Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Anything can be changed on a whim after launch too. It's not the 90s anymore, this argument is just silly.
So one can review "early access" or "alpha" like it is finished product? That would not bode well for SC, or if one cannot easiest way for fertiliser tier game maker is to never officially release their products. Eternal early access or Alpha, Beta and so on....
 
At what point do we think it is a game?

There is a game there, there has been for years. I don't think that is up for debate. But its not a released game. This is important, because until they release, they can hide behind the shield of ITS ALPHA and continue their funding based on the idea they still need money to make it happen. Once they release, they will have no excuses to keep the ship sales going because in theory, at that point they should be making a profit through sales of the game and later on through the sale of DLCs. If they continue ship sales they will face mass criticism of pay2win, although the spectre of that already hangs over SC. And CIG have said they will continue the sale of credits for real money, so it is going to be pay2win anyway....

How good that game is and how it compares to what people were sold also matters a lot.

Is it a game that people can have fun in? Sure. Despite the alpha state, despite the bugginess, plenty of people enjoy it, and even get some laughs (and rage) out of the bugs.

Is it a game that is worth close to 500 million dollars and 9 years of development? I would strongly say no.

And here is the nub. CIG can't release what is there now, and its clear they won't be able to release it for a long time yet. Just because those who are invested in the game and those who like what it currently offers do enjoy it, its not going to appeal to a majority of people in its current form. If CIG slapped a release label on the game now it would get absoloutely ripped to shreds by players and the gaming press.

This is why they need to keep hiding behind the shield of ITS ALPHA.

It really is a shame they didn't focus on making core deliverables first, making a releasable product, and showing the world they could deliver on a product. If they had done that then most of the criticism would never have happened. But CR is their CEO, and the man has always had a problem with restricting scope, focusing on deliverables, and producing a product that matches his sales pitch.

What i'm saying is, you should buy an Idris.
 
So one can review "early access" or "alpha" like it is finished product? That would not bode well for SC, or if one cannot easiest way for fertiliser tier game maker is to never officially release their products. Eternal early access or Alpha, Beta and so on....
I don't get why you struggle so much with this. You judge today's reality by what is today's reality. If things change tomorrow you can chose to adjust your opinion. If something is fun today you play it today. If not you dont. And we'll see what happens later. Whether you call it EA, a game, or a blorgleflink is completely irrelevant to what actually is.
 
I don't get why you struggle so much with this. You judge today's reality by what is today's reality. If things change tomorrow you can chose to adjust your opinion. If something is fun today you play it today. If not you dont. And we'll see what happens later. Whether you call it EA, a game, or a blorgleflink is completely irrelevant to what actually is.
Point is that "early access" "alpha" "beta" and so on titles are treated differently than "released" titles. Your product can be buggy mess with a lots of nonfunctioning parts, but there needs to be very liberal reason of doubt as it is in "development". While officially released software is handled with wholly different standard. See for example Cyberpunk debacle. Or NMS.
 
And yes I partly understand it. I would not install dev version of Ubuntu as my production OS, and if I would do so I would not expect same stability and performance from it as from officially released one. But then how to handle "eternal Alpha" or "eternal Early access"?
 
So it's a game whenever CIG says it is 'V1'. That makes it a completely arbitrary term and useless in discussions. Like Valheim, among the most played and succesfull games, would not have been even a game at all because it's 'early access'.

There is a point where "early access" or "alpha" stops being taken seriously though.

Like Fortnite was still listing itself as "early access" years after taking off and becoming one of the most popular games of the time.

Valheim is an amazingly quality alpha and i think they could have slapped a release label on it and would have done fine.

As i just noted, if CIG put a 1.0 label on SC now, called it a release, it would get eviscrated by the gaming press. "This is what you get when you give Chris Roberts hundreds of millions and tell him to take his time to get it right. A steaming pile of doo doo". And it would be fair, because in its current state it is not ready for release, not by a long way. Even if they got most of the bugs sorted and made the networking fairly stable, it would still be a long way off what backers paid 65 million to get by release. 100 systems, pets, and many other features. They would be rightfully criticized for failing to deliver on their kickstarter promises when they have been given money far in excess of what they said they needed.

They are still going to get criticized anyway of course, because even if they fulfil all their kickstarter goals, its going to take a boatload more cash and decades more than what they said it would. Unless you believe CIG can deliver on their kickstarter promises for under 1 billion and in less than another 10 or 20 years.... oh, wait, Chris said it wouldn't take another 10 or 20 years, so its fine :D
 
Well maybe game is in development, maybe they are hiding behind it. You know Fdev could have done likewise, no Elite Dangerous, no Horizons release, just eternal Alpha until "its ready" no nasty mile wide inch deep reviews by that way.

I think the games problem is more Chris Roberts and a few other individuals than anything else, @Dementropy posted a good video series that i also recommend people watch to get a perspective on it, personally i wouldn't tar Frontier Development with this brush.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU3uEBUBIEA&list=PL7SIP0NDfM2yyHKfRmCAociCcJKZHHY0E
 
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