Stiler said:
I never said how close it was to being done.

They can take another 3 years for all I care, as long as they finish it and it ends up being one of the best space sims of all time., i have patience.

All I've said is that they are actively working on the game and showing progress, which a lot of naysayers and "it's a scam" people seem to want to ignore, or say that it's all part of some overly clever ruse to mask some hidden agenda they have to keep making money.
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I'd hate to be you in 3 years trying to still defend it. :smuggrin:
 
Kelby said:
I honestly don't think it will ever be finished. It reminds me of the Winchester Mystery House.
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They just found a new room like 2 months ago, so I love it!

Also SC is coming out this year? Next year? The year after? Never? Maybe?
 
Lizard Testes said:
Robberts has recently said that there is still "core tech" to be added to SQ42. Plus it's apparently not complete enough for them to demo at their citizencon thing?
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It was allegedly very nearly ready for CitizenCon, except somehow, a month and a half later, it still wasn't finished and was then canned entirely because Roberts decided it was a waste of time (and not at all because it sucked).

Stiler said:
This is original the pitch video:
This is a recent demo from 3.0
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How much of the "recent" Gamescom video is actually implemented in the live game as of now? And if that is supposed to represent the current state of development, why is the live build still crippled by fundamental, basic systems like doors which don't work properly, as well as jacked-up physics, the complete absence of basic game mechanics and content, the very limited number of players and horrendous netcode? There's a massive disparity between what they've managed to deliver and the purpose-built, stand-alone tech demos they've shown at trade shows. Ambition is meaningless if you can't deliver.

Those videos are also a reminder that in 4 years time, when Star Citizen is still in development (if they don't run out of money first), the current tech will look as dated and nasty as the 2012 demos do now.

Stiler said:
IThey can take another 3 years for all I care, as long as they finish it and it ends up being one of the best space sims of all time., i have patience.
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And what if it's shit? There's always an implicit "it's guaranteed to be amazing if they have enough time" for which there's no evidence at all. It will only reach a point where, without a publisher or anyone at all keeping them accountable, they'll have spent so long failing to deliver the game that what they have is too far behind the current state of games technology and they'll have no choice but to start rebuilding it.
You attempt to twist the history of Roberts failing to deliver his vision in the past (Freelancer) into a vindication of his choice to crowd fund Star Citizen, but really it's turning into just another example of his failed leadership, only this time with no accountability.
 
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I backed SC way back when you were first able to ... and I really don't hold out much hope for release. I have watched how the game has been split into 2 (which wasn't the original deal when I backed it), and have seen how the development has transitioned from an actual game, into a ship collecting viewer. I have tried the test stuff and I was left incredibly underwhelmed. I expect more.
 
Krazy925 said:
They just found a new room like 2 months ago, so I love it!

Also SC is coming out this year? Next year? The year after? Never? Maybe?
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Never. I have followed this train wreck for a while. I figure they crash and burn by mid year. And then years of lawsuits and accusations. Should be fun to watch for years unfortunately :(
 
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