I will continue to subscribe to SC development for as long as it takes to make this the best space sim game ever.
I believe in Chris Roberts and his team and I follow the development closely, the game needs a constant flow of cash so why would they stop selling ships? The ships are just "bonus" stuff you get for helping fund the game, its not supposed to be you as a consumer buying something that will have the same value ingame when the game is released, you are getting something for helping fund this game.
I don't understand why that is such a hard concept for some people to understand, and why or how come some gamers think they are buying either a advantage and or thinking the ships will have that monetary value once the game is released, btw the game will not be released before 2016 at earliest so they will need to keep funding the game.
So if i want to give them lets say 1000$, they could either just take my money and give me nothing in return and I would be just as happy as if they filled my hangar with ships that I most likely will get ingame after just a few hours of playing the game.
I give CIG some of my money everymonth, and for that I do not really expect any of these "fluff" ships, I would be just as happy just getting the behind the scenes footage and development videos. Getting the ships, and the ship trailers is just a added bonus, and will not be of any real value once the game is released.
If you "only" want to play the game and not help with funding I suggest you pay the minimum amount to get into alpha/beta/persistent universe and then not buy any more ships until the game is released (around 2016).
If you want to help fund the game with your cash then I'm sure your happy your getting something extra everytime you hand over some of your cash while the game is being developed from the ground up.
If you do not think that funding this game is worth it, then by all means do not do it, but don't go around forums and create bad press for a great development team actually making a game that I for once really believe in, just because you do not understand whats really going on. This is not some moneygrab, all the information you could possibly need is there in their forums, in their spreadcheats, in their videos, its one of the most transparent and open development cycles of any game i'v ever seen!.
After they milk people with all their new and exciting ships to "buy" and now that income has obviously dried up now they try to get more money by claiming it is needed to continue development - and i am quite sure many people will pay up even more money.
It is great marketing as so many people are quite heavily invested in this game they want a return for that investment - but to get that return they now need to give more money. Best case scenario this shows bad management of the 50 million they were already given. Worst case well...
Im sorry, I had a long night and had to wake up early so I'm not in the best of moods, But this is just plain stupid. So the cashflow should stop...right...how are you going to do that? Are you going to ask a for profit company to stop making profit? Are you going to ask the consumer to stop...consuming? This to me is like those crazy hobos on the streets with a big "The end is near" sign. Futile...and stupid...
It just ocurred to me that those crying about SC succes didnt even pledge at all, As an investor point of view you would like to see the company you invested (pledged) to is growing and growing. But that's not the case here.
Just plain stupid I say....
You are comparing funding for a project to making profit on sales and are calling others stupid.
But yes, you are right, they are very successful into convincing people to give them money lol.
Oh, and you might want to look up the meaning of investor. Because pledging doesn't make you one. And the growth you are talking about is just a growing pile of money that has not lead to any substantial result yet. Investor, lol.
I think this is all very interesting. The pledgers range from sensible people to gullible idiots.
Sensible people, who willingly take a risk, knowing that their money might end up badly spent, but see a good idea and would like to help realising it and for that reason don't mind spending money. I can relate to that.
Then there is the other (my impression, larger) group that make up silly reasons for spending the money. They think they are investors, or they come up with the craziest comparisons of other ways to spend the same amount of money or other silly excuses. Meanwhile sometimes pledging money for amounts that you could buy several brand new games for. Talking as if they already got something in return. Or have some influence on the project or something. Well, good luck to you guys
A lot of people are going to get very rich by the time it's all said and done. The only questions are will there be a game at the end of all of this and will it be worth all the money the fans poured into it? Time will tell.
Originally posted by ChicagoCub A lot of people are going to get very rich by the time it's all said and done. The only questions are will there be a game at the end of all of this and will it be worth all the money the fans poured into it? Time will tell.
QFT, time will tell, until them no money from me until the game is released.
1. 50 million is not enough to make a high quality MMO not by a long shot.
2. statements of Cloud getting money from investors is old information. After a larger than expected early day kickstarter the developers decided to drop the idea of investor funding...100%.
3. I think the only people who expect to get a game because they gave money are actually the people not giving money. People who do give money understand the risk and are not expecting anything but are hoping for alot. In fact, unlike investing in Enron they know what they are getting into? (what is it with me an Enron)
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
What gives? Was his original pitch just a load of BS or is he still trying to play the little guy card despite having almost $50 million in the pot?
