Aside from the fact that ship sales are their most lucrative revenue stream and that they have no other source of income that could generate enough money to support continued development? No, not really. I suppose they'd shut down ship sales if CIG staff were prepared to work for free though; they haven't excluded that either, so you might be right.
The Star Citizen Thread v 4
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Aside from the fact that ship sales are their most lucrative revenue stream and that they have no other source of income that could generate enough money to support continued development? No, not really. I suppose they'd shut down ship sales if CIG staff were prepared to work for free though; they haven't excluded that either, so you might be right.
I think you are forgetting about microstransactions and the fact that they are not going to keep the number of employees they have now in the middle of the development after they release SQ42/SC.
Are microtransactions new? Last I heard they were going to put a monthly cap on the UEC players could buy with real money.
Secondly, microtransactions? Microtransactions don't generate anywhere near as much income as ship sales. Sure Halo 5 earned $500,000 in a week after launch when players were the most active, but even that number has dwindled as the the game's hype has died down. This is completely ignoring the fact that Halo players massively outnumber SC players. I'd be surprised if SC could raise even 10% of that amount through microtransactions, unless the microtransactions were priced so high that they were basically just ship sales by another name (Halo 5 has this problem too. There's nothing micro about a $25 transaction), and then that would just put them right up there with games like FarmVille, Candy Crush and other titles famous for exploiting players through shallow but addicting gameplay (and SC isn't even that addicting atm, just shallow).
CIG data shows that They have just over 1.2 million accounts registered. If we assume ship sales didn't exist and that the game was sold at a flat rate of $60 per person, and that 80% of those accounts are real people willing to pay that price (even including players who got into SC at prices lower than $60 and hence might not be willing to pay that price in reality) they wouldn't even have hit $60 million yet. Ship (or addon sales in general) have accounted for over 50% of the income they've received. They've raised over a million dollars in a day thanks to ship sales.
How many people are they going to fire if they're going to limit themselves to microtransactions? Right now they've just moved AI in-house, need to design over 90 more star systems, complete their netcode overhauls, finish producing over 15 more ships, redesign earlier ships to meet new standards, implement features including but not limited to mining, cargo, repair, FPS, and then debug and optimize the game. They're probably not going to be firing people after SQ42 is out, and if they pull an Elite and do a barebones PU release, who's going to add the remaining features if they've all been fired? Assuming they halve their staff it'd still cost them around a million a month in wages alone.
Microtransactions and lay-offs don't look viable for their operation, so here's a question for you, if you were in charge of taking care of 100 workers and their office space, how would you raise $1 million per month every month?
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The daily limit is 25k UEC, with a total cap of 170k UEC. What is the reason to keep all the staff working on AI when you have working AI?
What is the reason to have all designers when you have everything already designed? When you have something working you only need to maintain this, so much less staff is required to do this. They are not going to develop something that actively when the game is released.
I doubt that they need $2M if they have 100 employees. For instance FD staff is about 100 people.
Is AI done though? Considering multicrew ship-to-ship combat isn't broadly available and FPS and economics aren't even implemented I find it a pretty bold statement to claim that they already have fully functional AIs for everything right now when they haven't even had a chance to test it in a publicly released build yet. Likewise, if all the design work is already done then SC might turn out to be a pretty bland game.
Ultimately though, what staff are relevant is completely irrelevant, which is why I simply assume they halve their staff instead of trying to work out who is and who isn't necessary.
Ahh great, I got my math wrong, thinking in a currency that's not USD
My point still stands though.Based on average US game developer salaries, wages still come close to $700,000 a month, much more manageable but still difficult to hit with SC's active playerbase and microtransactions. When you factor in taxes and maintenance costs you'd probably be looking at a figure of around a million a month to stay safely in the black, and that's assuming they switch into maintenance and completely forget about developing new stuff.
Is AI done though? Considering multicrew ship-to-ship combat isn't broadly available and FPS and economics aren't even implemented I find it a pretty bold statement to claim that they already have fully functional AIs for everything right now when they haven't even had a chance to test it in a publicly released build yet. Likewise, if all the design work is already done then SC might turn out to be a pretty bland game.
Ultimately though, what staff are relevant is completely irrelevant, which is why I simply assume they halve their staff instead of trying to work out who is and who isn't necessary.
Ahh great, I got my math wrong, thinking in a currency that's not USD
Based on average US game developer salaries, wages still come close to $700,000 a month, much more manageable but still difficult to hit with SC's active playerbase and microtransactions. When you factor in taxes and maintenance costs you'd probably be looking at a figure of around a million a month to stay safely in the black, and that's assuming they switch into maintenance and completely forget about developing new stuff.
And who said that everything is already done? They are in the middle of the development, it is exactly now when the number of employees should be high. However, when the game is going to be closer to release they are not going to need that much employees. I'm pretty sure that their current funding should allow them to cover all expenses.
