Star Citizen surpasses $100 million dollars in funding

Is there a chart of the funding rate over time anywhere? I wonder how much it is slowing down overall.

Also, I'm not 100% happy about the F2P-like funding model they are embracing, but on the other hand I backed the game for $30 or so in the initial KS and now get to play something developed with the monetary support of a large group of big spenders, so that's nice.

XANDER CAGE said:
If this is something that consistently bothers people in Star Citizen threads they can always PM one of us. Personally I haven't been following the game much so I haven't been actively looking at these threads, but if I get a heads up...
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Makes sense. The latest main thread about the game (Alpha 2.0) is fine actually, but I'll keep that in mind. I also didn't want to derail this thread further.
 
Can't even hate on these dudes, thats some hustlin'

fCoCqWF.gif
 
Durante said:
Is there a chart of the funding rate over time anywhere? I wonder how much it is slowing down overall.
Click to expand...

They always offered stats for last 6-7 months. Old info is inaccessible right now in a funding widget, but someone could have easily manually recorded monthly numbers. Maybe someone from SC community did that.

P9Lo8M2.jpg


edit - beaten
 
"What I want to know is where did they get so many people to drop so much money for what's ultimately (and unfortunately) a niche title. 100 million crowdfunded for a high-end PC exclusive space game? How?"

Because there hasn't been even a medium budget space game since the 90s. Starved, older fanbase with stable income.
 
GKB said:
Here you go.

A very comprehensive spreadsheet if you're looking for details.
Click to expand...
Thanks! (and thanks to everyone else who posted it)

There doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern yet (except for new ships cuasing funding spikes). I expected something more like a log-function dropoff.
 
Teknopathetic said:
Because there hasn't been even a medium budget space game since the 90s. Starved, older fanbase with stable income.
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And how did that happen? Did some huge-ass space game bomb incredibly or something? The general "space with emphasis on ships" theme is so wide and such a staple of geek culture that I can't think of why it would just disappear.

(And how does Elite Dangerous not count?)
 
Trace said:
For some reason I really doubt EA has 100 million lying around to put into a game that could match up to Star Citizen.
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If the interest in Star Citizen was enough to entice them into doing a similar sort of game, then they always have the Star Wars IP. It's a pretty good setting for a Freelancer/Privateer type game, but I suspect that if it did happen it would just be a space combat game.

It would be nice to see a general resurgence in the genre though, it's a favourite of mine.

striferser said:
Star Citizen, probably not, but maybe they'll release a spin off of it to PS4 (hey, one can hope)
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Squadron 42 seems like the most likely thing. They'll have all of the assets already done and it's a lot more focused (and probably eliminates a lot of issues with scope).

Aselith said:
That's fine but that video was intended to shit on console and mobile games. He didn't say "I am a hardcore game!" The fact that he was inspired get back into gaming by a console game but chose to take consoles specifically to task in his pitch video makes that fact even more transparent.
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I don't think it was anything like that. Star Citizen was a risky proposition and they knew they had to get the PC community excited in a big way in order to make it happen. It was just about understanding what that audience wanted to hear in a marketing pitch and making sure that their video conveyed the fact that Star Citizen would be offering it.
 
Trace said:
For some reason I really doubt EA has 100 million lying around to put into a game that could match up to Star Citizen.
Click to expand...

Companies like EA don't need to have money "lying around" to make investments. As long they have steady income stream they can get the money from banks [Acti purchased King with half of their money and half from bank loans].
 
"And how did that happen? Did some huge-ass space game bomb incredibly or something? The general "space with emphasis on ships" theme is so wide and such a staple of geek culture that I can't think of why it would just disappear.

(And how does Elite Dangerous not count?)"


Freespace 2 bombed spectacularly. Freelancer was super hyped but had a ton of development issues and came out much later than planned in 2003. I think it did well, but at that point developers had moved on to greener pastures.

As far as Elite Dangerous is concerned, the Star Citizen crowdfunding campaign started before the E:D campaign. The initial E:D Kickstarter was also incredibly lackluster and seemed like a "me-to" from Frontier and didn't instill much confidence.

