I was just making a joke about ludicrously expensive jpegs. I agree though the $40k ship jpegs are stupid as all hell.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Star Citizen is selling a $40,000 ship bundle.
- Thread starter Coyote Starrk
- Start date
In cases like that I don't actually fault the "scammers", people nowadays will just throw money at anything.
A large team can easily be less efficient than a small team because once you go past a few dozen people, communication lines get fuzzy. You can't just add more people and expect development to go faster because you're increasing the need for management as you add people.
I've said this before but Cloud Imperium pull $400 mil lifetime and people are asking where they spent the money... that the game doesn't have enough content, that it's unfinished.
Meanwhile, Fortnite pulled 5.5 billion in revenue in 2018 alone (and around 3 billion each year since).
Every successful live service game, Overwatch, Destiny, Apex Legends, Call of Duty is pulling more than Cloud Imperium are per year, and I would argue that their players are getting much less from most of those in terms of content.
Meanwhile, Fortnite pulled 5.5 billion in revenue in 2018 alone (and around 3 billion each year since).
Every successful live service game, Overwatch, Destiny, Apex Legends, Call of Duty is pulling more than Cloud Imperium are per year, and I would argue that their players are getting much less from most of those in terms of content.
OP
OP
Ok ok "not a scam" and whatever but can someone explain to me what the hell are they doing with $400 million? That's some AAAA budget right there. What do they have to show for it?
They are making jpegs of to sell to people on the promise that jpeg will be an in game asset.
One day.
Eventually.
With server meshing, which is going to be implemented any day now (for the past few years).
SC is my favorite trainwreck.
But how many ship JPEGs do you get for that $40k? I need to know if it's a good deal or not, or whether I should be dropping my cash into NFTs instead.
The company seems to have horrible management at the top. If that mini-doc, Sunk Cost Galaxy, was correct from the supposed insider, it's poor management and a grift job.
Is there a circle of rich billionaire nerds who get together and play Star Citizen? Who is buying this stuff?
I might be misreading this but are you saying most of those game are getting less content than Star Citizen?
This is the playlist. I should mention it was never finished, but what's there is amazing.
Sunk Cost Galaxy - Overture
www.youtube.com
I didn't say I think it's the case here, it's just "too funny" to not post it 🙃
For what it's worth, I'm not really saying anything for or against Star Citizen by that, I'm just bringing up a basic project management concern. Maybe people are brought in because the project's mismanaged, and that probably wouldn't help - imagine if you brought a hundred people to solve a problem and then they're left doing nothing because you haven't figured out what other work to give them.
Keep in mind that cost per employee is not just their salary. It includes things like benefits, office space, equipment, taxes, etc.
All the ships that have been sold this year on the store. If they announce / release a ship next year, those are not included in this year's Legatus Pack. (This is a yearly thing, last year it was $36,500 iirc)
That is highly debatable. At least they are playing finished games where their progress wont be wiped. SC-PU just had a major wipe when 3.15 dropped. Now I do play SC-PU from time to time and will say 3.16 is a major step (stability wise- no longer crashes every 30 mins + 30k protection). But its still feels like a beautiful shell that is kinda hollow from the inside unless they run an event. Luckily right now they're running JT 2.0 + NT events so players have something interesting to do. Granted, Jumptown is just literally people manually carrying around boxes but the drama around it is funny (since players will steal/kill/grief each other there on occasion).
Also, CIG lies to their fanbase constantly. Usually in the form of missed deadlines (like SQ42 was supposed to ship in 2016, roadmap drama, etc).
[edit] This is one of highest voted threads lately at /r/SC where CIG is getting called out for dropping the ball.
Last edited:
Yeah same here. It's pretty funny. I only mildly keep up, but I remember my buds and I were into Eve and some other sandbox games years and years ago when I was a little younger. We all thought star citizen was going to be out back then. Now we've all got teen sons and it's still the same song lol. Every time I randomly catch or see anything related to the game, there's always someone saying something about server meshing coming soon. Been that way for some time it feels.
But all of those games are actually finished. I'd much rather spend money on a cosmetic in a game like Fortnite or Destiny 2 than drop it into a endless black hole like Star Citizen.
On top of that, none of those games sells a cosmetic (or even a cosmetic pack) that costs $40k. You could probably buy many, if not all, of Fortnite's cosmetics for less than that.
It made me laugh. I get that some people are very invested into this game and defend it because of it, but this is just too much.
Sounds like something posted to generate news articles and then the company or someone involved will "buy" just to generate more interest.
People are buying NFTs in droves, of course they're gonna buy this shit.
If anything, I believe CIG dropped the ball with not involving themselves with NFTs yet, their business model of selling digital scarcity seems to even pre-date the whole NFT craze.
If anything, I believe CIG dropped the ball with not involving themselves with NFTs yet, their business model of selling digital scarcity seems to even pre-date the whole NFT craze.
Fortnite pulled in 1 year more than 10 times more than Star Citizen has in its lifetime, all the while Fortnite Battle Royale was still in beta, an unreleased product.
All developers of live service games reserve the right to (and will) wipe all of the players progress as soon as the service isn't profitable.
I can't speak about them lying or anything like that since I don't follow too closely. And honestly I'm not saying that this type of monetisation is right either, just that I don't think it's that different to how many big publishers are funding their live service games. You don't own a part of Destiny 2 yet Bungie are asking for £79.99 for their newest expansion and seasonal content. That's not $40,000 sure, but they're ultimately still taking a lot and giving very little back when you put things in perspective.
At least with Cloud Imperium they're saying 'we're using your money from ship purchases to fund the game'. You look at that 400 mil, and give or take it probably is being used on the games development. Give or take a few million, most of it is probably going back into the game. However effectively managed or not that is is neither here nor there. With other games, only a tiny tiny fraction of your cash is going back into the games development, and the larger chunk of it is being extracted as profit. So that rich people who do not care about the game can buy a 300 ache house, Yacht or an Island.
I'm not saying they're making the right decisions or even that they're always telling the truth, but it still seems more pro consumer than more traditional models of game development.
there are takes, and there are takes and this is definitely the latter, yow
for starters, when you buy things in those games, you get them
they're selling a fake ship that is literally how much money I have in the bank right now
capitalism sure feels great.
capitalism sure feels great.
Agreed. I'm freaking hope Starfield delivers because I was once interested in this project. Im not sure what's going to happen to this and I want a great space game. NMS is alright, but I want a heavier story-driven space game.
Yes it has been proven Chris Roberts has done all of those things to some degree with the money (just not an island yet). Also, hiring his family members.
It's not pro consumer at all. I backed in 2015. It was not a wise investment. Still waiting on a ship. At least in those other games you get what you paid for. No offense but did you read the thread? Backers are not getting what we paid for. I paid for SQ42 in 2015. It's still not here
We have no legal recourse (at least not in the US; backers in UK have gotten refunds through courts)
I took this as a painful lesson to just avoid crowdfunding projects unless I know the people personally
