Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Citizen hits 58 million $ in crowdfunding
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
It's almost like putting a bit of money into Star Citizen has become trendy now; even if you don't plan to play it.
I'll believe that $58 million actually went into the game when I see it because all I see right now is a lot of hot air.
For the love of god will you retarded Elite Dangerous fans leave us SC supporters alone...
With all your SC bashing I actually hope ED goes down in flames. Otherwise I might have actually supported ED.
You are doing no one any favors with your holy quest....Just giving ED a bad rep.
What really have been keeping their growing "in money", is the backers #2 and #3.
Their population also does not grow in any relevant manner, for real.
Its more like a snow ball effect with years of the same people, highly invested from the beginning, buying more ships by using different accounts, creating different accounts for hype purposes (both higher and lower investors), or to have more votes in polls (sometimes paying money through such accounts, sometimes not, because it does not matter in terms of voting in polls if you are backer or not, and they are added to their counter anyway).
Seriously. I would not be surprised that for real, they had less backers (people) than E:D.
If you try to think for example, logically, or in trends, realities, you do not see any reason for some people backing SC and not backing E:D for example, that is a much more completed game.
Besides, SC always make you stuck in that poor ship, unless you pay for more expensive ships. And their offers were not exactly good to attract new people, just see for example, the current offer, that you have to pay 45 + 5 + 5 + 5... to get access to their earlier modules with a ship that definitely does not motivate you to play it (As soon as they be released), until Beta.
So, how a person, with a detachment of the "chris roberts'" name, otherwise he or she would have come earlier, would be convinced to risk such money now, to be stuck for years with a poor level ship, or not even playing any earlier module, and wathing and accepting all this taking of "no compromise", delay of 2 or more years, vague speech about a scope that grew, but at the same time denying that because the additions are told as not for the day 1, and at the same time, refusing to pledge for E:D (which have no shame to show its real stats), a more complete game, that don't let you stuck in any moment, and its fair, since everyone starts from the same point, and it does not need to last high-end machine to play it, and comfing form a dev team that actually show compromise and show no interest to encourage people to spend the money of real houses and cars in virtual imaginations.
Well... it does not make any sense, since an exponential number of thousands of people came later (with detachment of the CR name certainly) but in a much larger number of what they got originally, and decided to pay for SC (not for ED), and also decided do not play SC, since its own in-game stats show a very tiny % (about 3) of people that ever tried their multiplayer maps,
It sounds the trend, a real scenario, a reality, in what world?
I mean. You just need to think as a new customer would think. And CIG claims or show that number with the idea that about 20k new player come since an year later after the original campaign ended.
Isn't obvious that the CIG stats of # of backers/players are totaly false?
E:D stats are definitely a fact, and I have no doubt, after a long investigation, that E:D has more players (active or not) and a larger community than CIG/Star Citizen actually have.
Not a coincidence that you won't see any mention to # of players in that record that CIG was registered in the Guiness Book. You will see only the reference to money acquired through their own website, and won't mention the sice of the crowd, when in other records in a prevoius page, still taking about crowd-funding, they actually mentioned in those cases the size of the crowd.
The CIG Forums for example, is another evidence... you will see that thing never growing.
Its curiosu that despite three or four times that they got after the original campaign ended, you always will see almost all the time the same people talking about the game, and never growing in any proportion with those 20k new backers/month that they claim to get since an year now, despite some tentaives easily detected of old backers pretending to be new ones in those forums, all the time trying to sell this game based not in the game itself, but based in a "popularity" that it never had for real.
they won't stop the thread derailing until mmorpg.com does something about it and finally starts banning advertising trolls trying to freeride on SC's public interest.
So, CR, after saying that would honor the "community's choice", decided to dishonor such choice of the community, that in the poll made, asked to keep receiving dates?
WoW! That's a new one.
You think insult attempts like that will get your account in a healthy standing this time?
I assume that you never read or really checked the original description of Star Citizen, since what you said is a big falacy.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
"
Funded! This project was successfully funded on November 19, 2012.
The people who pledge for their spaceships will get to test-fly them long before the general public. 12 months in, we will allow the early backers to play the multiplayer space combat Alpha, and then 20-22 months in they will get to play the Star Citizen Beta, adventuring around the huge open galaxy, well before the general public.
"
Meaning that Alpha where you could fly with whatever ship that you bought (not available yet), should be ready by November 2013, while the Beta PU, where you could adventure yourself in a huge open galaxy should be released between July and September 2014... and the full relese was pointed to November 2014.
