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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

#171

Post by andypants »

cornholio wrote: post #89
wongarsu wrote: post #77

>one of the worst cases of feature creep in history crowdfunding campaign that exceed expectations put the developer in a really tough spot. Star Citizen asked for $2 million but got 6. If they had said they keep everything the same, the schedule would stay sane but everyone would call it a money grab because they take $6 million to develop a $2 million game. The other option is to make use of the additional $4 milli…

I had to double check this story to believe it: it's almost better than ICOs. They started with a $500.000 goal then stretched it to $2 million. For the last 6 years, they have been living off the nearly 400x more money that continued to come in, exceeding all expectations or previous games. All while delivering essentially only nice art and, we now learn, slimy legal tricks against the fans no longer willing to bank…

You can check their funding amounts here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

They're still making 40k-70k per day

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

#172

Post by mereel »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
alexgmcm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to Elite Dangerous?

They're actually very different games. NMS is a "Roger Dean artwork generator" with a small survival game embedded in it, while ED is an inheritor of Elite for people who prefer a much more sparsely populated universe than Eve Online. And who like orange.

So. Much. Orange.

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

#173

Post by ryneandal »

pageald wrote: post #50

Has there ever been a high profile early access game that crossed the finish line? It seems like studios usually take the money and run, like Bohemia Interactive with DayZ. Five years and tens/hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and the game is abandonware. I guess Minecraft is one notable exception.

Pillars of Eternity was very successful.

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

#174

Post by gascan »

cornholio wrote: post #66

He lost because of a forced arbitration clause. This massive privatization of justice where any boilerplate service or product now comes with forced arbitration is making my blood boil. The justice system should always be an option when arbitration fails, and arbitration should take no more than a reasonable time to fail (say, two weeks for this $5000 amount). The whole point of a small claims court is to handle such…

If the public service of justice is slow and expensive, we need to fix the public service, not replace it with a free market simulacrum.

The argument is that the justice system is slow and expensive because it is overloaded with cases that don't really belong in the justice system in the first place. Which is not a radical idea; e.g. only some cases merit the attention of a district court, and fewer still merit the SCOTUS.

You can see the "overloading" perspective when you look at the asylum hearing backlog. The demand outstrips the judiciary's ability to run fair hearings practically to the point of absurdity.

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

#175

Post by aplc0r »

vorpalhex wrote: post #85
dreen wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, No Mans Sky, the underdog-turn-most-hated-turn-underdog-again game is releasing full multiplayer free upgrade next week. They engineered a PR disaster for themselves but have been adding great features at a slow steady pace, which is exactly how it should be done.

NMS turned things around and is an excellent example of a team acknowledging their mistakes and taking the time to correct. It's a game that initially I refused to back, but have now logged solid game time in.

Have they done anything with the flight model? Specifically, it essentially auto-piloting you away from a crash? Being unable to fly as low as I wanted is what frustrated me the most.

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

#176

Post by [deleted] »

djsumdog wrote: post #116
the_snooze wrote: post #54

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?

I mean, it does need to be treated like an investment, and you can lose on an investment. You can say, "That Camera rig is amazing. I've always wanted something like that. There's nothing on the market like that." If you put like $600 in, you're hoping for a return on that investment in 8 months of a product. You might get something amazing, or something okay or nothing at all. Just like any other venture. Okay, so y…

[deleted]

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

#177

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

inetknght wrote: post #81
TimTheTinker wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the public service of justice is slow and expensive, we need to fix the public service, not replace it with a free market simulacrum. Completely agreed. Prisons are another example of an essential public service that should never be privatized or outsourced.

Healthcare, too

That’s a blanket statement that leaves too much wiggle-room. The UK’s NHS, for example, is partly private insofar as GPs and many other doctors work for themselves and contract themselves out to the NHS instead of being NHS employees. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a group of doctors could form an organization that forces its patients into binding arbitration for disputes while still being contracted to the NHS. It would result in a backlash of public opinion - but still possible.

The NHS also has other private components: it used to run its own logistics division which was scrapped in recent years and replaced with services provided by couriers like DHL.

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

#178

Post by michaelt »

Retric wrote: post #110
the_snooze wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 won't make or break a game's development. It'll happen (or not) with or without my tiny advance payment. I'd rather hold on to that $10 and buy an actual game now instead of gambling on the promise of one in the future. As consumers, it's not our responsibility to support other people's open-ended projects. Let developers (and their actual publishers and investors) take on the risks themselves. It's better that w…

You can say the same thing about elections. However, because each choice is independent you end up collaborating with like minded people. Thus your 10$ ends up as 10,000$ from people like you. Game theory has a lot of interesting incite into these sorts of decisions.

What does game theory say will happen if you give someone $200,000,000 with no obligation to do anything in exchange for it?

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

#179

Post by Crespyl »

djsumdog wrote: post #123

So what other good single player space sims are out there today? I'm not an MMO person. The last good one I played was Strike Suit Zero/Infinity. Back in the day I played Wing Command I, II, III, IV and Prophecy (still have many of them on CD). I was also a big fan of TIE Fighter/X-Wing. It seems like this genre has stagnated quite a bite in the past few years, or has gone entirely MMO. Is anything doing anything new…

It's a bit older, but FreeSpace I/II were open sourced and the engine has had major updates and improvements over the years.

The games can be had from GoG very cheaply, and hold up quite well, especially with the updated engine and graphics.

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