50 million is not actually that much for triple A, sure they can make more with it than within a publisher money but if the money
flow would stop right now, they could only push SC 1.0 release out the door and right afterwards, fire everyone and close the office
Elite: Dangerous looks, sounds and plays a lot better for a lot less and it will most likely be released this year. Star Citizen is not even in the same league.
----
Now explain to me again how Star citizen still needs more money if their "dogfight module" already is way below AAA quality.
What have they done with the $50 million so far? Produced fancy teasers and trailers to sell more spaceships, that is where all the money is going, it's smells like a ponzi scheme.
I love your posts, this is exactly why I havnet put any money into a kickstarter... because its an idea... nothing more till its actually created.
Biggest mmo con ever... BUt then again Darkfall actually did get released after how many years?
Originally posted by Wizardry Yes of course you always need money to survive as a business but if your game only costs 10-20 million under normal standards and yo uhave 50 million in over than above normal you have a TON of money to last until xpac sales.I don't think anyone really knows but my feeling is this is a VERY small team,the SLOW lack of content done so far is proof of that,either that or they have a very weak team working on the game.
According to CIG there are ~260 people working on the game with over half being internal.
It's a sizeable team, with internal yearly costs probably in the region of $10-20m/year?
Originally posted by DocBrody Originally posted by rpmcmurphyWhat gives? Was his original pitch just a load of BS or is he still trying to play the little guy card despite having almost $50 million in the pot?
what the hell are you talking about, game is supposed to run 10 years or longer, how should the initial budget last forever?
No it shouldn't.
Whats supposed to happen is a game is developed with funding, then once the project is completed run on its generated revenue.
It is absurd to expect that development funds should cover running costs for the next 10 years.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by grndzro Originally posted by rpmcmurphyWhen Roberts was cheerleading his fantasy to the media he claimed that crowdfunded dollars were worth 4-5x the amount that traditional funding was worth, ie 10 million crowdfunded was worth 40-50 million traditional.Star Citizen is currently sitting at $49 million so $196-245 million equivalent, yet in his latest newsletter he says "To sustain this level of development, we need to keep bringing in additional funds. Star Citizen is still much less than the other published backed AAA games that have similar levels of ambition (some would even say a little less :-) ) like GTA V, Watch Dogs or Destiny."What gives? Was his original pitch just a load of BS or is he still trying to play the little guy card despite having almost $50 million in the pot?
SC pretty much started from scratch. Brand new company. Bleeding edge equipment, software, and engine.
The current scope of SC is 10x what was initially planned for the kickstarter. Every aspect of SC is far beyond the initial plans. It should come as no surprise that the funding required increased drastically as well.
And who's fault is it they are in this situation? They should not of expanded the scope unless the funding was plausible.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by rpmcmurphyWhen Roberts was cheerleading his fantasy to the media he claimed that crowdfunded dollars were worth 4-5x the amount that traditional funding was worth, ie 10 million crowdfunded was worth 40-50 million traditional.Star Citizen is currently sitting at $49 million so $196-245 million equivalent, yet in his latest newsletter he says "To sustain this level of development, we need to keep bringing in additional funds. Star Citizen is still much less than the other published backed AAA games that have similar levels of ambition (some would even say a little less :-) ) like GTA V, Watch Dogs or Destiny."What gives? Was his original pitch just a load of BS or is he still trying to play the little guy card despite having almost $50 million in the pot?
SC pretty much started from scratch. Brand new company. Bleeding edge equipment, software, and engine.
The current scope of SC is 10x what was initially planned for the kickstarter. Every aspect of SC is far beyond the initial plans. It should come as no surprise that the funding required increased drastically as well.
And who's fault is it they are in this situation? They should not of expanded the scope unless the funding was plausible.
again wrong, the "initial scope" was getting 2 million and only doing Squadron 42, the single player campaign, and get money for the whole MMO persisten universe part, later from investors and box sales
The scope of SC and the whole game design was always the same only CR got the budget quicker than expected and entirely from the crowd.
Just look at the original stretch goals, nothing major new has been added, just more variety, more systems, more ships. No feature creep anywhere.
Or point out ONE thing, just one, that is supposed to be such a terrible feature creep that came after KS campaign ended?
There is zero, nada.
