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[TVexperto]

As someone who has invested time and money into playing this scam for a decade, I am not shocked.

12 Years and $700 Million Later, What's Going on With Star Citizen's Development?

Speaking with over a dozen sources about the turbulent development of Star Citizen at Cloud Imperium Games.

insider-gaming.com

According to sources who believe backers’ money could be spent much more efficiently, the coffee bar is just one example of CIG’s unnecessary spending habits. Spending tens of thousands of pounds on custom furniture and oversized props isn’t unusual, sources say, with management justifying its spending habits because it’s “pushing the boundaries of game development.” Its Manchester office, which is still under construction on one floor, consists of custom wall paneling, doors, and even desks to make employees feel like they are living in the Star Citizen universe. One employee described the office as “almost like a space version of Willy Wonka’s factory” that “caters to taste over functionality.”

This is not a concept image of the game they promised to develop, This is Concept Image of Cloud Imperium Games’ coffee area at its Manchester office.

it’s understood that the game (Squadron 42) has only just made it to its “feature complete” stage, despite the claims last year.

So once again CIG lied about SQ42 being feature complete last year

 

[OmegaSupreme]

They're waiting till they get to a billion.

 

[acm2000]

this is not new news, its been a joke from the start.

 

[Miles708]

Pledge Now >>

 

[nemiroff]

A TVexperto certified rent free thread.

 

[digdug2]

This business model is what we in the business call "earliest access". (I'm only in the business of clowning)

 

[ClanOfNone]

When the GTX1080s first came out, I was like “holy fuck 8GB of vram, I’ll get one and be ready for Star Citizen when it drops.”
lol, now we’ve got 24GB cards and this game still isn’t done. Will it hit a billion? Who knows, there are a lot of dumb people out there.
Even if the game turns out to be the second coming of Space Shooter Jesus how can anyone defend a $700+ million and 12+ year dev cycle? My oldest was in elementary school when this game was announced, she’s in college now….

Nice offices though.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

This is when you realize that the lingerie pic your wife sent to some random dude on Facebook was more than a little tease.

 

[Solarstrike]

Should have sold the IP to Bethesda so they could at least finish it and call it Starfield.

 

[Evil Calvin]

I'm surprised there hasn't been any class action lawsuit with this.

 

[Fabieter]

It's interesting and the biggest scam in gaming at the same time.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

This is reaching the costs and development time of an actual mission to space.

Edit:

Total cost for two rover missions, each receiving five mission extensions: US$945 million.
Total mission time: over 15 years of operation on Mars!

Mars Exploration Rover - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90-sol primary mission was US$820 million.[5] Each rover received five mission extensions, as they continued to function past their initially planned duration.

The fifth mission extension was granted in October 2007, and ran to the end of 2009.[5][6] The total cost of the first four mission extensions was $104 million, and the fifth mission extension cost at least $20 million.[5] The mission was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which designed, built, and operated the rovers.

In recognition of the vast amount of scientific information amassed by both rovers, two asteroids have been named in their honor: 37452 Spirit and 39382 Opportunity.

 

[Mayar]

As one of the Bethesda employees said in an interview, when he was asked about the horse armor in Oblivion, to which he replied - "Well, you bought it yourself" In the current situation, no one is to blame except the players themselves. Continue to bring them money and you will be happy, with such a constant offering they can do it for another 10 years and not move from the spot, because why move somewhere if people are already bringing money.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

Who is even stupid enough to invest in this in large amounts. I get average gamers paying 60$ .
Even if it launches most people who have invested will be getting their copy. So who will even buy this?

 

[Tajaz2426]

By the looks of their digs, they’ve done well for themselves. While folks shelled out hundreds and thousands to support their game with ships, they were chilling at the bar, laughing at the people who keep screaming, “it isn’t a scam”.

You folks that support this and have supported in the past have been used like a cheap hooker in Thailand. They didn’t even bother to give you a reach around, just smacked your ass and said thank you after they unloaded on your faces.

I feel sorry for you folks, stay strong and maybe that 750 million plus will find a way into the game, not their hang out areas while they laugh at you being used up.