And its a blalantly lie to say that the game described there was a "2 million dollars game". This quantity was a point to start the project to be made, and according with the section Risks and Challenges, if the money was not achieved, both the minimum and the stretch goals, they would cut things/ideas for the release 1.0 and possibly made that slowly. Here's a part of the advertising:
"We are aiming for a AAA game experience. But depending on the funding levels reached, we may have to limit the experience for the initially released game version. "
And finally to put an definitive end in your falacies, about a "2 million dollars" game, and the prove that CR promised to deliver his full dream by November 2014 (and Alpha by nov/2013 and Beta between july/september 2014):
Can you explain the stretch goals?
The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at a time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations and cinematic sequences.
See? Here he associated that achieving that quantity of money related to the SG's presented (that was about 5.5 million dollars in that time), that would make sure to release in the period of 2 years, and ONLY IF the money was not achieved, they would have to make it "one piece at a time", meaning a slow development.
And here comes the reaiity. They gathered much more money (10 times), did not add really too much things (since by their own speech, all those additions that came later, most of them were already planned and were just revealed, while others are not really for the day 1), a lot of things are like a requirement so they deliver what they really promised in that text, so, they are not really "improvements because money", but needs if you want to deliver something "10x with more fidelity than any current AAA", and despite all that, totally contradicting their earlier promises, they are going not to release in the 2 year time period, but are going to delay the full game in at least 2 years, as well as almost anything that they promised for earlier (Alpha, Beta, SQ42) is coming with at the minimum of the 6 months delays of Alpha, SQ42 probalby will have at least 1 years of delay from the original dates presented (in earlier interviews) to start to appear, and Beta probably 2 years of delay, all this shared by the own Chris Roberts in interviews to magazines.
Happy coincidence is that making it much larger development than was initially proposed, CR won years, instead a couple of months to sell ships exclusively acquired by real money, without any competition with gameplay acquisition mode. Its possibly just a coincidence that their income is basically all, from the beginning, based on these ship sales, additional to the packages, in other words, they do not sell copies of the game in any relevant manner compared with how they sell additional ships for people with packages already.
But obviously CR is this nice guy, this saint (that sells ships by $600 dollars, $400 dollars, $1000 dollars). Who dare to raise the idea that all these delays and slow development are actually in purpose to have more time to sell ships. Who dares!
He is just a lucky guy that makes more profit when the things goes wrong. A lot of coincidences that all the time means less sooner results for their players, taking more and mroe time to achieve that point where the "gameplay acquisition mode" will be done, and more time to sell ships. So lucky guy!
I also found very interesting their in-fiction explanation of the Arena Commander module, to justify the fact that people have actually to own the real ship (900 year ahead of the current days), to be able to play that in-fiction video-game, so, they simply can't, are unable to provide to people the ability to earn ships on AC. Poor guys. They would like to be good, but you know... the fiction is holding them!
This whole situation of asking continuously money and making limited-sales of ships, and keeping hampering the experience of the people in-game for years, since they don't have the option to acquire ships by gameplay in any time soon (when that would be the case by now if they had respected their original schedule promised), its very curious, considering the earlier speech of Chris Roberts:
"What I don’t like is sort of the zinger-style gameplay that hampers your experience to force you to basically encourage you to pay money. So I think that sucks. So I don’t want that."
What makes it more funny is that following the logic of CR above, he basically defines his current modules, since the Hangar Module and now with the AC Module, that both suck, after all, he continues to force people to basically encourage them to pay money, since both Hangar and AC are currently (and for years ahead) zinger-style games that hampers your experience unless you pay more real money for.
oh my... that whole situation... of almost 300 employees continuously asking for money each month... these terrible, greedy employees, like programmers, graphics artists, project managers, writers, concept artists..
keep the hate flowing "jcrg99", your daily smear campaign around multiple sites will destroy Star Citizen, have no mercy!
Earlier you said that they had enough money to make the full game, even if the development stops to receive any dime now, and apparently, it will easily sell millions of copies after release.
Now, you justify the need of keep asking for funds and encouraging their current backers as more as insanely possible to give more and more (despite been 3 times above the budget, per the CEO of the company) to pay salaries.
I am confuse.
asking for funds? who is asking?
at least they don't send out begging newsletters, should they also shut down the pledge store and cutoff the cash flow if 1000 new backers per day want to preorder the game, or old backers want to pledge more to get an add on ship or a T-Shirt? Has CR robbed you in a dark alley forced you to buy a Constellation? Come on tell us the whole ugly story how Chris Roberts ASKED YOU for money then stole your wallet! X,-D
"1000 new backers per day "
That won't play the game, right? 1000 new backers per day that never care to give it a try.
Of course.
