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Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

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Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#151

Post by theandrewbailey »

Ralfp wrote: post #35
theandrewbailey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any other examples? On the contrary, Elite Dangerous was received quite well. There is hype and scams all around in crowdfunded games, not just space ones, like Yogscast and Godus.

Before Star Citizen, Chris Roberts was working on Space Exploration/Trade/Combat game for Digital Anvil and Microsoft Game Studios - the Freelancer. He was ambitious, the features planned for game involved: - dynamic economy based by station/planetary production of goods, demand and supply (influenced by distances and space piracy) - known actors lending their voices to characters - hundreds of items and ships - mass…

I once read the Freelancer Wikipedia article, and started poking around. When Roberts announced Star Citizen a few years later, I recognized that it was what he had wanted to do about 12 years prior, before he wanted to do movies instead. I enjoyed Freelancer, and I joined in. All I've ever given him was $60: the price I would expect to pay for a very nice game.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#152

Post by Neeek »

danblick wrote: post #148
Neeek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you. It's not a reason I originally backed for but I've been increasingly more linux focused so it's something I'd love to see. PCI passthrough with KVM looks to be the solution for now, but it does mean having a chunk of machine resources reserved for windows :(

Worse, it would mean violating my Microsoft boycott. ;)

The horror!

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#153

Post by Aeolun »

Lev1a wrote: post #137
thesuitonym wrote: post #24

This will probably not be a well-liked response but I'm going to post it anyway. I preordered Star Citizen back in 2012 or 2013. Whenever the original Kickstarter was. I've kind of forgotten about it. I've never preordered another game--or anything really. And I don't think this was a bad experience. I haven't received a game yet, but I have played some demos that were really fun. I've seen hours of content (Sure, th…

About the only game in Steams Early Access program I would recommend to buy is Factorio[0]. It is essentially a factory building/automation game that's constantly getting updated, with one big patch about a week ago and several bugfix versions since. They are also open about their development process, i.e. some devs playing the game live with streamers and answering questions from the streamers and the chat to the be…

I'd add Software Inc. It's essentially a software building simulator, but it's very polished compared to your regular early access stuff.

Not quite Factorio level (yet) though.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#154

Post by Pyxl101 »

AlexC04 wrote: post #147
thesuitonym wrote: post #24

This will probably not be a well-liked response but I'm going to post it anyway. I preordered Star Citizen back in 2012 or 2013. Whenever the original Kickstarter was. I've kind of forgotten about it. I've never preordered another game--or anything really. And I don't think this was a bad experience. I haven't received a game yet, but I have played some demos that were really fun. I've seen hours of content (Sure, th…

I feel very much the same way about No Man's Sky. $80 (Canada) for a great gaming experience, but there was a massive blowback on that. To me, it was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Many people complained of 'lies, false advertising, vapour' etc... but to me it was great value for money.

People complained about those things because the makers of No Man's Sky repeatedly said untrue or misleading things about what content and features would be in the game -- things that we now know they must have known were false at the time (e.g. the talk of how other games cheat by using skyboxes while No Man's Sky simulates physics).

Here is a Reddit post that covers in great detail the claims made by No Man Sky's maker about the game's content, as compared to reality on launch:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4y1h9i/wheres_the_no...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/17/broken-promises-...

It may be that the game is perfectly fun for people as launched, but that's separate from the concern that the game's maker misrepresented it.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#155

Post by shusson »

Neeek wrote: post #122
shusson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your expectations are probably in line with reality, but Star Citizen does not sell itself as a casino. They entice you to spend money and promise you something great with little mention of risk. I really hope they create a great game, but like a start up that took on too much funding, I have grave concerns.

Is there development timeline really that absurd though? I'm sure there are plenty of AAA titles that have taken this long to get out the door, they just leave the announcement till sometime just before it's ready. I know that development times have drastically decreased in the past 10 years but still... I'd be skeptical if studio told me they were taking any LESS time with something this big. Editing to add that we'…

> Is there development timeline really that absurd though?

It's not clear to me what their development timeline is, although constant Alpha releases are promising.

> Editing to add that we're not even mentioning the fact that they are basically building a global development company...

