bitbydeath
Gold Member
I know.
It is strange these "whales" exist though.
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It is strange these "whales" exist though.
Buggy Loop
Member
For having needed to make their graphic engine and new network tech because MMOs all worked on queue systems which makes no sense for high fidelity physic based bullet / missile in real-time, plus a single player with a huge cast of actors, the space MMO that is very ambitious with tens of thousands of peoples playing it daily that they had to support, pay amazon servers for (no monthly fees for MMO), add content, fix content, do marketing, etc. I would say it's in the ballpark? We're talking about a thousand developers at first nation budgets in USA, Canada, UK, Germany?
Or we can look at Bethesda's veteran team with known established leadership that went through multiple big AAA releases and they still took 8 years, $400M for Starfield, on a known inhouse engine they were using for multiple projects, and still was a fart in the wind, didn't bring any new tech in space games? Shall we talk about Concord's $400M and the CCU it had and much much smaller scope?
What you guys are not understanding is that it's actually the current output that is driving the huge money spikes.
A single year of funding like 2025 basically covers the 4-5 years of initial funding the game had from the backers. Peoples aren't buying into this from 2012's list of promises on a kickstarter or before feature creep, they know full well what they are getting into in the 2020's. How many videos bashing Star citizen per year you need for anyone to stumble on it and say "naw?"
Huge jump of users added in 2020's, well after all the drama, giggles and memes.
Concord devs would have sold their grandma to have those kind of users added yearly.
Was the game mismanaged? Fuck yes, especially early on.
Was there feature creep? YES.
Were they completely delusional with some of the release dates in the past? YES!
Is it money laundering or a scam? You would have to be the worst scammer or concaved head moron to go and set up a thousand dev first world high salary across multiple international studios, make an MMO that requires constant service with no monthly fees while you pay Amazon servers, as the effective way of doing it the laundering/scam
As
clarky
said, there's a ton of other options than setting up that huge monster studio. Those theories make no sense, on top of you know, peoples actually playing it daily.edit :
Also Clarky, as you asked, that they might be paying themselves huge amounts of money
UK law requires everything to be public. A lot of "Colombo" bitter gamers have fine combed this shit throughout the years and had wet dreams at the idea they would find a yacht or Chris Robers paying himself $100M in the pocket. It doesn't work like that.
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
In case some peoples don't like searching, a 2021 report for fiscal year 2020, which for reference, had more funding in a single year than the 2012 + 2013 funding campaign
The "highest paid director" being most likely Chris Roberts
It's an "OK" and nothing more salary for a CEO of a ~1000 dev company. I know peoples making more than that just being engineers.
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clarky
Gold Member
Whales exist in every GAAS its not uncommon and you know this.
Unless this dude is AI?
Meet a fan who has spent $30,000 on Star Citizen ships
Why one Star Citizen fan has spent $30K on the game, and plans to spend more.
Not even sure how i got dragged into this, I don't even play the game. I just find it highly implausible that this is a money laundering scam. If it is its the most stupid one I've ever heard of and sounds like a right ballache to keep up the front.
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clarky
Gold Member
How many active players does this game have? Do they make that kind of data available?For having needed to make their graphic engine and new network tech because MMOs all worked on queue systems which makes no sense for high fidelity physic based bullet / missile in real-time, plus a single player with a huge cast of actors, the space MMO that is very ambitious with tens of thousands of peoples playing it daily that they had to support, pay amazon servers for (no monthly fees for MMO), add content, fix content, do marketing, etc. I would say it's in the ballpark? We're talking about a thousand developers at first nation budgets in USA, Canada, UK, Germany?
Or we can look at Bethesda's veteran team with known established leadership that went through multiple big AAA releases and they still took 8 years, $400M for Starfield, on a known inhouse engine they were using for multiple projects, and still was a fart in the wind, didn't bring any new tech in space games? Shall we talk about Concord's $400M and the CCU it had and much much smaller scope?
What you guys are not understanding is that it's actually the current output that is driving the huge money spikes.
A single year of funding like 2025 basically covers the 4-5 years of initial funding the game had from the backers. Peoples aren't buying into this from 2012's list of promises on a kickstarter or before feature creep, they know full well what they are getting into in the 2020's. How many videos bashing Star citizen per year you need for anyone to stumble on it and say "naw?"
Huge jump of users added in 2020's, well after all the drama, giggles and memes.