Ultimately, I think the massive community building CIG has done along with the ships sales is why they managed to get so much more money compared to Elite. They just did a better job of creating a hype machine. Frontier was incredibly quiet during the post-Kickstarter period. Plus, the dream CIG was selling was far more ambitious than what Frontier was initially talking about, though they're both heading in the same direction now.
 
I just started playing space sims by buying Elite Dangerous during the last Steam sale.
I loved it.

Actually, I'm playing Star Citizen because it's actually free to try it until tomorrow.
The game looks perfect, really feel like a sort of GTA in space for me.

But actually, despite the bugs and crashs due to Alpha state, I think the main problem is that the game is created with... CryEngine.
Starting it for the first time, I directly saw one of the biggest problem CryEngine have : the fucked up physics.
I don't know why, but each time I see a game using a lot of physics properties using CryEngine, it's always feels buggy.
Like, for example, I can feel sometimes my ship slowing down (sort of micro lags) during 1/2sec, like in Crysis when you were exploding massive amount of destructible things, or when you were driving cars, running over people (and I'm actually on a pretty big PC config).
Another example, when I'm trying to enter in a big ship, I'm passing through the walls... I had the same problems using other CryEngine game.

It's just sad they didn't create their own graphic engine.
And, also, driving a ship in Elite seems way more realistic, I can feel the weight. I don't have this feeling in Star Citizen.

Now, I'm just waiting to get my hands on No Man's Sky.
 
Rob85Fr said:
And, also, driving a ship in Elite seems way more realistic, I can feel the weight. I don't have this feeling in Star Citizen.
Click to expand...

While I agree - I very much prefer the ship handling in ED, which is down to personal preference - Star Citizen's ship handling isn't exactly done. And unless you were flying something the size of a Constellation in SC, many of the available ships are very small craft, which explains why the ships have more weight in ED. They are on average, a lot bigger.

I think a Cobra is roughly comparable in size and weight to a Constellation.
 
Teknopathetic said:
As far as Elite Dangerous is concerned, the Star Citizen crowdfunding campaign started before the E:D campaign. The initial E:D Kickstarter was also incredibly lackluster and seemed like a "me-to" from Frontier and didn't instill much confidence.
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I think people often forget about this when comparing the 2 these days. I had forgotten until I read your post just now.

I almost feel bad for Elite given what they achieved since then, but I didn't back their KS for exactly this reason.
 
Burny said:
While I agree - I very much prefern the ship handling in ED, which is down to personal preference - Star Citizen's ship handling isn't exactly done. And unless you were flying something the size of a Constellation in SC, many of the available ships are very small craft, which explains why the ships have more weight in ED. They are on average, a lot bigger.
Click to expand...
To provide an example of what was said by Burny, according to the E:D wiki the Sidewinder Mk I (the starter ship in Elite) is 25.0t unladen, compared to the Aurora ES in SC which is at 7.6t. In fact a Hornet in SC is still lighter than the Sidewinder at ~22.0t. The closest counterpart in weight is the Freelancer at 26.0t.
Burny said:
I think a Cobra is roughly comparable in size and weight to a Constellation.
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A Cobra Mk III is 180.0t - a Constellation Andromeda is 80.5t. A Carrack is meant to be the same as the Cobra.
Of course always a reminder that ship specs are in constant flux in SC's development.
 
lukeskymac said:
What I want to know is where did they get so many people to drop so much money for what's ultimately (and unfortunately) a niche title. 100 million crowdfunded for a high-end PC exclusive space game? How?



Also this.
Click to expand...

Clearly this is a genre that mainstream publishers have severely underestimated.
 
ElyrionX said:
Clearly this is a genre that mainstream publishers have severely underestimated.
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One thing to note in this regard is that the game currently has ~1 million backers. Due to their structure, RSI have managed to extract almost 100 million USD of development budget from those backers.

If a "AAA" publisher sold a traditional $60 game to 1 million people they'd make ~27 million USD (of which they'd probably spend more than half on marketing).

