Wouldn't we all love a breakdown on how someone spends that kind of money. So far the game is solid. But I wonder if someone had their eyes on another WOW killer.
Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
41–50 of 85 posts
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to qualify that? I'm not following this at all, but I can't see anything particularly obvious that's a 'train wreck'. They have a game. It's playable, if not particularly good. Some people are playing it (or something? Someone is posting gameplay videos anyway). I have zero investment in it so I don't really get it; I see a lot of unhappy people making :( faces. Games take time and money to make. They're making…
The drama basically arises from where common people are a good source of funds but actually terrible investors, giving personal money by impulse, usually without being equipped with the industry insight to evaluate the risks, or fully accepting there are risks because they are too emotionally invested in the product.
Anyone who's loved the game Undertale will tell you that was a fine use of their funds. But games like that wouldn't be possible without unsophisticated investors throwing their money at it in small quantities.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#43Not very surprised, the game has been a trainwreck in the making from the beginning. Total scope was just way too overambitious, and people weren't going to plow hundreds and thousands of dollars into spaceship jpegs forever.
Half the subreddit seems to be die hard acolytes while the other half seem to be extremely bitter vets of a game that hasn't been launched.
The biggest game development project ever, with extraordinary transparency, and shoddy bloggers are still making money throwing out talking points about how it's a train wreck barely half way through development.
Again: without any actual proof. However, if there is any, I will gladly change my opinion.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Source? Not all loans are bad, it wouldn't make sense to plan on never taking a loan.
I'm pretty sure they blew through most of their estimates. The projects was always hailed as one of the big crowdfunding break and nothing indicates they considered borrowing to finance the project given the massive amount of money they got and the time estimates they posted. By all means, check for yourself.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#45This story reminds me of ION Storm [1], John Romero's cash rich baby that failed miserably with Daikatana. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Storm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana
> Porter became CEO of ION Storm and the Dallas Observer said "He turned down a deal with Compaq computers that would have paid ION 75 cents to $1 for every Compaq computer sold with Dominion already installed, and would have guaranteed ION a minimum of $1.5 million." It's funny to think that selling your game for $1/each is a standard thing these days for mobile games. They only ended up selling very few of the game…
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#46Wouldn't we all love a breakdown on how someone spends that kind of money. So far the game is solid. But I wonder if someone had their eyes on another WOW killer.
For instance one of best and largest games recently produced is Witcher 3. It's cost about $81M [1] (half budget is marketing and probably localization, not sure what is source on this) and more than 250 [2] in-home developers (and 1500+ [3] people in total include localization) worked on it. And this is developers from Poland with significantly lower salaries and overall burn rate.
Now for instance about year ago Chris Roberts announced [4] they have following studios working on game: Frankfurt (50), Manchester (180), Los Angeles (60) and Austin (50). So it's about 350 developers and even if you take something like $80,000 burn rate per employee it's going to be a lot of money and actual number likely higher than that.
[1] https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witch...
[2] https://www.develop-online.net/interview/the-wild-road-to-th...
[3] https://www.vg247.com/2016/01/13/over-1500-people-worked-on-...
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9T48l7Oq0Q&feature=youtu.be...
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#47You have to admit, they made really good commercials for in-game content. They stayed in character, too. A few hand-picked favorites: - Imagine: Star Citizen : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJ9TcGxhNY - Star Citizen - MISC Freelancer Commercial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO7RxsZpcKc - Star Citizen: Consolidated Outland Mustang Commercial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR07oZC0QHU - Introducing the 2944 A…
My suspension of disbelief is destroyed every time I see missiles without proximity detonators.
That said, missiles with proximity detonation only make sense if they're actually built to be fragmentation weapons, not pure explosive-based, due to explosion shockwaves being useless in space thanks to a lack of medium to travel in. And even for fragmentation they'd need to get really close due to inverse square law.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#48It's not nearly as bad as they make it seem. Loans/debt are a completely healthy source of financing.
This is nothing more than a Redditor losing control and spreading a false rumor that has been fanned by news sites.
Also dangerously close to Libel.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Source? Not all loans are bad, it wouldn't make sense to plan on never taking a loan.
I'm pretty sure they blew through most of their estimates. The projects was always hailed as one of the big crowdfunding break and nothing indicates they considered borrowing to finance the project given the massive amount of money they got and the time estimates they posted. By all means, check for yourself.
Apple takes out loans and they have billions. There could be tax incentive to take out loans.
Re: Star Citizen is likely in financial trouble
#50Having someone who could say no to chris would probably be an overall win for everyone.