Star Citizen - $500,000,000 raised

[HiddenX]

Redglyph spotted that Star Citizen and the single player campaign Squadron 42 have raised more than $500,000,000.

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

IMO this is way too much for a computer game. No computer software needs 6666 man years to be completed.

 

[Couchpotato]

All that money and still no finished game in sight. All you read about is more DLC and other funds from investors. These games will be known as the most expensive hit or failure.

 

[Redglyph]

Agreed, it's insane.

(from Bluesnews)

the space games is now at $500,076,598 from 4,096,882 backers. To save you the math, this means over four million people have pledged an average of over $122.00 each on this project.

... but I've seen so many times people who bought for more than $1000 in spaceships, upgraded hangars and so on. It's blurring the line between crowdfunding and investment at this point.

And indeed, it's not even finished.

 

[Couchpotato]

IMO this is way too much for a computer game. No computer software needs 6666 man years to be completed.

The problem is they keep expending and burning their resources. One of the past interviews mentioned how large they have gotten and how much it cost to run the business each month. Another developer could have made 50 games with that budget.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

While the numbers are insane, if all the money is going towards honest efforts for the game, I kind of respect them for it. It's cool to have a once-in-a-lifetime insanely ambitious game. I just hope most people that have donated will get something that makes them happy.

I think even I put around 30-40 dollards towards it.

We keep complaining that we don't want games rushed, and for them to be ready when they're ready. Well, this is sort of that. It sounds like very little management in terms of financials, and it'll take as long as it takes. I just hope it doesn't run out of money in an unfinished state.

 

[Redglyph]

how large they have gotten

Wow, you're right, I've looked and found this, and it's 21 months ago:

As of 2020-12, CIG has a total of 695 staff. 512 of whom are developers.

EDIT: more recent estimate is 720 (ref). It's a lot.

 

[Couchpotato]

Wow, you're right, I've looked and found this, and it's 21 months ago:

EDIT: now it's 720 (ref). It's a lot.

Yep almost 800 and still expending it's insane. The community has become somewhat cultist as well. I sometimes check the reddit and offical forums and it's mind boggling.

 

[ChaosTheory]

We keep complaining that we don't want games rushed, and for them to be ready when they're ready. Well, this is sort of that.

No.. 12+ years in production with no end in sight is not what we mean.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

No.. 12+ years in production with no end in sight is not what we mean.

If it comes out as one of the most impressive and stunning gaming experiences, I'd have no problem waiting 20 years. That is if it manages to come together.

My point is also that whether it takes 2 years, or 5 or 10 or 20, it's all arbitrary. Why are we not complaining about games taking more than 1 year? It's purely historical. If all games took 5+ years, and most average games too 10 years, we'd be complaining a lot less about 15 years, most probably.

Anyway, I'm just playing devil's advocate. If they pull it off, it will be amazing. Otherwise, it will be a big mess with a lot of angry people.

 

[Taluntain]

Insane really is the only word for this.

 

[Carnifex]

If McQuaid were behind this, I would assume the profits had all been snorted. I still cannot believe I was stupid enough to have given these mental midgets even a penny, never again.

 

[Redglyph]

If it comes out as one of the most impressive and stunning gaming experiences, I'd have no problem waiting 20 years.

As long as it's clear for everyone that it'll take that long for the game to be "ready", but when I look at the KS it mentions a Nov 2014 delivery date, promising a finished game including Squadron 42 (*). 8 years later is stretching it, even by KS standard.

About "ready", I have nothing against games that are continuously evolving, it suits the sim genre pretty well and it's working well for DCS and the IL-2 series. But there are clear gates where the game is ready in the sense it can be played like a full, finished game.

So if Star Citizen had a beta branch which was continuously evolving with more features, and a stable branch that could be played normally, it would be fine. I honestly don't know if that's the case but by searching and after looking at their tracker, I don't think so.

