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Star Citizen races past $50m mark after selling new space ships

G

GrizzNKev

Banned
Haunted said:
The mindset to pay that much for a vehicle in a game seems crazy to me.

Slightly off-topic, I find it hard to think of this in terms of "crowdfunded backing" as we have come to understood it from Kickstarters.

Looking at how each of these purchases is actually buying an in-game vehicle (and not peripherals or other merchandise), I'd file a large portion of those 50 million dollars under "revenue made from in-game purchases" instead of "development money raised via backers".


Not sure if that distinction actually makes any functional sense, it does in my head. :p
Click to expand...

I would call the purchasers backers, since this ship purchase system was designed to boost pre-launch income and will cease to exist or at least be significantly modified when the game is finished.
 
S

scytheavatar

Member
bj00rn_ said:
This game is going to be an absolute beast, the GTAV of space games I reckon.

It's good times for the "genre" with Star Citizen in one end, NMS: Vaporware in the other end, and of course Elite: Dangerous comfortably like a gem in the middle.
Click to expand...

More like Elite: Dangerous will be in the best game ever end while Star Citizen will be on the other end. Frontier Developments is really making Chris Roberts and co look like a complete joke, while CIG is busy milking the backers FD is close to releasing a game that has a far more polished flight experience than that Arena Commander crap. I bet we will see 1-2 more Elite games being released after Dangerous before we'll see Star Citizen's release.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
mr2xxx said:
How would you even balance real money spent on a ship vs grinding for one? If I spent hundreds on a ship I'd be pissed if someone could get it with say 20 hours of grinding. On the other hand I'd be pissed if I had to grind for over 20 hours for a single ship.
Click to expand...

The game is not targetted the "grinding" mechanic. Rather, exploration and occassional combat. It is more of a social game (kinda like end game eve is no longer about grinding at all).

If you are worried about stats and grinding, Star Citizen may not be the right game to use that mentality in. Many of its systems are designed around circumventing MMO tropes.
scytheavatar said:
More like Elite: Dangerous will be in the best game ever end while Star Citizen will be on the other end. Frontier Developments is really making Chris Roberts and co look like a complete joke, while CIG is busy milking the backers FD is close to releasing a game that has a far more polished flight experience than that Arena Commander crap.
Click to expand...

Both games will be fantastic and wholly different. I will never understand the animosity some people have for SC and Elite. Did Chris Roberts piss in someone's cereal? Or did David Braben poop on the hood of someone's car?

I forget which one.
 
M

Masterbrew

Member
I don't see how they can just upscale the scope of the game as they get more money.

Don't they have to redo the entire underlying framework?

I doubt game design is so modular that you can just add in cities, economy, whatever, without having to do some serious fundamental changes to the entire thing.

How big is the team now and how big was it in the beginning?
 
C

chrominance

Member
Seanspeed said:
So this will never be a game where you can simply buy a ship and always have it?

That's a deal breaker for me. I don't think I could enjoy myself flying around if I know that I could lose my precious investment that I worked hard and long for at any moment.


Ah ok. Definitely not for me, then.

Sounds interesting on-paper, but I wouldn't be able to enjoy it personally.
Click to expand...

The best analogue we have for this is Eve Online, where you can purchase and insure a ship, but you can potentially run into an issue where you just completely lose all your ships. (I think you can generate a free starter ship if you have somehow lost everything, not sure.) Since Star Citizen seems to be a pseudo-MMO (where the universe is persistent, but it's not necessarily massively multiplayer) where the ship is essentially your avatar and your skill set all in one, this makes a certain sense. A better analogue might be something like Trade Wars, an old BBS game. The basic idea is the same: a big part of the game is buying a ship to suit your needs, and subsequently having to fend off pirates (or other players) and potentially losing your ship and having to claw your way back.

