I think of Ed Wood, but that's not an animated movie, but it depicts the mess better.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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Even Ed Wood managed to finish and publish a piece of work.
SC is the Plan 9 From Outer Space Game?
So I did a mad thing again...
(Mainly checking whether the gossip of SQ42 departures stood up to scrutiny).
CIG Staff Changes 2022:
A rough snapshot of Devs, QA & Producers from January to now. (Only those with a public LinkedIn profile).
TLDR:
There has been a lot of movement in and out of the UK teams (which could be SQ42 related).
The number of Senior roles leaving got an eyebrow raise out of me.
---
Senior Dev Changes:
Senior Dev Leavers: 30
Senior Dev Hires: 5
Senior Dev Promotions: 20
Dev & QA Changes in Total:
Changes By Location:
UK: -45, +26
US California: -5
US Austin: -4, +1
Germany: -6, +5
Leavers By Discipline:
Design: 10 [UK: 8, Germany: 2, Seniors: 5]
Environment Art: 6 [UK: 6, Seniors: 3]
Engineering: 7 [UK: 3, Germany: 2, Seniors: 4]
UI: 4 [Seniors: 2]
Vehicle Art: 5 [UK: 5, Senior: 2]
CIG As Their First Job in Game Dev:
New Hires: ~10% [3/29]
Promoted: ~31% [11/36]
Leavers: ~13% [6/46]
(NB above is devs only, not QA or Production.)
Production Leavers:
The most notable changes here are the big leavers on the US PU side:
High Profile Examples:
Assistant Director of Systemic Gameplay and Services
Tony Z's right hand man left in January after 7rs+. Worked on everything from PU gameplay services to Tony's Quantum experiments. Some interesting stat claims in his summation:
Lead Producer
A familiar figure from videos over 8yrs+, Ricky's primary focus was getting the PU's quarterly patches out.
Bonus Example:
Publishing Supervisor
In charge of the Austin QA team, he went out with something of a splash:
---
The broader picture is that the UK-side is again seeing more of the action though:
---
Bonus Fun Bits:
** EDIT: **
Rough Staff Distribution:
All current staff:
UK: 379 [57%]
US: 209 [31%]
Germany: 77 [12%]
Total: 665
** EDIT 2: **
Senior UK Devs in Total:
Public Senior UK Devs as of Sept 21st: 38
Public Senior UK Dev Leavers Jan-Sept: 10
(I included 'Senior Leads', but not 'Senior Directors' or 'Senior Principles' etc. No production, no QA).
Could be seen as: Around a quarter of senior UK devs left between Jan-Sept 2022. (But a bit extreme, given replacement process needs time etc).
** EDIT 3: **
Added 6 more notable leavers from the period. They updated their details after September 2022. [2 Principles, 3 Leads, and a gameplay engineer who worked on the weapon zoom & hacking features...]
---
Footnote: I've only really included sources for the more public figures, or for those who've gone out of their way to publicly discuss issues at the company. Don't particularly want to 'out' a bunch of standard devs, as it were. You'll have to take my broader number crunching on trust
. If you've got any specific queries sling them my way
(Mainly checking whether the gossip of SQ42 departures stood up to scrutiny).
CIG Staff Changes 2022:
A rough snapshot of Devs, QA & Producers from January to now. (Only those with a public LinkedIn profile).
TLDR:
There has been a lot of movement in and out of the UK teams (which could be SQ42 related).
The number of Senior roles leaving got an eyebrow raise out of me.
---
Senior Dev Changes:
Senior Dev Leavers: 30
Roles: Director: 1, Principle: 4, Lead: 8, Senior: 17
Locations: UK: 21, US: 3, Germany: 5, Prague: 1
Locations: UK: 21, US: 3, Germany: 5, Prague: 1
Senior Dev Hires: 5
Roles: Lead: 2, Senior: 3
Locations: UK: 4, US: 1
Locations: UK: 4, US: 1
Senior Dev Promotions: 20
Roles: Principle: 2, Lead: 4, Senior: 14
Locations: UK: 15, US: 2 Germany: 3
Locations: UK: 15, US: 2 Germany: 3
Dev & QA Changes in Total:
Changes By Location:
UK: -45, +26
US California: -5
US Austin: -4, +1
Germany: -6, +5
Leavers By Discipline:
Design: 10 [UK: 8, Germany: 2, Seniors: 5]
Environment Art: 6 [UK: 6, Seniors: 3]
Engineering: 7 [UK: 3, Germany: 2, Seniors: 4]
UI: 4 [Seniors: 2]
Vehicle Art: 5 [UK: 5, Senior: 2]
VFX: 4 [UK: 4, Seniors: 3]
Character Art: 4 [US:2, UK 2, Seniors: 2]
Lighting: 3 [UK: 2, Germany: 1, Seniors: 2]
Sound: 2 [UK: 2, Seniors: 2]
Animation: 2 [UK: 2]
Etc
Character Art: 4 [US:2, UK 2, Seniors: 2]
Lighting: 3 [UK: 2, Germany: 1, Seniors: 2]
Sound: 2 [UK: 2, Seniors: 2]
Animation: 2 [UK: 2]
Etc
CIG As Their First Job in Game Dev:
New Hires: ~10% [3/29]
Promoted: ~31% [11/36]
Leavers: ~13% [6/46]
(NB above is devs only, not QA or Production.)