Concord devs would have sold their grandma to have those kind of users added yearly.
Was the game mismanaged? Fuck yes, especially early on.
Was there feature creep? YES.
Were they completely delusional with some of the release dates in the past? YES!
Is it money laundering or a scam? You would have to be the worst scammer or concaved head moron to go and set up a thousand dev first world high salary across multiple international studios, make an MMO that requires constant service with no monthly fees while you pay Amazon servers, as the effective way of doing it the laundering/scam
As
edit :
Also Clarky, as you asked, that they might be paying themselves huge amounts of money
UK law requires everything to be public. A lot of "Colombo" bitter gamers have fine combed this shit throughout the years and had wet dreams at the idea they would find a yacht or Chris Robers paying himself $100M in the pocket. It doesn't work like that.
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
In case some peoples don't like searching, a 2021 report for fiscal year 2020, which for reference, had more funding in a single year than the 2012 + 2013 funding campaign
The "highest paid director" being most likely Chris Roberts
It's an "OK" and nothing more salary for a CEO of a ~1000 dev company. I know peoples making more than that just being engineers.
bitbydeath
Gold Member
30K is a small amount.Whales exist in every GAAS its not uncommon and you know this.
Unless this dude is AI?
Meet a fan who has spent $30,000 on Star Citizen ships
Why one Star Citizen fan has spent $30K on the game, and plans to spend more.www.pcgamer.com
Not even sure how i got dragged into this, I don't even play the game. I just find it highly implausible that this is a money laundering scam. If it is its the most stupid one I've ever heard of and sounds like a right ballache to keep up the front.
Someone spending 300M would be better to hear from.
I'm not saying it is a money laundering scheme, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
Buggy Loop
Member
It was said that in 2024, 1 million players played 32 million hours over the year. That year had ~500k new users. It must vary a lot year to year, 2025 for example having ~710k new players, 2022 ~872k new players. etc. New peoples in, some going dormant later, etc.
Can't go back to a peak CCU with that info but that's what's out officially. A lot of MMO estimators out there but I don't know what's that's worth, guesstimates at best.
They don't have CCU as a metric. Been a lot of attempts throughout the years to guesswork it and it falls in the ~30k-60k players CCU. Probably more concentrated in new events / patch with content, while when its calm probably I would guess in the ~20k.
Personally, I entered the funding in early 2013. Slept on it for 10 years (had real-life milestones to achieve rather than virtual ones), checked once in a while, including the famous hangar in early days, etc. I got more into it around late 2023. Played a LOT of it during that time. I had found the bounty hunting loop to be so much fun I was addicted.
Now I seldom visit for big new patches and everything, but mostly dormant. I am 100% looking forward to some content in the future and their roadmap to 1.0 is exciting. I got tired of wipes, starting over. I got my money out of it and likely for a lot more hours to come but I'm looking for certain milestones.
But it's also why I said earlier in a post that it's not something I would recommend for now. I'm being 100% honest here that it's not for everyone (very sandbox, wipes, still jank), and would recommend against paying anything before you try a free weekend. Still doesn't make me down on the project like at all, very excited for what's to come in fact. There's peoples way way more dedicated to the game that I'll likely ever will. There's orgs in the game that keep doing events or wars between orgs, there's e-sport racing, etc.
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Gubaldo
Member
Trogdor1123
Member
Well, I'm at the point where I really want to see this actually launch.
Ðuelist
Member
Sad people yapping about this have never played. Can literally do freefly right now. Nothing quite like it. Would not recommend for everyone. I bought a cheap package for $60 way back when that included SQ42.
Avid Reading Horse
Member
LyricalShrike
Member
For those who didn't know:
I highly recommend visiting the SC forums (Spectrum) for further details if you are a connoisseur of drama.
- CIG offered a new mega capital ship for sale
- The ship costs $5,000 and will likely not be playable within the next 5 years.
- Potential buyers were asked to submit an essay to justify why they deserve to buy the ship ("Odin Founder's Club")
- The privilege to submit an essay is limited to customers with $1,000 minimum spend
- Players wrote impassioned essays describing their SC dreams and how the project has impacted their lives.
- CIG ignored the essays and randomly selected "Founder's Club" members. Successful essays included one liners such as "I will not buy this ship" and "I have a small penis"
- The lucky members of the Odin founder's club couldn't just buy the ship after jumping through these hoops. The ship has been put on sale in waves of limited quantity that sell out nearly immediately just like every other cap ship purchase.
