Star Citizen is an insane phenomenon to me. It’s a good game and a massive fraud at the same time, and one fuels the other.
Let’s give credit where credit is due - the game is incredibly immersive. The massive social element, ability to walk and explore things outside your ships and rovers, to customize them, to create all the inventive ways to make money and to prevent hostiles from doing the same is fascinating. It’s…believable, immersive, real. No other game has nailed it just so accurately, and I would invite you to experience it by yourself, but…
But once the player’s attention is caught, they become a milking cow. You want to develop in game? You have to pay up big time, lest you want all your ships and money go away with an update. They don’t go loud about their wipes, and most players face them when they’ve reached a certain point in the game - at which point they either lose all progress, or start to buy their ships for cash. For, like, hundreds or thousands of dollars per ship.
While this may sound bollocks to someone who haven’t played it, but the way it is normalized in the community combined with the element of frustration of losing everything in a universe player now cares about really drives folks to spend massive sums on the game.
Back in the pre-war era, I remember a person from Ukraine (a country with per capita GDP of ~$5000, or 1/16th that of the US) secretly stashing over $1000 to buy a new ship, adding to his ship park of $4000. His family (wife and two kids) haven’t been on a good vacation for years, and this amount of money would allow them to do so several times over in the southern Ukraine, but he bought some virtual ships. No, really. He was a clan leader, so he felt like he had to have all the nicest ships at his disposal, and his only grief was that he couldn’t afford the $8000 and $21000 ship packs.
The way community psychology works in the game is insane, and I believe a study could be made on how exactly was this all pulled off. Catch with a good premise, and make sure to never let the player go. I’mma be clear - what made me leave the game is not the sudden realization of its predatory practices, but simply the fact my computer started lagging heavily in the new areas, and me not having money to upgrade at the moment. I did consider buying a $400 ship just to have a decent hauler after wipes though, despite myself living in a not-so-rich of a country. Looking back at my Star Citizen experience though, I see how crazy it would be.
Squadron 42 is the single-player counterpart to Star Citizen. It’s supposed to release next year. Star Citizen, however, is far too complex to self-host. The server technology they’ve shown off is incredible, but it’s not a “single server” thing.
I’m hoping that many of these departures are simply because the underlying technology is finally mature and those people want to move on to new challenges, but I don’t really believe that’s true. It’s clear that Chris Roberts own shortcomings as a boss are poisoning the company and it’s once-passionate workers.
Wow yeah, I just looked into the Wikipedia entry for this game. It looks like they make a lot more money as an unreleased project than they would ever make as a fully realized game.
To its credit, Star Citizen is neither vaporware nor a scam.
You can buy access to the game for just $45 USD, and the game is playable to you right now. It regularly receives updates, some minor and some major.
Vaporware is something that never gets released to the public. Like the Coleco Chameleon. Obviously, Star Citizen is playable right now by anyone that buys access to it.
A scam is when someone takes your money under fraudulent pretenses. Star Citizen takes your money for access to a space sim game, which is exactly what you get. Its not a scam, just terribly mismanaged with a very slow development pace.
Star Citizen is a piñata though. Both from games “journalism” (lol) and from Redditors, primarily.
Haters going to hate and there is a lot to hate about SC. Dont waste your time arguing with a wall that’s made up its mind without ever even playing the game.
Bro, just 9 more years of development, come on bro, it’s just 9 more years, we lost developers but I swear we’ll be done soon, it’s only 9 more years, bro.
(This comment is gonna age poorly when it’s nowhere close to releasing in 9 years and I should’ve picked a larger number)
Honestly I don’t think It will take that long. It seems like, based on previously released data and their more recent moves, that they are hemorrhaging a lot of money.
I do not think they have 9 years. They will go out of business long before then. Most likely they will have some kind of product as the “completed 1.0” within the next few years.
So they have rounds of layoffs, staff feel less secure in their role, and they’re surprised that knowledgeable and easily employable experts are leaving for more stable roles?
If you made an edit I guess it doesn’t update for other servers - viewing these comments from a lemm.ee account in Voyager and it’s still the original…
Big sack of cash and a good mark on her CV. And Obsidian has been kind of a clusterfuck the past few years with Avowed having been more or less restarted from scratch like three times?
Netflix games is a sinking ship but so is… a lot of the games industry. Whereas working as a creative at Netflix is potentially a way to pivot out and away from games entirely. Carrie is also a writer (I think self published?) so that is a further way to seem like someone who can transition to a different department.
It’s a pretty good game to start with tbh. 40k is a crazy fun setting, if you like tactics games give Mechanicus a try. Till this game it definitely held the title for “dopest 40k soundtrack” imo
It’s not exactly written in the codex Astartes, but one does expect the near demigod tier supersoldiers to be fully self-sufficient and able to hunt if needed.
An army runs on its stomach, and supply lines on an interplanetary scale can be quite fragile.
Iirc the lore gets a bit weird about this, but essentially their nutrient requirements are so high that unless they’re eating an entire butchered hog for every meal, they’re basically starving to death. Slowly, yes, but it takes a lot to maintain the astartes’ physiology. Normal humans just die if they eat astartes food (of… food overdose? I guess? Too much nutrition? its unclear.), but inconsistency is rife on this subject. Basically tho, bigger picture, if things are so bad even the astartes supply line is cut off you’ve got bigger problems than food to worry about so the point is a bit moot.
Oh yeah. They’ve got tons of weird organs thanks to the Emperor’s engineering. Most of them are normal super soldier stuff, improved blood clotting, that sort of thing. But they can also produce extremely acidic spit, which helps them break down materials for food in a pinch, or to be used as a weapon. They can also gain your knowledge by eating you. Genetic memory is a thing in 40k and Space Marines aren’t the only ones capable of getting at it - see: Kroot.
They can also survive space longer than humans, as one might expect from space-faring super soldiers. Uhhh, what else…
Just how an NDA won’t protect a(n) person/entity from legal repercussions when committing crimes from being “leaked” doesn’t mean it’ll hold in court, just how these highly illegal and predatory EULAs shouldn’t either. There’s a reason why this bullshit only happens in America, this EULA elsewhere wouldn’t work unless it’s modified to not contain this blatant shit of a thing. It’s a shame we’re the few dumb enough to allow our own downfall while parading our aggressors. 🫠🫠🫠
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