While I’m still hopeful that something of value, and maybe even something great, comes from this project – it’s difficult to disagree that the way Star Citizen has evolved to be focused so much into perpetual fundraising through selling digital assets is a positive development, because even if Chris Roberts and crew are completely acting in good faith, if this mode of operation continues there will be some tremendous future scams conducted by less honorable or competent individuals.
It’s not a good funding model, period. It has all the ingredients of a Ponzi scheme (continually soliciting for additional money and being dependent upon doing so - and if they are unable to keep getting additional money, they will be in breach of the promises they’ve already given to prior “investors” - i.e. “pay this amount to pre-order a game you’ll get later” when that isn’t, and may never have been, the case.)
Leinad
4489
But there really was no other way for them to get a project like this funded, so are people suggesting that everyone should go back to EA and co.?
This funding model has of course negative sides too, like any funding model. There is just no perfect way to do this expect some rich guy just deciding to spend his personal wealth.
Comparing it to a Ponzi scheme is also disingenuous and kinda offending to people who are victims to real cases of fraud and not internet hyperbole.
To me it seems a lot of people already have made up their mind and aren’t even able to look at this project with any objectivity anymore. You get stuff like people saying there is no progress made and that’s just crazy. I haven’t even followed their development that closely but the amount of stuff they already got done is amazing, especially when it comes to their tech.
I think people really understimate what they are doing and want (wish) to see malice where at worst it’s just work overload on their part.
Look at a project like The Mandate (I put 20$ into that, I haven’t given anything to SC so far) which is REAL vaporware and never even gave a fraction of the information about their development that SC did.
Sometimes to me it seems those SC discussions aren’t even about the game or its development anymore. It’s about people trying to save face because they decided to pick a side in an internet argument and now feel obliged to stick to their position no matter what.
The problem is they saw how much money this particular funding scheme was giving them and crazily expanded the scope of the game to unreasonable levels to keep the money flowing in.
If they had just stuck to the original scope there’s a real chance it could have been released already.
Or if they had decent project management that wasn’t trying to create 3 games at one time.
Timex
4491
Especially considering they basically had to build the whole studio from the ground up to do it.
I don’t think the expansion was made with the goal of keeping money flowing in… I think the expansion was made because it’s the game Chris Roberts wants to make. I mean, it’s the game he’s wanted to make for ages.
That’s kind of why I gave him some of my money. Because it’s the game I’d like to play.
And really, I understand the skepticism. I never encourage anyone to give money to the project. You’re not buying a game, you’re funding the effort. If you think it’s a bad effort, stay out of the pool.
There are no doubt folks who have contributed tons of money and are “pot committed” at this point… although I think those folks are incredibly rare, with most folks just paying in around the cost of a normal game. But there seem to be a few folks are pot committed on the other side, where they’ve entrenched themselves in a belief that the game simply MUST fail now, to the extent of ignoring the tangible progress which has already been made.
Leinad
4492
But who is the judge for what is reasonable? It’s also not like people didn’t want to see the scope of the game extended and noone ever said they didn’t want to do that if possible.
Of course they could have released something a lot smaller but so what? When the original X-Com was made Julian Gollop never even had a strategic layer in mind and that idea was “forced” upon him by MicroProse (they were known for their strategic elements so they wanted to have it in X-Com too). Great games aren’t produced if you settle for the minimum and the “original” scope would have been enough for another Elite Dangerous but is that REALLY what people wanted?
Chris Roberts and co. dreamt big from the beginning, they never tried to sell something small, it was always clear to everyone that he wanted to do much more than he could with Wing Commander (and his other games) back in the day and that’s why they kept adding new goals.
It’s not like anyone was mislead what their real goal is, it was always just a question of whether or not they can raise enough funds to do everything they had in mind. I mean that’s the nature of crowdfunding, isn’t it?
It seems now pretty wrong to complain about the nature of the beast. The “scope” of crowdfunded games can obviously change dramatically but that is to be expected and is actually a good thing.