- The whale community is in utter meltdown as players who spent $25k-$100k finally arrive at the realization that Chris Roberts sees them as little more than Yacht fuel
- Insult to injury is that the latest patch is utterly broken. It was rushed to launch with the latest sales event as usual (Defensecon).
I highly recommend visiting the SC forums (Spectrum) for further details if you are a connoisseur of drama.
Tobimacoss
Member
This might just be the most hilarious thing I've read in gaming.
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German Shocks
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
I think we're starting to get to the root of the issue.
LyricalShrike
Member
Bro you only need to bring tissues. You can use the tiers for lube. Here's a preview:
calico
Member
We're approaching 12 years overdue for Squadron 42.
clarky
Gold Member
Thanks for the info. I played a bit a fair while ago and have been following it on YT as the patches come out. It is very impressive what they are trying to do.
Won't ever actually be "finished" I guess but hope it does get to the point where they can call it 1.0 at some point and i can go for a spin around the Stars with less jank. S42 would be more my thing if it does come out at some point.
clarky
Gold Member
I mean you did, along with others, that's why we ended up talking about it.
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bitbydeath
Gold Member
Guardian Monkey
Member
Its a PAAS (pay as a service).
DKehoe
Member
It's funny how that article is more than 10 years old and now years later people are still asking the same questions because of the state of the game.Whales exist in every GAAS its not uncommon and you know this.
Unless this dude is AI?
Meet a fan who has spent $30,000 on Star Citizen ships
Why one Star Citizen fan has spent $30K on the game, and plans to spend more.
Not even sure how i got dragged into this, I don't even play the game. I just find it highly implausible that this is a money laundering scam. If it is its the most stupid one I've ever heard of and sounds like a right ballache to keep up the front.
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clarky
Gold Member
It was in reference to whales in the game. It is relevant to the discussion we were having.
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Hector Hall
Member
I also remember 13 years ago this being brought in conversations about how it would destroy de PS3 heavy hitters of 2012/13.
That's the problem, lives in the heads only, but nobody actually plays it.
Reizo Ryuu
Member
Incredible, but very much on brand.
Literally. SpaceX went from zero to low earth orbit for $100 million.
LyricalShrike
Member
SC is a hustle not a scam. Imagine all the complaints brought against the bloated western game industry. Star citizen has the same problems but CIG was smart enough to circumvent the capital cycle and get customers to pay for it's games in advance. It found an audience who will spend up to $5,000 on a jpg with no timeline for delivery. The devs have no real incentive to finish the game since that will represent a sharp decline in funding. Chris Roberts is more than happy to keep the show going since the upper people are paid well for dicking around in a passion project.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Damn I remember threads about this 10 plus years ago.
Donald mac Ronald
Member
Why are people using mental gymnastics. The guy just using fancy legal methods of funneling the money back into himself.For having needed to make their graphic engine and new network tech because MMOs all worked on queue systems which makes no sense for high fidelity physic based bullet / missile in real-time, plus a single player with a huge cast of actors, the space MMO that is very ambitious with tens of thousands of peoples playing it daily that they had to support, pay amazon servers for (no monthly fees for MMO), add content, fix content, do marketing, etc. I would say it's in the ballpark? We're talking about a thousand developers at first nation budgets in USA, Canada, UK, Germany?
Or we can look at Bethesda's veteran team with known established leadership that went through multiple big AAA releases and they still took 8 years, $400M for Starfield, on a known inhouse engine they were using for multiple projects, and still was a fart in the wind, didn't bring any new tech in space games? Shall we talk about Concord's $400M and the CCU it had and much much smaller scope?
What you guys are not understanding is that it's actually the current output that is driving the huge money spikes.
A single year of funding like 2025 basically covers the 4-5 years of initial funding the game had from the backers. Peoples aren't buying into this from 2012's list of promises on a kickstarter or before feature creep, they know full well what they are getting into in the 2020's. How many videos bashing Star citizen per year you need for anyone to stumble on it and say "naw?"
Huge jump of users added in 2020's, well after all the drama, giggles and memes.
Concord devs would have sold their grandma to have those kind of users added yearly.
Was the game mismanaged? Fuck yes, especially early on.
Was there feature creep? YES.
Were they completely delusional with some of the release dates in the past? YES!