The crucial thing is that the ships were intended to be easily purchasable in-game, without real currency. In fact, I thought the original idea behind the campaign was that the ships would be unavailable for real-currency purchase once the game was out. But as the campaign continues and RSI continues to release new ship packages for ungodly sums of money, I'm beginning to wonder if we're shifting towards a model where buying ships with real money is not only allowable but encouraged and common. That would be a very different game from the one I signed on for but I'm not sure if that's Chris Roberts' intent at this time (or will be by launch).
 
T

Tommyhawk

Member
Kazman said:
On day one, someone who pays real money for a bigger ship will have an advantage over someone who just pays the box price. Is that not pay to win?

Put it another way, generic f2p shooter sells better weapon packs for real money. The person that buys the pack can't aim and sucks at shooters. It's still pay to win, right?
Click to expand...

Well the current plan is to cut off the possibility to buy ships with real money, once the game goes online.
You will be able to buy ingame money with real money but the amount will be capped to 25$ per day and up to a max of 150$ on your account at any time.

The Aurora, the absolute starter ship, will cost around 75k UEC (the ingame currency) once the game goes live.
Since you get 1000UEC for 1$ you can buy exactly two Auroras with the maximum possible amount of real money.

But I have to say that I would be happier if they would get rid of the whole real money for UEC system.


Links to back up the numbers from above:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13249-Letter-From-The-Chairman-18-Million
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...etter-From-The-Chairman-Hangar-Store-Launched
 
E

Evrae

Banned
scytheavatar said:
More like Elite: Dangerous will be in the best game ever end while Star Citizen will be on the other end. Frontier Developments is really making Chris Roberts and co look like a complete joke, while CIG is busy milking the backers FD is close to releasing a game that has a far more polished flight experience than that Arena Commander crap. I bet we will see 1-2 more Elite games being released after Dangerous before we'll see Star Citizen's release.
Click to expand...

I really doubt that, considering Elite has at least a twenty times lower budget.

You are right though, if Elite doesn't start selling expansion packs to make money, they're not gonna be able to stay in business at all.

Slayven said:
How big is the team on this?
Click to expand...

250+ people.

More money = more studios = more parallelism in development = faster release.

Read about it here.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Evrae said:
You should probably not make asinine assumptions about people you don't know before making statements that make no sense or correlate to any issues whatsoever.
Click to expand...

That the guy thinks there are "top of the line" things in the game is a pretty great indication that he has no idea how the ships in this game works.
 
L

LeBoef

Member
its fun to see how f2p systems have been demonized as casual console and iphone crap, since masterrace gamers are too clever for that.

now we got the biggest rip off ever - on pc.
 
C

Camp Freddie

Member
I think they'll have a very difficult PR job to make it so that:

1) Normal people can buy good ships without huge grinds
2) People who paid $100 or more don't feel ripped off when they find that their ship is only worth a few hours of game time.

I think a lot of the big spenders are rich 30-somethings with proper jobs that want to throw some cash at Roberts as a belated thank you for WC.

The real big spenders seem to be hardcore simmers, with crazy expensive HOTAS+pedals, multi-monitor TrackIR/Occulus systems.
I've heard a couple of people say that the ship cost is peanuts compared to spending cash on real flight-sim lessons or time in a real light-aircraft.

IMO it's pay-to-not-grind, but it's not clear if it'll be like Dungeon Keeper or like some game where the game-time investment is not especially difficult.

My biggest worry is that the hardcore fans are all throwing huge amounts of cash at it, or they are EVE addicts spending 30-hour weeks grinding for spaceships. I think they are in danger of forgetting that most gamers just want to spend about $50 and have a good time.
 
S

Soi-Fong

Member
I guess it's just the way CIG is handling this game that is off-putting to everyone.

On the one side, you have Elite and David Braben stating about walking around your ships and planetary landing: "nope, not now. We gonna do it later and do it right. Period."

On the other, you have Roberts and CIG saying: "add two million more and we'll add gravy into your space machines!"

I feel like CIG is being spread too thin focusing on all areas at once. And it clearly shows at the state Arena Commander is in. Your core gameplay is still broken yet you're now promising alien languages.. I don't feel like I'm seeing progress in the game except them adding more ships to the fray.