(*) with a caveat, "We are aiming for a AAA game experience. But depending on the funding levels reached, we may have to limit the experience for the initially released game version." Maybe they meant that it would be limited if the funding far exceeded their expectations

 

[DArtagnan]

Well, I'm happy to keep supporting this project - as it remains the only game currently in development that's doing what I once imagined would be the norm for the gaming industry.

I guess one could argue that Ashes of Creation does something similar, but it's still tiny in comparison.

My expectations for the future of gaming (as a kid) was based on my lack of understanding about how capitalism and the suit-driven industry worked - and I still remember a time in the mid-2000s when I was about ready to throw in the towel and give up all hope that anything approaching real evolution would ever happen within my lifetime.

Certainly, progress feels glacial at times with SC - but I'm seeing a lot of detractors come around after trying the game during one of the relatively frequent free-fly weeks.

That said, I still expect it will be a while until the mainstream and people who don't actually know much - if anything - about the details start coming around and realizing what this game is actually doing, as well as why it's taking seemingly forever. I totally understand the ignorance here, as it's a very complex and ambitious project.

It's also still a very popular target for youtubers who profit from deliberate misinformation and conspiracy theory videos and so forth - even if it seems to have died down a bit when it comes to Star Citizen.

Not sure if that's because so many have changed their minds - or they're just bored with the same target, however big and convenient.

About funding, I originally supported this game because I wanted to do what little I could to help ensure that it didn't crash and burn.

Thankfully, I think they're now so securely in the black that my support is most likely superfluous. That said, I'd much rather support something like this than yet another me-too type of project.

But they're still burning through cash at a very fast pace, as they're approaching a thousand full-time developers across multiple studios. Contrary to what people might believe - such an endeavor is EXTREMELY expensive, given the amount of time this game will still be in development.

Personally, I try the game for a bit every couple of months - but I'm not going to invest any serious time before gen12 rendering and dynamic server meshing is finished.

At this point in time, the game is still very much in alpha - even if it's significantly more playable and stable than it once was.

They're about to enter the Evocati test phase for persistent entity streaming - a technology which, in and of itself, represents something that most developers would never even dream of implementing - as it's ludicrously demanding in terms of database complexity but it's necessary for server meshing in the future.

I expect it to take months of testing before it gets stable.

After that, there's still server meshing to come (static iteration first, then dynamic) - which should be the very last significant technical obstacle.

While I fully believe it's possible to do dynamic server meshing along the lines they're planning - I have a very hard time wrapping my head around just how absurdly complicated and intricate it will be to implement in this particular game.

Good thing they employ dozens of the best engineers in the industry but, even so, I'm a little worried about the timeframe.

 

[SSIGuy]

I just laugh at this... this game will never get to anything near finished.

Waste. of. money. (Not mine, thankfully)

 

[Gwendo]

It looks like this will never be done. The more time passes, the more outdated it gets. They can keep upgrading the engine and assets, but as it grows enormous, that takes a lot of time and other resources (manpower, money, etc). So it will take even longer and this is an endless cycle.

I think we have a clear case of a growing bubble, that will burst sooner or later. So far, those 500000000$ over the years allowed this growth, let's see when will it burst.

 

[JDR13]

No computer software needs 6666 man years to be completed.

I think you mean light years, because that's how far away it is from being completed.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Maybe I should compete with them to finish my game, now that I was ( it still hurts ) easily beaten by Grimoire

 

[rjshae]

I wonder how many of those contributors will still be alive by the time the game is released? Perhaps only the youngest? This could be the greatest vaporware game since Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[LaHolt]

The victims of the biggest scams and cults are always partially at fault themselves. The promise of the scam fulfills some kind of internal need (belonging, ego-fulfillment, etc.), which drives the whole thing forward dispute ample evidence to the contrary. At some point it becomes therapy for these people to come to the defense of this monster.

I guess you can't rightly call this a "scam" since technically minute progress is being made. But at some point it'll have to release and the inevitable disappointment will shatter a lot of minds. Recalling the release of Doom 3, that was already near-religious fervor. People refused to believe their own eyes and vehemently attacked others who called it a very average game. Eventually though reality always wins out.