Star Citizen's $900 Ship

[ohsirus 241]

"Seems like there is smoke"

 

Following my recent op-ed, titled "Eject! Eject! Is Star Citizen Going to Crash and Burn?" a number of sources, comprised of both current and former employees of Cloud Imperium Games, reached out to discuss troubling revelations about the state of the company. We have agreed to protect their identities, as well as to give them an opportunity to share their accounts. From inappropriate managerial conduct to fund mismanagement, here is the story from those who lived it. Nine people reached out to us - two were completely anonymous and were used to corroborate information. The seven quoted below identified themselves, but will be referenced by number (CS1, CS2, etc.) at their request.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

[AviatorMoser 353]

"Seems like there is smoke"

 

Following my recent op-ed, titled "Eject! Eject! Is Star Citizen Going to Crash and Burn?" a number of sources, comprised of both current and former employees of Cloud Imperium Games, reached out to discuss troubling revelations about the state of the company. We have agreed to protect their identities, as well as to give them an opportunity to share their accounts. From inappropriate managerial conduct to fund mismanagement, here is the story from those who lived it. Nine people reached out to us - two were completely anonymous and were used to corroborate information. The seven quoted below identified themselves, but will be referenced by number (CS1, CS2, etc.) at their request.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

 

You may want to read Chris Robert's response to the Escapist after they asked for comment before publishing that piece. They did not publish any of his comments and his rebuttals to every point in that piece, which is quite shameful, considering he spent the entire night writing the response they had asked for.

 

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

[n4gix 4,947]

Chris' response seems pretty level-headed and cogent. I note that the Escapist's article was edited to include portions of Chris' reply.

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

And here we are complaining about Steam DLC and paying again for PMDG planes in P3D. Lol. THIS is the real DLC. 

[JoshuaC 61]

I do find it amazing that people are still willing to sink money into this. 

 

It is as clear as daylight as it is (to me at least), that after getting more than 100x (!) their original budget of 500K, and still unable to complete what they set out to do; that they are a black hole, vacuuming any cash thrown to it.

There is a limit to ambition, as ambition without reality check is delusion. Such as shame really, that amount of money could have gone to way better uses.

[DannyH73 16]

I do find it amazing that people are still willing to sink money into this.

 

It is as clear as daylight as it is (to me at least), that after getting more than 100x (!) their original budget of 500K, and still unable to complete what they set out to do; that they are a black hole, vacuuming any cash thrown to it.

 

There is a limit to ambition, as ambition without reality check is delusion. Such as shame really, that amount of money could have gone to way better uses.

Hmmm ... The original budget was for a significantly reduced scope of game. Amazes me that some people will say "look at the feature creep, that's why it will never get completed", and then we have others saying it should have been finished because they "have made 100x what they asked for".

 

Just demonstrates that everyone is interpreting "facts" in different ways.

 

My version of reality says that we're seeing gradual pieces of the pre-beta (okay, maybe even call it pre-alpha) that will serve as the key pieces to build the Worlds and star systems they're envisaging. That takes time. I really believe a big mistake they did is to issue estimated timeframes, which slip as the quality requirements increase, and that has led to doubt, and fear that people's money won't see any return, and the more negative folk out there (who always seem to be the most vocal) stressing that the sky is falling.

 

They had a small scope with a limited budget in mind, it got popular to a point that more money than they ever thought started flowing to them through ship sales that were demonstrating progress, and so the scope grew and so did the team. As different modules are completed you let people go, and that's why you use contractors as much as possible - it's far easier to scale - and people will come and go as needed. They're developing new technologies, working toward AAA+ quality and most definitely making some mistakes as they go along - everyone does on a project of this type of scale.

 

It also demonstrates that people forget what crowd funding is - it's not buying a share of a company, it's supporting and placing trust in a team to deliver a concept or an idea. Unfortunately a lot of people who have invested have had that trust diminished by a large part of the fear that a lot of people are saying "game over! It's game over man" and therefore loosing that money without seeing the concept delivered.

 

Am I annoyed I can't play the kick butt game that's been promised right now - yeah. But I'm also fairly confident something will be delivered ... eventually. The hype has done some real good though in ensuring the space game genre has received new attention, but I also think it may have damaged software developers to attempt to be so transparent for future projects ... And I think not seeing behind the curtain of other projects will be a real shame.

[AviatorMoser 353]

Chris' response seems pretty level-headed and cogent. I note that the Escapist's article was edited to include portions of Chris' reply.

 

Oh, I see that now. Funny how they update it well after the article was published.

 

Anyway, people are going to argue whether this will succeed or not, and that's their right. I just ask everyone to look at all of the information out there before they reach such a conclusion, because their is much misinformation out there.

[HiFlyer 9,333]

I've no opinion one way or another on whether the game will be completed or not, based on the info we have. I do think that if they had just gone for the game as originally envisaged and produced that, then at least there would be players out there with something solid to sink their teeth into. Something that could then be improved and expanded as needed.

 

Right now, we have a bunch of half-finished bits and pieces that don't really seem all that groundbreaking or impressive. 

 

I'm not giving up on them, just saying that the entire game had better handily exceed the sum of its parts..... or this might end badly.

 

My eagerness to play the finished product has already waned quite a bit.

[pmanhart 176]

This game is going to go down as the biggest con in the history of crowdfunding when it's finally released piecemeal without 80% of the reached stretch goals.

 

I so wanted Star Citizen to succeed because it's such as awesome idea, but really, who thought this was achievable in such a short time frame?

 

I'm playing Elite: Dangerous, which is a really great title, and the Horizons expansion pack that allows planet landings and shared cockpits is only going to make it better.

 

CIG could learn a thing or two from the Elite crew on deadlines and mission creep.

[WotanUK 289]

I backed Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, at around the same time if memory serves.  The very clear difference is that with Elite Dangerous i am currently playing a game, with Star Citizen i am playing a rather unimpressive collection of modules that don't bear any resemblance to a game.

 

While Derek Smart has been somewhat too vocal in past on the Internet (a reason i think people write him off) on this i think he is right on the money.  Something isn't right in Star Citizen land.

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

I got carried along with other people's enthusiasm for Star Citizen. After spending £250 I woke up with a start! Hey! I don't even LIKE space games. Fortunately, after my email telling them I'd been an idiot, they gave me all my money back. Damn, that was close!  :blush2: 

[HiFlyer 9,333]

This is approximately where I am on Star Citizen at this point.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQcKpcYpELo&feature=youtube

[el_kab0ng 29]

Bluedrake42 has a good rant about this on Youtube worth a look-see.

 

[Slayer 190]

Angels fall first looks like more fun than star citizen for 13 bucks and its playable .

Edited October 8, 2015 by n4gix
Remove unnecessary quote.

[ohsirus 241]

More from Derek Smart's battle with Chris.

 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The four year, $90m+ Star Citizen video game project, is no longer a going concern. The project is FUBAR and there is no going back.

Now that multiple sources are saying that RSI/CIG only have around $8m of operating cash left, when you consider that with over 260 people working at four (CA, TX, Germany, UK), they must be burning around $3m per month, you quickly understand why they have been doing layoffs (Chris Roberts calls it down sizing) recently.

Since June when, with the aid of researchers, I started my independent investigation into this project and its creators (Chris Roberts, Sandra Roberts, Ortwin Freyermuth), the picture of where things would be six months out, was a bit murky to me. In fact, when I wrote the first blog, Interstellar Citizens that sparked this discourse, I had no idea that I was remotely close to being right about the end result. And it’s all neatly tied up in the Star Citizen – The Long Con blog.

I was originally looking at it purely from a design, development and delivery perspective. Having designed, developed and built massive games myself over a 30yr period, I knew that I had enough experience to weigh in. Especially after looking at what they had delivered up to June, and sifting through their dev logs.

I said that they didn’t have the tech to build the “vision 2.0” game pitched. They don’t. They are still trying to build it.

I said that they couldn’t build the “vision 2.0” game as pitched. They can’t. They are still trying to build it.

I said that it would cost over $150m, and another three years, to build the game they pitched, assuming they build the tech. Four years and over $90m later, they are still raising money.

HOW THINGS GOT THIS FAR

 

http://www.dereksmart.com/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/