The only major addition was adding procedural generation , and the full scale procedural planets and star systems that are planned for Star Citizen will come well after the initial release is out.
Things like all of the FPS content seem to be missing?
Nope, avatar gameplay was always part of the concept from day 1
Then came the tactical ship boarding FPS gameplay, already with initial 3.5 million stretch goal and shortly after, the enhanced FPS features
$3,500,000
Cockpit decorations – Turn your stock cockpit into your home with personalized decorations; amaze your friends with bobbleheads, photographs, dinosaurs, fuzzy dice, nose art, posters and many more cool options!
Ship boarding – learn more about how Star Citizen will allow players to conduct boarding operations.
$5,000,000
Enhanced boarding options: melee combat, heavy weapons, zero gravity simulation, suit HUD options and EVA combat.
It´s all initial campaign stuff. I tell you , the whole "feature creep" talk is a lie and 100% BS
Originally posted by DocBrody Originally posted by NitthOriginally posted by grndzroOriginally posted by rpmcmurphyWhen Roberts was cheerleading his fantasy to the media he claimed that crowdfunded dollars were worth 4-5x the amount that traditional funding was worth, ie 10 million crowdfunded was worth 40-50 million traditional.Star Citizen is currently sitting at $49 million so $196-245 million equivalent, yet in his latest newsletter he says "To sustain this level of development, we need to keep bringing in additional funds. Star Citizen is still much less than the other published backed AAA games that have similar levels of ambition (some would even say a little less :-) ) like GTA V, Watch Dogs or Destiny."What gives? Was his original pitch just a load of BS or is he still trying to play the little guy card despite having almost $50 million in the pot?
SC pretty much started from scratch. Brand new company. Bleeding edge equipment, software, and engine.The current scope of SC is 10x what was initially planned for the kickstarter. Every aspect of SC is far beyond the initial plans. It should come as no surprise that the funding required increased drastically as well. And who's fault is it they are in this situation? They should not of expanded the scope unless the funding was plausible. again wrong, the "initial scope" was getting 2 million and only doing Squadron 42, the single player campaign, and get money for the whole MMO persisten universe part, later from investors and box sales
The scope of SC and the whole game design was always the same only CR got the budget quicker than expected and entirely from the crowd.
Just look at the original stretch goals, nothing major new has been added, just more variety, more systems, more ships. No feature creep anywhere.
Or point out ONE thing, just one, that is supposed to be such a terrible feature creep that came after KS campaign ended?
There is zero, nada.
The only major addition was adding procedural generation , and the full scale procedural planets and star systems that are planned for Star Citizen will come well after the initial release is out.
I dont know where you getting this "again, wrong" thing from because i have replied once to you.
In regards to the post, If they are having delays and having to re-calculate the development pipeline they should not of promised features they will have difficulty delivering on.
There are several features they have promised that has an unknown status and may well be cut in the future.
I'm not interested in hearing "poor us give us more money" if they failed to accurately calculate costs and production metrics.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade Sounds more like he underestimated just how expensive the project would be.
No, he just underestimated how much he likes money.
Game went from "having 18 ships" at launch, too "I want to have a hundred ships at launch" lol. Basically he found out that a ship a month equals a million or more.
Though I have no doubt he's going to build the game, but he is living pretty large(compared to companies that have to come up with capital via ideas and investors). I wonder what the CEO over at CIG's annual salary looks like?
Maybe the cost of the game went up, because well their salaries went up as well?
Maybe CR was going to originally make 50k a year, now he can afford a six figure salary. Same with a lot of the "good ol boys" he's brought with him.
Don't know, not a shareholder, so I couldn't judge their budget.
However one thing has changed; Ship sales is the game now.
As for feature creep; I would love to see feature creep, since you know, double the money hasn't doubled the game or halved the time frame for development.
Star Citizen is approaching only 55 million $, that is chump change
470 full time employees, you do the math
Well apparently you can't do the math.
CIG have 270 employees, not 470. Those employees is counting the other companies employees that CIG are paying to create different aspects of the game.
Of that 500mil, only 150 million was for the creation of the game. The rest of it is marketing and founding for DLC.
He should work on an engine that can sustain the mmo part, but mostly focus on finalizing the single player part of the game.
Once he has finished the single player part he can release the game with a mediocre mmo aspect that has at least balanced pvp for dog fights, but work on other aspects of SC.
