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

[fantadomat]

Mass Effect andromeda cost around 150 mills to make for 5 years,and that was made by cheap ass publisher that know how to spend money.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Mass Effect andromeda cost around 150 mills to make for 5 years,and that was made by cheap ass publisher that know how to spend money.

And after 5 years they had a game, not a tech demo that barely functions.

I fully agree that CIG doesn't know how to spend money though.

 

[Aemar]

I fully agree that CIG doesn't know how to spend money though.

 

[ZeniBot]

All you had to do was RELEASE THE GOD DAMN GAME CJ!
Really they should've just followed the Arma route, made a basic map editor thingy, threw the toys in the sand pit and said to the customer "have fun"
Bohemia gets away with that shit all the time and you can already see people trying to do that very thing to salvage what ever "fun" can be had within this bloated as fuck tech demo.
I've seen footage of people attempting combined arms OPS in this game and it looks like it could work really well.. problem is that there's no systems in place to facilitate that happening organically.
The game at this stage could be passed off as a really shitty outdoor paintball simulator with a few vehicles. Robberts doesn't understand how to play to strengths and its why we're seeing the
game go nowhere because he keeps getting side tracked by what ever fad he's onto today. A problem that both Peter Molyneux and Todd Howard have.

And with only a buffer of under $20 Million. Yeah this fucking game is dead. They have even one bad year and before you know it EA or Microsoft owns it. So much for crowd funding.
At that stage what ever state the games in is getting shipped. Best Case its another Freelancer. Worst Case and its what Star Citizen is now.

 

[ADL]

tl;dr, he got it from a billionaire and his son.

Even the megarich can be scammed.

I wonder if our true believer here ever asked himself why they needed 50 million more if they took in 200 million from donors? What did they spend it on etc?

Do you not read the shit you post? I don't need to ask myself why they needed 50 million. It's in the source you posted. They released their financials for FY2012-2017 It's a marketing budget.

It is perhaps the most extraordinary release of information about a major game in progress that I have ever seen, driven in part by regulations in the United Kingdom as well as the company’s own desire to be transparent with and crowdfunding participants who want more information. All for a game that creator Chris Roberts says he always wanted to create. This data is exactly what I wished I had when I was assessing the costs and revenues for Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2.

“Our approach was that we wanted to — the money we’re bringing from crowdfunding, we’re committed to spending on the game and development,” Roberts said. “If we saw a change in that velocity or trajectory of the revenue coming in, we would make an adjustment on our internal development spending. We have a few levers to pull, but we’ve been pretty steady as we’ve gone along. We felt comfortable in our planning on that.”

The new investment was made equally into each side of the Cloud Imperium Group (including both the U.S. and U.K.). Roberts said this all funding round allows the company to dedicated most of its pledge money to development, publishing, and community engagement. Meanwhile, the new round will be used to prepare marketing campaigns for the launch of Squadron 42.

“When we started the campaign for Star Citizen and Squadron 42, I said that the crowdfunding would go towards development of the game,” Roberts said.

He noted that the marketing expense will be big because Cloud Imperium’s games will be going up against other Triple-A games that have tens of millions of dollars in advertising campaigns behind them. Other developers tackle this problem by partnering with a publisher for the marketing and sales of the game, but that results in putting the game’s destiny in the hands of a third party, Roberts said. And he doesn’t favor that.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/20/...another-46-million-to-finish-sci-fi-universe/

On top of that, Roberts finally said that fans can expect the game to debut in the summer of 2020. And to comply with United Kingdom rules, the company is disclosing its full financial picture for the first time. Roberts is laying bare for all to see the previously secret details like how much money came in via crowdfunding, how much the money the company raised each year through crowdfunding through 2017, and how much the company has spent. At the end of 2017, the team consisted of 464 people. That’s a huge project.

Most of that is development expense. Cloud Imperium says that only $826,000 went to general and administrative. This includes accounting and legal services. Another $1 million is tied to capital expenditures like hardware, software, and office furnishings.

 

[fantadomat]

All you had to do was RELEASE THE GOD DAMN GAME CJ!
Really they should've just followed the Arma route, made a basic map editor thingy, threw the toys in the sand pit and said to the customer "have fun"
Bohemia gets away with that shit all the time and you can already see people trying to do that very thing to salvage what ever "fun" can be had within this bloated as fuck tech demo.
I've seen footage of people attempting combined arms OPS in this game and it looks like it could work really well.. problem is that there's no systems in place to facilitate that happening organically.
The game at this stage could be passed off as a really shitty outdoor paintball simulator with a few vehicles. Robberts doesn't understand how to play to strengths and its why we're seeing the
game go nowhere because he keeps getting side tracked by what ever fad he's onto today. A problem that both Peter Molyneux and Todd Howard have.

