Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[LittleAnt]

"you can I have fun with only the basic 45$ game package"

Exact. All my fleet come from a basic game package.

to "people have fun ergo the funds flow"'

Basic business concept

"fun? You're not supposed to have fun in an alpha"

Correct. But the actual alpha had greatly improved since 2 years and give real fun you should not have in a "normal" alpha.

"yeah it's an alpha but I have more fun than in any other AAA ever made"'

For a lot of the actual SC players, it's exactly the case

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Ip2YW46RQ

 

[LittleAnt]

Skunk Works on land. Great Arma feeling.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JphHiobISmM

 

[LittleAnt]

The problem with the above stats for SC of course do mean that some people may buy into something that doesn't actually exist and may never pay more than the actual initial subscription,

Why stopping your reasoning here ? The followup is : "...and the other simply buy into something that actually exist and pay more than the actual initial subscription"

 

[StuartGT]

Maybe they should release official player numbers then? I have seen unofficial stats claiming nearly 2.5m players, but by the same token it also claimed;



So if we actually take that player number and divide it by 100 to match the actual released systems and planets we get 25,000.

I have seen figures of over 17m subscribers (note not players) and over 160,000 daily players for Elite dangerous;

Elite Dangerous - 2025 Server Population & Player Count - MMO Populations

Elite Dangerous player count, server population, subscribers and game activity stats, updated daily in 2025 (aka EliteDangerous).

mmo-population.com

Now there is an argument that the number of total "subscribers" must always increase so therefore SC could have 2.5m subscribers, but that doesn't necessarily translate into players and/or payers.

The problem with the above stats for SC of course do mean that some people may buy into something that doesn't actually exist and may never pay more than the actual initial subscription, but I highly doubt the record figures for funding this month come from all new subscribers. That figure came up on the first page of google search for number of players in SC, the same for number of players in ED. But of course as long as SC is in Alpha there are no official players of SC, only Alpha testers so those numbers really mean nothing, I mean the game may not actually ever get released so there may never be official player numbers!

The only player stats for SC that we have are from December 2020's LFTC. A December 2021 LFTC with comparable stats was noticeably absent.

Letter from the Chairman

Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.

robertsspaceindustries.com

Today, we stand at 1,177,919 Paying Accounts and counting

 

[Skizomeuh]

There was also the Spectrum userbase leak that had interesting figures...

 

[LittleAnt]

Some really insterresting comment in the Space Tomato video about "Tipping point".

My tipping point was the 2nd xenothreat. I'd been keeping my eye on the game for years, jumping into freefly events once in a while to see how it actually played. But it was never quite enough, if not outright broken. Xenothreat the first came and went, it was a mixed success from my understanding. But the 2nd, that was my chance to try. It was amazing. All these players, all these ships, all together, all WORKING. Zooming through the microtech clouds, driving through a duststorm on hurtson, using a friends Hercules as a makeshift carrier for my aurura, it was fun. Sure I got trapped by elevators that didn't show quite a few times and my missile defenses vanished a few times, but it was enjoyable enough for me to buy in. At the minimum cost, if I can't work hard enough to buy a ship in game obviously I'm not going to use it properly.

3.15 brought me in. Being able to get on a multi-crew ship, run around on the ship, and take up a gunner position on a turret was really cool. Flying box missions...landing my Aurora at an outpost during a snow storm, getting out into the storm to pickup a box from the base and walking it back to my ship and place it inside... was amazing. There are way too many bugs for my friends still, but I'm here enjoying my game play. o7

For me it was improved stability. Bought the game way back when they first put out something actually playable, but didn't really stick with the game. There's a lot of points I thought would be the tipping point to get me actually playing the game, but every time bugs and unintuitive systems meant I wasn't getting anywhere whenever I decided to do more than sightsee. It was years of occasionally checking in on the game before I actually completed a mission, because bugs or mechanics I didn't understand got in the way every time I tried. Finally completing a mission and making some credits got me to stick around long enough to find an org to join, and playing with them helped me learn a lot of the mechanics the game doesn't explain, and now I've made enough credits in game to purchase a small fleet of ships and given just about every game loop available a try. I feel like in general the biggest blockers for getting people into the game are bugs and a lack of onboarding. The bugs are pretty self explanatory, but the game is complicated, and in many cases pretty unintuitive. There's a plethora of helpful information from the community to help you get started, but the game is changing so much that a lot of it's outdated. Being given outdated information combined with the bugs meant a lot of things felt even more broken as I tried to figure out why things that had been completely changed weren't working like I was told. Having solid in game guides and tutorials would go a very long way in making Star Citizen an easier game to get into. All the cool tech and gameplay in the world won't matter if it can't make a good first impression.

My tipping point was seeing an URSA drive around NB in a snowstorm.. Also I remember seing NB at night an Someone just landed in the city under the train tracks. This blew my mind and I am all in since 3.12.