I know it isn’t “cool” not to be as cynical as possible on the internet but I rather see someone try “three games at once” and push the boundaries than another AAA game that is forgotten within months of its release.
People then have to decide themselfs how much money such a project is worth to them including the risks that it might amount to nothing or might just not become what they would have hoped but that’s always the case no matter how big or small the project would have been (and due to better scaling it’s easier to finish a big project with big money than a small project with a small amount of money).
Sorry, I’m going to be “super cool” here for a second:
So, now that we’re approaching 3 years past planned release and there’s a lot of actual evidence towards them having money trouble, we’re all still super confident and love Chris Roberts?
Just checking.
I’d stake reasonable money on the idea that more games have failed from unconstrained feature creep than too limited feature scope.
For a good game to get made you need A) 17 offices across the planet B) to spend a lot of money on shitty movies for your b-grade actress wife C) at least one giant airlock door
GET WITH THE PROGRAM
Then again, what the fuck do I know, Grimoire just came out
This. More often than not… less is more.
Sweet! It means we just need to wait 20 years for Star Citizen to launch as promised!
After he squashes those last micro-bugs, I think Cleve will be available if Cloud Imperium needs a neanderthal
As an outside observer, this is the big sin. The new funding is now required to deliver on the original pledges. That is the most unscrupulous thing they’ve done. They’re effectively holding hostage the base promises under threat if they don’t get additional funding. Even if they have the best intentions and even if they can deliver, this model is sketchy.
Right, the fact that in order to continue development they have to expand the scope so they can continue development. In order to generate NEW interest, they have to make a new .jpg which adds to the things they must ultimately deliver. Meanwhile, in order to maintain any kind of even slight momentum (due to their distraction of expanding scope) they have to actually shrink deliverables and marginally scale back expectations as well. (This game will have HUNDREDS of systems!.. or maybe 10 or maybe 3.)
Sure CODs cost 300 million to make but Activision can punch them out in their sleep. They go to the drawing board with a budget and a reasonable expectation of ROI. They have plans and shit. How much do you think a COD would take to make if they switched engines halfway through. CIG failed to keep it simple and in the end I feel it will be their undoing.
CODs (or blockbuster movies) earn back their costs over a much larger audience. You have millions of folks paying $10-$50 each, rather than what is probably the low thousands dropping whale-level money on SC. Now, it may very well be that those low thousands have tons of disposable income. But when you do it that way, there’s a greater risk that some of those folks are harming themselves (financially) and can’t really afford to spend a few thousand in virtual ships. It borders on almost a gambling-type addiction, I suspect. This is similar to how certain types of games (I’m looking at you, Zynga) make their money, but arguably even worse because they’re selling promises, not even a delivered feature, to these whales.
I think this aspect of milking (potentially) pseudo-addicts also rubs people (including me) the wrong way.
It’s over 1.8 million backers, not a few thousands. See the funding page:
It’s not an insignificant user base. And there are huge whales, but that amount compared to the funding shows the average pledge is not much more than a AAA game.
So what’s the issue here?
He said it’s the whales that are probably in “the low thousands”
Enidigm
4505
This is absolutely the kind of game I always imagined myself making as a kid, and it is the kind of development as an adult I wouldn’t touch with a 10’ pole.
So much of this would have been possible on a much smaller scale; imagine all this stuff in a 2d world, or low Rez 3D world. So much could have been feasible with less overhead.
Exactly.
Have they released any stats on the median pledge? Pessimistically, I suspect that it is a lot lower than the ~$80 mean.
The norm for most games is that 5% to 10% of your active players are the “whales” while the vast majority never pay for anything if the game is F2P, or the bare minimum if there’s an up-front purchase required. I don’t know if that holds true for Star Citizen. It probably does, but the active audience - the folks that follow its development - seem pretty jazzed about the concept and are generally optimistic about CIG’s progress. I could see the average Star Citizen fan spending a bit more than the industry average.