And with only a buffer of under $20 Million. Yeah this fucking game is dead. They have even one bad year and before you know it EA or Microsoft owns it. So much for crowd funding.
At that stage what ever state the games in is getting shipped. Best Case its another Freelancer. Worst Case and its what Star Citizen is now.

But what about Chris's artistic vision and his bank account? That way the game could end up decent and not the autistic simulator envisioned by him.

 

[ADL]

Responding to the quoted post... Why would they have a bad year at this point? If anything, it's going to ramp up more as the tech is finished and the quarterly updates add up to something people want to play. This year has been the best year of funding for them since 2015 (when everyone bought their shit because Europeans started paying ~20% taxes on digital goods) and there's still 10 days left. 36 million in new pledges in 2018 so far.

Yes, you could say, “You have $20 million in the bank, and that’s only so much for operations.” But there’s not ever been a case where we’ve gone to zero dollars. There’s no history to say we would do that. That’s kind of like me saying — yes, if Electronic Arts didn’t bring in another cent, they’d be out of money in short order, because they have pretty heavy running costs.

We’ve also set it up in a way that, if we’re seeing a drop-off, we’d scale back our development ambition. But we haven’t, so we’ve been planning for that and getting stuff out. We obviously anticipate that when Squadron comes out, that’s going to be a big revenue-positive event for us. We have a bunch of people who’ve backed for Star Citizen and pledged for Squadron, but that game has potential to reach millions more people than our current base.

Meanwhile 3.4 just released to all backers today and added the business district to Lorville on Hurston which was added less than two months ago https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16915-Star-Citizen-Alpha-34-Available

 

[Grotesque]

Responding to the quoted post... Why would they have a bad year at this point? If anything, it's going to ramp up more as the tech is finished and the quarterly updates add up to something people want to play. This year has been the best year of funding for them since 2015 (when everyone bought their shit because Europeans started paying ~20% taxes on digital goods) and there's still 10 days left. 36 million in new pledges in 2018 so far.

Yes, you could say, “You have $20 million in the bank, and that’s only so much for operations.” But there’s not ever been a case where we’ve gone to zero dollars. There’s no history to say we would do that. That’s kind of like me saying — yes, if Electronic Arts didn’t bring in another cent, they’d be out of money in short order, because they have pretty heavy running costs.

We’ve also set it up in a way that, if we’re seeing a drop-off, we’d scale back our development ambition. But we haven’t, so we’ve been planning for that and getting stuff out. We obviously anticipate that when Squadron comes out, that’s going to be a big revenue-positive event for us. We have a bunch of people who’ve backed for Star Citizen and pledged for Squadron, but that game has potential to reach millions more people than our current base.

Meanwhile 3.4 just released to all backers today and added the business district to Lorville on Hurston which was added less than two months ago https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16915-Star-Citizen-Alpha-34-Available

You are way too optimistic.
No tool, workflow streamlining or ship sale will keep up if Roberts keeps adding shit in (whatever minor it looks at first.) or keeps reiterating with obsessive precision.
Whoever knows Roberts and his ego also knows that he bringing outside investors is a clear sign that money is an issue and I bet it was a tough pill to swallow for him.

I've said it before and I will say it again.
If SQ42 will not be a major hit (something like Skyrim was - monetary and cultural) and if will fail to bring hundreds of million of dollars in the bank, those who dream that one day will play a complete version of Star Citizen (with or without 100 star systems implemented) can kiss their dreams goodbye.

The greatest enemy of Star Citizen (because SQ42 will see the light of day) is Chris Robert himself because he's out of the leash without no overseer to keep him grounded in reality, he didn't really learned anything from past mistakes (because that's the case with megalomaniac personalities) and he's caught up in a vicious cycle where he's obligated to promise more ships and minor features to keep the project afloat and R&D the tech needed to overcome the hurdles that arise from his big dreams.

 

[Angthoron]

What gameplay loops did this add?

Also, to all those discussing CIG finances, please keep in mind that all they needed was 3 million dollars. What they're getting now is purely making the game better. Hell, even their super-stretch goals stopped at around 50 million I think. They don't actually need more money to finish both games, it's just that the fans wanted so many more features that CIG is taking time to make everything better.

They aren't out of money, they won't ever be out of money, they have all the money they will ever need. Stop worrying about their finances!