People are not joking when they (and I) say ths game will probably fully release in 2017 or 2018 or something.

Edit: Like what the guy said above micro-transactions have been demonized, but it's alive and well here for SC.
 
E

Evrae

Banned
Krejlooc said:
That the guy thinks there are "top of the line" things in the game is a pretty great indication that he has no idea how the ships in this game works.
Click to expand...

That you don't understand the concept of the Phoenix being top of the Constellation line, and the most expensive ship of its ship class really makes me worry about not only your skills with general English, but also indicates the general education level that you are apparently receiving.
 
M

mclem

Member
I have to admit, I've not looked at this for a while since I backed it. It's encouraging that it's still getting money, but it often feels that that's overwhelming any news about Squadron 42, which is the component that interests me the most. Hopefully that'll solidify more around the start of next year.

That said, the modular approach to development is rather an effective one - I've got a game idea in mind that might work well approached as multiple distinct modules for dev purposes, and in principle it should allow for more rapid development when the core modules are under way. So I'll still sit here patiently waiting, but I'm going to need some news before too long :)


Nevertheless, I do have to say that Elite is feeling a lot more like a solidified product than Star Citizen is as of the moment.
 
S

scytheavatar

Member
Evrae said:
I really doubt that, considering Elite has at least a twenty times lower budget.
Click to expand...

Twenty times lower budget can be easily made up by far better project management, a more mature team that has been together for a longer time, having realistic goals and scaling back when you realize you have promised too much.......... and more importantly focus on making your game rather than talking about icing before the cake is made.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Evrae said:
That you don't understand the concept of the Phoenix being top of the Constellation line, and the most expensive ship of its ship class really makes me worry about not only your skills with general English, but also indicates the general education level that you are apparently receiving.
Click to expand...

So a phoenix is the best ship in the game? No, there is no best ship in the game. There is no "top of the line." This is complaining that a dump truck costs more than a honda crv and pretending that the added cost of the dump truck makes it unfairly superior to the crv. Pro tip: there is no general purpose ship.

Why are the clueless always so agressively annoying?
 
D

Dictator93

Member
Evrae said:
That you don't understand the concept of the Phoenix being top of the Constellation line, and the most expensive ship of its ship class really makes me worry about not only your skills with general English, but also indicates the general education level that you are apparently receiving.
Click to expand...

Comparing ship to ship even within a class in star Citizen does not make sense really. One ship is meant for combat with missiles, one with direct turrets, one is meant for exploration, etc...

This game is not really 1:1 agsint each other... I think people are so used to MMOs of that style that it completely throws off how the ships and ship systems will work. Especially for the alrge ships where multi people will be in them.
 
D

Durante

Member
Haunted said:
The mindset to pay that much for a vehicle in a game seems crazy to me.

Slightly off-topic, I find it hard to think of this in terms of "crowdfunded backing" as we have come to understood it from Kickstarters.

Looking at how each of these purchases is actually buying an in-game vehicle (and not peripherals or other merchandise), I'd file a large portion of those 50 million dollars under "revenue made from in-game purchases" instead of "development money raised via backers".


Not sure if that distinction actually makes any functional sense, it does in my head. :p
Click to expand...
FWIW, I agree that this distinction should be made.

SC isn't the greatest crowdfunding success ever, it's the greatest pre-release IAP success ever. However, I'm not much opposed to this as long as it makes my co-op campaign better :p
 
M

mnannola

Member
scytheavatar said:
More like Elite: Dangerous will be in the best game ever end while Star Citizen will be on the other end. Frontier Developments is really making Chris Roberts and co look like a complete joke, while CIG is busy milking the backers FD is close to releasing a game that has a far more polished flight experience than that Arena Commander crap. I bet we will see 1-2 more Elite games being released after Dangerous before we'll see Star Citizen's release.
Click to expand...

I don't know how Elite being close to release means that Star Citizen will be horrible. That is like saying Halo 5 is going to be horrible because Call of Duty is almost released. One has nothing to do with the other.

