Star Citizen Catch-all

bigred wrote:

Is there anything else in the gaming community similar to Star Citizen?

No. Regardless of context, no.

I mean, ED is the same basic formula only the big difference being it is an actual game.

Nevin73 wrote:

I mean, ED is the same basic formula only the big difference being it is an actual game.

Until the reveal of the "Odyssey" update, I would have pushed back against this. ED's focus has always been much narrower (and more achievable) than SC's.

But "Odyssey" will make the ED/SC Venn diagram overlap a lot more than it did previously.

ED is still much more narrowly focused than what SC dreams of being. But since it's pretty much a given that dream will be compromised, it's an open question of how much overlap ED will have with what SC ultimately achieves.

You're right, of course. I was just thinking of space pew pew.

Nevin73 wrote:

I mean, ED is the same basic formula only the big difference being it is an actual game.

First thought reading this was literally "Wait, somebody Kickstarted a treatment for erectile dysfunction?"

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

First thought reading this was literally "Wait, somebody Kickstarted a treatment for erectile dysfunction?"

You got real excited for a minute there, huh?

Yup, Elite is basically the only real close comparison. And, there are not only a lot of parallels in terms of game design, but also in timeline. Star Citizen's kickstarter began in October of 2012, and Elite's kickstarter began in November 2012. The difference being that Elite released a full game 6 years ago and they've been developing the game further since, with their second expansion (technically third but one was a large series of updates for free) about to release.

And this is where the absurdity of SC comes into play. In October of last year, it was reported that Elite finally passed £100m of revenue since release in December of 2014. So we're to believe that a game that's been out, been updated, and had multiple expansions is making significantly less money than a game that is in a rough alpha state with no real release date in sight?

Maybe there's a less sinister explanation for why SC continues to rake in the cash: it's the Pornhub Premium of space simulators. Like how porn focuses on delivering deeply detailed but mostly mundane aspects of the sexual act, SC does the same to living on a space ship. For that audience things like blades of grass blown by actual dynamic real time wind currents are just another thing to jack off to, but never add up to a coherent game, just like porn never delivers a coherent story. So as long as SC continues to deliver the ogly bits with the everlasting promise of more, people will eat that sh*t up.

PurEvil wrote:

Yup, Elite is basically the only real close comparison. And, there are not only a lot of parallels in terms of game design, but also in timeline. Star Citizen's kickstarter began in October of 2012, and Elite's kickstarter began in November 2012. The difference being that Elite released a full game 6 years ago and they've been developing the game further since, with their second expansion (technically third but one was a large series of updates for free) about to release.

And this is where the absurdity of SC comes into play. In October of last year, it was reported that Elite finally passed £100m of revenue since release in December of 2014. So we're to believe that a game that's been out, been updated, and had multiple expansions is making significantly less money than a game that is in a rough alpha state with no real release date in site?

Elite is what it is. SC is whatever you want it to be.

It's funny to go back and look at reactions to the two kickstarters in the Space Game thread (p. 85 for SC, p. 89 for E:D). Also, at least a few people mention dropping > $125 on SC. Eek.

Edit: Add links. Also, this exchange is funny:

davet010 wrote:

Can I just say that I have much more interest in something that David Braben does than anything that Chris Roberts does ?

Well, I just did :)

Veloxi wrote:

It's okay, you're allowed to be both crazy and wrong. ;)

*Legion* wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

First thought reading this was literally "Wait, somebody Kickstarted a treatment for erectile dysfunction?"

You got real excited for a minute there, huh?

No, he didn't. Dan needs that Kickstarter.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Maybe there's a less sinister explanation for why SC continues to rake in the cash: it's the Pornhub Premium of space simulators. Like how porn focuses on delivering deeply detailed but mostly mundane aspects of the sexual act, SC does the same to living on a space ship. For that audience things like blades of grass blown by actual dynamic real time wind currents are just another thing to jack off to, but never add up to a coherent game, just like porn never delivers a coherent story. So as long as SC continues to deliver the ogly bits with the everlasting promise of more, people will eat that sh*t up.

This is a fascinating analogy, honestly. Until SC releases it's simply masturbation.

This thread has gotten super weird though.

garion333 wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

First thought reading this was literally "Wait, somebody Kickstarted a treatment for erectile dysfunction?"

You got real excited for a minute there, huh?

No, he didn't. Dan needs that Kickstarter.

My Kickstarter is actually for Shart Citizen.