I want you ladies and gents to know, I am here for you and I’m not laughing.

Edit: I am laughing, I’m sorry I tried to lie and say I wouldn’t laugh. Again, my sincerest apologies.

Edit 2: my apology was a lie also. I’m not good at this.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I'm surprised there hasn't been any class action lawsuit with this.

Why? I'm sure legally they are not obligated to deliver the game, and even so "deliver" and "the game" is super broad in the eyes of the law.

Now, I'm sure all of that is in the EULA or T&C, what surprises me is that noone ever took a look at it.

 

[adamsapple]

Scam Citizen.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

Wait till the usual cultists show up and post the same curated videos they post every thread that is critical to their messiah.

 

[nowhat]

This business model is what we in the business call "earliest access". (I'm only in the business of clowning)

Just got an idea - perhaps, instead of calling projects like this crowd-sourced, they should be called clown-sourced.

 

[nowhat]

Now, I'm sure all of that is in the EULA or T&C, what surprises me is that noone ever took a look at it.

There was a piece of software called "PC Pitstop". And buried within the EULA was that the first person to contact them for a compensation via email would receive $1000.

One person did, after 3000 copies of the software had been sold. This was in 2005, so nearly two decades ago, but I doubt the situation has changed much. Especially given how much shit we have to click through these days.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Imagine crowd funding an actual space mission instead of this: I'd jump at the opportunity to be a part of something like that.

Who else?

All it'd take is around a million people committing to $100 a year for ten years. Imagine what we could accomplish with that?

 

[Mister Wolf]

They got over on you.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

”But you can play-ish it now!”

 

[Roman Empire]

I've been calling it a scam since 2018. Glad I wasn't proved wrong until now. While the game has some nice features and tech, this does not justify it never leaving early access. There are just too many promises without deliver and players should raised the question if it is worth it all this "investment". I don't blame anyone who believes the Star Citizen vision, but there is a limit to everything, including game development.

 

[ClanOfNone]

I won’t even knock the tech, I’ve been impressed by some of the footage I’ve seen, but not for the budget and time spent.
Any sane publisher wound’ve forced them to ship or scrapped the project for one of history’s biggest tax write offs.
Why they didn’t just focus on polishing Squadron 42 and getting it out is beyond me. If the game was good, that would’ve been your proof of concept right there and money would keep pouring in.
But why ship a finished product when the money is pouring in anyways and you can continue to endlessly break release dates and promises.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Theres a dude on gaf who will defend this game to death. I guess hes also part of the money laundering. Just take a look at the OT for the game lol.

 

[Miles708]

As one of the Bethesda employees said in an interview, when he was asked about the horse armor in Oblivion, to which he replied - "Well, you bought it yourself" In the current situation, no one is to blame except the players themselves. Continue to bring them money and you will be happy, with such a constant offering they can do it for another 10 years and not move from the spot, because why move somewhere if people are already bringing money.

Please stop trying to bring some sense in this whole affair. Whales with no restraint or willpower are going to feel hurt.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It’s an impressive grift. I’m kinda jealous I wasn’t the one who came up with it. A game with unlimited budget, unlimited scope, and an infinite timeline. Sold to boomers who had high end PCs since the early 90s who are nostalgic and have lots of disposable income. It’s genius.

 

[Bernardougf]

Should have sold the IP to Bethesda so they could at least finish it and call it Starfield.

Its too much completed and optimized for bethesda standards

 

[Boss Mog]

And yet there are still plenty of clowns who defend this "game".

 

[EDMIX]

It’s an impressive grift. I’m kinda jealous I wasn’t the one who came up with it. A game with unlimited budget, unlimited scope, and an infinite timeline. Sold to boomers who had high end PCs since the early 90s who are nostalgic and have lots of disposable income. It’s genius.

lol and then keep the carrot always at the end of the stick, be like "ok, so we have this new feature where you can have a Space Yacht, but we need that extra push" lol

 

[Ozriel]

12 years and still just $700 million.

And clowns are on the internet saying Concord cost $400 million.

 

[willothedog]

How apt a name is 'citizen con' for their yearly shindig.

