Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
Fantastic. This time is totally different for sure.
Personally I strongly suspect this is just an opportunistic, made up, strategy change. CIG has been laying off staff quite regularly since at least 2023 that we are aware of. New player sign ups and concurrency / actual player time in game have dropped over 45% and 30% respectively in the last 2 years, which in turns likely means revenues are also significantly down, making the funds tracker highly suspect.
In other words, it is quite likely new features are simply not bringing in the money to justify the heavy investment in them.
CIG has little choice but to fall back to just tweaking the current broken thing with a reduced dev capacity, and to make more ships which usually are a dime a dozen. Presenting this as a deliberate decision is quite disingenuous but probably effective as the community will lap it up.
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Probably a combination of events. I reckon those themes are probably in the mix. I suspect CIG are also genuinely aware of how bad a first impression SC's Year-12-Bugginess has on noobs (and veterans) though, and really are throwing some engineers at core fixes.
(It's just fiddling while the Imperium burns though. Because Server Meshing is still in flux beneath all those features
)
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
If the funds tracker was really as good as represented the right business decision would be to stay the course, "steady as she go". "Impressions" would be irrelevant and CIG could easily afford to ignore them for the most part. They have a solid track record of doing so anyways. The real reason therefore has to be low revenues, and possibly related to those required to satisfy the Calder liability.Probably a mix of events. I reckon those themes are probably in the mix. I suspect CIG genuinely are aware of how bad a first impression SC's Year-12-Bugginess has on noobs though, (and veterans), and really are throwing some engineers at core fixes.
(It's just fiddling while the Imperium burns though. Because Server Meshing is still in flux beneath all those features
They are also likely aware they have not been able to fix most of the game issues for over a decade and that, for the most part, they will likely not be able to fix them effectively now either in less than 10 months. Short of a code write off and start over, that is.
No, this is imo primarily opportunistic and a capitulation on the new features that are much more expensive to develop and therefore wont help in paying back the Calders.
They need to really hone in the cheap stuff they can afford to do with less people and layoffs: "Bug fixing" and more ships. And pray that revenues hold.
This obviously carries a potential upside of changing market sentiment and drive more sales. No doubt. But a very risky bargain it is. A very risky bargain that I strongly believe CIG would have never dared to take if revenues were as good as the tracker says.
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Is this correct? I watched the whole of the livestream (admittedly I wasn't concentrating on it) and don't recall this. And the transcript of the YT doesn't find it either. Only references I see to Base Building is 'we had top people working on it, but now they'll be fixing bugs'
It also seems unlikely that meshing will wait until October before they have to move forward with it ..
It doesn't "mean", it "hopefully could help going towards something loosely looking like"
Waiting for the annual financial blog.
I don't know, but a long time ago, didn't they used to do monthly patches, then switched to quarterly patches to improve the quality of patches?
This. Exactly. Yes.
The patches this year are mainly new ships + missions - so theoretically they can push them out faster as it's just assets and config changes. Everything else they plan to bugfix is already completely broken, so even if the fixes don't work they probably can't make it worse.
Famous last words
Famous last words
Oh yep, good spot. That bit seems to be confabulated...
therealdiscolando said:
It being an AI summary would fit with a lot of the tone as it goes.
Lol. I checked that thread to see if anyone else agreed, but that was before Jared posted
The tracker isn't that clear cut though. The new accounts section makes for poor reading, and could be a logical prompt for the same actions ¯\(ツ)/¯
(Not saying they're not belt tightening, and that the Calders and/or cashflow issues can't be the cause. Just saying they're not the only explanations in town.)
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
What would be the other(s) explanations?
That onboarding is poor and they need to improve the game's reputation and player retention.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
That translates to revenues. CIG has had a solid track record of ignoring reputation and "impressions". Only reason I can see that CIG is changing that now is if that has impacted the bottom line significantly.
Interesting quibble on the refunds sub:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/1ikhay1/the_first_rule_of_the_joker_card_no_jira_tickets/
So these 'Joker cards' allow the lucky holding department to nominate a problem for everyone to prioritize. Everyone piles in. To cut red tape they don't track this on Jira.
If I'm understanding right, the concern here is that any work during this process is gonna have no paper trail, and no warning for any related teams not brought into the bubble?
Guess it's a process that could get quicker, targeted results, but might leave some chaotic backwash...
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/1ikhay1/the_first_rule_of_the_joker_card_no_jira_tickets/
So these 'Joker cards' allow the lucky holding department to nominate a problem for everyone to prioritize. Everyone piles in. To cut red tape they don't track this on Jira.
If I'm understanding right, the concern here is that any work during this process is gonna have no paper trail, and no warning for any related teams not brought into the bubble?
Guess it's a process that could get quicker, targeted results, but might leave some chaotic backwash...
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
Well, CIG has not show any signs of doing that whenever the revenues were solid. At all. Track record is quite clear.Nah, there are scenarios where a company is just looking at the long form. IE cashflow ok for now, but this going to bite down the line, etc.
But like I say, ultimately this is another case of:
Only main reason to change that now would probably be if their bottom line has already been impacted significantly (and possibly linked to the Calder´s liability, which may compound the issue). Layoffs since 2023 also support the notion. This is not a case of "we are good now, let´s plan for a rainy day guys!". CIG has never been capable of that.
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