Star Citizen has raised $94M – where is it?
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People are unbelievably ignorant about how much a AAA title costs to produce. SC is going to need much more money if it is ever going to meet Robert's grandiose plans.
However, Chris seemingly has virtually no discipline in terms of product management. The scope of the game is accelerating in the face of decelerating sponsorship.
Where has the money gone? Probably to the features that he has promised - sadly, not enough to any one single feature. $94 million simply isn't enough. If Star Citizen doesn't get more money it might end up being a bag of half-implemented features and is going to be a text-book example of runaway scope creep.
- This has the graphics / production quality of a AAA game
- They need to redo the crytek engine in 64bit to be able to handle the necessary math (they made some vague-ish explanation)
- The game is 3 years in. With a more or less fresh engine. GTA5 took much longer to build AND they had the GTA4 engine as a starting point. So yeah, this project is not minor.
Criticisms:
- Seriously, they could have focused on features in the progression of: A space sim game at least on par-ish with similar games. Then afterwards get the "walking around a hangar" working. Then afterwards get the FPS mode working. Then afterwards get the "landing on a planet" working. It's all cool but stretching resources thin makes the features come in slow and the game not fun.
- Also they need to make the game approachable on non $500 graphics cards with $200 joysticks. Then again if you spent $2500 on a ship, I doubt you care.
I got an HOTAS for Elite Dangerous. <satire>Let me say that it wasn't at all a wasted purchase for SC because I never intended it for that game - the support is currently terrible.</satire> You are wasting your time if you are playing with anything but a mouse and keyboard. I unplugged the joystick after little more than 30min. In addition, "2.0" has mouse-driven UIs in the ship, driving further nails into the idea of competent joystick control[1].
Don't feel bad about not having a joystick/HOTAS - they are second-class citizens in SC. This is not a bad thing, the HOTAS definitely gives me an unfair advantage in ED.
> Seriously, they could have focused on features in the progression
If they had used an iterative approach we probably would have had an actual game at this point. I firmly believe it's not too late to switch strategies to something similar to what you suggested. The other issue with the "module" approach is that there is no guarantee that the modules will work well together when they are combined - in whatever terms are appropriate (fun, stability, feasibility, etc.).
... what?
The control of a joystick with the accuracy of a mouse, with the command possibilities of a keyboard ( due to voice).
Almost guaranteed at the current trajectory, however I still think that there's time to save it: even with the current $94 million (massive scope re-adjustment). Also in truth nobody, myself included, knows what's going on internally at CIG (part of the reason for this drama wave) - I could be very wrong either way.
"Battlecruiser 3000AD (also known as BC3K on Usenet) is a science fiction computer game, noted for its long, troubled development history."
That being said, everyone (Backers, Roberts, Smart and Escapist) have been immature about this fiasco to varying degrees.
> The game was initially announced by Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003.
> Originally, Roberts promised features such as automated flight maneuvers, dynamic economies, and a multiplayer mode that could host thousands of players, but diminished versions of these features were implemented in the final release. The game's initial technical demos impressed reviewers, but after the Microsoft buyout and Roberts' departure from Digital Anvil, critics had doubts about the game. Reviewers judged the final product technically good but failing to fulfill their initial expectations.
Personally I hope SC will succeed, but I backed for the solo campaign (squadron 42) with lot of nostalgia for wing commander and Starlancer, and I have absolutely no hopes of the promises holding for the multiplayer, never had. In the meantime Elite 4 with all its own flaws scratched my itch for multiplayer (I would have loved for that one to be more solo like First Encounter).
Note that the game draws extreme and usually critics are very aggressive, and defenders of the game as well, I merely wants to point out the parallel to the last time Roberts did this.
Spot on, I was definitely a huge fan of Freelancer when it came out, but always felt that it had a ton of missed potential.
Are you talking about "Elite: Dangerous"? Any particular grievances with the "solo play"?
(My grievance is that it looks like they'll never "port" to the most recent versions of the oculus SDK/DK2 -- although I can understand why they'd want to settle for a (solid) proof of concept for now, and then wait with porting until APIs are finalized and consumer ready devices come out)
It was a multiplayer only game in 2000 with space ships and one commander who played the RTS side of the game. It was a MOBA/DOTA in space with a commander.
I had completely forgotten about Allegiance until it was mentioned here. I'll have to dig it up and play a few games :)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_War_2:_Edge_of_Ch...
1. It needs a persistent connection. Now, I know it's just a little data here and there and whatever, but as someone who travels a lot in area where "internet connection" sometime means spotty 3G and walled garden wifi, it's a huge issue.
2. We're by design never going to get mods and player made missions/campaign and other goodies.
3. Overall even without clear things to point out, I can't help but feel like the game has been designed with that multiplayer system in sight and had to mold its balance / economy / gameplay around it, so a solo experience could be different (and possibly less "do your own experience with the other players, because the game doesn't have that much").
Still enjoy the game tremendously, but to be fair what I wanted was Elite 3 remastered more than multiplayer Elite.