Also, if you had been following Elite's development at all, you would know that the Elite team will be busy for the next couple years creating expansion packs to implement the following features (grabbed from Elite Wiki):

The expansions include significant new features such as seamless freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) atmospheric flight and landings and on-foot and out-of-ship activities (such as FPS combat, walking around and boarding ships, walking in stations and walking and driving vehicles on full 1:1 scale populated living planets), multi-player crew and player executive controlled capital ships.

Some of this stuff will be available at release in Star Citizen, such as multi-player ships, FPS combat, walking around and boarding ships. This group of features is a massive undertaking, and should keep them busy for a while.

I would bet that Elite with all of it's expansions will be done around the same time that Star Citizen's full Persistent Universe is ready to release. I can't wait for both.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
BTW, it is just not Constellation ships which have put this game up 1.5 million plus in 48 hours or so.

Rather, another 3,000-5,000 backers were added too.

EDIT: may actually be more than 5,000. oops
 
E

Evrae

Banned
Krejlooc said:
So a phoenix is the best ship in the game? No, there is no best ship in the game. There is no "top of the line." This is complaining that a dump truck costs more than a honda crv and pretending that the added cost of the dump truck makes it unfairly superior to the crv. Pro tip: there is no general purpose ship.

Why are the clueless always so agressively annoying?
Click to expand...

The Phoenix is the top of the line of the Constellation class. Nobody ever talked about "the best ship in the game". That's what you're referring to because you made a mistake and misinterpreted what I was saying.

Why are people always so aggressively trying to change the facts and the argument so that it'll seem like they know what they're talking about?

Dictator93 said:
Comparing ship to ship even within a class in star Citizen does not make sense really. One ship is meant for combat with missiles, one with direct turrets, one is meant for exploration, etc...

This game is not really 1:1 agsint each other... I think people are so used to MMOs of that style that it completely throws off how the ships and ship systems will work. Especially for the alrge ships where multi people will be in them.
Click to expand...

Yet the Phoenix is the most expensive. Hence, top of the line in its class.

You're right though, they aren't directly comparable as far as utility goes. But in general, the asspained people are complaining because they don't have the money to upgrade to the most expensive top of the line variant.

scytheavatar said:
Twenty times lower budget can be easily made up by far better project management, a more mature team that has been together for a longer time, having realistic goals and scaling back when you realize you have promised too much.......... and more importantly focus on making your game rather than talking about icing before the cake is made.
Click to expand...

I certainly wish them the best.
 
G

gatti-man

Member
glaurung said:
I still haven't gotten around to pledging anything to it. I think it has the makings of an awesome game and a great space sim, but the early paid stuff has me worried.

Basically everyone who wants to get into the action has already purchased the best ships in the game and once the game ships for true, some users have already paid their way to the win?

And another thing... I believe that by the time the game ships for reals, most of the people have moved on to other things or given up on the game.
Click to expand...
I pledged 30 when it was first announced and ignore it besides reading threads on gaf. Call me when the game is done. For $30 there is now way I'm going to be dissappointed. I really don't care if people will have an mp advantage as long as the grind isn't crazy which I doubt it will be.
 
E

Evrae

Banned
gatti-man said:
I pledged 30 when it was first announced and ignore it besides reading threads on gaf. Call me when the game is done. For $330 there is now way I'm going to be dissappointed. I really don't care if people will have an mp advantage as long as the grind isn't crazy which I doubt it will be.
Click to expand...

$330? That's bold.

I'm only $165 in.

I don't really give a shit how it turns out though. They can spend the money on hookers and blow for all I care. Got my money's worth out of watching the development and the Arena Commander. The shit they'll be putting into the game in two weeks also looks great.
 
G

gatti-man

Member
Evrae said:
$330? That's bold.

I'm only $165 in.