Spoiler

 

[hello friend]

I'm pretty disappointed that they STILL haven't added a virtual stock exchange so we can finally start trading in the stock of companies in the game universe. Someone should suggest this much-needed feature to Chris Roberts.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Most of that is development expense. Cloud Imperium says that only $826,000 went to general and administrative. This includes accounting and legal services. Another $1 million is tied to capital expenditures like hardware, software, and office furnishings.

lol, you do realize that Robert's paycheck and any owner draws are probably included in that, right?

It's pretty hopeless getting through to you. You still think the game will be released in 2020.

I'm pretty disappointed that they STILL haven't added a virtual stock exchange so we can finally start trading in the stock of companies in the game universe. Someone should suggest this much-needed feature to Chris Roberts.

this game is already the king of feature creep, so why not? go for broke. maybe add a stock trader career path with a subplot that mirrors the wolf of wall street.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

What gameplay loops did this add?

Also, to all those discussing CIG finances, please keep in mind that all they needed was 3 million dollars. What they're getting now is purely making the game better. Hell, even their super-stretch goals stopped at around 50 million I think. They don't actually need more money to finish both games, it's just that the fans wanted so many more features that CIG is taking time to make everything better.

They aren't out of money, they won't ever be out of money, they have all the money they will ever need. Stop worrying about their finances!

They just needed that 3 million dollars for polish. Once they have that 10 million dollars they'll be able to make it the best game ever. That 50 million dollars will all be worth it when the game is done and you see what your 500 million dollars has bought you. And when all is said and done, is 2 billion dollars really too much to spend on the perfect futuristic virtual persistent world?

 

[RRRrrr]

Can they license the engine to third parties, or they fucked up badly with the crytek agreement and can't sell it? What's even the point of developing an allegedly revolutionary game engine if they can't license it?

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Can they license the engine to third parties, or they fucked up badly with the crytek agreement and can't sell it?

The second one iirc. They aren't using Crytek though, they are using an amazon engine now that's sort of based on it? idk

 

[Angthoron]

Can they license the engine to third parties, or they fucked up badly with the crytek agreement and can't sell it? What's even the point of developing an allegedly revolutionary game engine if they can't license it?

They never had the right to license the engine to anyone even if anyone would want to license CryEngine 3.7. Right now they're having a license to use Amazon's version of CryEngine, before that they had a license to use CryTek's engine.

Also, even if somehow they had their own version of CE, why the FUCK would anyone want to buy it? Just get, I dunno, one of the engines that isn't 6 years old? Build your own? What did CIG hack into CryEngine that's worth buying over any other alternative?

 

[sullynathan]

Mass Effect andromeda cost around 150 mills to make for 5 years

Wikipedia says $76 million which is half of that

 

[Angthoron]

Can they license the engine to third parties, or they fucked up badly with the crytek agreement and can't sell it? What's even the point of developing an allegedly revolutionary game engine if they can't license it?

Oh yeah, also, it's not actually "fucking up". Get a license for Unreal Engine, add custom code, and nope, you still can't rename it to SO REAL ENGINE and sell it. Doesn't stop companies from actually adding custom code and developing their licensed engines to their needs anyway. It's how (okay, fine, FINE) not every Unity game is an unforgivable pile of trash, for example. Or how Civ 5 and Oblivion share the same engine but kinda play different.

 

[Grotesque]

What did CIG hack into CryEngine that's worth buying over any other alternative?

that statement alone disqualifies you and proves you're talking out of your ass.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I fully agree that CIG doesn't know how to spend money though.

To remember is to live:

Multiple sources from within the company stated that the Pacific Palisades mansion that Chris Roberts shares with Sandi Gardiner is being paid for with funds from the company, along with the couple's personal vehicles and personal vacations.

CS5 stated that Gardiner would be out of the country on vacation or auditioning for movie or television roles, allegedly paid for with company money, but would post images of the office - taken by another employee - to make it appear as though she was at work. Multiple sources confided that several videos were filmed using company resources and employees, both in Cloud Imperium Games' offices and in the couple's home.

Other sources expressed concern over what they call "irresponsible spending." Complete portions of the game have been stripped down and entirely redone, utilizing extra time and resources, and often with minimal or no reward. The company also allegedly hired "big-name Hollywood actors" to do voice-overs for commercials. "This isn't going to make the game better. This is throwing away money because, deep down, Chris Roberts wants to make movies," CS5 stated. "He failed in Hollywood, but he never made peace with that."