Production Leavers:
The most notable changes here are the big leavers on the US PU side:
High Profile Examples:
Assistant Director of Systemic Gameplay and Services
Tony Z's right hand man left in January after 7rs+. Worked on everything from PU gameplay services to Tony's Quantum experiments. Some interesting stat claims in his summation:
Lead Producer
A familiar figure from videos over 8yrs+, Ricky's primary focus was getting the PU's quarterly patches out.
Bonus Example:
Publishing Supervisor
In charge of the Austin QA team, he went out with something of a splash:
---
The broader picture is that the UK-side is again seeing more of the action though:
Production Leavers: 8
Production Hires: 7
Production Promotions: 10
Roles: Senior Director: 1, Lead: 2, Publishing Supervisor: 1, Producers: 3, Associate Producers: 3
Locations: UK: 6, US: 3, Germany: 1
Locations: UK: 6, US: 3, Germany: 1
Production Hires: 7
Roles: Associate Producers: 2, Assistant Producers: 5
Locations: UK: 6, Germany: 1
Locations: UK: 6, Germany: 1
Production Promotions: 10
Roles: Senior Director: 1, Associate Director: 1, Senior: 1, Producers: 4, Associate Producers: 2, Assistant Producers: 1
Locations: UK: 8, US: 1, Germany: 1
Locations: UK: 8, US: 1, Germany: 1
---
Bonus Fun Bits:
- One of the Senior Programmers who left in July was working on "resource allocation, docking, jump travel". I imagine those features are going well
- Grand claims from one of the SQ42 Designers who left: "On Squadron 42, I’ve spearheaded 3 of the game’s 20 chapters, and many of it’s systemic features (such as Ambient Ship Life, and our global Landing & TakeOff systems)". Mess hall & flappy paddle guy imminent.....
- That particular dev moved on to Firesprite . (Various CIG leavers from 2021 have ended up there as well. A Lead Level Designer, Senior UI Programmer etc).
- One Firesprite dev did move back the other way. A Lead Gameplay Programmer. He was on ToW before. He's now working on Arena Commander. I guess ToW is also going well
- A long-term Mocap specialist moved to Illfonic
- Of the 3 'fans become devs for first time' that I noticed, the most distracting was certainly the guy who now holds this job title: "Live QA Specialist at Cloud Imperium Games | Oral Surgery & Sedation"
** EDIT: **
Rough Staff Distribution:
All current staff:
UK: 379 [57%]
US: 209 [31%]
Germany: 77 [12%]
Total: 665
** EDIT 2: **
Senior UK Devs in Total:
Public Senior UK Devs as of Sept 21st: 38
Public Senior UK Dev Leavers Jan-Sept: 10
(I included 'Senior Leads', but not 'Senior Directors' or 'Senior Principles' etc. No production, no QA).
Could be seen as: Around a quarter of senior UK devs left between Jan-Sept 2022. (But a bit extreme, given replacement process needs time etc).
** EDIT 3: **
Added 6 more notable leavers from the period. They updated their details after September 2022. [2 Principles, 3 Leads, and a gameplay engineer who worked on the weapon zoom & hacking features...]
---
Footnote: I've only really included sources for the more public figures, or for those who've gone out of their way to publicly discuss issues at the company. Don't particularly want to 'out' a bunch of standard devs, as it were. You'll have to take my broader number crunching on trust
. If you've got any specific queries sling them my way
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
25 senior leavers (most in the UK) just in the last 7-8 months so far? And that is Linkedin only?
Whoa. Now that is an actual massive exodus.
And it looks like possibly somewhat replaced by those senior promotions?
Pretty sure that will work out really well.
