That, and from what I’ve read elsewhere, the main dev is a self-important narcissist who doesn’t like other people touching his code. If he’d ask for competent help and loosen that iron grip, he’d probably finish it before he dies of old age.
While I’ve heard the same for posterity in a different comment of mine, they also have a team of 1.1k developers. So it seems like it’s almost more of a management issue
I’m not a CIG white knight by any means. Infact I’m very open on the piss poor upper management and very shady marketing practices. But with that said a lot of people just don’t realize that CIG is building 4 games, 3 single player (sq42) and one multiplayer. All under a billion and creating new technologies and art assets along the way. Compare to the rumor of GTA VI being over double in cost.
I think it’s important to remember that this was pitched as a single game originally. It was announced the year Mass Effect 3 came out. Comparing it to anything else is honestly pointless. Rockstar is building a game off its success and profits of GTA V. This is a ten year saga of broken promises and scope creep so astounding that people are saying they’re building four games when they’ve yet to prove they could deliver one. That’s just wild.
It’s also important to mention that the community was polled before the pivot to multiple games and increasing scope creep. The backer community itself said to keep adding features.
I mean, who would say, “You know what? This thing I bought into—I want it to be dog shit.”
I get that people want their money to have been used well, but I would bet money we’ll see a completed Starfield II before Star Citizen launches its first beta.
I’m basing my opinion on the fact that the development cycle is completely beyond what even indie studios have. As others have said, at some point, you need a finished product. You can continue to develop after that, but the project lead doesn’t seem to know how to do that and continue to build upon that foundation. Scope creep, indeed.
This might not technically be a scam, but half a billion dollars for a decade of snail’s-paced development and only alpha-ware to show for it at least begins to smell like one.
Plus, technology is developing faster than the dev is able to create. As it progresses, will the dev revise the scope to match the new tech? Based on the track record, I’m betting “yes,” and this will never be finished in his lifetime.
I guess we’ll see. I’ve paid fairly close attention and so long as the single player delivers what’s been promised the money won’t be wasted.
People oftentimes ignore what’s actually being communicated. They built a huge chunk of the Lumberyard engine and have built tons of tools around it. They’ve also spent a good chunk of time ramping up employees. The team growth takes a while.
Personally, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the progress they’ve made. I’m also pretty happy that Squadron 42 has been reporting moving toward primarily testing functionality. The S42 progress is the primary litmus test. Not SC.
Well, if you’re a backer, and you’re happy, I don’t see any reason to try to take that from you (which I doubt I could anyway). You enjoy!
Personally, I’m unimpressed with what it is. The idea is cool, and I would consider buying the finished product if they do achieve everything in their stated goals, but its state and pace of development don’t thrill me or make me want to invest right now.
Ever hear of "Chase Two Rabbits, Catch None"? Reminds me of George R. R. Martin talking about writing the last two ASOIAF books at the same time. Just... finish your fucking product please.
So uh, what are the story beats of Squadron 42, exactly? And what kind of release date does it have? And say, what exactly, are the features it offers? Because it’s been in development for 10 years now, and literally all I’ve ever heard is ‘It’ll be good, trust us!’, and yet I’ve seen less gameplay from it then Star Marine.
You can access the development blog, roadmap and newsletter on the site. Your refusal to read does not discount the effort that has gone into building it
I mean, it’s an obvious scam. Always has been. They only have a few tech demos, and bunch of polished marketing material. There’s nothing to actually release.
I do not believe it to be an outright scam. However, it is horribly managed and I do consider the funding model to be predatory.
The whole "pledge" store should not be a thing at this stage IMO. It's just a cash shop they can justify huge prices with. It's actively contributed to the scope creep by introducing new vehicle roles, which they sometimes admit to not having designed gameplay for yet. Nor does it currently tell you if you can actually rent or buy the ship in-game (subject to progress wipes). Heck, the closest thing to a scam they've had recently was a "new starter bundle" of in-game gear that you lose upon your first death / unrecoverable body. This is a game where 80% of your deaths are to bugs or unintuitive behaviour.
They also keep trying to change their standards to match modern games. Ships have gone through multiple reworks which take months for a single ship. A sensible dev would lock that in and commit to releasing under those standards. It's been pointed out that with the current rate of progress, they'll still be releasing currently announced ships into the 2030s.
That's not even mentioning the single player component, Squadron 42, which got indefinitely delayed a few years back before a major demo showcase which never materialised. Supposedly, it's been scrapped and re-done more than once.
Their last big chance to show they've pulled things together is going to be the upcoming CitizenCon (yes, it has one) where they'll supposedly be making a big Squadron 42 announcement. A former customer service employee, who recently criticised the company's spending practices, claimed they'd taken a much more serious approach to the scope creep and that we'd see some results of that towards the end of this year.
I'm not holding my breath though. They've been known to create bullshit for presentations before (e.g the infamous sand worm) and I absolutely would not be surprised if Chris Roberts feels pressured to one-up Starfield.
As a side note, does anyone else get the impression this article was written by an AI? It repeatedly lists of buzzword features, like the Hangar module which hasn't been relevant for years, and barely discusses what the game is actually like.
The fanbois have obviously found this story and voting down the people saying how obvious the grift was/is.
I wonder how many other space sim genre games that conspicuously did not hand out the begging bowl, or squander all their money and were actually delivered have happened in the time that Star Citizen hasn’t. Being generous the best that can be said is the project is just badly mismanaged. At worst, and more realistically, much of that money just got siphoned away to fund lifestyles. Maybe the devs know they can run this grift for as long as their people stupid enough to keep funding them, knowing they’ll never have to actually deliver on their promises.
Serves people right for crowdfunding a game let alone one built around some libertarian wet dream where you have to buy your way to success, dropping thousands on content like spaceships.
You realize they’re developing two games simultaneously and the star citizen hate is only banked by people who don’t realize they’ve literally told everyone that SC isn’t getting content updates until Squadron 42 is done.
Secondly, buying ships for money is advertised as “do this if you want to support our game”. The ship cost being relative to a supporter tier if it was Patreon. Every single ship available can be bought and earned in game without spending more than $35 for the game’s basic access package.
Serves dumbasses right who expect news cycled to them and can’t do basic 5 minutes of critical thinking to eat slop like this article
the star citizen hate is only banked by people who don’t realize they’ve literally told everyone that SC isn’t getting content updates until Squadron 42 is done.
I don’t know, it’s a good question but my point is how cringe of a hate train this game gets from people who haven’t a fucking clue what they’re talking about just to farm the feeling they’re with the in crowd. RSI has missed a lot of deadlines, but star citizen looks so unfinished because everything they’re working on isn’t being put in the PU nor heavily marketed. They’re not just sitting on a dragons hoard doing nothing
SC itself is self admitted a tech demo and like all early access games you’re told to only buy into them if you want to support the game. No one is holding a gun to backers’ heads and forcing them to buy jpg concepts
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