The Star Citizen Thread v5

[LeSabre]

Ahah so you think because they spent time building tools and creating pipelines to haste the creating of assets. They can already make whole detailed planets in just a couple of days.

They've gone on about the 'refactored tools' and 'faster pipelines' so many times they are almost uncountable. Yet, it's all as slow as ever in camp CIG, unless of course you want a really small and very basic hover bike knocked up to sell to backers.

 

[Tippis]

Not living up to the hype? So why is it growing and growing every month?

It's not. CIG's income and “population growth” (really, people who have fiddled with the game or forums, which tells us nothing of actual game activity) has been in steady decline over the last year, and has brought in significantly below their operating costs for several months in a row this year. We can debate why that is, but it seems to be a fair guess that CIG's inability to get the game out in a timely manner; their inability to offer any real improvements or additions to gameplay and game mechanics; and the steadily worsening condition of the client might have something to do with that.

SC has been hyped up as yet another everything-simulator, but it has yet to offer anything more than bland and mediocre FPS mixed with broken vehicle combat. SQ42 has been hyped up as a spiritual successor to story-driven space shooters like SP Freelancer, TIE Fighter, and Wing Commander, but it has yet to even show anything.

Besides that NMS still sold a lot of unites and made them a lot of money. Why? Because forum/reddit posters make for a very small percentage of an actual game community.

…and that doesn't take away the vociferous backlash it has suffered — backlash that it not hard to imagine also hitting SC from the equivalent segment of its community, and for similar reasons.

Star Citizen is true open development

It really isn't. Star Citizen's development is about on part with what you see from companies such as Microsoft and Adobe. They offer a current(ish) build for people to comment on while collecting feedback (and maybe even reacting to it) while spending most of their communication on PR and sales efforts. Half of their future product line is completely shrouded in mystery. There is little to no real communication about planning, roadmaps, milestones, design deliverables etc. — standard project elements that you'd expect a truly open project to provide without much ado, but which are instead hidden away or even described as being detrimental to the project.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

They've gone on about the 'refactored tools' and 'faster pipelines' so many times they are almost uncountable. Yet, it's all as slow as ever in camp CIG, unless of course you want a really small and very basic hover bike knocked up to sell to backers.

Slow? hehehe not at all. Quite hasty as the latest demo showed and I recall that it's just a small portion of what they have to show, bring on Citizencon Hype!

 

[Backer42]

I think they've shot themselves in the foot when it comes to the ship sales. They've said that everything is obtainable in-game yet still sell them outside of it for insane prices. What happens when a backer finds out his $400 Carack is obtainable in 30 hours of in game work? He flips out.

I don't think the bait-and-switch experts will care much about that. In fact cultists might just defend anything CIG does.

And yet, the average amount spent per per ship (as there is no backer account counter) equals 113 dollars.

Turbulent "confirmed" about 500k accounts with a game package (accounts aren't physical persons still, so there are much less). Derek Smarts detailed funding analysis roughly matches that. It seems the amount spent per account was much higher in 2013 and decreased since then:

Older accounts seem to spend much, much more than newer ones.

 

[Asp Explorer]

That's why they add the handcraft locations on top of it. PG is used to generate the canvas for the artists to paint. See Gamescom demo. A lot of the assets used in that underground station are re-used from the Asteroid Hangar, ArcCorp city etc

Reusing assets is boring and repetitive

 

[jcrg99]

Not living up to the hype? So why is it growing and growing every month? Why do they see boosts in growth after their show's or after every big patch?

Because they sell ships by high prices that are sold to very few people, in general varying from 2k to 5k buying. My bet, it's that the same people buying them all. Their numbers for real, did not grow. In fact, it's dropping. For example, they just presented something that was the "best thing" that they ever presented. And are getting less money back, when they should get more, right? At least if you were right about this "growing and growing after shows and every big patch".

As their recent refund refusal letters and letter to consumer authorities revealed, they have an average of just a couple hundreds playing, since last year. So, there is no grow. And that's why they push on ship/concept sales to be bought by the same whales again and again.

NMS is a game based on PG with very little engaging gameplay , it's "exploration" attributes are just rinse + repeat pg assets without any meaning.
Besides that NMS still sold a lot of unites and made them a lot of money. Why? Because forum/reddit posters make for a very small percentage of an actual game community.
That little minority of hardcore followers of a game (lovers or haters) can make a lot of noise but in the big picture they are mostly just exacerbated noise.

