That one is really curious. One the one hand, we are asked to believe that no-one was making space games in 2012 when the funding drive started. One the other hand, we are to believe that the development time of SC is entirely normal and, indeed, that many of the games that SC could be compared against have (or had) been in development for just as long or longer — ED's development should now apparently be counted from 2001.
Yeah there's plenty of funny graphs floating around. I had a real laugh about the one that showed Elite as being in development since 2003 while SC apparently started "actual production" in 2013. Can't find that one, but how about this one:
Derek Smart took it upon himself to try and correct this, though sadly he is also mistaken about a lot of things:
One word of note: the Star Citizen KS campaign started in 2012, but work on assets and development began a year prior as stated by Chris Roberts himself. Indeed the fact that they already had a game prototype was stressed by Chris several times, and the opposite being the case for Elite was the reason I didn't back Elite Dangerous until very late into their campaign. So really, as per CR's own statement, the start date for SC is 2011.
There's plenty of errors in Derek's graph as well, for example the beta for Elder Scrolls Online started in 2013 whereas his graph claims a much earlier year. Unless of course he means some sort of internal beta, which we have no knowledge of, and which is quite unlikely considering the game was announced in 2012.
There's a key difference here though. With a traditional game company, a project that was started may be canceled without ever seeing a release - but that's their risk, their money. We may end up disappointed that the game didn't come out but we don't lose any money. With SC, it is the customer's money that is on the line here.
Your money. Now you may say things like "I would not mind losing that money because I consider this a disposable purchase", or "I already got so much out of the alpha, I got my money's worth" - but who are you kidding other than yourself? There's people claiming they had more fun in 2.4 than with the latest Fallout.
It's like a kid playing with a broken toy and convincing themselves it's actually
better than the other toys somehow.
No. SC needs a smashing alpha 3.0 that shows off brillant implementations of core gameplay features. Nothing else will do. They have been running their mouth for years, now it's time to start delivering.
Oh and VR too. According to Chris in a gamescom interview, it's really easy to add and the entire game is already prepared for it.
So what's keepin' ya, Chris?
