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Comment by gulaschadasical | Hacker News Reader

Apparently "The most open game development in history" involves briefly mentioning an engine / platform switch at 5pm on a Friday before christmas

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Did you see their EULA change a while back? If you upgraded to the latest beta, you absolved them of all liability if they never deliver the actual product.

This is a sinking ship, they just won't (publicly) admit it yet.. though a bunch of their staff jumped ship, so they realize it.

"A bunch of their staff" jumped ship? What are we talking there? 5 people? 10? 50?

Unless you're talking about a mass exodus, more high ranking employees left Blizzard Entertainment the past couple of years than that. Is Blizzard a sinking ship as well?

Blizzard actually puts on new games, content for their games, and turns an enormous profit. So no they are not.

I am really curious if you are either an employee at CIG or just a really passionate backer of the project based on your unrelenting defense here. I am not sure why you are surprised by the candor of the comments here - CIG is seen as a running train on fire and is quite literally a joke in the gaming industry. It's unfortunate for those who work there and the people who want the game to succeed, but CIG has earned this reputation.

I'm not affiliated with CIG (edit: I am an early backer as I mentioned elsewhere), but I am passionate because I work in the games industry and I see what CIG is doing as incredibly beneficial to the industry; open development is huge for both studios and consumers but it needs all the love it can get.

So I'd really love a source for your "is seen as a joke in the gaming industry", because that is not at all what it's like here and is making me doubt your intentions. CIG is producing a game that people are passionate about years before it's released, completely self-funded and all that off a kickstarter. They're the reason Kickstarter got so popular in the gaming industry: everybody wants to be them.

I agree it's beneficial but not for the reasons you think: it's turning thousands of people away from the ill-conceived crowd-funding model of game development.

BTW it has roughly about $140 MILLION of "all the love it can get". Does it really need any more than that? It has enough. That's well more than Skyrim's budget.

> They're the reason Kickstarter got so popular in the gaming industry: everybody wants to be them.

If you're backing Star Citizen because you think it proves the crowd-funding model, I'm sorry to break this to you, but it's more likely people in the know are rejecting the crowd-funding model due to Star Citizen, not signing up for it.

> it's more likely people in the know are rejecting the crowd-funding model due to Star Citizen, not signing up for it.

And your source for that nonsensical statement is?

Star Citizen is the most successful crowdfunded project to date and second most successful kickstarter project at the time of its completion (after Oculus Rift). The two successes together that year were what made Kickstarter famous and turned it from a niche site to "the american dream 2.0" where anyone's greatest ideas can be funded.

I don't care about the crowdfunding model and you're completely mistaken about my reasons on why I backed Star Citizen. I don't particularly like or dislike it and I do appreciate your stance that you prefer buying the finished product - I think it's a healthy stance.

But your comment on people rejecting the crowd funding model "due to star citizen" is absolute nonsense. And so is your comment on budgeting, by the way - You should keep in mind that the number on there isn't "Star Citizen's budget", it's CIG's budget. There's no particular point in time where anyone says "Alright guys, time to pack up, stop making sales, we'll do with the money we have right now because it's more than enough to finish the game".

Most successful? Measured in what, money spent? I'm sure other kick-started projects are more successful in that they actually produced a product that resulted in profitability.

Please stop trolling and read my actual post.

I don't see the trolling? How is Star Citizen the most successful crowdfunded game? It's still not released.

The point I now made several times is that it's one of the two major projects that turned kickstarter into a popular platform. It was extremely successful at the time it was released and while projects have since outranked SC in most spend on Kickstarter, it's still one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns of all time by any financial measure.

As for "not released", they've released a lot more than other projects have. Colossal failures such as Everquest Next have absolutely nothing to show for it - if SC stops development tomorrow (which is unlikely), they have in fact released an early stage game and a ton of near-game content.

How can a game that's something like 3 years behind schedule be considered "successful"? Even Half-Life 2 only added one year to their development time. I think your definition of the word "successful" is quite different from the popular one. The only thing Star Citizen is successful at is suckering people into paying for nothing.

Ok; so the number I gave isn't Star Citizen's budget. What is? Reminder: Skyrim had a total budget of $90 million, was released on time, and also managed to hire some kick-ass voice talent to-boot. I highly doubt Bethesda had an additional, what, $50 million in operational costs separate from the Skyrim development costs.

A simple linkedin search returns about a hundred. With the total number of employees about two hundred and the company having been around for about five years, it's hardly comparable to Blizzard, which has thousands of employees and contractors and had been there for decades.

The point I failed to make is that high (double digit) employee turnover is extremely common in game dev, especially at low ranks; and unlike Blizzard, CIG is not an exceptional place to work at.

If you want to see what "people jumping ship" looks like, you should be directing your eyes towards Zynga: Constant layoffs, extremely high turnover including the executive level and plummeting revenue. Nothing like CIG.

High turnover is indeed extremely common in the games industry but I fail to see how it excludes a failure. It is common because failure is also extremely common. How the fact that Zynga is a sinking ship and displays the same signs as the CIG does is filling one with optimism about CIG?

Because it doesn't display the same signs as CIG. Zero executive turnover. Much lower employee turnover. Steady revenue.

I feel like I'm talking to an aquarium.

Zero executive turnover

I just found one in 5 seconds on linkedin. You could too if you did not imagine yourself talking to an aquarium. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-mayberry-166325

Much lower employee turnover

In absolute numbers? Sure. A company with several thousands employees will have higher number of people leaving over longer time even if it's doing great than a failing company with a couple hundred total employees. I guess this is what makes you optimistic? Because relative to their workforce they churn through a huge number of people. At this time every game studio in Santa Monica has few people from there.

Steady revenue

Are there numbers for CIG? I thought it's a private company and its revenue numbers are not available. What source do you base your assertion on?

Are you serious? Mayberry leaving is from 2015. You're not proving your point here.

> Are there numbers for CIG

Yes. Nearly all of their revenue is from Star Citizen. And that's public.

Sorry, I've lost you completely. You had been talking about turnover right at this moment? In this case Zynga is peachy, they have not had a layoff today and no executives have left today either. As for revenue, I am not sure what you mean. Is there some public record of their revenue? If so, please show me. JFYI, somebody saying "I've made a gazillion dollars!" is not a public record of making a gazillion dollars.

Sources in case people are interested:

About the ToS change blocking refunds:

http://dereksmart.com/2016/07/star-citizen-this-war-of-mine/...

About the staffing issues:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/fe...

Are you serious? Have you actually even tried the game?

So if you don't update, then you can still hold them accountable? Do you know of people who are watching (maybe you didn't update?)

>If you upgraded to the latest beta, you absolved them of all liability if they never deliver the actual product.

What kind of liability? I'm an early backer and I'm pretty sure I never had terms that gave me any kind of leverage. I got standard Kickstarter terms: I give them money, they promise by their honor to make a best-effort attempt to deliver a good product.

It's not really a platform switch. It's a merge of two cryengine forks. There's no point in starting a melodramatic flamewar when other people here are genuinely discussing the implications for CIG and Amazon.

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