I think its the only way to manage his funds and development to succeed in developing quality in a better time frame. Trying to develop both at the same time would be an amazing feat and set a new precedent in my mind with how devs can manage limited funds compared to toher games and MMOs.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Comments
i'm gonna go build my own theme park! with blackjack! and hookers!
infact, forget the park!
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
I bet the pleasure/gambling planet in SC will have interesting strip clubs..
I will continue to subscribe to SC development for as long as it takes to make this the best space sim game ever.
I believe in Chris Roberts and his team and I follow the development closely, the game needs a constant flow of cash so why would they stop selling ships? The ships are just "bonus" stuff you get for helping fund the game, its not supposed to be you as a consumer buying something that will have the same value ingame when the game is released, you are getting something for helping fund this game.
I don't understand why that is such a hard concept for some people to understand, and why or how come some gamers think they are buying either a advantage and or thinking the ships will have that monetary value once the game is released, btw the game will not be released before 2016 at earliest so they will need to keep funding the game.
So if i want to give them lets say 1000$, they could either just take my money and give me nothing in return and I would be just as happy as if they filled my hangar with ships that I most likely will get ingame after just a few hours of playing the game.
I give CIG some of my money everymonth, and for that I do not really expect any of these "fluff" ships, I would be just as happy just getting the behind the scenes footage and development videos. Getting the ships, and the ship trailers is just a added bonus, and will not be of any real value once the game is released.
If you "only" want to play the game and not help with funding I suggest you pay the minimum amount to get into alpha/beta/persistent universe and then not buy any more ships until the game is released (around 2016).
If you want to help fund the game with your cash then I'm sure your happy your getting something extra everytime you hand over some of your cash while the game is being developed from the ground up.
If you do not think that funding this game is worth it, then by all means do not do it, but don't go around forums and create bad press for a great development team actually making a game that I for once really believe in, just because you do not understand whats really going on. This is not some moneygrab, all the information you could possibly need is there in their forums, in their spreadcheats, in their videos, its one of the most transparent and open development cycles of any game i'v ever seen!.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
After they milk people with all their new and exciting ships to "buy" and now that income has obviously dried up now they try to get more money by claiming it is needed to continue development - and i am quite sure many people will pay up even more money.
It is great marketing as so many people are quite heavily invested in this game they want a return for that investment - but to get that return they now need to give more money. Best case scenario this shows bad management of the 50 million they were already given. Worst case well...
You are comparing funding for a project to making profit on sales and are calling others stupid.
But yes, you are right, they are very successful into convincing people to give them money lol.
Oh, and you might want to look up the meaning of investor. Because pledging doesn't make you one. And the growth you are talking about is just a growing pile of money that has not lead to any substantial result yet. Investor, lol.
I think this is all very interesting. The pledgers range from sensible people to gullible idiots.
Sensible people, who willingly take a risk, knowing that their money might end up badly spent, but see a good idea and would like to help realising it and for that reason don't mind spending money. I can relate to that.
Then there is the other (my impression, larger) group that make up silly reasons for spending the money. They think they are investors, or they come up with the craziest comparisons of other ways to spend the same amount of money or other silly excuses. Meanwhile sometimes pledging money for amounts that you could buy several brand new games for. Talking as if they already got something in return. Or have some influence on the project or something. Well, good luck to you guys
well said
http://youtu.be/NA22XEuuR-U
QFT, time will tell, until them no money from me until the game is released.
want 7 free days of playing? Try this
http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
a few points on this string.
1. 50 million is not enough to make a high quality MMO not by a long shot.
2. statements of Cloud getting money from investors is old information. After a larger than expected early day kickstarter the developers decided to drop the idea of investor funding...100%.
3. I think the only people who expect to get a game because they gave money are actually the people not giving money. People who do give money understand the risk and are not expecting anything but are hoping for alot. In fact, unlike investing in Enron they know what they are getting into? (what is it with me an Enron)
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I love your posts, this is exactly why I havnet put any money into a kickstarter... because its an idea... nothing more till its actually created.
Biggest mmo con ever... BUt then again Darkfall actually did get released after how many years?
According to CIG there are ~260 people working on the game with over half being internal.
It's a sizeable team, with internal yearly costs probably in the region of $10-20m/year?
what the hell are you talking about, game is supposed to run 10 years or longer, how should the initial budget last forever?