Who is asking for funds? Heh! You do not give a rest right. You have to be high all the time.
It seems that some people of the community noticed a curious gap in the CIG charts:
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/3629676/#Comment_3629676
During the last week, it was showing 30k-day of money earned by them. Monday, 30k, Tuesday, something similar, etc...
and then, more to the end of the week the money earned per day changed from more or less 30k to 60 to 70k, but not just in that day. It changed retroactively and all days of the week now "raised" to 60 to 70k.
Which means that its just not odd that "new" people are coming in "1k per day" and never caring to play the game, or even give it a try, but it seems that some of these newcomers or even some old backers, buying more stuff, have this incredible ability to go back in time before pledging
And what would be the point of that conspiracy ? I am one of those that invested in the game but don't care about playing a pre-alpha.
No they just send out "Hey we're having a limited time sale!! Get it while it's hot!!! ONLY $600, offer expires midnight Monday!! (will be re-run next month)" accompanied by wasting backer funds on a crappy video for "lore" reasons instead.
limited time sales are not conspiratorial rather fairly common.
I dont think SC is deceiving anyone, I just think they are way over their head which is completely different
Personally I dont care about deadlines - missed or not.
I am perfectly happy when this game comes out "when its done" .. be it 2016 or 2018. When all promised features have been implemented and are running efficiently and quickly, having been playtested, bug-fixed and balanced extensively.
I waited 11 years for this (since Privateer) or 17 years (since the last Wing Commander) .. whats another year or two if its a GOOD, BALANCED and TESTED game in a PERSISTENT universe.
Have fun
I´m fine if we get Episode I of Squadron 42 sometime in 2015
2018..I hope not, but if that´s what it takes. Still have lots of PS3 games I haven´t played through, to pass the time. Plus several MMOs like Archeage I haven´t even checked out yet.
for SC up next is the FPS module and from there it should really start coming together as the mechanics are mostly in place for refinement, testing and optimization
the problem with deadlines when it comes to crowdfunding is that nearly 100% of the cost is associated with time.
peoples wages, building costs etc.
So if I tell you I can get XYZ done for X dollars I base that dollar figure off of time. longer it takes the more expensive it costs.
as a result SC is not able to deliever
Everything he promised to deliver he can do with (IMHO) the first 50 M$.
(update: why 50 M$ ? --> 200 people, 3 years, 50-60k$ salaries, working expenses for studio and computers etc., PR, travel)
Every buck beyond that is icing on the cake. Money that goes into polishing the persistent universe or
....GASP ....
**Profit** ;-) even people like Chris MAY want to earn some personal money too ....who would have guessed ....
They are not conspiracy. They are stats. Stop to call them "conspiracy".
Of course you are. Of course some people have some reason. But assuming that the "majority", hundreds of thousands of people, almost all them, 99%, would not put their fingers in the game to at least give it a single try in multiplayer is seriously, very seriously out of any reality or trend.
And you have to consider that most of them (the great majority of these "thousands") came and paid for the game very very later of when it was announced, which means that hardly they are "fans of Chris Roberts", meaning that people came more for the game, instead to pay for whatever CR will do (if they were real people)...
"Ok, I am go to pay for this game and lemme check how its going, let me download it and take a look, lemme check in what status the multiplayer is going, to evaluate my current connection with that game (after all, it intends to be an MMO), a single, just one try for god sake... Nooooooooooo... it must be 99% of them hating to do that, just like you).
We can be ok that the majority of the people won't continue to play, but not giving a single try, under the circumstances above, the scenario above, is very very difficult to believe. I am sorry. Maybe you feel bad for that, but you are an exception, just like the minority of the people that spend their days in the CIG Forums that are hardly to be a representation of the feedback of all these "phantoms" (of course... the reality is that they actually ARE representative, because the rest, the great majority of the rest, are actually phantoms).
I am sorry but you people simply deny things. Just that. It's pretty obvious what is going on, since a long time. The point? Its that they use their stats to promote a false popularity of the game. A popularity that the game does not have. With 2 objectives:
1-) To promote the game calling attention of the press, since it does not help just saying that just 5k people in average of a presumed population of 600k actualy buy your stuff continuously;
2-) To motivate the own group that pays more, to pay more, thinking that "it's not just them" and as more as they do their stuff, more they contribute to "promote the game" and attract all those thousands more. "We are victorious" was always the plan of this crowd-funding campaign, from the beginning. They made a lot of "challenges" and painted their campaign almost like a Hollywood movie story that must to have a good ending... best than that... an "epic" ending.. whatever the real result would be and actually was.