 

[CityHunter1981]

Are they waiting for Mark Hamill to die, so they can market the game as his last acting role?

 

[Euler007]

True next-gen graphics and game (for 2013)!

 

[justiceiro]

Citizen on this weekend will turn everything around, you will all see!!!

Spoiler

 

[Exede]

Tbh 700 million croud funded is an achievement.

 

[King Dazzar]

This really does take the "wait till next year, it'll be great" and turns it up to 11, well 12 in this case.

 

[lughnasadh123]

I'd genuinely love to know the overall sentiment of the people pumping money into the game - it has to be something of a cult status at this point for people not to riot.

 

[Halo is Back]

A rabid cult basically funds this game. It is quite impressive the amount of money Chris has squeezed out of them, I'll give him that.

 

[Danny22]

I'm curious if AI can get it to speed up its development and what they'll acheive with that in the next 12 years. And if this becomes the biggest scope video game someday.

As a person who's likely never going to play this, I'm always curious how big they can truly make this game before the funding stops.

 

[AJUMP23]

I just want SQ42.

Raising a lot of money was the worst thing that could happen, they scoped creeped their ambitions to death.

If anyone is willing to quote the whole article I would appreciate it, Blocked at work. I would like to see some of the pics too.

The $100 I pledged has been spent long ago.

 

[Rush2112]

The SC community is okay with them just selling spaceships at this point. They even demand it. Sick people.

 

[STARSBarry]

They also give you more expensive special stores as you go up ranks, so the more you spend the more expensive packs you can buy.

 

[TVexperto]

Wait till the usual cultists show up and post the same curated videos they post every thread that is critical to their messiah.

Oh, he's already gearing up to praise the 'incredible' fake videos they'll showcase at CitizenCon this weekend. It's almost like clockwork at this point! Just look at this thread that he keeps double and tripple posting in to push it to the front page.

 

[Shadowstar39]

All i wanted was a new wing commander or better yet FreeLancer sequel.
Shit I would settle for a remake or remaster of them.
They could of remade the first 4 wing commander games for modern graphics and sound , and had them all done and a free lancer sequel in the style of the original, if they set their goals as that.

Now we don't get shit.
Elite and no mans sky are the closest and Elite dangerous is more like a damn mmo (like eve online but with physics), and No mans sky is not real space, planets and is arcady (fun game but totally different).
Everspace 2 is great but does more arcade style planet dog fighting (probably the closest to wing commander). Star point gemni was great but just needed expanded on in polish.

It sucks the 90s -2002 were the golden age of space flight. WE should be seeing a ton of cool space games, but no, we get drips.

 

[ReyBrujo]

The mandate forced employees to work 19 straight days for a minimum of 8 hours per day up until Citizencon, with TOIL (time off in lieu) being offered for the Saturday and Sunday hours worked, as well as breakfast goods and lunch being offered.

You know you are in trouble when your boss arrives with pizza.

 

[Ribi]

More lazy journalism. They wanted to get out ahead of CitizenCon and couldn't wait for 750million.

Meanwhile Concord took 400milliion and Skull and Bones was expensive too.

 

[TVexperto]

More lazy journalism. They wanted to get out ahead of CitizenCon and couldn't wait for 750million.

Meanwhile Concord took 400milliion and Skull and Bones was expensive too.

This is year 15 of the Star Citizen Project. Year 14 of development. Year 13 of crowdfunding. And next month will be the start of year 11 of the delayed release of Squadron 42 and the beta for the Persistent Universe.

$700 million is only game pledges. That does not include the investors, grants, loans, investment returns, merchandise, subscriptions.... We are probably closer to $900 million in than $700 million. Next year, if things continue as they are, they could cross a Billion. Its fucking glorious.

This is an even worse project than many of the SC community realizes lol but of course you are still defending this. By the way this is not lazy journalism but actually real investigative journalism.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

WHAT?

I CANT HEAR YOU OVER MY YACHT

I SAID YACHT

WHAT?

NO, JUST KEEP SPENDING



..Tell them to spend Jeeves, they seem to be deaf and stupid. The peasants Jeeves, that's right. Just make another ship or something. Just get the money.