Let me state that this game looks like what I wanted as a kid: my own spaceship to walk around in! I can imagine that that requires a lot of effort.
Here I find that they needed $500,000 to make it:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
They raised a hundred times that amount. So I'd expect them to make the stated goal for the old price, and then later use up the remaining 99% to add improvements.
No. Plus they are not making the stated goal for the timelines, not even close. So the extra money is being burnt on waste and rework. That is backer money and there is no accountability to investors for deal-breaking decisions like choosing a 32-bit game engine for a huge space game and not disclosing the risk or requirement that the entire engine would have to be re-written.
You need to read the full kickstarter page and watch the videos. The $500K was just to prove to investors with more money that there would be a market and an ROI for giving CR money to make the game. He targeted 10-14 million to make the base game and $23 million to make the full deal in two years time (with parallel development of multiple modules/features).
SQ42 was pledged in two years if the kickstarter succeeded at $500K and the full list if they got just $6 million from Kickstarter.
Where are they now? Almost two years and $54 million and lame AC with tiny play area, racing game coming with tiny play area and video of multiplayer in cloud-shrouded environment where main ship constantly turned to the right to avoid the simulation wall of AC. Where is the awesome actual gameplay they showed in the kickstarter video- why not just release that? It is a huge amount better than Arena Commander and what I was initially excited about.
CR is counting on 64-bit re-write of CryEngine to save the entire core concept. Delays past two years means CR needs more money than $23 million. Just get a calculator and paper and figure out what 250 employees at average cost of $100 K USD / yr totals (full burden with insurance, PC, phone, facilities, etc. and a contracting agency would charge quite a bit more than that). Hint, it is $25 million USD per year. Even with lower sourced wages in UK with tax breaks that means total two years max at the base $23 million USD funding level. This means the entire original estimate of $23 million will most likely be gone at the end of 2014. At $50 million funding level CR should have 2 more years so he could still make it happen, but at twice the cost of his original sales pitch.
This is where the discipline of having to answer to investors pays off in efficiency and eliminating waste. SC has delays and unexpected issues bordering on if not plainly showing incompetence (32-bit game engine for huge space game is the biggest and not being able to implement keybindings for a major commercial game engine is bizarre). Delays also mean the backer's money (your money?) is being wasted just to correct for these issues. In project management at a for-profit company any PM not having a glaring Risk matrix with 32-bit engine at the top of the list after working with it for a full year as CR stated his team had done, and whose project had so many long and unexpected/unpublished delays would be "spending more time with family".
Is CR the man for the job? He may succeed based on the talent of folks he brings around him, but like most high-flying execs he is not a "self-made man". He is hurting his own dream game with poor decisions, waste and too fast feature creep from the core concept.
The difference between the management of the Elite Dangerous project and Start Citizen is stark and should make a good MBA case study. Elite started kickstarter without even concept art, two months behind SC. SC had a full year of development such as at Kickstart they had slick video sold as in-game/ actual models and gameplay. Fast forward 18 months and Elite already has in public beta a 50 star system 1:1 scale 3D play area with no loading screens, settled flight model and control scheme with bindable keys, multiple playable ships, docking in massive space-stations, multiple modes of travel not involving loading screens, spot-on sound design, mission system, trade economy, etc. While you know what SC has and it ain't even close to Elite. When CR team fixes the 64-bit problem they still don't know how to get 1:1 but more like 1:100 scale, per developer video logs. The game will still require cut-scenes/loading screens and lobbies to manage entry to the various modules.
