The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Zyll Goliat]

I would like to hear about this too. Some comments about grey(gray?) market and it having influence on SC threads was brought up, but I still don't understand how this works. Why would anyone buy on said market instead from CIG/RSI? DO they have better refund policies/TOS?

When I said that CIG make sure to left that back-door(Grey-market trade) wide open this is what I mean.....CIG have a thing with insurance of the ships and when ever you buy a ship in some of the regular packages you get certain amount of month´s of paid insurance feed(mostly3-6 month)after that you will be obligated to pay montly fee or otherwise you can lost your ship in battle or accident etc.....Now CIG in the past sold certain ammount of the LTI ships of all kind with /LTI=Life Time Insurance/ so some people ofcourse saw that oportunity and buy significant ammount of those ships and after that start to selling them on the grey market for huge profit gain(they can go up to 500%or more of the price).....Same things go with the certain limited ships where CIG decide when they going to put them on sale....So it´s very simple "game" basically,CIG knew that those guys will make sure to protect their own investments and with that they will protect the game itself....So whenever you see that some ppl. defend some non-logical CIG decision scratch your had first and ask yourself a question:" why are they doing that?"

 

[szopin]

Many ships were 'limited time only', and in the beginning they came with permanent insurance coverage. So ships can get 'more expensive' as time goes, because you either cannot normally buy it or if you can its worse.

Thanks, still have no idea how a promise of in-game advantage some day in the future, when they promised all ships to be buyable with ingame cash, would create a market. Like, guys, I bought a Beluga, and insurance on it is 0 forever, who wants to pay me 500$? I will happily grey it for you. Maybe with engineer grind we could market modular terminals?

 

[Pharaelga]

​Interesting points made by this article I'm reading:

What are the Different Types of Crowdfunding Models?

There are three kinds of crowdfunding models currently. These include:

• Donation Crowdfunding: People invest in the project because they believe in the cause espoused by the project. Therefore, investors have a social or a personal interest for investing, without expecting anything in return. Rewards offered for investing in these projects will usually be intangible or diverse. They could include freebies, tickets to an event etc.
• Debt Crowdfunding (or Peer-to-peer lending): In this crowdfunding model, investors receive the principal along with the interest payable. In many ways, this model is similar to the loans offered by banks because the returns are financial in nature. However, the investors contributing to this project also have the benefit of contributing toward the success of an idea they believed in.
• Equity Crowdfunding: Here, people invest in the project in exchange for equity. Therefore, in return for the money they invest, they receive a share in the business, project or venture. If the project becomes successful, the value of their share increases. If the project fails to achieve the desired results, the investors could even end up losing the amount invested.

Is Crowdfunding Right for Your Business – The Benefits and Drawbacks of Crowdfunding

The Benefits:
Crowdfunding is beneficial because it:
- Saves Time and Money: Instead of doing endless rounds of banks and the offices of private investors, you can organize your crowdfunding strategy very quickly.
- Gives You Access to Capital: It takes significantly lesser time than raising capital via traditional means. Usually, a fundraising campaign has a maximum cap of 90 days. This eliminates the need for constant pitching, prospecting, negotiating etc., which is the case when you obtain funds from banks and other financial institutions. In addition, you do not necessarily have to give up equity in your company either. Instead, you could offer reward-based incentives to your investors. You do not need to pay any fees upfront either.
- Helps You Establish a Customer Base: Finding customers initially can be tough for a new business. However, if you’ve raised funds through crowdfunding, you effectively have a large group of people backing your offering. As a result, many of your investors do not just become your customers, but they also become an extension of your sales force as they promote your business. This is useful for bringing in additional customers. Crowdfunding also helps you engage with your customers.
- Helps You Organize Your Marketing Strategy: When you seek crowdfunding for your business idea, you are effectively promoting your idea to others. This is in addition to seeking funding. Once you generate the funds required, you will have a clearer idea about how to make your marketing strategy more effective. In short, the clarity of the message that got you the funding will also help you attract your customers.
- Gives You Control Over How to Reward Your Investors: Once you receive the funding required, you get to determine how to reward your investors. As long as you’re reasonable, you have complete control over how much equity or interest you can offer your investors.
The Drawbacks:
Crowdfunding is not viable because it:
- Does Not Deliver for Business-to-Business Offerings: People generally back something because they identify with it or perceive some benefits from it. As a result, they will back offerings aimed at consumers, instead of at business entities.
- Does Not Work for Complex Projects: Crowdfunding works if the business idea is simple enough for the layperson to understand. Complex or technical projects might come a cropper if they seek crowdfunding. Even projects with lengthy research-and-development cycles could draw people away from investing in your idea.
- Might Not Fund Large Capital Requirements: Barring exceptions, crowdfunding typically works for projects that require under $100,000 of capital. If your idea requires larger funding, you might need to consider looking at other traditional sources for raising capital i.e. banks etc.
- Often Follows an All-or-Nothing Approach: Some crowdfunding platforms only release the funds from your campaign once your campaign achieves 100 percent or more of its funding goal. As such, you could be stuck in limbo if your campaign fails to achieve its target funding.
- Makes Your Project Inflexible: Once you receive the funding you need, you cannot make drastic changes to your offering. Similarly, any delays in timelines could damage your reputation and hurt your brand.

