Star Citizen Catch-all

The characterization is great. Everything else is sort of a muddle. Someone has figured out that problematic lesbians are a big component of the Internet hype cycle.

Are they trying to shift into being an animation production company instead of a video game company?

kazooka wrote:

Are they trying to shift into being an animation production company instead of a video game company?

I, for one, cannot wait to not see all the animation they're never going to finish.

Did they do The Lord of the Rings animated movie?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I occasionally wander into the Star Citizen subreddit, just to see all the praise of the Most Holy Genius Chris Roberts.

The thread that recently got me was this one, praising CIG for 3 years of steady, quarterly patch releases without major disruption. Because delivering patches on a woefully incomplete game is praiseworthy, regardless of how little those patches actually move the needle.

Comments praising the team's "management" and "discipline" are Trump supporter level reality warping.

One beam of sanity shone through somewhere down the comments, pointing out that it's real easy to hit quarterly milestones when you control what the milestones are and can exclude whatever you want from them.

That thread is actually what I came here to post yesterday, but when I was about to, I peeked at the SC YouTube to see what the latest update videos look like, and I found "The Reunion" instead.

This thread here never fails to get a chuckle out of me whenever I decide to poke my head in once every couple of years.

Rat Boy wrote:

This thread here never fails to get a chuckle out of me whenever I decide to poke my head in once every couple of years.

See you in 2022. I'm sure Squadron 42 will be here waiting when you get back.

Movies!

Chris wants that Star Wars money! Actually didn’t know he was involved in more than the wing commander movie. Lord of war was good, but was a long time ago when I saw it.

Maybe he wants a Netflix show?

Roberts' movie making was basically all financed through tax loopholes, and hit the skids once the loophole was closed.

And so now he's got a new loophole: take your crowdfunding money pile intended for a game and make movies with it instead. Just make the movies loosely about the game and call it "marketing"!

*Legion* wrote:

I... I don't even know what to say.

I see what Chris Roberts has been spending his time and a chunk of the slush fund on.

I disagree. You know exactly what to say *Legion*.

This is the beginning of a slow pivot by the developers.

First, they'll talk about taking the opportunity to bring exciting Star Citizen stories to players.. while they develop the main game.

Then, they'll talk about the Star Citizen universe being so large that it demands a wide range of different media in order to realise it fully for players... while they make the main game.

Then, they'll talk about a mere video game being incapable of doing Star Citizen justice, so instead they're going to focus on movies, tv shows, podcasts and e-books... and cease further development of the main game.

EDIT: What Kazooka said, basically.

The key to changing the ship's destination without alerting the passengers, or course, is to execute a very wide turn...

I just find it kind of weird that he'd want to emulate Star Wars, in a time of heavy decline in the franchise. I mean, I don't think you could ask for a better time when most SW fans are pretty much fed up with the direction The Mouse™ has taken it, but if you're going to take it's place, you need to do better, not damn near straight copy it.

To be honest though, if he wants to pursue movies I'm good with it. Even if SC was absolutely perfect and delivered on all the promises that have been made, I don't think it would do well in the current market. Space games in general go through cyclic lulls and it feels like we're in one right now. Sure the people who invested in it would follow it with cultish vigor, but I can't imagine you'd get much new blood into it. And while I don't believe they'd make anything on the movies, I'd hope that it would open the door for other studios to make more CG/Animated movies aimed at older audiences.

PurEvil wrote:

I just find it kind of weird that he'd want to emulate Star Wars, in a time of heavy decline in the franchise. I mean, I don't think you could ask for a better time when most SW fans are pretty much fed up with the direction The Mouse™ has taken it...

You may be discounting The Mandalorian. Disney+ has 73 million subscribers (thats half a billion in revenue MONTHLY) and a huge percentage is there for that show. The success of it is directing Disney toward more shows like it. They've flailed for a long time with Star Wars for sure, but they're finding some footing here.

/tangent

I think you're giving Roberts way too much credit if you think he's "emulating" anything; we're long past this being anything but a massive scam, and finding ways to look like you're making progress in new and exciting ways is just how you keep the scheme rolling. All he's pursuing is a bigger bank account.

That's fair. I'm one of apparently a very small group of people who haven't watched it (not for lack of interest, mostly lake of time to binge something, so I keep forgetting it's out there and successful).

And damn... If this is the direction he's taking, expect a large chunk of that game money going into lawyers' pockets because Disney is very sue-first-ask-questions-later.

Roberts being delusional enough to think he can fill the void left by Star Wars right at the peak of post-sequel trilogy fan disgruntlement, and then starting his pivot right at the moment Mando's success allows SW to find its footing again, would be goddamn hilarious.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I think you're giving Roberts way too much credit if you think he's "emulating" anything; we're long past this being anything but a massive scam, and finding ways to look like you're making progress in new and exciting ways is just how you keep the scheme rolling. All he's pursuing is a bigger bank account.

I said he was trying to emulate SW, not that he succeeded. Though, admittedly, this must have cost a good chunk of change considering the quality. It makes me wonder if they attempted to do this using the game engine, gave up, and just hired a studio to use their game assets...

But realistically, the game is a money sink. We all know it. I'm sure Roberts has known it for years. I think Elite has been driving nails in to that coffin for 5 years now, because Frontier not only released a viable space game 5 years ago, but have been adding SC-style functionality to it over the years. Hell, E:D is about to get missions where you walk around with guns and have gun fights.