"Into the Black" such a wonderfully evocative term, familiar to any Elite Dangerous Commander!! I have an Aurora Mr, (so far, my ONLY ship) and have entered the 'Verse, I'm moths in and to tell you the truth, I'm still finding my way. Things yet to try and do, such as Mining, Bounty Hunting, Hauling (although I have done PLENTY of box missions!) and Exploration. But there is enough, wonderful things to experience, that I can take my time. It is very satisfying to EVA your ship, look it over and get back inside, or land somewhere and just walk on the surface, catch a Sunrise or a Sunset and just BE in the moment. The tipping point (for me) will be when I have earned enough in game credits to buy a ship that opens up a path, like the Nomad that leads on to something like the Hull A, or the Prospector, or the Cutty Red (or Blue) or ANY ship that something can be built on that brings you into the 'Verse meaningfully.

Loved this Space Tomato! I think to put this in perspective, i jumped in to the verse a year ago. After s couple of hundred hours i can only say WOW! I have not experienced many bugs other than some funny ones. Yes the game would go through periods of the server crashing but i just shrug my shoulders and get back in. If i was doing a lengthy task to make money i just do it again, quicker and better. The game is totally breath taking. When it eventually comes out with full VR support i will be penniless and wifeless. I dont understand the negative critical reviews that are out there. You know what you are buying before you buy it and there are PLENTY of free fly for a week opportunities each year and an amazing community of truly helpful players who will spend time helping you learn the basics ( like on Space Tomato’s discord channel ). Anyway thanks for a balanced critique and for those thinking of joining - from a seasoned Elite D and NMS player - just DO IT!

 

[Cotic]

If the crowdfunding spreadsheet is to believed, the amount of signups for the first 3 months of the year has doubled in 2022 compared to 2020. Approximately 1/3rd of those signups turn into paying customers. Assuming $45 was the only expense it accounts for an additional $1M during that period compared to 2020.
The thing is, an additional 25,000 backers in those 3 months is ~100,000 for the year. Considering SC has been around for 10 years and practically everybody has heard of it, it's not exactly good numbers. You're looking at another decade to boost your playerbase by 1 million players...

 

[Berozz]

nothing in reddit or resetera SC discussions or any other wider gaming related news, youtubers/streamers and communities ever support the evidence of what you claimed... especially when you compared the activities on those SC discussions with other games like elden ring, cyberpunk or even the soon to be 10 years old gta v... the wider informed gaming community already know that SC is a scam joke of a game not something worthy to be supported.

look at the wider NMS internet communities where it's the closest thing the "space sim" genre ever get to have a mainstream audience, just ask them how many of them support SC? I believe the answer would be it's only a tiny miniscule group of people compared to the number of people that ever played NMS.

no, newcomers don't fund SC anymore, it's very probably huge majority of the funding comes from the whales and people like you, despite your claim that you only invested at minimum.

edit just saw Mole's post from previous page, well also there's that, I've long suspected that too, there are possible illegal/money laundering/dodgy money movement behind the door that has been going on for years outside this "game project" if the funding tracker is to be believed, after all where exactly did the all that money come from?

I came to this conclusion for myself:
Why do we even discuss about SC since 10 years ... it's JUST and SOLELY because of the "Funding tracker". That's the only thing driving all this decade long discussions around SC. When you remove this "funding tracker" out of the equation, the only thing that stick on the wall is a sort of tech demo multiplayer "Playmobil in space" done by 3 developers and not enough money. And nobody will notice in the abyss of early access games, this mediocre piece of software.

And I clearly agree with MoleHD

You're still assuming CiG's primary 'business' is developing a space game? Interesting...

 

[VR Golgot]

I still believe strongly that there are several 'shadow investors' or dodgy money in the mix somewhere. There simply aren't enough whales, free spending or not, to consistently supply the amount of funding month after month or year after year to even begin to tally the funding tracker. I've been involved with this thing for way too long to be convinced that even a constant stream of subscribers, new $50-$100 backers or the preverbial and much maligned $1k-$35k whales buying up pixel spaceships or jpegs as being the sole source of Ci¬G's considerable annual income.

As much as I'm a concierge level backer and fairly typical with regard to the spending habits of the majority of that particular group or trend...I haven't given Ci¬G a penny for over 2 years...and I'm by no means alone in that regard. There's only so much you can tie down to sunk cost fallacy for the development of a space game before it becomes highly unlikely...or even nonsensical

Yeah it's definitely in the mix of options. (Investment cash being used to bolster the tracker etc). The tracker is ultimately a black box, and has clear utility as a marketing tool.

---

Given speculation is fun, it's worth noting that TheAgent chalked up another prediction hit recently, regarding Sandi starting a film production company...