I think this is where a lot of the risk exists. Normally a development studio grows by successfully releasing games (in terms of money). Star Citizen is in uncharted waters in that regard.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#156

Post by Neeek »

shusson wrote: post #155
Neeek wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there development timeline really that absurd though? I'm sure there are plenty of AAA titles that have taken this long to get out the door, they just leave the announcement till sometime just before it's ready. I know that development times have drastically decreased in the past 10 years but still... I'd be skeptical if studio told me they were taking any LESS time with something this big. Editing to add that we'…

> Is there development timeline really that absurd though? It's not clear to me what their development timeline is, although constant Alpha releases are promising. > Editing to add that we're not even mentioning the fact that they are basically building a global development company... I think this is where a lot of the risk exists. Normally a development studio grows by successfully releasing games (in terms of money…

That second point is true, though it's worth pointing out that the company has a tonne of experience in game development and a few other fields such as film production so I feel like it's a little different from a nobody startup trying to manage it all for the first time.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#157

Post by yellowapple »

Lev1a wrote: post #137
thesuitonym wrote: post #24

This will probably not be a well-liked response but I'm going to post it anyway. I preordered Star Citizen back in 2012 or 2013. Whenever the original Kickstarter was. I've kind of forgotten about it. I've never preordered another game--or anything really. And I don't think this was a bad experience. I haven't received a game yet, but I have played some demos that were really fun. I've seen hours of content (Sure, th…

About the only game in Steams Early Access program I would recommend to buy is Factorio[0]. It is essentially a factory building/automation game that's constantly getting updated, with one big patch about a week ago and several bugfix versions since. They are also open about their development process, i.e. some devs playing the game live with streamers and answering questions from the streamers and the chat to the be…

I think early access is a different situation from preordering, since the former gives you something right away, and that something is one which you can influence as a tester.

I've generally been pretty gung-ho with early access games if they have a Linux/SteamOS version available. Kerbal Space Program and Planet Explorers have taken weeks' worth of my time (and that time was enjoyable, even amid the bugs; in fact, the bugs were part of the reason why I enjoyed them). With both of those games, I had a chance to experience their evolution from alpha-quality-at-best to finished product. That's not an experience normally possible in the release cycle of a non-early-access game.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#158

Post by ehnto »

wavefunction wrote: post #34

Funny, people expressing their "concerns" became a bit of a meme on the Start Citizen forums in the early days. As far as the meat of the article, I've been following Star Citizen as a backer since the Kickstarter days. My take on the history of the game's development is that Cloud Imperium Games was kind of unfocused and spinning some wheels for a while at the start as they attempted to build a AAA studio from scrat…

I agree, it has definitely been a community driven scope creep as far as I am concered. We are getting what we asked for. Some of the communication has been disappointing but everyone is learning here, this is a big and new undertaking and there is no protocol.

I also don't understand how anyone could possibly want a worse game sooner outside of plain impatience. If you wait longer and the game is delivered near spec, it will be a better experience than if we get it earlier and sacrifice some features. To have both is ridiculous, it's not like they are twiddling their thumbs over there. They are progressing as fast as they can.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#159

Post by ehnto »

pinum wrote: post #61
mabbo wrote: post #4

I feel like crowdfunding sites ought to force each campaign to have a 'maximum funding' value they have to choose. That would both force the people building whatever it is they want to build to consider just how much money is too much, and also signal to those funding the project the kind of ambition the builder has.

A sibling comment pointed out that they did their own fundraising, but this is still a good point. The limit could be set to the highest defined stretch goal + n% to compensate for non-payers.

Considering the crowdfunding platform makes its money from these kinds of runaway successes in funding, I don't suspect they have much incentive to offer such a feature.

Re: Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It’s Raising Concerns

#160

Post by ehnto »

xxr wrote: post #45

Am I correct in my understanding that every dollar pledged essentially pushes the release further into the future since the developer is on the hook to add something extra with that dollar? Not that each dollar comes with a signed and sworn commitment, but more that the $500,000 game probably would have been out and actively enjoyed already.

That is how it has turned out yes. But do you want the $500,000 game now or the 140m game later? There are certainly other games to play while we wait, and we get the unique insight into the development of a game of this scale.

Also the new technologies being developed are truly quite interesting. Nested physics grids, context containers, a complete NPC AI ecosystem that itself is extremely ambitious.

The $500,000 game would have been fun, but just another space shooter. We have some of those already.

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