That seems like a fair way to look at it, agreed.
Star Citizen is close to being one of the most expensive games to develop.
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That seems like a fair way to look at it, agreed.
mcz117chief
Member
For that reason many people don't believe it was real, I still have my doubts, it just looks too bad to not be a joke.
Anyway, didn't they say that The Old Republic crossed the 1 billion $ mark ?
Kojima Productions LA. An entirely new studio created for the (current) sole purpose of handling the multiplayer component of MGSV: The Phantom Pain, a game for which a brand-new gaming engine was created.
It's gonna be 'spensive. Believe dat.
Note that it's specifying WoW 2004 - I assume that means that the given figure was the expenditure to launch it. A lot more money's been pumped into it since then, That said, it was probably turning a profit *very* rapidly.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Marketing I presume
Messofanego
Banned
Spaceship stealth for the bounty hunter in you
Dead Space 2 all up in this!
Dead Space 2 all up in this!
scytheavatar
Member
Have any of you guys considered the possibility of very bad things happening to Star Citizen, like it being struck in development hell and not coming out in 2015 as promised? For what that is promised even 43 million might not be enough to finish the game.........
Triggerhappytel
Member
I don't know for sure, but Ken Levine said at the time that those rumours were way off the mark.
MadJackChurchill
Banned
Yeah man, I love shitty hitboxes, lag compensation, non-functioning SP AI and boring encounters. It's the best! Take off the rose-tinted glasses and realise that every Treyarch game (apart from maybe BO1) was a polished-up turd.
Back on topic - I find it pretty ridiculous that there is still little on the ground to show for the 43 million expenditure. Every time they introduce a new world I'm like "where are the in-game world shots?" Every time they introduce a new ship I'm like "so when is this going to be shown in-game?"
Can someone explain to me how the Star Citizen funding is actually.... secure and legit?
What I mean is, how can funders be sure that their money is all spent towards the development of the game? I visited star citizen's funding page, where they have a very detailed plan of their funding.
But it still sounds ridiculous when paying attention. For example some goals state that "for the next 1,000,000 $" the game will have another system, or another states that, for the next 1,000,000 you get 2 new ships or something like that...
And it sounds ridiculous to me that devs need 1,000,000 to simply add 2-3 models of a ship...
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I dont know exactly how funding works, which is why I am making this post. The thing is that with all that money... how can people be sure that not a few million $ go into someone's personnal bank account?
What I mean is, how can funders be sure that their money is all spent towards the development of the game? I visited star citizen's funding page, where they have a very detailed plan of their funding.
But it still sounds ridiculous when paying attention. For example some goals state that "for the next 1,000,000 $" the game will have another system, or another states that, for the next 1,000,000 you get 2 new ships or something like that...
And it sounds ridiculous to me that devs need 1,000,000 to simply add 2-3 models of a ship...
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I dont know exactly how funding works, which is why I am making this post. The thing is that with all that money... how can people be sure that not a few million $ go into someone's personnal bank account?
AHA-Lambda
Member
Woah! How the fuck did ff7 cost so much?!
The thing about stretch goals that it's important to remember is that the price they cite isn't just for that feature - it's more that that's a significant quantifiable feature that would be recogisable at that point. Much of the rest of the money would get pumped elsewhere in development, more money spent on boring but important stuff.
That said, I do agree that there's a lot of faith tied up in Star Citizen development - that is, the funders are trusting Chris Roberts without a huge amount of security on their side - but in its favour, it does seem to constantly be putting out reassuring updates.
MadJackChurchill
Banned
Also, with such a huge budget, how the fuck have they not mocapped someone?! Human animations look diabolical.
The game was in development hell for a while, originally starting on the Playstation iirc. I imagine all that just got lumped into the overall total cost, similar to how they do in the movies(Superman Returns for example).
But really, dat Halo MMO? News to me
Interceptor
Banned
The number for FFVII can't be accurate.
A lot of faith is involved, obviously. Please note that early backers aren't investors and they are not owed financial documents or anything shareholders would normally see. That said, I've never seen a game with a more open development. You'll never see something like this from a regular publisher: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13848-Monthly-Report-April-2014
Earlier updates included headcounts for the studios, and they even announce new hires for the main studio.
Mocap sessions for the single player campaign should be starting soon.
Oma etc was poor but I thought the maps outside of derailed were awesome.
They don't plan on stopping development in 2015 anyway. The plan is for Star Citizen to continue to get content updates/new mission packs for the next 10 years. The plan is for it to be continually expanding and improving according to fan feedback. I mean sure it could end up shit, but that is every game ever. At the $30 I'm in for it's worth the risk to have someone try and make a good new Space flight combat/exploration game than have no one even try. The guys in for hundreds and even thousands well they obviously have more disposable income and/or faith in the project.
Well there are laws against fraud, this isn't some random guy raising money for some shady project. This is a company with dozens of employees and headed by people with a proven track record in the genre, who invested their own money to make a playable prototype before they even launched the crowd funding campaign. Including a public figure who is plastering his name all over the project. There will always be a risk with these crowd funding projects but this one is probably among the most solid. Plus they are pretty open about development they have a lot of dev dairy, and behind the scenes video content. And the devs are active on the forums plus they have had public demos at PAX, a "playable" hanger module where you can look at ingame space ships. And there will be a Dog-fighting Beta before the end of the year.
The original plan was to use the crowd funding to prove to angel investors that people wanted the project. It just was way way more successful than anyone could have anticipated so they can pretty much fund the entire project via crowd funding.
As for the stretch goals
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13382-Letter-From-The-Chairman-28-Million
Thank you very much for your thorough reply/answer!
It is exactly the answer I was looking for, as I typed my question.
I don't know, that doesn't seem completely unbelievable to me. They also had to develop all the physical components, lots of figures etc
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Do you know how many people they need to pay to get this game done so quickly?
Not mention VA, Marketing, Porting to every machine known to man.
Weltall Zero
Member
Well, that's a given, but WoW 2004 had a truckload of content and not all that much was added (mostly a few dungeons and most raid instances) before the first expansion. I can't imagine post-launch content costs being much more than a fraction of the original development costs (considering those include the entire game engine), and by the time TBC rolled out, both subscriptions and expansion boxes surely paid several times over for its development in turn.
Goldmine of the century right there; no wonder everyone and their dog were so obsessed with replicating it.
So, in summary, the 100+ million dollar problem with AAA development costs is directly attributed to marketing? Then the subsequent hollywood accounting enables any excuse for any action related to monitization or rationale towards success/or failure while concurrently giving a venue for talk of piracy or how current gaming trends lead to a dead end or death.
How... confidence inspiring.
Hopefully SC is able to deliver everything that the backers were hoping for out of the title, by being able to avoid the aforementioned nonsense associated with big publishers.
How... confidence inspiring.
Hopefully SC is able to deliver everything that the backers were hoping for out of the title, by being able to avoid the aforementioned nonsense associated with big publishers.