I don't really give a shit how it turns out though. They can spend the money on hookers and blow for all I care. Got my money's worth out of watching the development and the Arena Commander. The shit they'll be putting into the game in two weeks also looks great.
Click to expand...
It was a typo I'm just in for 30 lol. I'm ignoring it on purpose bc I know I'd spend a ton of cash on it.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Evrae said:
The Phoenix is the top of the line of the Constellation class. Nobody ever talked about "the best ship in the game". That's what you're referring to because you made a mistake and misinterpreted what I was saying.

Why are people always so aggressively trying to change the facts and the argument so that it'll seem like they know what they're talking about?
Click to expand...

Your complaint is about some people maintaining superiority by buying more expensive ship that other people cannot afford. the most expensive ship does not mean the most superior ship. an expensive ship is expensive because this game maintains a real world model for pricing, hence these ships actually cost more material to build. that doesn't mean they won't maintainin tactical advantage over other less expensive ships.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
Deadbeat said:
So this game is set to disappoint because its ambitions are too high, yet No Man's Sky will deliver no problem.
Click to expand...

To be honest, this game's fidelity is a lot higher than No Man's sky. But even then, yes, their is a lot questionable criticism considering the history of CR and the people who are working on the game. They are all veterans of huge projects.
 
E

Evrae

Banned
Krejlooc said:
Your complaint is about some people maintaining superiority by buying more expensive ship that other people cannot afford. the most expensive ship does not mean the most superior ship. an expensive ship is expensive because this game maintains a real world model for pricing, hence these ships actually cost more material to build. that doesn't mean they won't maintainin tactical advantage over other less expensive ships.
Click to expand...

I do not, and have never had a complaint.

I was talking general semantics. There is no "most superior ship". There is certainly the most expensive and most luxurious top of the line ship, which I was referencing.

OH BY THE WAY GUYS.

JUST TO POUR FUEL ON THE FIRE FOR YA.

A lot of you like to criticize the project, so now you have the added bonus of wondering whether or not Star Citizen is a scam, if the project is being abandoned, or if it's being used to fund a new movie.
 
N

Nibiru

Banned
There is no possible way this game does not disappoint when it is released. I'm not saying it won't be good I'm just saying that the hype is so big that expectations will never be met imo.
 
R

RulkezX

Member
Deadbeat said:
So this game is set to disappoint because its ambitions are too high, yet No Man's Sky will deliver no problem.
Click to expand...

Said no one ever.

The NMS threads are choked full of doubt it will even release , never mind be a fun game.

Nibiru said:
There is no possible way this game does not disappoint when it is released. I'm not saying it won't be good I'm just saying that the hype is so big that expectations will never be met imo.
Click to expand...


The community will be to blame for that, no the devs.

OT - do they have additional funding from somewhere ? $50 million wouldn't come close to funding the average MMO these days, how are these guys going to pull off something much more ambitious than pretty much anything we have seen on such a small budget.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Camp Freddie said:
I think they'll have a very difficult PR job to make it so that:

1) Normal people can buy good ships without huge grinds
2) People who paid $100 or more don't feel ripped off when they find that their ship is only worth a few hours of game time.

I think a lot of the big spenders are rich 30-somethings with proper jobs that want to throw some cash at Roberts as a belated thank you for WC.

The real big spenders seem to be hardcore simmers, with crazy expensive HOTAS+pedals, multi-monitor TrackIR/Occulus systems.
I've heard a couple of people say that the ship cost is peanuts compared to spending cash on real flight-sim lessons or time in a real light-aircraft.

IMO it's pay-to-not-grind, but it's not clear if it'll be like Dungeon Keeper or like some game where the game-time investment is not especially difficult.

My biggest worry is that the hardcore fans are all throwing huge amounts of cash at it, or they are EVE addicts spending 30-hour weeks grinding for spaceships. I think they are in danger of forgetting that most gamers just want to spend about $50 and have a good time.
Click to expand...

They don't need gamers who just want to spend $50 if they can keep hauling in whales like they currently are. Their business model is to find and milk the minority that spends hundreds of dollars on it for as much as they can.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Evrae said:
I do not, and have never had a complaint.

I was talking general semantics. There is no "most superior ship". There is certainly the most expensive and most luxurious top of the line ship, which I was referencing.

