I really hate I helped Kickstart this as I'm not hearing much good coming out of it and now the rumours are they have burned thru large chunks of cash and have started selling these outrageously priced ships.

 

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Standalone-Ships/Endeavor-Master-Set-LTI

I've heard only great things about Star Citizen. And they've sold more expensive fundraising packages in the past. I love how they are 100% funded by space simulator fans, and I think their fundraising model works out well for them just by noting the number of those who jumped on board with the project e.g. nearly a million backers. A game of this magnitude wouldn't exist without this kind of fund raising.

 

Let's not forgot that the ships themselves are obtainable in the game, and the game itself only costs $45. I wouldn't confuse their fundraising packages as in game purchases once the game releases. For instance, I chipped in $120 three years ago and I'm happily receiving multiple developer updates per week, sometimes per day.

 

Anyways, don't be worried. Chris Roberts is very experienced in this department.

You have to admit though that any other game asking for a $900 item would cause mass hysteria: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!  :wink:

You have to admit though that any other game asking for a $900 item would cause mass hysteria: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!  :wink:

 

Indeed! But Cloud Imperium has acknowledged from the start that are trying to make a AAA game on 100% crowdfunding, and they've determined that selling game assets that people can get for free in the game has somehow shown to be a strikingly good way to raise funds. The enthusiasm for this game....well is evident by the amount of money people are willing to hand over.

It's all good til your insurance runs out and someone blows up your $900.00 ship

It's all good til your insurance runs out and someone blows up your $900.00 ship

 

It's the first thing I thought, but the blurb says lifetime insurance...........

"Lot of Rumours"

 

There are further confirmed departures. Senior 3D artist Paul Forgy has left (alleged to have quit on the spot by Smart). Senior Gameplay Programmer Tom Davis and DevOps Engineer Jeffrey Parker have left Cloud Imperium Austin.

Lead Character Artist David Jennison also departed Cloud Imperium Austin, in August.

It is Jennison who is most often named as the person behind the anonymous letter cited in Derek Smart’s recent “Long Con” blog post about Star Citizen; a letter which describes multiple instances of project mismanagement as the reason for the author’s departure from the company. Said letter is no longer linked on Smart’s post (by request, he says, of Jennison), but can still be fairly easily located online.

Smart’s ‘TwitLonger’ post from 24 September draws a direct link between the leaking of that letter and today’s (now confirmed) spate of departures and possible firings. How accurate some of those background circumstances are can’t be confirmed, but it’s worth noting that he listed a number of company departures before they were public knowledge.

The only mentioned departure I haven’t yet seen fully confirmed is that of Producer Lisa Ohanian, who is said to be going to work for Sony.

Other, much more speculative claims, from “sources” that the company is burning through money at an unsustainable rate are beyond my abilities to verify. But the Star Citizen project certainly appears to be burning through staff at a rate of knots.

http://www.pcinvasion.com/star-citizen-loses-at-least-six-more-staff-to-departures-and-firings

This happens when you hire a ton of people in such a short time like that. Is it a mass exodus or a house cleaning? I've seen both sides of the coin before. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

Ouch, just read some of the links in your post.....not good. Who knew that chick was Chris Roberts wife and had no experience at all...I always kind of wondered who she was and what she was contributing to the project....now the truth is coming to light. I have a feeling this is all going down in a big legal mess and the only winners will be lawyers....funny how their VP is a lawyer.

I fully and totally agree with the OP. I too just hate the fact that I contributed to the Kickstarter and got others involved also. I could not be more disillusioned and disappointed in the directions they have taken, their business practices, their wavering vision and the software they have delivered to date.

If I had a problem with Star Citizen, it was with what I felt was a growing sense of "mission creep". The goals just kept expanding and expanding..... while the basic game was just kind of sitting there, as opposed to Elite Dangerous, who just got on with it and produced a game then began expanding.

 

To my surprise, the more I saw, the more I felt that Star Citizen was becoming bloated, and the more I liked the purity and focus of Elite Dangerous.

Ouch, just read some of the links in your post.....not good. Who knew that chick was Chris Roberts wife and had no experience at all...I always kind of wondered who she was and what she was contributing to the project....now the truth is coming to light. I have a feeling this is all going down in a big legal mess and the only winners will be lawyers....funny how their VP is a lawyer.

Not sure if "that chick" (Sandy Gardner) is his wife, but she has been there from the start and managed to market the most successful crowd funded game to date - they're about to pass £90million. Her background seems to have been in fashion, and that kind of makes sense in terms of making things desirable.

 

I'm a backer, and keep an eye on the development cycle regularly, but glad Erin, his brother, is involved. He started up the UK office and has been around for awhile.

 

As for the other staff leaving, disappointed to hear Pugh is departing, but understand change happens. As he was focused on the community it could simply be a fallout of the negativity that's being generated (rightly or wrongly).

 

Development continues though, the scope has been locked down for over a year and I think the idea of open development and involving the community is actually their biggest problem now. People don't understand the development process - just look at some of the responses heard when P3d v3 was announced, and people making assumptions before it could even be tested by those naysayers.

 

The shame of the matter is the entire Star Citizen crowd funding effort was built on not having to answer to a developer, who demanded drop dead dates even if the game wasn't ready .... And it seems vocal components of the community (whether backers or not) are even more demanding when it comes to releasing things NOW whether it's ready or not - damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

My friend from work is really into Star Citizen, and told me it became more than a game for him few months ago, more like a money making thing on the side.

Apparently, you can buy some "limited time offer" ships, wait a bit and sell them for outrageous amount of money.

Not bad for a game that hasn't been released yet, eh?

Yet some more reading....Smart....the Battlecruiser 3000 AD guy. What a joke of a game was,  seems like there was a bunch of controversy around that too...All I remember for sure is that it was buggy as heck and I gave up on it.

 

Looking in from the outside it seems he's jealous of Roberts because his game tried to do something similar and it wasn't that great. Smart isn't the only one ever to make a space  game/sim.

 

Time will tell. Hopefully I haven't wasted my money on Star Citizen, but honestly it isn't more than a dinner and a movie with the family, I didn't put thousands into it like some.

The shame of the matter is the entire Star Citizen crowd funding effort was built on not having to answer to a developer, who demanded drop dead dates even if the game wasn't ready .... And it seems vocal components of the community (whether backers or not) are even more demanding when it comes to releasing things NOW whether it's ready or not - damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

 

Well said.