Now, I'm not saying that these 1 million people are the entire target audience for the game, just that this discrepancy is something to keep in mind.
 
lukeskymac said:
What I want to know is where did they get so many people to drop so much money for what's ultimately (and unfortunately) a niche title. 100 million crowdfunded for a high-end PC exclusive space game? How?
Click to expand...

The only ones telling you Niche PC genres are dead, are these ones:
- who Focustest their new concepts into oblivion and come to the conclusion that FPS or Open World RPG'ish games are the current hot potato
- who design by committee
- who have an interest to downplay the competitor market.
- who themselve have no vision and just chase the last successfull game and copy it.

So most Publishers.
 
What I still don't get: Is this like an MMO, where you log in to the same server every time you play?

Or can you play offline and then take your stuff online?

Or do you need a server like Minecraft to play with friends?
 
I've stopped even attempting to talk about this game online. The conversation has become so incredibly toxic because of all the people lining up to pull this project down. First you have the platform warriors who simply can't fathom why a game is not being made for the machine of choice. Then you have the anti-crowdfunding crew who keep repeating that this is totally a scam despite the fact that a working game client exists. Then you have the utterly clueless who bemoan the lack of updates and progress when the reality is that this company gives so many updates that all but the most obsessed probably can't even keep up with them all.

AmoebaAstronaut said:
You could probably send a real life probe to Mars and get a better ROI than this piece of shit game will ever provide.
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...and then you have shitposts like this. People who are clearly not interested in the game but simply must inform the world how much they want it to fail.

I don't know if this is a new trend in gaming or something I just never noticed before, but in the last year or two it's become a lot more apparent to me that gamers aren't content with just ignoring something that doesn't interest them. They have to tell you how bad a game is, how much they want it to fail, how stupid you are for liking it and telling the creators that they deserve to die for making it. It's madness.
 
TerryLee81 said:
What I still don't get: Is this like an MMO, where you log in to the same server every time you play?

Or can you play offline and then take your stuff online?

Or do you need a server like Minecraft to play with friends?
Click to expand...

The game has two parts, there is a storyline campaign called Squadron 42, and there's the mmo/multiplayer/online part called Star Citizen.

You don't need a server, as it will be provided by the developer. There is a plan for player's server support though.
 
TerryLee81 said:
What I still don't get: Is this like an MMO, where you log in to the same server every time you play?

Or can you play offline and then take your stuff online?

Or do you need a server like Minecraft to play with friends?
Click to expand...
The intention is for it to offer all 3 (MMO-like persistent universe, player-run servers, offline campaign with co-op support).
 
Teknopathetic said:
They just did a better job of creating a hype machine.
Click to expand...
The average backer spends 100$, making SC pretty much the most successful monetization of any game in history. Being without a release yet, I'd argue that makes their hype machine bigger than any other game as well (among the target audience at least) - ie. whether you like or hate what they're doing, it defies comparisons to any other product.
 
GKB said:
The game has two parts, there is a storyline campaign called Squadron 42, and there's the mmo/multiplayer/online part called Star Citizen.

You don't need a server, as it will be provided by the developer. There is a plan for player's server support though.
Click to expand...

Durante said:
The intention is for it to offer all 3 (MMO-like persistent universe, player-run servers, offline campaign with co-op support).
Click to expand...

Thanks, that sounds great.
 
lowhighkang_LHK said:
Well then how are they going to recoup costs? Exclusive PC games targeting high end systems just don't exist anymore.

So is somebody going to go out there and invest so much just for one game? Sure, the overhead available would be great for console ports, but you don't need Pascal to run these console ports at 60 fps. You can do that with GPU's on the market now. Anything above that is just diminishing returns. I'm just curious to see their business model. Maybe they have none, and the 100 million kickstarter is all they need.
Click to expand...

Because PCs aren't like consoles and have a far quicker progression in capability. They aren't locked to a 5+ year cycle with the same hardware power. Eventually lots of people will have a PC capable of running the game well.
 