OH BY THE WAY GUYS.

JUST TO POUR FUEL ON THE FIRE FOR YA.

A lot of you like to criticize the project, so now you have the added bonus of wondering whether or not Star Citizen is a scam, if the project is being abandoned, or if it's being used to fund a new movie.
Click to expand...
There's a new Wing Commander movie??
 
S

Slayven

Member
Evrae said:
I really doubt that, considering Elite has at least a twenty times lower budget.

You are right though, if Elite doesn't start selling expansion packs to make money, they're not gonna be able to stay in business at all.



250+ people.

More money = more studios = more parallelism in development = faster release.

Read about it here.
Click to expand...

Thats good, if they were sitting on that money and only had like 30 people, I would have to give them the side eye.
 
N

Nibiru

Banned
RulkezX said:
The community will be to blame for that, no the devs.
Click to expand...

The devs are never to blame for hype it's always the media and the community but there is much more of a backlash when the game is crowd funded. Imo they should probably ease up on the stretch goals.
 
K

KKRT00

Member
scytheavatar said:
More like Elite: Dangerous will be in the best game ever end while Star Citizen will be on the other end. Frontier Developments is really making Chris Roberts and co look like a complete joke, while CIG is busy milking the backers FD is close to releasing a game that has a far more polished flight experience than that Arena Commander crap. I bet we will see 1-2 more Elite games being released after Dangerous before we'll see Star Citizen's release.
Click to expand...

Sure. Now tell me in what way Elite is game of choice for EVE Online players? You know game with over 500k subscribers.
Because You know what? Elite does not focus on a single EVE Online aspect that made it successful, in contrary to Star Citizen.

Elite is for players who want a space sim for lone wolfs.
Star Citizen is for players who wants a community driven space sim.

Two completely different games and thats without focusing on fidelity of mechanics of both titles.

--
Final Verdict said:
Now we just need to raise $450M more and they can make Destiny 2!!!
(AKA Destiny with realistic flight from planet to planet).
Click to expand...
Its actually quite funny that this game is much more ambitious than Destiny :)
 
M

mr2xxx

Banned
Dictator93 said:
The game is not targetted the "grinding" mechanic. Rather, exploration and occassional combat. It is more of a social game (kinda like end game eve is no longer about grinding at all).

If you are worried about stats and grinding, Star Citizen may not be the right game to use that mentality in. Many of its systems are designed around circumventing MMO tropes.
Click to expand...

It's not that I'm worried about stats but say for example if I want to participate in the racing segment, will I receive a race ship through it's story mode or will I have to kill 1000 people, or transport x minerals to afford it?

Once I start racing will I have a weak little civic or start of with a super car? In this scenario I'd prefer a civic to learn the game and naturally progress to the higher end cars/ships but not have to grind a certain track 100's of time in order to get a certain high end car.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
Nibiru said:
The devs are never to blame for hype it's always the media and the community but there is much more of a backlash when the game is crowd funded. Imo they should probably ease up on the stretch goals.
Click to expand...

But there have not been any major game design stretch goals in quite some time... They have eased up on them.
 
R

RulkezX

Member
KKRT00 said:
Sure. Now tell me in what way Elite is game of choice for EVE Online players? You know game with over 500k subscribers.
Because You know what? Elite does not focus on a single EVE Online aspect that made it successful, in contrary to Star Citizen.

Elite is for players who want a space sim for lone wolfs.
Star Citizen is for players who wants a community driven space sim.

Two completely different games and thats without focusing on fidelity of mechanics of both titles.
Click to expand...

Can't wait for EvE players to descend and fuck it all up for everyone
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Durante said:
FWIW, I agree that this distinction should be made.

SC isn't the greatest crowdfunding success ever, it's the greatest pre-release IAP success ever. However, I'm not much opposed to this as long as it makes my co-op campaign better :p
Click to expand...
Yeah, as an old-school Wing Commander fan, I'm in this for Squadron 42. Here's hoping it'll actually release in our lifetime. :p
 
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