They are fine on making money from a few whales. But after release, if they intent to keep themselves and a level of income to keep a team to make all those promised things that only will come later after release, in a timely manner (as CR mentioned in a Gamespot interview), they will fail hard on presume that pissing of and making their image worst and worst that they already have today between the "potential backers" (the majority of them disliking their money grabbing attitude), they will receive people looking to them with good eyes and "willing to help" as these whales are willing.
Not even half of them will continue probably, and the great majority between "new players" and "old backers that waited" will look into it with more critical eyes, not so forgiven as their whales usually are and with the things available in-game, hardly will have reasons to give them more money (as they don't have and don't give them, even now).
And no! CR won't give up of his money to keep a game for a few (its very romantic to believe on that, considering that in reality, is very easy to him, later, to present a letter saying that spend most of the money or something like that, or that needs more, after all, all these whales always ignore what he wrote and said before, almost like suffering of amnesia). In summary, he is just making profit, tons of that, and that would not be any problem... except that he is delaying the game, the core of that, as more as possible, in purpose for that, to fit with a larger schedule to have more time to sell ships, and that's visible for the majority of those with eyes to see.
You can refuse to see, don't care... whatever... but that's your choice. Still, you can't call it conspiracy unless that you don't live on Earth, and just like a great number of people that lives under the CIG walls, eternally in denial, and that created an alternative reality to explain trends that does not fit.
So it's impossible that most people are the same as me, but you are certain that most of them would act the way you say ?
I don't even know what you are trying to say ... stats can take time to compile, that trend you noticed, been going on for a long time, I noticed it like 6 months ago. But I didn't make anything out of it, simply because they have nothing to gain by voluntarily hidding the numbers.
So what exactly am I refusing to see ? What is it that I am missing that gets you so riled up ?
You don't need to wait too much years anymore for something like that...
just sayin'
It's kind of something that the people who support the game always say, when they delay any single thing... just to see, when they release that delayed thing, that it was barely working in the point of such release, and became continuously not working for months.
But maybe this theory of "because it will be good, balanced and tested" start to become a reality when people decided to stop to give them money and see how they react.
Because definitely they would have to react, right? Maybe... you know... delivering more, with more quality because it will be more important to them? Been more effective? Knowing that now, they have to stick to deliver something, to win more money instead continuously making MORE money with draws instead realities?
Who knows?
The only thing that I know that people loves to say to defend them sometimes, that they are "a business", and what a hell is the problem with making money... but they forgot that they are in the side of the "customers" (at least they should be if they were a little more smart) and in this case, they should be a little more smart in how to treat such business or how to give prizes to such business for what they do.
You know. It must to tell you something when they make so much and more money with a draw and so few money with a ship delivered in reality. Maybe they are not so "awesome" when they show their results as you think. People really should focus more in what is good for the game and for the image of the company, his future, instead just looking to what is good for the dev's pockets, with money that obviously won't be spend in the game (unless they end to have a massive success, that they don't have today and have no trend showing that will, to justify to spend the profit made).
In any case, if people stopped that would be the best for the project, since CR seem do not have any responsibility with his own company/project, in his attitude of constantly saying that "he has no compromise" (when he actually made a compromise, a very well and clearly described compromise by the way, that he is not accomplishing and is far from that).
I disagree of this budget. Based in the own Chris Roberts statements.
Curious fact is that CR even mentioned, at the beginning of his own campaign, how clueless the majority of the people are when giving some examples about the cost of the games, for real, and to prove to people, in that time, that he would able to create his "full vision" with the money that he had in that time.
Later, he also said that needed 20-23 to make the full game. Nothing after that, in terms of stretch goals, really could justify so much additions of millions (3 times above of that).
Later in the 41 million letter, he get back and said that he had both the full development and to keep the servers already covered.
So, I am more like believe in his statement that 20-23 is going to be spend. I would say 30, if they spend even more, or considering some things to be made after release already presented.
Let's just remember that he continuously say that almost all those additional stretch goals are not for the day 1, which at the same time makes him to give that excuse that "there is no feature creep", makes him with no excuse to delay the game twice the time that he proposed initially (which for who understand his marketing behavior, knows that it was just a bait, because he definitely would not like to say that "the game would take 5/6 years in that time", so he prefered to say that if the got all the higher stretch goals, that would make sure him to release in 2 years, and if he did not take that money, then, only then he would make it slow).
The profit party started long ago. Actually, no dev or people that work for anything in this industry do that for "charity"... so in fact... even in the 20-23 budget, profit was already part of this (they just don't say openly because it does not help in the marketing message, that in the case of Roberts always involve to paint himself as an "angel" and others of the industry as "evil").