Because NMS is sold in consoles too, remember? The console public is ridiculous higher in quantities than the PC public. Besides, this game does not need the ultimate machine to be played. And, got a strong marketing, specially with the help of Sony. It was a title that wasn't filled with controversy and scandals. People just got that and tried. One week after the launch, the drop in number of players was major, as the recent news shown. So, definitely the negative feedback had an impact on them.

Star Citizen is true open development

No. It's not.

With every update delivered the number of players rise exponentially

This is a false information. Their numbers of players are not growing. It's visible for example, that their shows, streams, etc., do not get too many viewers. All their stats are poor, except that counter which at this point, everyone knows that is fake and manipulated.

There is also Squadron 42 which will provide contextualization and mass-market appeal with the Hollywood cast and rich lore of it's space opera single-player campaign.

Nope. The game will require strong machine to play and that is hardly "mass-market". Besides, the hype around this is going to decrease a lot with the releases of CoD:IW and Mass Effect Andromeda, which have the trend to be a lot better, and also have Hollywood cast and definitely a richer lore than Star Citizen or Squadron 42 (in the case of MEA at least).

You people have been talking about Star Citizen getting "A million players" since they released Arena Commander. All that you say is that "the next patch" will bring everyone and everyone will love and enter in the church, just like yourselves. You have been fooling yourselves and putting more and more of your dollars in a lost cause.

If what you said had any true, about this "grow", Roberts never would push so many concept sales and ship sales on people, since that damages the image of the company and      of the backers in general, since he knows that can deliver the things faster, but continues to push sales of in-game assets by ridiculous prices that not even the worst of the publishers would do with their customers. No. He does that, exactly because he has very very few customers really interested to give him money and he knows that nothing that he will deliver, at this point, have for real, the potential that the fans think that it has. But of course, he will pretend success, will claim that brought "Thousands more players" exactly to make the whales do not realize that are putting more and more money in a lost cause.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Hehehe "Alice in wonderland roller-coaster doom charts" are always amusing.

This is also an amusing read: http://imperialnews.network/2016/08/120-million-and-the-road-ahead/

Spoiler

Hello Citizens! Star Citizen has reached the $120 million mark today for funding! Check inside for more details, analysis, and prognostication.
I backed Star Citizen on December 9, 2012 and the project had raised just over $7 million. I was astounded. I looked around at other crowdfunded games and they were nowhere near that kind of support.
Today is August 23, 2016 and Star Citizen has now raised $120 million, far eclipsing not only all other crowdfunded games but any crowdfunded project of any kind.
As of today at 15:00 UTC:
$120,007,249 from 1,487,680 Citizens. The UEE fleet comprises 1,048,366 ships.
These are increases of $1,481,655, 35,562 Citizens, and 10,445 ships from the beginning of the Gamescom streaming on August 17th.
Through piecing together bits and pieces of information over the years, some of the key info actually coming this summer, we know that the number of Citizens that have financially contributed to the project is roughly half of the total.
So, three quarters of a million people have helped Cloud Imperium Games amass a game budget of $120 million with that number likely to reach at least $135 million by the end of 2016.
Some may ask if it’s really realistic for Star Citizen to amass an additional $15 million in the final 4 months of 2016 when it only made $15 million in the first 8 months of the year. The reason I believe this will occur is that the 4th quarter is always huge for CIG. CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream, Holiday Sale.
Fourth Quarters for Star Citizen:
2012: $7.2 million
2013: $15.1 million
2014: $13.2 million
2015: $14.8 million
So, going by those numbers it actually might be a little conservative to expect only $135 million by year-end, given that we still have 5 weeks until Q4 even begins.
That brings us around to Gamescom 2016 and current funding.
Gamescom was frankly a resounding success for CIG and Star Citizen. They were able to show off a vertical slice of the persistent universe gameplay – huge and compelling universe, detailed and beautiful visuals, multiplayer cooperative and combative gameplay.
The press received a detailed look at this demo of Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 and the response has been mostly glowing, as you can see in the links below:


