Vapourware Scam Citizen - Only people with too much money can become StarCitizens! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

[VladimirK]

4. Instead of logic, the journalist says... WHAT IF HE CAN? SO WHAT IF...HE CAN'T? I DON'T LOSE ANYTHING CUZ I NEVER PAID FOR IT! NYAH NYAH NYAH!

That's classic cult/irrational/religious behavior by the way.

Do you KNOW FOR CERTAIN that aliens aren't here on earth among us, only they're totally invisible and don't affect our lives in any conceivable way?

No, don't give me that 'vanishingly low probability' bullshit. DO YOU KNOW FOR CERTAIN?

 

[Morkar Left]

Yes, you are right. I originally wanted to write "all but impossible".
Teut Weidemann explicitly says that the 250 million budget for the titles he worked on (Assins Creed whatever, ...) are without any marketing costs, which elevated them to 400+ million.
Well, you are just like these journalists in the podcast. "Let's ask an expert." Expert says "I don't believe it, all the less ambitious games I know of cost more". Journalists / Morkar put finger in ear and say "Nanana, didn't hear you, I don't see why it shouldn't be possible."

That's 2/3 of the money being development costs. Let's guess Roberts has 100 Mio -> 66 Mio. -> after fees etc. 50 Mio. are spent for the development, the rest is pure marketing (I guess it's a lot less marketing costs). Elite Dangerous had 2.440.707 $. Let's round that down after fees etc. to 2 Mio. They had 2 Mio to develop Elite Dangerous.
Why shouldn't it be possible for Roberts to develop a similar game with attached fps part for twenty times as much money? He isn't even developing everything in the US I think which could help reducing costs even more.

The only concern I have are the movie parts but such a thing isn't as cost heavy either nowadays when you look at all the amateur movies on the web with lot's of cgi special effects. Actually I have another concern them not being able to get the tech together in an open world. But for Squadron 42? Totally doable.

Ubisoft and big publishers aren'T very cost effective because they are overbloated. Not judging, they have the money to do it. But there are hundreds of developers who work a lot more efficiently (while earning less of course).

And the journalists aren't actually pro Roberts. They just think it's possible while still being critical and wouldn't be surprised if it failed. Jörg Langer was even highly critical with SC at first. He seemed to change his mind a bit only recently after he has seen progress. And the rest are well aware that there were rumors in the industry about Roberts overshooting budgets.

 

[:Flash:]

That's 2/3 of the money being development costs. Let's guess Roberts has 100 Mio -> 66 Mio. -> after fees etc. 50 Mio. are spent for the development, the rest is pure marketing (I guess it's a lot less marketing costs). Elite Dangerous had 2.440.707 $. Let's round that down after fees etc. to 2 Mio. They had 2 Mio to develop Elite Dangerous.

We don't know how much money Elite: Dangerous cost. Certainly more than 2 Million. Remember that Darklands cost 1 Million in 1992. The podcast mentions that Star Citizen has external investors as well.

Why shouldn't it be possible for Roberts to develop a similar game with attached fps part for twenty times as much money? He isn't even developing everything in the US I think which could help reducing costs even more.

I don't think I can convince you if the detailed numbers given by Teut Weidemann for several projects (including cost, Number of developers,...) can't.
And you don't just have an "attached fps" part. Each AAA FPS released in the past years had larger budgets than all of Star Citizen.
For a space game you need spaceships and backdrops. That is pretty cheap.
For an FPS you need assets, assets, assets. An FPS is more expensive to develop than a space game.
And to combine the two, you don't just combine the cost, you need a lot more. Just one example. When you are running around in FPS a capital ship, and it gets hit by a missile, you need to take damage from the debris, the entire level geometry of the FPS part must collapse accordingly, you need people to get sucked out into outer space, or being unable to breath, unless they have an emergency oxygen kit. All of this is stuff that normal FPSes, which cost more, don't do.
(Derek Smarts games are actually the only existing games that do all of this, but in text mode. I.e. if you assign a guy who is in his quarters to fighter duty, he will start walking to the bay. If the part of the ship he's currently walking gets heavily damaged he might get killed or end up in sick bay.)

If all of this is as easy as you say, why didn't Chris Roberts manage to release Freelancer? Which didn't even have an FPS part.

 

[Grotesque]

"heck YES Sandi! I would change my profile pic too if I had that one...please tell Chris I seriously started tearing up as soon as I saw Gary FREAKN' Oldman walking up to the podium for the Bishop speech and did not even finish it on the first showing because I ran out of my room screaming at my 19 year old son that Chris Roberts got Gary freakn' Oldman for Squadron 42. He came in and asked who that was, I just about strangled him right then and there, lol." what a rare gem

 

[Drax]

Well, you gotta be pretty stupid or live in africa to not know who the fuck Gary fucking Oldman is.
Fucking kids, man.

