Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[stusser]

The statistic I’ve seen is the whales comprise 10% of the 1.5% of players that pay anything at all. In the SC case, I’d say everybody that paid $50 to essentially pre-purchase the game doesn’t count as paying anything in that calculation. So really it’s 0.15% of the total volume.

Thing is those stats are from F2P mobile games that actually give you something for paying-- you get powerups, extra action points, whatever. In the case of unreleased titles you’re getting a virtual title to a spaceship that you can’t actually fly. So who knows what their uptake numbers are?

[Telefrog]

Thing is those stats are from F2P mobile games that actually give you something for paying-- you get powerups, extra action points, whatever. In the case of unreleased titles you’re getting a virtual title to a spaceship that you can’t actually fly. So who knows what their uptake numbers are?

Yeah, and that’s really the rub here. We don’t really have much in the way of public data on B2P gaming (which is where the AAA industry is going) and we most especially have no idea how it applies to Star Citizen which features a very passionate fanbase.

[sharaleo]

But their model almost certainly requires additional backers or existing backers continually buying in to the development. There is no way if that tap turned off tomorrow, that this game gets even close to done - the money that they have to date is not enough to get it done, based on the state of the development right now and how much is left to go. So, how big exactly is the target audience? For how long can they continue to pull in 2mill a month? At a $80 median, that’s 25,000 new backers a month! 25,000! I am at a loss to understand who is still buying this game, tbh.

[Telefrog]

But their model almost certainly requires additional backers or existing backers continually buying in to the development. There is no way if that tap turned off tomorrow, that this game gets even close to done - the money that they have to date is not enough to get it done, based on the state of the development right now and how much is left to go.

Which is why I say it’s a predatory business model. If their monthly revenue dried up, I’m pretty sure this project would be dead, but their ultra-passionate fans keep buying $500 ships and exhorting others to join up, so development continues. Good for CIG, but not great for the industry.

[Juan_Raigada]

I am at a loss to understand who is still buying this game, tbh.

Me too, but judging by the tracked spreadsheet, last month they got between 20 and 30k new users, so right on target for them.

Their funding keeps going steady so far…

[sharaleo]

Their numbers are so consistently steady over such a long period of time that the conspiracy theorist in me is convinced that someone has worked out how to use this project as a money laundering tool…

But, Occam’s Razor suggests it’s just a big, wide fucking world out there with a boatload of customers able to be quickly canvassed in the internet age. :D

[cicobuff]

But, Occam’s Razor suggests it’s just a big, wide fucking world out there with a boatload of customers able to be quickly canvassed in the internet age. :D

The thing is I dont see any Star Citizen ads at all. Are they available in US?

[Wendelius]

Star Citizen streams have started to appear more on Twitch and YouTube as 3.0 slowly nears.

One possibility is that people watching those multiplayer streams form part of the new user base.

There is also the constant stream of development related content RSI publishes.

Buying before release is more likely to be related to word of mouth and streaming than ads, I’d imagine. It’s for a more “hardcore” audience.

The only SC ads I’m aware of are the ship and vehicle commercials and ask the video content they produce.

[stusser]

Yes, I’d assume many of those streams are sponsored.

Also as Wendelius notes, they create a tremendous amount of promotional video content. Weekly Q&As, updates about their updates, narrated movies for each new feature, etc. All that stuff costs money to produce.

[sharaleo]

Weekly Q&As, updates about their updates, narrated movies for each new feature, etc

That’s not promotional marketing, dude, that’s development transparency!

/sarcasm

[Paul_cze]

I remember being amazed when Minecraft was selling 15K copies every single day for a year, and then it kept selling 20K+ every single day for the next 5 years. There are lot of people on this planet.

[instant0]

At this point I want it to fail and eventually ends them in jail for something.

my 265$, anyway.

[stusser]

Why don’t you get a refund?

[Timex]

The thing is I dont see any Star Citizen ads at all. Are they available in US?

Heh, one of the most amusing things to me is that periodically when someone makes up some story about how CIG is going to go bankrupt, it drives new business for them because more people hear about the game and say, “Wow, that sounds really cool.”

Also as Wendelius notes, they create a tremendous amount of promotional video content. Weekly Q&As, updates about their updates, narrated movies for each new feature, etc. All that stuff costs money to produce.

In fairness to CIG, this was actually always sold as a feature of the project. A specific portion of the funding, in the form of subscribers, specifically goes towards funding that stuff. Because some folks like seeing it.

[Ryan_Kelly]

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.)

Each concept sale generates over a million dollars for them, so the question is how many developer man-hours (and at what hourly wage) does it take to realize that one vehicle they sold. If that total is less than the amount of money raised during the sale, the remaining pool of cash could go towards development of previously announced features.

If they end up reducing the number of systems on release, it will be due to their shift to fully explorable planets (which is technically connected to a stretch goal from 2014), not ship sales. I don’t think they should reduce the number, though.

[kedaha]

Modern Warfare 2 cost around $60million to make. The rest went on marketing.

[Juan_Raigada]

Modern Warfare 2 cost around $60million to make. The rest went on marketing.

And how do we know that’s not the case here?

[Timex]

List of most expensive video games to develop

Interesting that SW:TOR cost 200 million to develop, not including marketing… what exactly did they spend their money on there? I don’t recall that game actually having any really novel technical stuff going on in it.

[instant0]

Interesting that SW:TOR cost 200 million to develop, not including marketing… what exactly did they spend their money on there? I don’t recall that game actually having any really novel technical stuff going on in it.

The “Absolutely not HERO Engine” and Voice Actors I would assume.

Or just a huge licensing cost to pay George Lucas to stay away from it.

[Jason_McMaster]

it was entirely voice acted