Is it money laundering or a scam? You would have to be the worst scammer or concaved head moron to go and set up a thousand dev first world high salary across multiple international studios, make an MMO that requires constant service with no monthly fees while you pay Amazon servers, as the effective way of doing it the laundering/scam
As
edit :
Also Clarky, as you asked, that they might be paying themselves huge amounts of money
UK law requires everything to be public. A lot of "Colombo" bitter gamers have fine combed this shit throughout the years and had wet dreams at the idea they would find a yacht or Chris Robers paying himself $100M in the pocket. It doesn't work like that.
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
CLOUD IMPERIUM UK LTD. - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
In case some peoples don't like searching, a 2021 report for fiscal year 2020, which for reference, had more funding in a single year than the 2012 + 2013 funding campaign
The "highest paid director" being most likely Chris Roberts
It's an "OK" and nothing more salary for a CEO of a ~1000 dev company. I know peoples making more than that just being engineers.
- Roberts sold the intellectual property (IP) rights of Star Citizen—which he initially owned personally—back to his own company, CIG, for a reported $1 million to $1.5 million.
Chris Roberts' annual director remuneration has historically sat around $500,000 to $600,000,
Supposed to be a kick starter game but I'll just pay myself half a million.
Chris Roberts and Sandi Gardiner purchased a $4.7 million mansion
Buggy Loop
Member
Companies do that and it's legal
How much money of his own he poured initially?
If star citizen IP has to be under the umbrella of CIG and separate from his assets, for investors to come and invest in the IP with a company and not just a dude, the IP had to go to CIG. $1M? What price should it have been? We have no idea how much he spent early on. He had peoples paid for prototype for one.
Lol
Dude I already brought out the receipts on that earlier
It varied from 200k-600k depending on the year
For a CEO of now a thousand employees and getting ~$150M yearly in revenue from the MMO. It's not funding ffs, the MMO is generating that cash. Nobody blinks an eye when GAAS make that in a month.
What's he supposed to make? I know engineers making that.
He's supposed to be in rags and eat stale bread or something?
are you for real?
When it started he was in the ~$200K
The kickstarter is closed long ago.
Peoples playing the MMO are bringing money in like any GAAS. The product is generating cash, right now.
A single year of MMO is ~6 years of the initial funding.
~600K for managing multiple studios up to a thousand developers. Again I'll ask, what's he supposed to have?
They did? Oh noes /s
The guy who lifted Origin systems over his shoulders and made big bucks with Wing commander? Then founded Digital anvil and was bought by Microsoft for god knows how much.
He bought a mansion?
Must be company theft, no other explanations /s
clarky
Gold Member
What's the CCU on this ship? Can we fit the whole forum inside at the same time?Proud to unveil NeoGAF's first starship. Apply today.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Simple. There is a giant game out "already" that you can play. If it was nothing out there to play they maybe should be in jail.
More wild to think that you can spend more hours in the game than those 3 games combined.
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Each NeoGAF Sovereign fits exactly one whale inside.
Aressa
You can't die before your death
Spending 500 hours waiting for a transit train to spawn or glitching through a elevator floor isn't "gameplay". That's not the flex you think it is.More wild to think that you can spend more hours in the game than those 3 games combined.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
It's more gameplay than just watching tons of cutscenes of those 3 games. Or in lobby waiting for a group....
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Well, if you monetise development you get to do what you like for years, have little to nobody to answer to and you pay yourself a good salary for many years and can save up200 IQ big brain scam
.Not going the "mega scam" route, but let's not pity CiG…
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nemiroff
Gold Member
Well, if you monetise development you get to do what you like for years, have little to nobody to answer to and you pay yourself a good salary for many years and can save up
Not going the "mega scam" route, but let's not pity CiG…
No one is pitying CIG.
But what you're describing is a broader structural trend across the entire tech and gaming industry (and beyond), which is definitely a discussion worth having, rather than something specific to them. CIG just happened to master something that the rest of the industry is actively trying to replicate.
With that said, they definitely have people to answer to. One of the good things about SC's "open" development is that there are few places for CIG to hide. Star Citizen backers are not exactly known for keeping quiet with their criticism, especially after a extremely long "honeymoon", and that pressure (from a rapidly growing base after they released alpha 3.0) is a important part of what has forced CIG to change some of their past ways.
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Euler007
Member
You mean working unpaid overtime as a turret operator for your company's CEO?
nemiroff
Gold Member
I don't get it.