They have limited numbers. The hilarious part? They always create this artificial supply and demand metric by putting “limited” quantity (on digital assets!) and doing these sort of sales time and time again. They have morons for backers, so it works pretty well.
Regardless, as history of the project has shown, no matter how much money they raised this month, all it does is pay for ShitizenCon, and possibly a portion of their Oct burn rate.
I am going to say this again - you know, on the off chance than someone missed the other hundred times - through this cash grab, what’s coming next, and the ultimate fate of the project is going to be downright hilarious - and sad. Just wait.
Correct. And that’s why, scope creep aside, they have to keep creating new game assets (latest being Valkyrie sold at ShitizenCon) and now a new JPEG, the Kraken (also sold at ShitizenCon).
It’s a blatant Ponzi scheme that includes both financial and engineering debt.
Nah. Even if they technically could pull it off (which is very much in doubt), people would play it and realize that it’s just a game. Who wants to spend $1400 for a spaceship in just a regular game with all its bugs, dubious design decisions, etc.
It’s much more effective (and cheaper) to sell to people’s imaginations. Just look at all the talk from fans about what they think they’re going to be doing with these ships in-game. They’re making up entire feature sets that RSI has never even spoken about.
^this is what most of us have been saying for years now. As I said in my latest Twitter rant (scroll up) from Sat, it’s amazing how they managed to tap in a specific mindset of gamers. It’s all about timing. Once people get invested in the “idea”, the rest was easy. That’s how con jobs work. It’s all about running a confidence scam - which is precisely what this has turned into.
Of course it doesn’t work. That’s why they have to create new ships to sell, while throwing caution to the wind in terms of scope creep. But if they don’t intend on releasing anything resembling a final product, and they have people willing to fund them month after month, they have zero incentive to change course.
In contrast, read this article about the fate of Dreadnought. They had over 200 people and are said to have been burning through $80K per day - which sounds about right if you have a large team with experienced people on it. Now imagine 450 people worldwide, all getting a paycheck, benefits etc - including contractors.
That’s the mystery. Either the burn rate is greatly overestimated, and their staff is a fraction of what is suggested, or a Bruce Wayne type is bankrolling them.
That’s interesting. I was present a game dev social about 4 weeks ago, and they were talking about TellTale. One guy from Six Foot stated that they had already “trimmed the fat” and seemed to feel they were in great shape.
Would not be surprised to hear he is on the street today. Ah the classic corp formula: Surprise Lay Them Off On Monday as opposed to Friday so they don’t come in after the weekend and shoot your place up.
Indeed. I have no inside information but something has got to give there. It wouldn’t surprise me to see news around investment and/or layoffs soon. I just dont see how they can go on much longer. Unless that burn rate is closer to $1M pm than $3M, in which case they have would some more time on the deathclock.
I’ve seen enough of Ozark to recognise this is a money laundering endeavour. Consistent and sustained revenue from and unknown amount of ‘whales’, millions of star citizens, dozens of shell companies all over the world moving money around between ‘business units’, likely cross-charging for ‘services’, minimal real transparency, shifting goal posts, features and deadlines, constant release of new products that don’t really exist. Seems like an ideal platform to make money disappear in one place and re-appear somewhere else, but cleaner.
