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‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

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Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#51

Post by shusson »

serg_chernata wrote: post #38

I'm a backer and I have no problem with this. Many AAA titles take a decade or more from start to finish. For example, between Diablo 2 and 3. I want the best space sim and I like what RSI is doing. I'm not holding my breath, just living my life and when the game is finished I will be happy to play it. Although, I also did not drop 5 grand on this game.

| Many AAA titles take a decade or more from start to finish.

Yes but no AAA title has been crowed-funded to the tune of 200m before.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#52

Post by lykr0n »

raesene9 wrote: post #17
lykr0n wrote: post #11

I've dumped about a grand into Star Citizen over the course of 4 years. I've followed updates and developments with mild interest, and ever once and a while I jump back into it to see what's changed. It's always amazing to see the progress they have made, wither it be the engine tech or just the game play. Do I think it will come out in the next year or two? No, but I think it will. Development is on going and active…

When you say "expectations have been met", did you expect the game to take this long to develop? Looking at the original kickstarter from 2012 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen?ref=na... it looks like the original ship date was Nov 2014, so it seems that at least some people's expectations aren't likely to have been met.

I knew when I got involved I was putting money into a black box. I was (and still am) enthralled with the idea Chris Roberts has presented. When I was able to jump into a ship and play Area Commander with other People, I felt like what I signed up for was delivered. But, I'm excited with what else is coming.

And honestly, I'm glad. If they had just stuck to the initial scope, it would be less exciting. I'd rather dream big and be let down versus not have the chance to dream in the first place. I've backed some kickstarter projects that did what I signed up for, and awesome. I've also backed some projects that got widely popular and the people decided to increase the scope of what they were trying to do. Some of them worked, some of them didn't, and some looks like they are going to. I'm not sure which is better, but for me I lean towards "let's try to do awesome."

EDIT. A point I wanted to share is that you also need to quantify enjoyment and wow factor. I've seen things come out of Star Citizen that make me feel like a kid again. They have done some awesome stuff in terms of visuals and engineering. I would still love to have a finished project, but from what I've played and seen already, I would not be overly disappointed if the game disappeared tomorrow.

I've enjoyed the journey, and will continue to enjoy it. That has to count for something. I'm not saying I don't expect a full game to come, I do.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#53

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

shusson wrote: post #48
WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the process for "Star Citizen" to "Rimworld", another kickstarted project which is nearing a 1.0 release after years of development. Rimworld had a public beta and has been iterating and incorporating feedback and while the end-result might not be as ambitious as someone with $200m might care to dream up (rimworld raised ~$250k) but it's a very fun game which most importantly actually exists . In fact existin…

I think a closer comparison is Elite Dangerous.

I regret backing Elite Dangerous, it's underwhelming.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#54

Post by the_snooze »

That sucks, but it seems almost inevitable with these new funding/purchasing models: the risk necessarily shifts from the developer and onto the consumer. This is a big reason why I'm a "patient gamer:" why should I be the one exposed to uncertainty when there are plenty of other complete and patched games out there vying for my attention?

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#55

Post by CedarMadness »

aiyodev wrote: post #32

There’s a crowdsourced tracker of all of the promises made to backers of Star Citizen over the years thoroughly documented with links to the proof. https://starcitizentracker.github.io/ Since posting this always gets a lot of hatred from the koolaid drinkers, I’m going to pre-emptively suggest that, if you have a problem with something on the tracker, you should submit a correction. You should not attack me or the pe…

I feel like this is generally fair, but things that get pushed back from one patch to the next shouldn't count as broken promises. It seems disingenuous to count "3.2 didn't have mining, it's been pushed to 3.3" on the same level as "we said you'd be able to run your own server with mods, but now you can't". Maybe you need another category for Delayed

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#56

Post by deadbunny »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #53
shusson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a closer comparison is Elite Dangerous.

I regret backing Elite Dangerous, it's underwhelming.

The irony being that it's basically what SC promised in their KS.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#57

Post by michaelt »

Operyl wrote: post #10

I guess my biggest issue with this all is that it’s called a “pledge.” I pledge money on the condition that I get a game. In this case they’re just taking my money with a huge chance that I’ll never see anything remotely close to what I pledged for. My end was fulfilled, their end not so much.

  I pledge money on the condition that I get a game.
See, what I do is I don't pay for a game until it's released and some reviews start coming in. That way you know what you're getting.

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#58

Post by deadbunny »

beaconstudios wrote: post #14
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they came to a point when they thought "This could be huge and mind blowing, and can't be done for a long time if we don't do it" and kept going. I myself went from a critic to someone shouting "Go ahead!"

However, in the process they seem to have fully embraced the waterfall method which seems to me to be the root cause of the problem. They could have delivered the original concept as an MVP and continued to build towards their long-term vision through patches and incremental updates, much like rockstar did with GTA V online. Instead they're working slowly towards shipping a gigantic monolith where all that's playable…

I'll preface with the fact I've not kept up with SC development at all. But haven't they released multiple "modules" as they've been going?

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#59

Post by djsumdog »

raesene9 wrote: post #47
zinckiwi wrote: post #2

I pledged a fraction of this fellow's total in Star Citizen, probably the lowest tier that would result in a digital copy of the game once complete. I was after a modern Privateer reboot, essentially, and figured it was worth the gamble. I haven't followed the development with anything more than a casual, occasional glance and accompanying eye-roll. I doubt I'll ever see anything come of it. A shame, not necessarily…

For me, Elite:Dangerous had a better model (although still not without it's troubles). They delivered the base game in reasonable order and have been iterating and adding content since then. Whilst the early game was pretty sparse in terms of content, at least it was delivered and reasonably complete.

That does seem like a better model. I might have to check that game out.

Games should produce the base game they promised, and then just add expansion packs or additional levels (free to initial backers) to try and get everything else in until the money runs out.

Maybe even the old shareware style route of releasing Episode 1, 2 and 3 (although in the shareware days, Ep1 was free and 2/3 were commercial .. like 1 was a really long game demo).

Re: ‘Star Citizen’ Court Case Reveals the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200M Game

#60

Post by Tepix »

I'm also a golden ticket holder and my patience is evaporating.

I can't believe the single player campaign has not been released yet! Also the published roadmap doesn't seem to end anywhere that is satisfactory.

They need to kick out a whole bunch of features (perhaps temporarily) to get the game in a state that it's somewhat complete and playable.

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