I recall some hearsay on the Horizons stream about them updating their DK2 support, possibly before SDK 1.0.
There is a runtime switcher[1] which has overall positive feedback, but I haven't bothered to try it as I can't make heads and tails of the ambiguous installation instructions - might work out for you, though.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3paivl/rtu_package_...
The product is the dream of reliving a memorable part of the customer's youth, but now in 4k instead of VGA. Obviously, bumping the resolution won't make anybody young again, but that very profitable dream can be kept alive for as long as they can keep the "coming soon" signs standing. A finished game however, no matter how good it would be, will bring the reality shock that people who spend hundreds on virtual goods from a producer who peaked in the 1990ies just are not 14 anymore. Until then it it's the perfect simulation of actually waiting to be allowed to play. Kind of like World of Warcraft, but without the side effects.
And would downvoters actually provide any reasoning to such a senseless assertion? Or is this just supposed to be the cool new thing to say?
As I see it, the FPS always was part of the original promise (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/descri...) and I think it will be good.
To be honest, I'm tired of space games like Eve or Elite:Dangerous where you basically play as the ship.
From the beginning I had hoped, that it would be possible to EVA and fight onboard of a ship - and what was a little hope turned into a solid part of the game.
Do I think my money is wasted because there is nothing to play yet? No, not at all. The goal of crowdfunding is to give the developers the time and money they need and safe them from cutting corners.
Elite, for example. Its great flying, but there is no story and nothing to do besides grinding for the next ship. They rushed the game out of the door and its "nice", nothing more.
Even if everything fails, even if SC is crap or vaporware, I won't be disappointed. Roberts and the others tried and, to be honest, if they pull it off, they might give the industry the kick it needs to get back from yearly updates to FIFA, Battlefield or CoD.
Oh, and BTW: Nobody complains when Blizzard runs late with their games :)
I expressed my fears of feature creep an a massive increase in development time on forums and was dismissed by fans as "it's just a small detail" and "the underlying engine supports it".
It's naive to think adding seamless fps to a game of this scale wouldn't massively increase complexity. And if it's just a small detail perhaps it isn't worth it.
As for the backers I see lots of Post-purchase rationalization: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalizatio...
To be fair, they're not charging you years before the game is actually released
Your input is truly valuable in the development of Star Citizen since they are creating the game YOU want. They listen and change features once they get feedback (e.g flight model 2.0). If you don't think it is what you want you WILL get a refund.
They don't charge or promise anything. You do realise that? You do see the difference right?
That said: I'm mostly on your side here (as a SC backer..)
The Overwatch preorder is unfortunately the "give us money now for no good reason" sort of preorder and doesn't even come with beta access.
The gameplay displayed wasn't some buggy alpha with placeholders.
I am 99% certain Overwatch will actually be released, especially as it's gone in Beta which Pre-orders have access to(?).
As I said, you can't compare this to anything Blizzard does. Blizzard usually comes through.
It's about having realistic goals. I would love to see another good space sim in the same vein as X3.
For my part I am not actually all that interested in a FPS component. But in trying to produce both at the same time SC may deliver for neither of us.
And people complain all the time about late games. But one of big differences for Blizzard is that they have nothing to prove, they have delivered big experiences and successful products quite consistently.
(Disclaimer: Yes, I bought an SC ship and want to see the game, and genre, succeed. I also regard anything Mr. Smart says with a dose of cynicism)
Would you pay $15,000 for a bunch of virtual spaceships?
* They likely bought virtual currency (which you can do legit by the way).
* They likely bought (or built!) the ship in question from players, using in game currency, who had made it (or the components) in game, hence it isn't pay to win.
* The ship already existed and was available for comparison to other ships and review.
* The ship has resale value at the price it was purchased (assuming you don't get blown up without insurance).
* Or they purchased (real money only) skins for ships that are already very popular and with known stats.
The game has a budget of roughly 100M now, which is a big budget. (Metal Gear Solid V was 80M , which also included the Fox Engine development).
I'm afraid that this episode might kill crowd funding for video games, if the result ends up being catastrophic.
1. Feature creep
Most features were announced in the kickstarter. Things such as "hollywood voice actors" or "motion capture" were all part of the initial stretch goals. This is CIG delivering on the promises they made, there's been a bit of feature creep here and there certainly but not as much as people claim. I'm certain not all of it will make it to the release, FWIW, such is life in game development.
2. Finances
The game is extremely ambitious but it most definitely has the money for it. Its total budget is looking on-par with GTA5 which had a much, much more expensive marketing campaign and added costs. SC has the advantage of being crowdfunded and having an existing userbase, making it somewhat-riskless for anyone who would want to invest into it. CR has a lot of money of his own as well.
3. FUD
The studio has been repeatedly attacked by various parties that stand to gain if the game fails. One of those parties comes from a personal vendetta against Chris Roberts. If you enjoy drama, I highly recommend reading into it, it's fascinating (and quite depressing as well, you've been warned...). Quite a few mediocre news websites just want to jump on the Star Citizen hate-train because it's an easy shot and drives clicks, I find that appalling. Reading starts here [1].
4. State of development
The game is just about where you'd expect it to be. It's lacking content but they're pushing out the tech pretty hard. Parts of it are already playable, dogfighting/racing is a lot of fun. I don't play it myself. Most of the tech is out or about to be released; I estimate that, from the point where they'll start adding the actual content, maybe a year to release. I don't think they'll meet their deadline (autumn 2016 iirc?) but they've surprised me before.
5. Development process
CIG has been the most transparent game studio in the world. The blog [2] is regularly updated with tech, finance, design insights, in-game news etc. This sort of transparency and insight into the difficulties of running a game studio is why I'm rooting for them so hard. It's a model I want other studios to adopt. I highly recommend reading that blog even if you're not into the game, skip to the technical articles, they're great.
[1]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14...
[2]. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link
PS: Someone else said in the thread, "even if it's a great game, many will be disappointed". Quite right. I'm very concerned by that; I think SC's greatest flaw is that it makes everybody think the world is being promised to them, and a lot of people are not realistic about the results. I personally think that even if they deliver on 20% of their promises, it'll be a kickass game, so I'm excited either way... but a lot of people won't feel that way.
I don't think the game will "kill" crowdfunding. From an investment point of view, it'll be regarded as a success no matter what happens. Maybe it'll kill high-budget crowdfunding but, remember, the game initially, on KS, asked for about 1% of what it has today. The crowdfunding discussion is a fascinating one to have, but SC is an outlier in every single category so I'm not sure it's fair to judge on that.
They even have a youtube series called "bugsmashers" where you see examples of bugs being fixed, including seeing the code.
Including marketing, GTA V was $265 million. Star Citizen isn't close to that yet.
What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money.
The main difference with SC seems to just be the insurance policies. In EvE the policy will cover much of the raw material cost of the ship, which is prolly going to be a painful fraction of the total outfitting. SC has the Lifetime insurance which guarantees you'll have a hull to fly... but not much else. It may even be possible to insure fittings and cargo, but again, that's a gold sink in-game.
> What's sad, there are other ambitious (and actually existing) games, like Dwarf Fortress that could've easily used all this money.
I've never seen the lost sale fallacy and the fallacy of relative privation combined like that, that's fun. Anyway this is completely irrelevant - it's also money that could have gone to cancer research.
You don't the guy who spent $30,000 on ships (recent article) is going to win encounters more often than the guy who spent the minimum?
What if he bought 300 $100 spaceship, what's his advantage over the guy who has one $100 spaceship + insurance?
Are you able to tell me what the guy's advantage is? I'm sure he has more ships, but that's not useful for an individual. Maybe he'll hand them out to his guild? Who knows.
The economy and ship performance layout of the game is similar to Eve: Bigger/More luxurious ships cost more, but are not necessarily mean they're more powerful. The Banu Merchantman is a trading ship which costs twice the price of a Hornet, the top dogfighting ship. You can bet a Hornet would win against five of the former.
PS: The studio is not stupid, they know they can't just go the pay2win route if they want the game to actually be playable.
So when going head to head against another guild to deliver cargo, which guild is going deliver more cargo, the one where everyone bought the bigger more luxurious Banu, or the one where lots of people have the early starter cargo ship?
Based on your assumption they all should've failed but clearly (and unfortunately) this business model works.
Funny thing is that I know of at least one guy they fired for telling them they'd need $100m to release a product anything like Roberts vision. I hope they send him an apology.
(previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840425 )
for most kickstarters/buyers, it's alpha 1.3 which has the hangar (ship previews/ weapons testing), combat (pew pew), flight (racing) and the social module (running around a small city level and emoting to other players).
1.3 is threadbare, but it's not designed for content, but to test server infrastructure and design choices. The UI is horrendous, combat is confusing, but you can get the sense of the art and an outline of how the game would work, if/when it were finished.
Realistically, it's going to be 3 more years before the MMO aspect comes along, just to handle the scope creep of being a kickstarter project. (There will always be a new feature to test/design/fund, thus the time will get pushed back, sic.)
Alpha 2.0 is being touted as the multi-crew module, but it's also integrating a lot of in development features to flesh out each of the segments in 1.3. The belief is, there'll be a "Persistent Universe" P.U. test solar system with ship movement, open combat areas, travel/navigation, AI crew on ships, trade and quests, before 2016. featuring most of the citizencon demo features from the video.
A FPS combat module which will be a lot less polished, is coming out after that, sometime between january 2016 and the Squadron 42 game.
Realistically, here's some videos of the current state of the game.
i.e. The social Module in 1.3 https://youtu.be/38gofAbkilE?t=60
MultiCrew, as demo'd for the con, is not ready. The press demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpeLpQWzTk covers some FPS, travel, and landing / takeoff.
only recently have they refactored the UI i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNZ6oWAjZ8