Forbes
Engadget

Polygon

Gameranx
PC Gamer
Gamespot



This coverage and optimism, the Anvil Terrapin concept sale, and the availability of exploration packs has led to an impressive amount of sustained funding.
Star Citizen has made over $1.4 million since the Gamescom demo and is still, 4 days later, bringing in roughly $10,000 per hour on average.
To put that in perspective, prior to the show a normal day would see Star Citizen bring in $1,000 to $2,000 per hour. In addition, the project only brought in about $895,000 in the entire month of July, while after the Gamescom presentation this mark was eclipsed in less than 48 hours.
We are entering a very interesting phase for the project as a whole. Q4 will bring the Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 release, featuring the first full star system in the persistent universe among other things. Adding to that, Foundry 42 UK began crunching in May which I believe is the long lead up to a full commercial release of Squadron 42 Episode 1.
The release of Squadron 42 will be something to watch for a lot of reasons, including the crowdfunding campaign.
Will the sales of Squadron 42 be included in the funding totals for Star Citizen?
How many copies will Squadron 42 sell?
Upon talking to other members of the community, most agree that the benchmark for success for Squadron 42 is 1 million new sales with 2+ million being a wildly successful release.
The price for Squadron 42 on its own is $45 but I would wager a fair number of people who purchase it will actually buy the combined game package including Star Citizen for $60.
If you look at the numbers, a successful release of SQ42 Ep 1 could mean an additional $50-100 million to aid in development of Star Citizen as a whole.
When people ask how Star Citizen will be supported post-launch, I believe this is a good portion of the answer. SQ42 Ep 1 will release likely at the end of 2016 or Q1 2017. Based on Chris Roberts’ comments at Gamescom we would then see Episode 2 in 2019 and Episode 3 in 2021, followed thereafter by a new “narrative story” every year (2022, 2023, etc). The sales of these singleplayer narrative experiences will be an excellent way to supplement the ongoing development budget for Star Citizen and will continue to drive improvements in both the MMO and singleplayer games.
Bringing things back to the near-future, 2.5 will soon be released to Live. 2.5 features the Grim Hex outlaw base – a dilapidated former mining base inside an asteroid, new graphical features, as well as the Argo and Reliant as new flyable ships.
2.6 will feature the release of Star Marine and an update to Arena Commander. I would imagine that CIG would like this to be out in the wild by the time CitizenCon rolls around on October 9th.

I believe 2.6 will set up a test bed for Squadron 42 as the patch focuses on the FPS and space combat pieces of the game.
Meanwhile, because 2.6 is not focused on the persistent universe there will likely be a significant number of people at CIG who will shift their focus, or already have, to 3.0.
I have to say that I am personally very excited for CitizenCon. A good look at Squadron 42 and the 2nd generation of the procedural planet tech should make for a great show.
Plus I’ll be there!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

 

[Backer42]

It really isn't. Star Citizen's development is about on part with what you see from companies such as Microsoft and Adobe. They offer a current(ish) build for people to comment on while collecting feedback (and maybe even reacting to it) while spending most of their communication on PR and sales efforts. Half of their future product line is completely shrouded in mystery. There is little to no real communication about planning, roadmaps, milestones, design deliverables etc. — standard project elements that you'd expect a truly open project to provide without much ado, but which are instead hidden away or even described as being detrimental to the project.

Open development would mean that wasting months for producing a one-use smoke and mirrors gamescom demo would show up inside the monthly reports. It doesn't, because that stuff happens in secret. Since the Star Marine fiasco I believe these reports are completely made up (aka pure fantasy, lies) anyway.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Reusing assets is boring and repetitive

Not if you give them a artistic *twist* to make then feel different [big grin]

 

[Asp Explorer]

Since the Star Marine fiasco

Fiasco? It's already in the game!!!

Not if you give them a artistic *twist* to make then feel different [big grin]

Which requires artist work, which takes time, costs money, and delays release.

 

[AJW]

With every update delivered the number of players rise exponentially

Source please. Preferably after looking up the definition of the word 'exponentially'.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Source please. Preferably after looking up the definition of the word 'exponentially'.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Star Citizen 2.5 patch released at August 25. Since the gamescom demo +~50k new accounts created and +~$2million earned.

Very good I must say.

 

[Tippis]

Source please. Preferably after looking up the definition of the word 'exponentially'.