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The intriguing aside there is that the replacement Seniors have a much higher 'noobiness' percentage in their ranks. (~31% of them had never worked in dev prior to CIG, compared to ~13% of this year's leavers.)
It's just a little thing, (and all of this is just a pretty shonky snapshot), but it does play into the idea of CIG's slightly 'student entry' culture. Possibly having more guys who've only learned their trade within CIG etc (with its historical yes-man response to Chris's whims...). That may not be completely ideal when they start to populate the top ranks etc.
(That said there are still plenty of nuggets of solid experience in the new hires etc. A Senior Networking Programmer from Rockstar, plenty of experienced sub-senior devs from Ubisoft, Team 17, TT etc. Hey, even an FDev guy in the mix
. It's not like they can't attract experienced devs overall. But there is def a question mark for me over whether the ratio is still skewed a bit noob. And whether they keep enough of the experienced guys over the long haul )The intriguing aside there is that the replacement Seniors have a much higher 'noobiness' percentage in their ranks. (~31% of them had never worked in dev prior to CIG, compared to ~13% of this year's leavers.)
It's just a little thing, (and all of this is just a pretty shonky snapshot), but it does play into the idea of CIG's slightly 'student entry' culture. Possibly having more guys who've only learned their trade within CIG etc (with its historical yes-man response to Chris's whims...). That may not be completely ideal when they start to populate the top ranks etc.
(That said there are still plenty of nuggets of solid experience in the new hires etc. A Senior Networking Programmer from Rockstar, plenty of experienced sub-senior devs from Ubisoft, Team 17, TT etc. Hey, even an FDev guy in the mix
Join CIG as a junior dev.
Get promoted to senior dev.
Never learned anything about real game dev in the wider industry. Get told a load of guff about how its normal to have unrealistic goals set by management, that you're expected to fail by design. All perfectly normal. Management constantly sending your work back for rework. Realize you get paid the same regardless of how much effort you put in.
Profit!
Gotta love it when a top post grabs the old guard's attention...
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/iobcxxz/
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/iobnm1h/
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/ioave2j/Top Post said:
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/iobcxxz/
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/iobnm1h/
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So many views...
I have no idea what the skin system is.
(Is that when the hull of one ship went all crinkly and cinematic under laser fire? For a little bit? In 2014?)
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/xdbve4/star_citizen_is_such_a_scam_some_blind_dude/ioat2kw/
I have no idea what the skin system is.
(Is that when the hull of one ship went all crinkly and cinematic under laser fire? For a little bit? In 2014?)
"It's basically still mostly just a movie set."
exactly right.
In other news I saw a few seconds of Boredgamer's latest twitch AMA - (ask him anything, he knows nothing but invents it anyway) - and he mentioned "powerplay".
Ha! I thought, they've even stolen poweplay! But no, it meant playing with the power levels in ships.
But really, "powerplay". This project is a joke
The parallels to Freelancer are overwhelming imho. It's just in this case there are no evil publishers to lance the boil and get the project finished.
Buy an Idris.
Would it be illegal though. If Calders gave out a loan, and loan and interest get paid, is it their responsibility to know WHERE money came from. Like say if you paid your mortagage with profits from illegal drug business, is the bank any way culpable?That would be, like, proper norty and illegal though right? In theory only the subscription cash could be tapped. (Products delivered etc).
I still reckon the Calders saw legit returns in this. They just may have been wrong
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Banks don't own their debtors. The ones who own and shape their investments to extort money - that is another story.
That's the good point
I was thinking legally dubious on CIG's behalf
. (All money's fungible right, but I assume part of the role of auditing etc is to make sure amounts which have been termed 'liabilities' shouldn't find their way into the 'profits' pile etc). Although I guess if private investors were to lean on their debtors to act along those lines, as Navi suggests, they'd be just as bad
That's an interesting point. Calders invest in CIG and get a return. GIG in time face a class action about something (s) and point to a myriad of shell companies. Calders sit behind the mess and shrug.... 'we simply loaned them money and got a return....'
I'm in no way qualified or experienced enough to comment, but I wonder how bothered they'd be.
E. Although they invested in CIG. .... so maybe.... oh I don't know. I haven't had coffee yet.
Yeah, they invested initially via the old Caymans classic route, but it was all publicly declared in the end. (If much, muchhh later). They're not exactly hidden or anything, and they've had an official $5m payout as of 2020.
Whether they'd be capable of shuffling further funds around via shell companies? I'm sure they have the expertise. And CIG certainly do
. (I still suspect we're not quite at that stage. But those pipelines are always openable. And given just how poorly things are going for both franchises, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some hands clasping at the valve...)