Don't kink-shame.

billt721 wrote:

It's funny to go back and look at reactions to the two kickstarters in the Space Game thread (p. 85 for SC, p. 89 for E:D). Also, at least a few people mention dropping > $125 on SC. Eek.

Edit: Add links. Also, this exchange is funny:

davet010 wrote:

Can I just say that I have much more interest in something that David Braben does than anything that Chris Roberts does ?

Well, I just did :)

Veloxi wrote:

It's okay, you're allowed to be both crazy and wrong. ;)

The funny thing is I didn't believe in Braben and I'm happy to be so wrong. I took their "we've been doing education software" as Kickstarter bandwagon jumping to do a game because money as flying around like crazy back then on KS. Turns out "we've been doing education software" meant "we know how to deliver a project on time and on budget".

To be fair, I'm not sure I ever believed in Roberts, but at the beginning the scope hadn't grown to...never ending feature creep. And they had pretty pics and videos. Totally gonna deliver a game. Pretty pics! And video! It's going to happen on time and under budget! Pics! Video!

I'm just not seeing the audience for wanking over space grass going up year-over-year for nearly a decade.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Maybe there's a less sinister explanation for why SC continues to rake in the cash: it's the Pornhub Premium of space simulators. Like how porn focuses on delivering deeply detailed but mostly mundane aspects of the sexual act, SC does the same to living on a space ship. For that audience things like blades of grass blown by actual dynamic real time wind currents are just another thing to jack off to, but never add up to a coherent game, just like porn never delivers a coherent story. So as long as SC continues to deliver the ogly bits with the everlasting promise of more, people will eat that sh*t up.

Is Pornhub Premium a general content access subscription or is it for access to a specific creator? (I honestly don't know, I still use the 1994 Sears catalog).

Because if it's not the latter, then I think a better metaphor is OnlyFans. Nerds throwing money at a specific content creator for the fantasy that that creator is conjuring up.

PurEvil wrote:

Yup, Elite is basically the only real close comparison. And, there are not only a lot of parallels in terms of game design, but also in timeline. Star Citizen's kickstarter began in October of 2012, and Elite's kickstarter began in November 2012. The difference being that Elite released a full game 6 years ago and they've been developing the game further since, with their second expansion (technically third but one was a large series of updates for free) about to release.

And this is where the absurdity of SC comes into play. In October of last year, it was reported that Elite finally passed £100m of revenue since release in December of 2014. So we're to believe that a game that's been out, been updated, and had multiple expansions is making significantly less money than a game that is in a rough alpha state with no real release date in sight?

Frontier Developments also makes a bunch of other games too.

All you need is a core of, say, 10,000 whales that each buy every ship and subscribe to all the various subscriptions, which I believe will take you to $15,000 or so? That’s $150mil right there. The sunk cost fallacy is a powerful thing. If someone put in $500 early on, I’d say they are far more likely to keep “investing” in the hopes the game will be released than to give up and call the money they’d already put in a waste.

billt721 wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

Yup, Elite is basically the only real close comparison. And, there are not only a lot of parallels in terms of game design, but also in timeline. Star Citizen's kickstarter began in October of 2012, and Elite's kickstarter began in November 2012. The difference being that Elite released a full game 6 years ago and they've been developing the game further since, with their second expansion (technically third but one was a large series of updates for free) about to release.

And this is where the absurdity of SC comes into play. In October of last year, it was reported that Elite finally passed £100m of revenue since release in December of 2014. So we're to believe that a game that's been out, been updated, and had multiple expansions is making significantly less money than a game that is in a rough alpha state with no real release date in site?

Elite is what it is. SC is whatever you want it to be.

It's funny to go back and look at reactions to the two kickstarters in the Space Game thread (p. 85 for SC, p. 89 for E:D). Also, at least a few people mention dropping > $125 on SC. Eek.

Edit: Add links. Also, this exchange is funny:

davet010 wrote:

Can I just say that I have much more interest in something that David Braben does than anything that Chris Roberts does ?

Well, I just did :)

Veloxi wrote:

It's okay, you're allowed to be both crazy and wrong. ;)

Blimey, that davet010 guy was spot on (basks)...

TheGameguru wrote:

You don't even need a secondary market for selling accounts for this to be a money laundering outfit.. hell you don't even need that sophisticated of a setup.. its a private company.

Russian Oligarch needs to launder an ongoing cash stream.. setups a small development shop that has an inflated contract with SC.. Oligarch through various shell accounts buys $XM of virtual goods.. SC pays the small development shop with the inflated contract.. Oligarch pays the small dev shop a reasonable market salary to product some part of the never ending SC shell game and pockets the rest.. If what Hollywood says is true then the person is looking for .60 to .70 on the $1.00 for the laundering.