I think the funniest statistic to think about here is that in 2002 Elon Musk started hiring to develop Space-X, and that to date development has taken about $390 million. Considering that Musk has had a little less than twice the time, and a little less than twice the budget, that should roughly average out to about the same amount spent per year. One company can't release a video game, and the other is testing real rockets that will go into space.

Are we sure that Trump isn't part of the organization?

Nevin73 wrote:

Are we sure that Trump isn't part of the organization?

If there's money to be laundered...

r013nt0 wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Are we sure that Trump isn't part of the organization?

If there's money to be laundered...

*slow clap*

PurEvil wrote:

One company can't release a video game, and the other is testing real rockets that will go into space.

Juat for clarification. Has gone to space. With cargo and people.

PurEvil wrote:

I think the funniest statistic to think about here is that in 2002 Elon Musk started hiring to develop Space-X, and that to date development has taken about $390 million. Considering that Musk has had a little less than twice the time, and a little less than twice the budget, that should roughly average out to about the same amount spent per year. One company can't release a video game, and the other is testing real rockets that will go into space.

That's a hilarious comparison, and highlights something that often gets lost in the discussion: value created for money spent.

Even within the gaming industry, it's nuts. Depending on how you categorize things, Star Citizen is already in the top 4 most expensive games ever made. What have they got to show for that work and money that comes close to that value?

PurEvil wrote:

I said he was trying to emulate SW, not that he succeeded.

Is he consciously emulating Star Wars, or does he just not recognize where his mental imagery of space adventuring is cribbed from?

It reminds me of a lot of amateur writers whose "original" stories all read like fan fiction of their influences.

*Legion* wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

I said he was trying to emulate SW, not that he succeeded.

Is he consciously emulating Star Wars, or does he just not recognize where his mental imagery of space adventuring is cribbed from?

It reminds me of a lot of amateur writers whose "original" stories all read like fan fiction of their influences.

If you think you're a completely original writer with unique ideas never before considered in human history, it's likely that you're just unconsciously recreating some form of popular media. Creation is about stealing. You either recognize your influences and are enough aware of them to make interesting variations on them, or...you rewrite Star Wars again.

Was that not done in the game engine? I assumed from some of the wonky looking animations that it was. It seems even sillier than I realized if not.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Even within the gaming industry, it's nuts. Depending on how you categorize things, Star Citizen is already in the top 4 most expensive games ever made. What have they got to show for that work and money that comes close to that value?

An animation that's going to totally launch a new sci-fi universe of exciting, dynamic media, obviously.

*Legion* wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

I said he was trying to emulate SW, not that he succeeded.

Is he consciously emulating Star Wars, or does he just not recognize where his mental imagery of space adventuring is cribbed from?

It reminds me of a lot of amateur writers whose "original" stories all read like fan fiction of their influences.

Are we trashing JJ abrams again?

thrawn82 wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

I said he was trying to emulate SW, not that he succeeded.

Is he consciously emulating Star Wars, or does he just not recognize where his mental imagery of space adventuring is cribbed from?

It reminds me of a lot of amateur writers whose "original" stories all read like fan fiction of their influences.

Are we trashing JJ abrams again?

I think there's only room in this thread to beat one dead horse...

absurddoctor wrote:

Was that not done in the game engine? I assumed from some of the wonky looking animations that it was. It seems even sillier than I realized if not.

I kind of assumed it wasn't, if no other reason that if it had been, they likely would have mentioned that somewhere at the beginning of the video (or Facebook, or Twitter, or their website, or the website they made specifically to sell the ship in the video for another $225, or the website they made to sell merch for the ship from the video...). Game studios love showing off how versatile their engine is so that's easy marketing if the trailer is made within the game. I don't see any other studios credited at the end of the video, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was made within the game and not using whatever animation software they use for cinematics.

kazooka wrote:

If you think you're a completely original writer with unique ideas never before considered in human history, it's likely that you're just unconsciously recreating some form of popular media. Creation is about stealing. You either recognize your influences and are enough aware of them to make interesting variations on them, or...you rewrite Star Wars Kurosawa and WW2 air combat movies again.

You had a typo.
(At least Lucas had enough self-awareness to make his influences explicit)

I think it is just more of a double dip kind of thing. Monetizing the animations they are already making for the game.

They did a reality show about creating a starship. I wonder if the money flow from people buying ships has slowed down to the point they are scrambling to find new avenues of revenue?

IMAGE(https://u.cubeupload.com/MilkmanDanimal/SCNotPlaying.jpg)

We're clearly past "drank the Kool-Aid" at this point; can we say these people are freebasing the Kool-Aid?

Can't stop reading the subreddit; just saw a post where somebody was complaining about how SC gets nothing but negative press, and there was this gem:

Others are just rehashing talking points from 3-4 years ago, and have absolutely no idea what the current state of the game is.

The lack of self-awareness is not noticing that if the same talking points are 3-4 years old, MAYBE THAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Hrdina wrote:
kazooka wrote:

If you think you're a completely original writer with unique ideas never before considered in human history, it's likely that you're just unconsciously recreating some form of popular media. Creation is about stealing. You either recognize your influences and are enough aware of them to make interesting variations on them, or...you rewrite Star Wars Kurosawa and WW2 air combat movies again.

You had a typo.
(At least Lucas had enough self-awareness to make his influences explicit)

Exactly. Star Wars was derivative, but it knew enough about what it was doing to make its own interesting innovations.