A lot of misinformed comments in this thread, most of which are repeating the “scam” canard. I expected better of HN than the sort of rhetoric that shows up on r/games.

I’m not a backer of the game, but I have been following it with interest over the past several years. The fact is, SC has shipped 17 quarterly releases over the past four years. Each has made demonstratable progress towards the ultimate goal, which is an immersive sim MMO with triple-A production value and real-time action gameplay.

All of these things have been done before, but they’ve never been done all at the same time. (Immersive sims: Deus Ex, System Shock. MMOs: World of Warcraft, Eve. Triple-A action gameplay: Call of Duty, Battlefield.) It’s a lot of work, and the core networking technology required to make it an MMO, server meshing, is yet to be proven out. There’s plenty to criticize.

But the game is very obviously not a scam, nor is it “selling JPEGs.” For $45, you can download and play it right now, access all the content available now and in the future, and never pay another cent. Anyone saying otherwise is lazily repeating Internet memes, and HN deserves better than that.

(If you don’t want to pay $45–and I wouldn’t blame you; I never pay for software based on future potential—you can see its current state very easily with a visit to Twitch or YouTube. There’s plenty of streamers playing it.)