 

[RK47]

 

[JustMyOnion]

$480m for Assassin's Creed: Black Fag? Sounds like a load of horseshit to me. That game has sold 11 million units, even if all of those sales were at full price, digitally, on Steam, that's $60*0.7*11,000,000=$462,000,000 which is an $18m loss. Except most of them were physical sales on console where revenue is only about 40 or 50% of the sale. The franchise would have been stomped out of existence. Holy shit, try checking the numbers you're perpetuating some time. Either you've severely misquoted that "expert" or his "expert" "knowledge" is worth as much as the shit I've taken yesterday.

 

[J_C]

his "expert" "knowledge" is worth as much as the shit I've taken yesterday.

This seems the most likely.

 

[praetor]

Elite Dangerous had 2.440.707 $. Let's round that down after fees etc. to 2 Mio. They had 2 Mio to develop Elite Dangerous.

no. the 2,5mil was just the KS money. you can say that KS was used just to gauge interest as the bulk of the budget was their own money (you can see it in their public financial reports. iirc, in 2014 alone they spent well over 4mil on ED, and the total budget for the glorified beta that was release[sans KS] was well over 10mil... british pounds. and that's not counting for all the development in 2015 and the future and considering the team got bigger since release [at the very least they hired much more support], the budget most assuredly got higher [let's say it's 5mil/year, but it's going to at least triple once they start working on the FPS part (unless they want less variety than the current "space" part), meaning for a team of ~150, that's an average monthly paycheck of less than 2800 pounds. before taxes. ye british cunts, how good/bad is that?])

 

[JustMyOnion]

"heck YES Sandi! I would change my profile pic too if I had that one...please tell Chris I seriously started tearing up as soon as I saw Gary FREAKN' Oldman walking up to the podium for the Bishop speech and did not even finish it on the first showing because I ran out of my room screaming at my 19 year old son that Chris Roberts got Gary freakn' Oldman for Squadron 42. He came in and asked who that was, I just about strangled him right then and there, lol." what a rare gem

And his 19 year old son is still living with his parents because his dad has blown all the college money on virtual spaceships.

That's 2/3 of the money being development costs. Let's guess Roberts has 100 Mio -> 66 Mio. -> after fees etc. 50 Mio. are spent for the development, the rest is pure marketing (I guess it's a lot less marketing costs).

Unless I've missed all the Star Citizen ads everywhere, their marketing budget consists of Sandi Gardiner's salary. So 33 million sounds correct. L.O.L.! But really, their marketing strategy is based on massive shillery and making interviews with established websites, so it's next to nothing. Unless you count the community stuff. Which is paid for by its own budget. Not sure if they combine the two in the counter.

Imagine like playing WoW on full PvP server and if you paid 1000$ you start at lvl 50 and can go kill those lvl 1 scrubs and each time you die you respawn as level 50 guy.

Couldn't find a less fitting comparison. A level 1 guy in WoW is supposed to lose against a level 50, it's right in the code with how the stats work. In SC, no ship is "supposed" to lose against another ship, more expensive ones are big and clunky and need additional personell to function. The insurance also only covers the hull so you "respawn" entirely without equipment. And you don't actually respawn with the ship ready to go, but have to wait until the economy has produced one for you. Not saying it's not P2W, but this sort of stuff severely dampens the P2W effect. Lifetime insurance is also only available for the earliest backers and concept sales or whatever.
Still, the SC community's views on P2W are retarded and cancerous as fuck. Saw a video about it once that gave me aids, wonder if I can find it again.

We don't know how much money Elite: Dangerous cost. Certainly more than 2 Million. Remember that Darklands cost 1 Million in 1992. The podcast mentions that Star Citizen has external investors as well.

Elite had external investors from the start, I don't even know what the Kickstarter was for. And I'd like to know how exactly he knows about Star Citizen's supposed investors. Every time I hear about these it's someone misquoting Chris Roberts.

 

[dbx]

Ubisoft and big publishers aren'T very cost effective because they are overbloated.

RSI is not overbloated? Lol.
A development company that opens up three other studios around the world to work on the same game is by definition over bloated...

 

[Archibald]

$480m for Assassin's Creed: Black Fag? Sounds like a load of horseshit to me. That game has sold 11 million units, even if all of those sales were at full price, digitally, on Steam, that's $60*0.7*11,000,000=$462,000,000 which is an $18m loss. Except most of them were physical sales on console where revenue is only about 40 or 50% of the sale. The franchise would have been stomped out of existence. Holy shit, try checking the numbers you're perpetuating some time. Either you've severely misquoted that "expert" or his "expert" "knowledge" is worth as much as the shit I've taken yesterday.