 

[szopin]

When I said that CIG make sure to left that door(Grey-market trade) wide open this is what I mean.....CIG have a thing with insurance of the ships and when ever you buy a ship in some of the regular packages you get certain amount of month´s of paid insurance feed(mostly3-6 month)after that you will be obligated to pay montly fee or otherwise you can lost your ship in battle or accident etc.....Now CIG in the past sold certain ammount of the LTI ships of all kind with /LTI=Life Time Insurance/ so some people ofcourse saw that oportunity and buy significant ammount of ships and after that start to selling them on the grey market for huge profit(they can go up to 500%or more of the price).....Same things go with the certain limited ships where CIG decide when they going to put them on sale....So it´s very simple "game" basically,CIG knew that those guys will make sure to protect their own investments and with that they will protect the game itself....So whenever you see that some ppl. defend some non-logical CIG decision scratch your had first and ask yourself a question:" why are they doing that?"

Ok, did a bit of looking around, here's your answer (search for eurogamer and grey market, from 2014 though):

"I think people will be studying CIG marketing practices for a long time to come," Nigel says. During our chat Chris Roberts expresses no desire to clamp down on the Star Citizen grey market ("That's amazing to me"). In fact, the way he talks, it sounds like it'll only get bigger once Star Citizen launches proper.
Here's his vision, as he explains it to me: When the persistent universe is up and running, ships will be manufactured from shipyards, then sold and traded to other players in universe. Some of these ships will be highly coveted because they are rare, or expensive, or take a lot of time and effort to produce, such as a cruiser. There will be players who simply have to have that cruiser right now, but there won't be one coming out of the shipyard for, let's say, a month. Those players may want to do a deal with a player who owns that cruiser - for the right price. "But that would be cool," Roberts says. "That's what happens in the real world.

Couple of million players will be waiting a month for a single cruiser to be built, while you can get it for 500$, get your idris now guys, this is so realistic game mechanic I don't know why I doubted it, the remaining 999,999 players will be the suckers having to wait. Nigel was right for the wrong reasons

 

[ianw]

Looks like someone else upped the ante on the morrow tour.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;t1hBNALUk4w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hBNALUk4w[/video]

No doubt RSI/CIG will have a suitable response at Citizen con.

 

[AJW]

@ Pharaelga: Generally speaking, it is a good idea to provide a link to an article, rather than copy-paste it wholesale. Since you haven't, I will: http://www.globalfinanceschool.com/blog-post/pros-and-cons-crowdfunding-your-new-business

Your selective cut and paste omitted the section where they state that "The average campaign for crowdfunding lasts for about nine weeks" and that "The average successful crowdfunding campaign is around $7,000". Which makes the article of limited relevence to what CIG have been doing. Though I note that you have quoted the section that states " Once you receive the funding you need, you cannot make drastic changes to your offering. Similarly, any delays in timelines could damage your reputation and hurt your brand."

 

[Jezzah]

Looks like someone else upped the ante on the morrow tour.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hBNALUk4w

No doubt RSI/CIG will have a suitable response at Citizen con.

You know what I like in this - people walk and run and are natural looking. In our beloved SC "Pre-Alpha" (thing) the movement is really unnatural looking - I thought theyd done Mo-Cap or something to model the movement of people?

Beautiful looking in 4K also.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

@ Pharaelga: Generally speaking, it is a good idea to provide a link to an article, rather than copy-paste it wholesale. Since you haven't, I will: http://www.globalfinanceschool.com/blog-post/pros-and-cons-crowdfunding-your-new-business

Your selective cut and paste omitted the section where they state that "The average campaign for crowdfunding lasts for about nine weeks" and that "The average successful crowdfunding campaign is around $7,000". Which makes the article of limited relevence to what CIG have been doing. Though I note that you have quoted the section that states " Once you receive the funding you need, you cannot make drastic changes to your offering. Similarly, any delays in timelines could damage your reputation and hurt your brand."