Well… -0.3 could be used as an exponent.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Star Citizen 2.5 patch released at August 25. Since the gamescom demo +~50k new accounts created and +~$2million earned.

Very good I must say.

A subjective measure of “very good” does not prove any kind of exponential growth, and a single data point does not prove a general pattern.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Fiasco? It's already in the game!!!

Which requires artist work, which takes time, costs money, and delays release.

Makes up with a vibrant and living breathing universe (even with a "small" number of planets). [big grin]

 

[Osmanthus]

Not living up to the hype? So why is it growing and growing every month? Why do they see boosts in growth after their show's or after every big patch?
NMS is a game based on PG with very little engaging gameplay , it's "exploration" attributes are just rinse + repeat pg assets without any meaning.

Besides that NMS still sold a lot of unites and made them a lot of money. Why? Because forum/reddit posters make for a very small percentage of an actual game community.
That little minority of hardcore followers of a game (lovers or haters) can make a lot of noise but in the big picture they are mostly just exacerbated noise.

Star Citizen is true open development, that's why we have been playing the game since it's inception basically. With every update delivered the number of players rise exponentially and as the basic foundations are put in place and the alpha grows and grows the more people will join. There is also Squadron 42 which will provide contextualization and mass-market appeal with the Hollywood cast and rich lore of it's space opera single-player campaign.

House Roberts: The Future is Bright and Full of Backers [big grin]

You understand that hype is what fuelled most of their funding up till now right? So it's logical to suppose that they're growing and growing every month because they're great at generating hype

How do the player numbers rise exponentially with each update? Genuine question, this seems impossible. Is the player number exponential with respect to update number? To time? Or is this hyperbole?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Makes up with a vibrant and living breathing universe (even with a "small" number of planets). [big grin]

I've just had to order a new lulzbucket made of purest unobtanium.

 

[Osmanthus]

Well… -0.3 could be used as an exponent.


A subjective measure of “very good” does not prove any kind of exponential growth, and a single data point does not prove a general pattern.

Can one say that exp(0.0* t) is exponential?
Or is this a vacuous truth? =P

 

[AJW]

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Star Citizen 2.5 patch released at August 25. Since the gamescom demo +~50k new accounts created and +~$2million earned.

Very good I must say.

Nothing on that page indicates an exponential growth in the number of players.

 

[jcrg99]

Hehehe "Alice in wonderland roller-coaster doom charts" are always amusing.

This is also an amusing read: http://imperialnews.network/2016/08/120-million-and-the-road-ahead/

Spoiler

Hello Citizens! Star Citizen has reached the $120 million mark today for funding! Check inside for more details, analysis, and prognostication.
I backed Star Citizen on December 9, 2012 and the project had raised just over $7 million. I was astounded. I looked around at other crowdfunded games and they were nowhere near that kind of support.
Today is August 23, 2016 and Star Citizen has now raised $120 million, far eclipsing not only all other crowdfunded games but any crowdfunded project of any kind.
As of today at 15:00 UTC:
$120,007,249 from 1,487,680 Citizens. The UEE fleet comprises 1,048,366 ships.
These are increases of $1,481,655, 35,562 Citizens, and 10,445 ships from the beginning of the Gamescom streaming on August 17th.
Through piecing together bits and pieces of information over the years, some of the key info actually coming this summer, we know that the number of Citizens that have financially contributed to the project is roughly half of the total.
So, three quarters of a million people have helped Cloud Imperium Games amass a game budget of $120 million with that number likely to reach at least $135 million by the end of 2016.
Some may ask if it’s really realistic for Star Citizen to amass an additional $15 million in the final 4 months of 2016 when it only made $15 million in the first 8 months of the year. The reason I believe this will occur is that the 4th quarter is always huge for CIG. CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream, Holiday Sale.
Fourth Quarters for Star Citizen:
2012: $7.2 million
2013: $15.1 million
2014: $13.2 million
2015: $14.8 million
So, going by those numbers it actually might be a little conservative to expect only $135 million by year-end, given that we still have 5 weeks until Q4 even begins.
That brings us around to Gamescom 2016 and current funding.
Gamescom was frankly a resounding success for CIG and Star Citizen. They were able to show off a vertical slice of the persistent universe gameplay – huge and compelling universe, detailed and beautiful visuals, multiplayer cooperative and combative gameplay.
The press received a detailed look at this demo of Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 and the response has been mostly glowing, as you can see in the links below:


Forbes
Engadget

Polygon

Gameranx
PC Gamer
Gamespot



This coverage and optimism, the Anvil Terrapin concept sale, and the availability of exploration packs has led to an impressive amount of sustained funding.
Star Citizen has made over $1.4 million since the Gamescom demo and is still, 4 days later, bringing in roughly $10,000 per hour on average.
To put that in perspective, prior to the show a normal day would see Star Citizen bring in $1,000 to $2,000 per hour. In addition, the project only brought in about $895,000 in the entire month of July, while after the Gamescom presentation this mark was eclipsed in less than 48 hours.
We are entering a very interesting phase for the project as a whole. Q4 will bring the Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 release, featuring the first full star system in the persistent universe among other things. Adding to that, Foundry 42 UK began crunching in May which I believe is the long lead up to a full commercial release of Squadron 42 Episode 1.
The release of Squadron 42 will be something to watch for a lot of reasons, including the crowdfunding campaign.
Will the sales of Squadron 42 be included in the funding totals for Star Citizen?
How many copies will Squadron 42 sell?
Upon talking to other members of the community, most agree that the benchmark for success for Squadron 42 is 1 million new sales with 2+ million being a wildly successful release.
The price for Squadron 42 on its own is $45 but I would wager a fair number of people who purchase it will actually buy the combined game package including Star Citizen for $60.
If you look at the numbers, a successful release of SQ42 Ep 1 could mean an additional $50-100 million to aid in development of Star Citizen as a whole.
When people ask how Star Citizen will be supported post-launch, I believe this is a good portion of the answer. SQ42 Ep 1 will release likely at the end of 2016 or Q1 2017. Based on Chris Roberts’ comments at Gamescom we would then see Episode 2 in 2019 and Episode 3 in 2021, followed thereafter by a new “narrative story” every year (2022, 2023, etc). The sales of these singleplayer narrative experiences will be an excellent way to supplement the ongoing development budget for Star Citizen and will continue to drive improvements in both the MMO and singleplayer games.
Bringing things back to the near-future, 2.5 will soon be released to Live. 2.5 features the Grim Hex outlaw base – a dilapidated former mining base inside an asteroid, new graphical features, as well as the Argo and Reliant as new flyable ships.
2.6 will feature the release of Star Marine and an update to Arena Commander. I would imagine that CIG would like this to be out in the wild by the time CitizenCon rolls around on October 9th.

I believe 2.6 will set up a test bed for Squadron 42 as the patch focuses on the FPS and space combat pieces of the game.
Meanwhile, because 2.6 is not focused on the persistent universe there will likely be a significant number of people at CIG who will shift their focus, or already have, to 3.0.
I have to say that I am personally very excited for CitizenCon. A good look at Squadron 42 and the 2nd generation of the procedural planet tech should make for a great show.
Plus I’ll be there!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

So, basically, single-player campaigns will be released and bring 50/100 million dollars to Star Citizen further development, if selling more 1 million copies. The analysis do not consider the people that already bought the game, and do not consider that Squadron 42 had a cost, so as any single-player campaign will have a cost to be developed, certainly, a huge cost of development, by the way, considering that it needs to bring a Hollywood show to make them reality.
So, I don't see what the guy say happening.
If they sell 500k copies of Squadron 42, THAT, would be a massive success, considering all the difficulties that people will have, to play the game, having to upgrade their machines and not finding, for real, a great reason for that, since it's just a game that sounds cool, but not really groundbreaking enough. It got staled and people have CoD and ME to play... so go to hell that game bad optimized and possibly full of issues that all those people complain online, and lacking all the promises that those devs made (coop).

But, for the sake of the keeping the whales happy, and since they don't require no accountability, CR can say whatever he wants and they will believe, so I am certain that if they release Squadron 42, they will make sure to demonstrate in their counter that they sold "3 million copies" despite selling just 500k (been very very optimistic). As I said, this show is just to make sure that the same guys who buy all those ships and JPEG's keep buying more and paying subscriptions for those magazines. It's all about convincing them that they are not alone. But they are.

 

[Tippis]

Can one say that exp(0.0* t) is exponential?
Or is this a vacuous truth? =P

Yes.



Because mathematician's answer is best answer.