Didn't it have season pass/DLC? Budget usually includes those while they bring in additional profits.

 

[RK47]

RSI is not overbloated? Lol.
A development company that opens up three other studios around the world to work on the same game is by definition over bloated...

They dindu nuffin lah.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well, you gotta be pretty stupid or live in africa to not know who the fuck Gary fucking Oldman is.
Fucking kids, man.

Like father like son.

 

[ArchAngel]

Couldn't find a less fitting comparison. A level 1 guy in WoW is supposed to lose against a level 50, it's right in the code with how the stats work. In SC, no ship is "supposed" to lose against another ship, more expensive ones are big and clunky and need additional personell to function. The insurance also only covers the hull so you "respawn" entirely without equipment. And you don't actually respawn with the ship ready to go, but have to wait until the economy has produced one for you. Not saying it's not P2W, but this sort of stuff severely dampens the P2W effect. Lifetime insurance is also only available for the earliest backers and concept sales or whatever.
Still, the SC community's views on P2W are retarded and cancerous as fuck. Saw a video about it once that gave me aids, wonder if I can find it again.

No, it is good. There is no way that SC is going to have ships that you grind to get just so they are not better than what you start with. It is neither realistic (people that design new craft do so with idea on making them better, double so in military industry) and players would rage quit in waves. Imagine a war planes simulation where you start with a WWII plane and eventually get to F22 or whatever but it is not "supposed" to win vs that WWII plane. WTF is the point.

I enjoyed Freelancer and Tier Fighter/X wing games because you eventually got to pilot superior craft, not waste your time for nothing.

 

[Whiran]

Link

Why are you linking a discussion propagated by one person about the end user license agreement when trying to prove a decline in funding numbers?

Or was the purpose of that link something completely different?

If you want to believe that funding for Star Citizen is drying up you are free to do so although the actual reality is very different - Star Citizen continues to pull in funding to support its development. It may be that in the future the funding will begin to slow down since there is a historical precedent when that has happened a couple of times but just wishing for something does not usually make it happen or make it true.

I have no idea if Star Citizen will successfully get made or not - all I know is that to date some 90ish million dollars have gone into its development so far. That money is spent. What is there to show for 90 million worth of development? A few tech demos, a spiffy website, and a fair few social media type campaigns.

Say what you want about Chris Roberts wife but if she was in charge of Marketing then she's done an incredible job to bring in that kind of cash.

 

[Thane Solus]

But will it kill WOW?

 

[Drakron]

No, it wont kill EVE either.

 

[Morkar Left]

And his 19 year old son is still living with his parents because his dad has blown all the college money on virtual spaceships.

Unless I've missed all the Star Citizen ads everywhere, their marketing budget consists of Sandi Gardiner's salary. So 33 million sounds correct. L.O.L.! But really, their marketing strategy is based on massive shillery and making interviews with established websites, so it's next to nothing. Unless you count the community stuff. Which is paid for by its own budget. Not sure if they combine the two in the counter.

SNIP

Elite had external investors from the start, I don't even know what the Kickstarter was for. And I'd like to know how exactly he knows about Star Citizen's supposed investors. Every time I hear about these it's someone misquoting Chris Roberts.

Say what you want about Chris Roberts wife but if she was in charge of Marketing then she's done an incredible job to bring in that kind of cash.

If she's responsible for the marketing she does indeed a hell of a job.

As for investors I can imagine Roberts has some. It has the possibility to be the first to cash in an abandon genre. Even after Elite Dangerous. "Sim" fans are more willing to spend higher amounts of money for a game (plus equipment) and they consider it more as a "serious" hobby you want to spent time and effort into. A good audience.

Saitek / Mad Cats are releasing their own RSI brand Hotas. I suspect they are one of the investors. Basically I would be surprised if they weren't. They are the ones who directly profit from good sims. Even better; sims that are action oriented and graphically pleasing enough to appeal to casuals expanding the market for their products.

 

[Ulminati]

But will it kill WOW?

No, it wont kill EVE either.

But what about Kickstarter? Come on, for 90 million I expect to see at least one death!

 

[Spectacle]

But what about Kickstarter? Come on, for 90 million I expect to see at least one death!

Nope. I don't think Star Citizen will have much impact on kickstarten when it fails. The crowdfunding process of selling digital spaceships for small fortunes is just too different.

 

[vonAchdorf]

SC is larger than KS video gaming anyway, at least in 2014:

 

[Night Goat]

I knew running a cult was profitable, but holy fuck.

 

[RK47]

Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid

 

[omega21]

I choose to believe all the numbers are fudged rather than accept that people are this silly.