I see you're also aware of Wargaming's business model!

Wow, six months since a post.

CiG's marketing is getting a talking to.

Help me out, garion333, as I can be a little slow sometimes.

So - before Regulator's intervention - Star Citizen customers were being invited to buy virtual items that do not currently exist (and that might never be delivered) for game that doesn't currently exist.

Now - after the Regulator's intervention - Star Citizen customers are still being invited to buy virtual items that do not currently exist (and that might never be delivered) for game that doesn't currently exist. But this now ok because customers have been informed of this fact in the most elliptical of way and the Developers "pinkie swear" that the item will be delivered in a patch... at some point.

Am I understanding this correctly?

It says a lot about the entire Star Citizen debacle that this latest development seems pretty innocuous by comparison.

Personally, the icing on the cake is Eurogamer's final sentence: In May, Star Citizen raked in $13,453,609.

detroit20 wrote:

Personally, the icing on the cake is Eurogamer's final sentence: In May, Star Citizen raked in $13,453,609.

I know you know this already, detroit20, but it's such an impressive stat: That's thirteen million dollars of income for the single month of May.

From the same Eurogamer article: "In March, the game shot through the $350m raised mark from over three million customers." Doing some trivial math, that's over $116 spent on this not-yet-released game per person.

detroit20 wrote:

Help me out, garion333, as I can be a little slow sometimes.

So - before Regulator's intervention - Star Citizen customers were being invited to buy virtual items that do not currently exist (and that might never be delivered) for game that doesn't currently exist.

Now - after the Regulator's intervention - Star Citizen customers are still being invited to buy virtual items that do not currently exist (and that might never be delivered) for game that doesn't currently exist. But this now ok because customers have been informed of this fact in the most elliptical of way and the Developers "pinkie swear" that the item will be delivered in a patch... at some point.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Yup, not they have to PSA somewhere on their marketing that the things folks are buying are in the concept stage.

I'm annoyed that I contributed my $40 during the kickstarter campaign but at least I'm bringing the average down. At this point I wouldn't be shocked to learn the game is cryptomining in the background.

garion333 wrote:

Wow, six months since a post.

In 6 months, they've gone from Alpha 3.13 to... Alpha 3.14.

Let's check the release announcement. I'm sure Alpha 3.14 is loaded!

* A new planet
* Volumetric clouds
* A new ship
* Better ship power management
* Better missile shooting
* Ability to surrender to police

Really on the home stretch now!

Oh, and we're coming up on the 1-year anniversary of the Squadron 42 beta missing its Q3 2020 release date.

Remember that? When the beta just silently wasn't delivered, people threw a fit, and Roberts said that they're going to do "The Briefing Room" videos every 3 months to demonstrate the progress of Squadron 42?

So, let's check in on the latest Briefing Room video and see how things are goi...

... and they haven't made one in 11 months. They made the first one and that was it.

And it's not like they changed the name or anything. There has not been a single Squadron 42 video on their YouTube channel since. There's been 107 videos posted to their channel in the interim, but zero about S42.

I'm not trying to disparage the people who are eager for the game, but that people keep supporting this really smells like a cult. I know a couple of people who swear that it is a lot of fun and that the full release is just around the corner. I just don't get it. I think they'll have an actual spaceship in their driveway before they have what has been promised.

Nevin73 wrote:

I'm not trying to disparage the people who are eager for the game, but that people keep supporting this really smells like a cult. I know a couple of people who swear that it is a lot of fun and that the full release is just around the corner. I just don't get it. I think they'll have an actual spaceship in their driveway before they have what has been promised.

I liken them to Trump supporters. They can't admit they've been conned so they just keep digging further.

I’m still on it’s a money laundering scheme. There’s just no way actual customers gave them an additional $13M in May.

TheGameguru wrote:

I’m still on it’s a money laundering scheme. There’s just no way actual customers gave them an additional $13M in May.

Absolutely. People dumb enough to keep supporting Star Citizen probably do not have enough money to actually keep supporting Star Citizen.

TheGameguru wrote:

I’m still on it’s a money laundering scheme. There’s just no way actual customers gave them an additional $13M in May.

Let me introduce you to the post right above yours, that is a depressingly good analogous situation...

Veloxi wrote:

I liken them to Trump supporters. They can't admit they've been conned so they just keep digging further.