Sure, but why then you do not take into the equation that they still going to sell SC, SQ42, Behind the Enemy Lines, and SQ44, i.e. 4 separate products that might give them a total of $120-200 per player?
But that's what they were promising. They promised SQ42 and SC during KS, Behind the Enemy lines was $6M goal. Now they plan a trilogy.
Viajero
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*Mod hat off
We ve gone through this before. You only know what comes in (and that is asuming the figures in the RSI counter are correct) but you have no idea of what the operating costs or spend to date are. To top it all up you also do not know at all how much will cost CIG to finish the game as promised (and that is asuming they have the capability and expertise to do it).
We just do not know.
We ve gone through this before. You only know what comes in (and that is asuming the figures in the RSI counter are correct) but you have no idea of what the operating costs or spend to date are. To top it all up you also do not know at all how much will cost CIG to finish the game as promised (and that is asuming they have the capability and expertise to do it).
We just do not know.
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Can we discuss the game and gameplay, or am I going to have to get the mods in here... oh hang on, you all are in here!
If I melt a ship, will it affect the temperature of the ice in the drinkomatic?? :/
If you run out of ammo can you squirt Goldschlager in the eyes of your combatants? Or will the EVA suit visor block it?
If I melt a ship, will it affect the temperature of the ice in the drinkomatic?? :/
If you run out of ammo can you squirt Goldschlager in the eyes of your combatants? Or will the EVA suit visor block it?
Slightly OT.
If Amazon tied their cut of CryEngine to their web services (even with a call home, but probably something more black box) and as part of the license don't allow you to edit or bypass them, you won't be able to create a commercial application with the hacked version because lawsuites. They may also have ways of neutering hacks with mandatory updates, and would almost certainly have ways of watermarking the created apps.
An interesting product, for sure, but I would be shocked if Amazon didn't have it tied down in a way that would make it impractical to unhook from their services in any commercial sense.
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NOT P2W, Sandi says so here : https://youtu.be/rz9dEVNhqrk?t=18
/case closed
The dissonance is strong. Saying that, I suspect she doesn't actually believe it herself. It's more that she thinks if they put this message out in a "mythbusters" video, some backers will believe it.
Imagine being the developer forced to appear in that video. =(
/case closed
The dissonance is strong. Saying that, I suspect she doesn't actually believe it herself. It's more that she thinks if they put this message out in a "mythbusters" video, some backers will believe it.
Imagine being the developer forced to appear in that video. =(
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It's peculiar - they seem to have given up.
The thread appears to currently be without a committed SC champion!
Maybe we can draw straws and the shortest one gets to post 10 for the Chairman videos and explain how capping daily UEC purchases means it isn't P2W.
That Versebusters video is pretty ridiculous. Notice they disabled comments and Lesnick went into damage control mode on the forums due to all the backers complaining about what a waste of money it is. What strange priorities they have! This is why it's best to have professionals do community management stuff. No pro would approve that kind of thing, it seems so petty.
That Versebusters video is pretty ridiculous. Notice they disabled comments and Lesnick went into damage control mode on the forums due to all the backers complaining about what a waste of money it is. What strange priorities they have! This is why it's best to have professionals do community management stuff. No pro would approve that kind of thing, it seems so petty.
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I can't get to YouTube on this connection - but is that the same video where she says she isn't qualified to talk about game design, mechanics, development, implementation, production - or pretty much anything?
We do not know that, but I think that we can guesstimate the numbers that represent the amount they spent. Or do you suggest that their expenses exceed the funding they raise?
Heh... well, they want to believe that it is not P2W... And may be even they fail to believe this. I think that for most of the people it is clear P2W. And of course someone is going to say that there is nothing to win there.
Well, the latest news are probably that the split of SQ42 and SC is going to happen 14/02. The price is going to be set at $45, however, if you would like to buy the second part you will have to pay $15. And Free Flight program is being extended until 14/02 so that more people could try it out before the split.
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One thing the split will do for CIG is to provide them with hard information. Information that they certainly wouldn't get just by reading the forums.
Depending on how many people pre-order which half of the game, it should be relatively easy for them to assess how much interest people have in them respectively.
This of course leads to the interesting possibility:-
How would they react if umpteen gazillion pre-orders the MMO half, but almost no one orders the SQ42 half?
Depending on how many people pre-order which half of the game, it should be relatively easy for them to assess how much interest people have in them respectively.
This of course leads to the interesting possibility:-
How would they react if umpteen gazillion pre-orders the MMO half, but almost no one orders the SQ42 half?
I doubt that they are going to get a clear picture. They already have 1.265M citizens, most of who already has a copy of SQ42/SC. These players already have access to both SQ42/SC. We should also expect an increase in sales of packages until 14/12, which are going to include both SQ42/SC. Moreover, there are plenty of people who need only SQ42, and do not need SC. And also paying additional $15 does not make that much of a difference.
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