It’s also assuming that they can keep up the ship sales.
They have done so for 4 years in a row. The most reasonable assumption is that they will keep up for a while.
So, this basically means we can put this thing to rest for the next couple years, right? I mean, it’s all there on the table now… no more speculation… up to the actual investors to see this thing through to the end… right…?
Also… how is CIG valued at almost half a billion dollars? The espresso machine sure isn’t it. Oh yeah, and what about the Coutts loan? Will that take precedence if CIG goes chapter 11? I assume it will, and yet ostensibly educated people are still willing to pour 46M over this?
Looks like this project found bigger whales… Hollywood moguls!
I am very surprise they found investors. These guys must really know very little about the game industry.
Me too. But Hollywood money is also notorious for investing on super expensive duds like Flash Gordon, or Kevin Costner’s sci fi movies.
Or, you know, Chris Roberts’ Wing Commander movie.
Mathew Lillard writing fat checks.
I won’t hear any criticism of Matthew Lillard, dude is an awesome Shaggy.
Seconded.
The next Sunk Cost Galaxy episode is out!
Yeah, this blows my mind.
I mean, maybe I’m misunderstanding, but didn’t Roberts and Co. just get done paying themselves a bunch of money a few days ago? And still someone throws another $46M at them? Or maybe that deal was made before they paid themselves.
Whatever. All I can say is that Croberts must be one hell of a salesman.
Or just really, really good at finding rich stupid people, which is actually their entire business model.
Yeah, but rich people generally get rich by not being stupid.
Then again, I don’t know any rich people, so maybe I’ve been wrong all this time.
I know a lot of rich people who are rich by virtue of being lucky or born in the right family. Others have a talent that pays, but they have no ability to manage that income wisely. These include sports and entertainment celebrities who find themselves in bankruptcy despite the 7 or 8 digit incomes.
Given enough time they will unburden themselves of all that money. Star Citizen is probably just a very small hole in what is probably a sieve that comprises their bank accounts.
You are of course correct.
I allowed a stereotype of the smart rich businessman blur my vision.
They specifically said the $46 million is for marketing and won’t be used for game development.
Looking at the numbers, it seems to me they will end up using all their remaining money on 2020. Which coincidentally is when they have put the release date of Star Citizen, lol.
I don’t personally give a shit about their finances or the money sunk into it, the vision is powerful, and it has once upon a time driven people like Smart to attempt it too.
I’m surprised that people here are surprised someone would invest in CIG. Looking at it from a financial perspective they have already shown the financial potential of their target audience and an easy way to monetise the game despite it being just an alpha and most of the time not even a “game” at all.
I mean dsmart can go on all day about the various issues CIG has (and my biggest fear is also how the monetisation can/will affect gameplay) but at this point in time it seems rather obvious that SC will be a product which will generate huge profits in the future.
For this to happen they won’t even need to release a great game (imo “competent” will be enough to keep its audience around) but if they are actually able to achieve that too it’s easy to see what kind of revenue they could generate and that dwarfs everything that has been invested so far.
I think that’s a good point. They’re relying on the vision of ‘what could be’ so much, that it doesn’t matter what they make in the end. In fact, it’s in their best interests to keep developing the game forever and just selling more and more ship jpegs. If the game ever stops moving, it’s a real thing that can be judged and sold, and pledgers’ imagination will stop running wild. But if they continue forever in development while having some mediocre product, they can keep this juggernaut rolling. They can even justify the ‘complete rewrite in a different engine’ as their stuff gets visually outdated. The 2 dangers I see for them are:
- Seamless galaxies are getting easier and easier to build, and someone could make a finished product that’s superior. This would destroy them.
- CR can’t stop adding scope creep and creating expenses that are greater than what he’s making. Given CR, this is also a realistic scenario.