No it shouldn't.
Whats supposed to happen is a game is developed with funding, then once the project is completed run on its generated revenue.
It is absurd to expect that development funds should cover running costs for the next 10 years.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
The current scope of SC is 10x what was initially planned for the kickstarter. Every aspect of SC is far beyond the initial plans. It should come as no surprise that the funding required increased drastically as well.
And who's fault is it they are in this situation?
They should not of expanded the scope unless the funding was plausible.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
again wrong, the "initial scope" was getting 2 million and only doing Squadron 42, the single player campaign, and get money for the whole MMO persisten universe part, later from investors and box sales
The scope of SC and the whole game design was always the same only CR got the budget quicker than expected and entirely from the crowd.
Just look at the original stretch goals, nothing major new has been added, just more variety, more systems, more ships. No feature creep anywhere.
Or point out ONE thing, just one, that is supposed to be such a terrible feature creep that came after KS campaign ended?
There is zero, nada.
The only major addition was adding procedural generation , and the full scale procedural planets and star systems that are planned for Star Citizen will come well after the initial release is out.
You can look at the original stretch goals using web.archive.org on the URL https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
Things like all of the FPS content seem to be missing?
Nope, avatar gameplay was always part of the concept from day 1
Then came the tactical ship boarding FPS gameplay, already with initial 3.5 million stretch goal and shortly after, the enhanced FPS features
$3,500,000
$5,000,000
And who's fault is it they are in this situation? They should not of expanded the scope unless the funding was plausible.
again wrong, the "initial scope" was getting 2 million and only doing Squadron 42, the single player campaign, and get money for the whole MMO persisten universe part, later from investors and box sales
The scope of SC and the whole game design was always the same only CR got the budget quicker than expected and entirely from the crowd.
Just look at the original stretch goals, nothing major new has been added, just more variety, more systems, more ships. No feature creep anywhere.
Or point out ONE thing, just one, that is supposed to be such a terrible feature creep that came after KS campaign ended?
There is zero, nada.
The only major addition was adding procedural generation , and the full scale procedural planets and star systems that are planned for Star Citizen will come well after the initial release is out.
I dont know where you getting this "again, wrong" thing from because i have replied once to you.
In regards to the post, If they are having delays and having to re-calculate the development pipeline they should not of promised features they will have difficulty delivering on.
There are several features they have promised that has an unknown status and may well be cut in the future.
I'm not interested in hearing "poor us give us more money" if they failed to accurately calculate costs and production metrics.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
This is probably close to the truth. I imagine it is very hard to predict costs in this field.
I self identify as a monkey.
I wouldn't exactly say that. They started with the Cryengine, so the foundation was largely there. Most of the basics were already done.
No, he just underestimated how much he likes money.
Game went from "having 18 ships" at launch, too "I want to have a hundred ships at launch" lol. Basically he found out that a ship a month equals a million or more.
Though I have no doubt he's going to build the game, but he is living pretty large(compared to companies that have to come up with capital via ideas and investors). I wonder what the CEO over at CIG's annual salary looks like?
Maybe the cost of the game went up, because well their salaries went up as well?
Maybe CR was going to originally make 50k a year, now he can afford a six figure salary. Same with a lot of the "good ol boys" he's brought with him.
Don't know, not a shareholder, so I couldn't judge their budget.
However one thing has changed; Ship sales is the game now.
As for feature creep; I would love to see feature creep, since you know, double the money hasn't doubled the game or halved the time frame for development.
Destiny: 500 million $
go ask them "What's with all the money"
Star Citizen is approaching only 55 million $, that is chump change
470 full time employees, you do the math
Well apparently you can't do the math.
CIG have 270 employees, not 470. Those employees is counting the other companies employees that CIG are paying to create different aspects of the game.
Of that 500mil, only 150 million was for the creation of the game. The rest of it is marketing and founding for DLC.
He should work on an engine that can sustain the mmo part, but mostly focus on finalizing the single player part of the game.
Once he has finished the single player part he can release the game with a mediocre mmo aspect that has at least balanced pvp for dog fights, but work on other aspects of SC.
I think its the only way to manage his funds and development to succeed in developing quality in a better time frame. Trying to develop both at the same time would be an amazing feat and set a new precedent in my mind with how devs can manage limited funds compared to toher games and MMOs.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble