Forbes Weighs in on The Star Citizen Saga

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The story continues....... https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-the-saga-of-star-citizen-a-video-game-that-raised-300-millionbut-may-never-be-ready-to-play/#4df80ce75ac9

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It’s October 2018 and 2,000 video game fanatics are jammed into Austin’s Long Center for the Performing Arts to get a glimpse of Star Citizen, the sprawling online multiplayer game being made by legendary designer Chris Roberts. Most of the people here helped to pay for the game’s development—on average, $200 each, although some backers have given thousands. An epic sci-fi fantasy, Star Citizen was supposed to be finished in 2014. But after seven years of work, no one—least of all Roberts—has a clue as to when it will be done. But despite the disappointments and delays, this crowd is cheering for Roberts. They roar as the 50-year-old Englishman jumps onto the stage and a big screen lights up with the latest test version of Star Citizen. 

The demo starts small: Seeing through the eyes of the in-game character, the player wakes up in his living quarters, gets up and brews a cup of coffee. Applause quickly turns to laughter when the game promptly crashes. While his underlings scramble to get the demo running again, a practiced Roberts smoothly fills minutes of dead air by screening a commercial for the Kraken, a massive war machine spaceship. Eventually the Kraken, like all the starships that Roberts sells, will be playable in Star Citizen. At least that’s the hope. But for $1,650 it could be yours, right away.

“Some days, I wish I could be like . . . ‘You’re not going to see anything until it’s beautiful,’ ” Roberts later says at his Los Angeles studio. “A lot of times we’ll show stuff and literally say, ‘Now, this is rough.’ ” 

What’s really rough is the current state of Star Citizen. The company Roberts co founded, Cloud Imperium Games, has raised $288 million to bring the PC game to life along with its companion, an offline single-player action game called Squadron 42. Of this haul, $242 million has been contributed by about 1.1 million fans, who have either bought digital toys like the Kraken or given cash online. Excluding cryptocurrencies, that makes Star Citizen far and away the biggest crowdfunded project ever. 

Rough playable modes—alphas, not betas—are used to raise hopes and illustrate work being done. And Roberts has enticed gamers with a steady stream of hype, including promising a vast, playable universe with “100 star systems.” But most of the money is gone, and the game is still far from finished. At the end of 2017, for example, Roberts was down to just $14 million in the bank. He has since raised more money. Those 100 star systems? He has not completed a single one. So far he has two mostly finished planets, nine moons and an asteroid. 

 

 

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[Paraffin 2,197]

I would buy the book that someone is going to eventually write about the Star Citizen saga. 

I would also like to buy the standalone singleplayer game (Squadron 42, is it?), if it's ever finished. No interest in the multiplayer stuff, but that at least might have been good.

From the Forbes article (I read the whole thing), it sounds like Roberts is burning through so much cash that chances are slim for anything being released before the whole house of cards collapses. At least he'll have that nice multi-million dollar house by the ocean. That is, if he isn't sued into the ground by people who didn't get their thousand dollar imaginary spaceships.

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[Greggy_D 935]

6 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I would also like to buy the standalone singleplayer game (Squadron 42, is it?), if it's ever finished.

Don't do it.  Basic foundational mechanics are still broken, 7 to 8 years in.  They are going to release because they have to and it's not going to be pretty.

[n4gix 4,947]

I'm just delighted that my interests lie in FSX and Prepar3D, and to think many think those are "expensive hobbies..."

[F1Fan 121]

2 hours ago, Greggy_D said:

Don't do it.  Basic foundational mechanics are still broken, 7 to 8 years in.  They are going to release because they have to and it's not going to be pretty.

lol, too late for me, I already was stupid enough to back the game in 2014.  However, I just got the normal package that included Star Citizen and Squadron 42 back when they offered it for $40.   I really do feel sorry for those that spent thousand and thousand for Chris Robert's dream.   I really hope it works out in the end but I don't think I'll be alive to see it!, Maybe my current beautiful granddaughters will enjoy it I guess....lol

Edited May 2, 2019 by egguzman

[Paraffin 2,197]

Well, at least we have Rebel Galaxy Outlaw coming up for us singleplayer space fighter combat fans.

They're doing a hilarious alternative to Star Citizen's "buy a spaceship" thing. The game will allow a wide range of customization and user painting for the ships you purchase as a mercenary or trader in-game. Then, you can upload your ship design and buy a 3D printed model that's mailed to you. You get an actual, physical ship model to set next to your computer, instead of buying pixels for thousands of dollars in SC. 

It won't be a deep space combat sim, but it looks like fun.