Sandi's terrible trailer

His 'hello post' from the time happens to be one that mentions further funding etc. If his source was right on one thing, maybe they were right on others... ¯\(ツ)/¯

• Chris Roberts is now worth over 30m USD, excluding any shares or valuations of CIG
• this makes him the richest crowd funded CEO ever, and "the highest paid games CEO that hasn't released a product"
• Sandi Roberts has invested in or opened her own production studio (couldn't get a biz name so ???)
• it supposedly aims to "produce and distribute films in touch with modern events, including feminist, LGTBQ and gender issues"
• Erin Roberts now worth upwards of 10m USD
• massive payouts to Roberts family and top execs occurred simultaneously with "several large investments" in 2017, 2018 and June 2019
• Chris recently re-upped contract with close partners and family members (???)
• "abysmal" working conditions continue, but with no end in sight for the crunch
• "These are their lives. They are going to spend the majority of their twenties working 60 and 70 hour weeks, just so executives can hit their bonuses. I cannot be more disgusted with how our crunch is handled."
• turnover continues at a rapid pace: "We need developers ing like rabbits and producing happy, subservient baby developers to keep up with everyone getting the out."
• special parties, bonuses or vacations given to certain employees (no reasons given): "It has caused a huge rift; there is an enormous amounts of backstabbing and bus-throwing to get that prize."
• and well, this: "Shut the up, Jared. We are unprepared? We are unprofessional? How you've managed to hold on to your job has to be some sort of devil's bargain. The pained groans that come from realising we are scheduled to appear with you are matched only by torture and child birth. PLEASE get the out and find a job you can handle without trying to over everyone more competent than you."

 

[Skizomeuh]

Just count any melt, ccu, streamer gifts or other obscure microtransactions as warbond-like purchases, never count refunds and sure it can only rise. The funding tracker is always up, except for weird substractions that marginally occurred (and never were explained).

My guess is CIG workforce is counted like that too: never count down leavers, add external contractors to the counter, count even 1-day intern as full-time employee...

 

[VR Golgot]

But it doesn't fit the narrative "No no it's impossible for CIG to have more players, I've seen all the bugs and bad comments posted daily here by Golgot and SaltEMike was angry yesterday/last week/last year !"

Lol, once again, literally nobody is saying those things. You are genuinely incapable of honest dialogue aren't you.

A shame.

I love how the majority dodge one of the most evident answer : more people playing everyday and more people enjoying the alpha for a longer time. You like it, you buy it + the more time you spend on it, greater the chance you spend some additionnal cash on it = increase in funding.

It's perfectly possible as a theory. What is being noted as whole though is that:

A) There is evidence against the theory. Such as the Spectrum data dive.

B) There is a lack of evidence for your extrapolated claims. (IE greater playtime, for greater player numbers, for example). Therefore stating those things as facts, and building other arguments on top of them, is daft ¯\(ツ)/¯

But y'know, you're welcome to keep doing it. Because it's the sort of behaviour that leads to your periodic daft predictions. And those are always fun for the thread

 

[VR Golgot]

Thanks to PTU testing can now confirm: Hull A's also blow away...

 

[Dooguk]

You like it, you buy it + the more time you spend on it, greater the chance you spend some additionnal cash on it = increase in funding.

This theory is wrong, you are proof of this.

 

[Xink]

Who on earth looks at SC, knowing nothing about it, and thinks "Yup, this is definitely a 500M+ USD game". Like, wut?

SC could literally come to life and then it might be worth the expenditure so far, and counting.

CIG should sell out to a hedge fund. At least they'll be able to take 500M USD and invest it rather than flushing down CR's pure gold toilet.

 

[Surefoot]

I still believe strongly that there are several 'shadow investors' or dodgy money in the mix somewhere.

There are quite a few "shadow investors" indeed, I knew of at least two (both from Canada), and there's Bootcha who was in that category too, so it's definitely not a stretch to think there are quite a few more around.

 

[LittleAnt]

"No no it's impossible for CIG to have more players"
Lol, once again, literally nobody is saying those things.

This theory is wrong, you are proof of this.

A) There is evidence against the theory. Such as the Spectrum data dive.
B) There is a lack of evidence for you extrapolated claims.

We don't say those things but we say them or so strongly suggest them that it's the same as saying it nonetheless

And for the "evidence" of point A, I don't understand how a one shot extract of past datas from 2012 to 2020 that not follow the evolution over time can explain that the skyrocketing of funding in 2020, 2021 and now 2022 is tied to whales or faking funding... As if the state of the alpha since 2012 to 2020 can be extrapoled after 2020...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I came to this conclusion for myself:
Why do we even discuss about SC since 10 years ... it's JUST and SOLELY because of the "Funding tracker". That's the only thing driving all this decade long discussions around SC. When you remove this "funding tracker" out of the equation, the only thing that stick on the wall is a sort of tech demo multiplayer "Playmobil in space" done by 3 developers and not enough money. And nobody will notice in the abyss of early access games, this mediocre piece of software.

And I clearly agree with MoleHD

No, it's because the shills and trolls can't stop posting idiocies about Star Citisnt.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

We don't say those things but we say them or so strongly suggest them that it's the same as saying it nonetheless

And for the "evidence" of point A, I don't understand how a one shot extract of past datas from 2012 to 2020 that not follow the evolution over time can explain that the skyrocketing of funding in 2020, 2021 and now 2022 is tied to whales or faking funding... As if the state of the alpha since 2012 to 2020 was the same after 2020...

There is no skyrocketing of funding - only skyrocketing of make believe and you're the proof.

 

[thistle]

How can have an "Armstrong moment" on the same planet or moon someone has already been to?

Damn, yes.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I'd say there is no skyrocketing in general. The culling is the proof. What is the opposite of skyrocketing? Barrelscraping? It's what you end up with ongoing regression.