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Comment by dkns | Hacker News Reader

> We may not have the resources that an Activision or EA have to launch one of their tentpole games

GTA 5 had budget of $265M (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Grand_Theft_Aut...). Assuming info on wiki is correct SC is nearing 200M (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Funding) which isn't too far off from GTA budget.

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$265M was an estimate for both development and marketing, the estimate for the development alone was a bit over half, at $140M. So SC should already be over GTA V in terms of funding for development, as long as they're not forced to refund what they raised [1].

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne5n7b/star-citiz...

But gta v started with gta IV, right? The engine was overhauled and improved - but SC started from scratch, pretty much?

worse than that. SC/CIG started from scratch at least two times.

When did they restart development?

They didn't. They started on CryEngine, then moved to Amazon lumberyard (which is a fork) for licensing reasons.

SC started with CryEngine and is currently on Amazon’s Lumberyard (which is a fork of CE).

Lumberyard is virtually identical to CryEngine, there was little work needed to make the conversion

That is not entirely correct. The current version of Lumberyard contains only remnants of CryEngine. Most everything has been scrapped and rewritten in favor of non-horrifying code.

Why would Amazon put that much effort into this? Amazon doesn't particularly have much of a marketshare in videogame sales, unlike say Google Play, Steam and others.

Smells like a me too offering from Amazon...

Because Lumberyard provides easy adapters to all kinds of AWS services which, if used, is very profitable for Amazon in the end.

I would say it is down to AWS integration mainly, give an easy integration path to AWS services and dev's might be more willing to use AWS and that's where they make the money back.

But Twitch (an amazon company) also had its own game store they were pushing (and giving a cut of any sales referred from live streams to the streamer) but Twitch closed that down last month (But they still have free games / loot which is linked to your twitch account and accessible via their desktop client). So it is possible they might of pursued that route more heavily and did what Epic has done with their store (lower fee's when using their store and engine over using Steam and their engine).

Replying again as I am no longer able to edit.

Just quickly read the terms for Lumberyard and they state the following[0].

> Operating Restrictions. Without our prior written consent, (a) the Lumberyard Materials (including any permitted modifications and derivatives) may only be run on computer equipment owned and operated by you or your End Users, or on AWS Services, and may not be run on any Alternate Web Service and (b) your Lumberyard Project may not read data from or write data to any Alternate Web Service.

But reading their github repo and FAQ you are allowed to use hardware you own and operate yourself and you are allowed to connect to things like steamworks etc [1]

> Q. Can my Lumberyard game connect to services like Steamworks, Xbox Live, PSN, Apple Game Center, Google Play Games, or console social services?

> Your game may read and write data to platform services and public third-party game services for player save state, identity, social graph, matchmaking, chat, notifications, achievements, leaderboards, advertising, player acquisition, in-game purchasing, analytics, and crash reporting.

So it would seem that you are fairly locked down to what Web Services you are allowed to use with Lumberyard so that is where Amazon will make their money back.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/#57._Amazon_Lumberyard_...

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/#licensing

And that's just the engine. Gta IV already had a framework in place for "telling gta stories" so, even if they had a off the shelf game engine, se would still be making a "game" from scratch. Gta v probably tweaked most everything from iv beyond recognition - but they kinda started from a working game, and made another game.

SC has a framework in place for "telling Space Sim stories". There is nothing new there and Roberts has experience with that. I don't see how this would justify those "delays" and failures at all.

SC will likely rank (easily) as one of the most expensive video games of all time should a completed version ship.

Elsewhere they boast of a dev team of well over 400 members and 5 international studios... hard not to argue that's AAA studio development sized like a product from EA or Activision.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Almost 218 million.

They were referring to their marketing/launch budget, which is what the recent investment was for. At $46 million, it's substantial, but less than some tentpole games have gotten.

They might be talking about non-monetary resources, like partnerships and experience?

Robert is an industry veteran. And his business hired most of Crytek staff in Europe, did you play Crysis series? Do you really believe its developers lack "experience"?

GTA involves a completely different kind of game play experience. Look one direction, then look behind you, then look back and what you see may be completely different and regenerated. Star Citizen uses various methods to implement a virtual generated world so that what you see is what is there and you can carry around, drop, pick up, and trade items. The Star Citizen simulated world is far more detailed and consistent than anything in GTA.

I think they're referring to the marketing budget, which isn't accounted for in the development budget.

The quoted number is actually the entire budget, including marketing.

> Media analyst Arvind Bhatia estimated the game's development budget exceeded US$137 million,[7] and The Scotsman reporter Marty McLaughlin estimated that the combined development and marketing efforts exceeded GB£170 million (US$265 million), making it the most expensive video game ever made at its time

And here's wikipedia's source on the $137m

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-01-gta-v-dev-...

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