The firings are both saving and costing money," CS6 said. "The money is running out and they're cutting wherever they can - but they're cutting people, not frills. Chris Roberts wants a certain game - practically a movie - and doesn't want to compromise on anything but staff. "He's letting go people (sic) necessary to complete the game, but then wants to hire a professional linguist to create three brand new alien languages. He's making this entire project impossible," CS3 added.

One former employee compared the campaign for Star Citizen to the back of a book.

"You pick up a book, and what's the first thing you do? You read the back. The back is the best part of the book, because you can project what your experience is going to be. And usually the book isn't as good as what you imagine it will be," CS2 said. "With [Roberts], it would be, like, 'look at these beautiful renders of characters, and of this spaceship.' But none of it was real. He shows some artwork, and then people project what their experience is going to be. Like the back of a book."

"Fans would come into the studio, and I wanted to be like 'Dude, run. Take your money and run.' I felt like I was part of a con," CS2 added. "This could really severely damage crowdfunding, at least for games. Who's going to want to do that again? People will look at everything and think 'but what if it's another Star Citizen?'"

"Games are made like houses. You want to make the foundation first and the wallpaper last. With Chris Roberts, everything is the wallpaper," CS2 added. "I think there will be a game. But it will be a shell of what was promised."

"There won't be a game. It's not going to happen. But then again, I am a pessimist," CS5 chimed in. "The entire production process is circular. You spend six months proving that what you said wouldn't work won't work. There is no progress happening."

 

[Angthoron]

What did CIG hack into CryEngine that's worth buying over any other alternative?

that statement alone disqualifies you and proves you're talking out of your ass.

Okay, please grace us with the list of ground-breaking tech then, kind sir. I hope you're not talking about the "64-bit positioning"

Oh yeah and also who died and made you god regarding disqualifying other people? Fuck you.

 

[Grotesque]

and also who died

your common sense

 

[fantadomat]

 

[ZeniBot]

They're seriously going to put Squadron 42 into Early Access. Fucking incompetent idiots.
Apparently $200illion can't even buy you a releasable product in this current industry.
AAA is just stupid. I'm also loving the idea of getting the game and everyone's reaction being "waittt... a second.. Isn't this starlancer.. Again?..." because I'm pretty certain that's what is going to happen.
Oh Noes.. Turns out that Gary Oldman's Character was a traitor this entire time.. OH NOES! Mark Hamil dies again. Oh Noes the Flagship gets blown up!

This is going to be so predictable.

Its also ironic that the guy he sold the 10% to lives in the caymen islands. WOOOO TAX FREE REAL ESTATE! WOOOOO! TOTALLY NOT A PONZI SCHEME GUYS!
Your money is going to Billionaires.

 

[fantadomat]

They're seriously going to put Squadron 42 into Early Access. Fucking incompetent idiots.
Apparently $200illion can't even buy you a releasable product in this current industry.
AAA is just stupid. I'm also loving the idea of getting the game and everyone's reaction being "waittt... a second.. Isn't this starlancer.. Again?..." because I'm pretty certain that's what is going to happen.
Oh Noes.. Turns out that Gary Oldman's Character was a traitor this entire time.. OH NOES! Mark Hamil dies again. Oh Noes the Flagship gets blown up!

This is going to be so predictable.

Its also ironic that the guy he sold the 10% to lives in the caymen islands. WOOOO TAX FREE REAL ESTATE! WOOOOO! TOTALLY NOT A PONZI SCHEME GUYS!
Your money is going to Billionaires.

Don't be like that,you can't blame the whole industry for the scam of the century being part of it. People paid for a game,will receive shitty film.

 

[Angthoron]

and also who died

your common sense

So that makes my common sense divine? Thanks I guess.

I'll pretend you didn't shit yourself in public in your last couple of posts and give you the benefit of the doubt that you're doing some amazing reverse-inverse trolling thing. I like to feel optimistic about my fellow human beans. But hey, if this is the hill you wanna die on, be my guest, I can accommodate you in all your shitposting needs.

Still waiting for the list of ground-breaking engine tech, btw. What is it? The amazing whale-hunting capability? The male/female skeleton/animation failure that is indeed groundbreaking? The FOIP that totally didn't exist in Everquest 2 and actively conflicts with VR goggles (btw what happened to VR that was supposed to be added in 2015)? Please, if you're such an expert on the topic that you feel you've got the balls and the right to try to shut me up, have some balls to back up your words. You're not in your subscriber echo-chamber here, and chances are, something you like is shit. Why? Because this is the RPG Codex.

Oh yeah and I actually did pay for a basic package of this before the project went completely retarded, and I didn't refund it because eh fuck it, too much effort.