KKRT00 said:
Star Citizen is the best proof why publishers hide their games from the public and only release small polished and fully controlled footage to general audience.
Most people just cant stand the junk of alpha code ;/
Click to expand...

And then have people later complain how the game doesn't match up to the vertical slice.

"Downgrades, Downgraaaaaades!".
 
Given there's no single player campaign as yet (correct if I'm wrong) it's an amazing achievement. I can't wait to see that in a playable state.
 
Burny said:
While I agree - I very much prefer the ship handling in ED, which is down to personal preference - Star Citizen's ship handling isn't exactly done. And unless you were flying something the size of a Constellation in SC, many of the available ships are very small craft, which explains why the ships have more weight in ED. They are on average, a lot bigger.

I think a Cobra is roughly comparable in size and weight to a Constellation.
Click to expand...

Yep, you're right. And thinking of this, it may also coming from the sounds effect, which for now seems unfinished.

Another thing, do someone know if it's possible to land on a planet, maybe not like No Man's Sky, but sort of ? I tried to land on Yela, seems impossible, no landing zones. I'm always destroying my ship entering the gravity zone. And is there a possibility to go on another system, like the Sol system, or other ones ?
Thanks !
 
What also played part in the funding was the snowball effect. They were first aiming for a smaller scale, $20 million game, a bit like E:D in scale but more customisable ships. Once they reached the first funding milestones, more people chimed in because it nearing that $20 million meant the game actually could get made. Then it got way above and beyond the first target, because people believe the more they funded, the better game will turn out. With the additional budget, they expanded the scope which attracted even more people. Since there already was a big investment, the risk of the additional investment is signifcantly reduced.

People should also know that the biggest funding comes from people spending around $30 to $60 on the game, the average for a PC game. The select people who went crazy on their budget are just all those enthusiasts you find here on NeoGAF, reddit and their own forums. I also think many of those people have a stable income and you shouldn't bother how people spend their money. I'm not complaining about wealthy women spending $200 on a pair of shoes every month, they can do what they want with their money.
 
wachie said:
I hope I'm wrong but I'm highly suspicious of their release date. They could keep delivering ships, hangars, hats, whatever etc.
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It's okay to be sceptical, but you should follow the project more closely before calling it a vaporware. There has been very tangible proof regarding the viability of the game, they are not screwing around. Just take a look at the various threads pertaining to SC.

I do not know if the final game will live up to the wildest expectations but they are hellbent on doing as well as they can.
 
Kezen said:
It's okay to be sceptical, but you should follow the project more closely before calling it a vaporware. There has been very tangible proof regarding the viability of the game, they are not screwing around. Just take a look at the various threads pertaining to SC.

I do not know if the final game will live up to the wildest expectations but they are hellbent on doing as well as they can.
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Yep...i can see the game easily missing the mark on what they have promised. But it is not vaporware...they could publish a game pretty soon it just would be missing a lot.
 
Kyougar said:
And what "shit" is that?
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Hacking the game into three chapters? Delaying it?

Also most of the funding didn't come from 30/60$ tier. The average is almost 100$ per person.

The biggest fear isn't that they aren't going to make it. My biggest concern is that they will screw someone balancing it: either 4k ships are going to be an endless grind, or the 4k backers are going to be disappointed. I know that it was more of the donation towards development, but I can't imagine people being happy if everyone can build that ship in a week. Or if someone wants to do trucking/harvesting quests and they are stuck with a small racing/fighting ship. The business model of the game (buy to play) shouldn't force people into grinding to get the gear for desired quests.

Their overall approach is also crap: SC is everything: campaign, competitive FPS (seriously?), competitive dogfighting, instances, racing, mmo universe, economy etc. And they are doing it all at once...
 
Kyougar said:
And what "shit" is that?
Click to expand...

Going from a video with Chris Roberts promising Sq42 being around 50 hours of content to episodes where backers are only getting "around 20 hours" of content.

It's a shitty move that would be getting called out if the SC community wasnt so rabidly loyal.
 
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