Don't worry about that!

He has a masters in Accountancy from golden gate something or other so hes learned to be efficient when he cuts and pastes stuff.

 

[Backer42]

I am looking forward to seeing Sandi Roberts bad acting in combination with CR's poor script, that is going to be epic. If Sandi had even an ounce of charisma it might have been fun to watch, like watching old B horror movies, but sadly that can never be. Bonus points if there is a love interest involving her.

Bonus bonus: The player character will be forced into that love interest.

Thanks, still have no idea how a promise of in-game advantage some day in the future, when they promised all ships to be buyable with ingame cash, would create a market. Like, guys, I bought a Beluga, and insurance on it is 0 forever, who wants to pay me 500$?

Short answer: People in need for money laundering. People who acquired money by illegal means need some way to get rid of it. Uncontrolled "grey markets" for ridiculously priced digital vanitiy items are the perfect place for covering up traces.

 

[McGlashan]

Looks like someone else upped the ante on the morrow tour.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hBNALUk4w

No doubt RSI/CIG will have a suitable response at Citizen con.

No A-list actors, no underpants, no nipple-jets, no randomly        g-out physics, no shops, no T-poses, actual colours other than grey, multi-platform? Amateurs.

 

[szopin]

Bonus bonus: The player character will be forced into that love interest.


Short answer: People in need for money laundering. People who acquired money by illegal means need some way to get rid of it. Uncontrolled "grey markets" for ridiculously priced digital vanitiy items are the perfect place for covering up traces.

Ok, that's a bit over the top, all the ownership changes will be on CIG record, so not really good way to launder, bitcoin is better

 

[Asp Explorer]

No Morrow. How can any game hope to be taken seriously without a Morrow tour?

It's a staple in the industry, it's as necessary as wings on a fly, and CR invented it!

 

[Pharaelga]

@ Pharaelga: Generally speaking, it is a good idea to provide a link to an article, rather than copy-paste it wholesale. Since you haven't, I will: http://www.globalfinanceschool.com/blog-post/pros-and-cons-crowdfunding-your-new-business

Your selective cut and paste omitted the section where they state that "The average campaign for crowdfunding lasts for about nine weeks" and that "The average successful crowdfunding campaign is around $7,000". Which makes the article of limited relevence to what CIG have been doing. Though I note that you have quoted the section that states " Once you receive the funding you need, you cannot make drastic changes to your offering. Similarly, any delays in timelines could damage your reputation and hurt your brand."

You got it except also add this quote:

"Does Not Work for Complex Projects: Crowdfunding works if the business idea is simple enough for the layperson to understand. Complex or technical projects might come a cropper if they seek crowdfunding. Even projects with lengthy research-and-development cycles could draw people away from investing in your idea."
And you'll have the basis of this 900 page thread sh*tting on CR..... Can we start another thread already so the circle jerk can continue?

 

[Osmanthus]

You got it except also add this quote:

"Does Not Work for Complex Projects: Crowdfunding works if the business idea is simple enough for the layperson to understand. Complex or technical projects might come a cropper if they seek crowdfunding. Even projects with lengthy research-and-development cycles could draw people away from investing in your idea."
And you'll have the basis of this 900 page thread sh*tting on CR..... Can we start another thread already so the circle jerk can continue?

What? He was pointing out that the article you quote has limited relevance to a project like Star Citizen, and you agree with him before continuing to use it to talk down to the threat contributors?

That makes no sense.

 

[ianw]

No Morrow. How can any game hope to be taken seriously without a Morrow tour?

It's a staple in the industry, it's as necessary as wings on a fly, and CR invented it!

If they go with another morrow tour it will be morrow 2 - or 2 morrow..


2 morrow, 2 morrow
I love ya 2 morrow
You're only a day away

I apologise - unreservedly.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Naah - Morrow is in an early stage of development, pre-pre-pre Alpha and is due for refactoring.

They have yet to write the script, do the Mocap, hire the voice actors, or have assets ready to put in-engine. Give them time, they've only been in open development for a week.

 

[AJW]

You got it except also add this quote:

"Does Not Work for Complex Projects: Crowdfunding works if the business idea is simple enough for the layperson to understand. Complex or technical projects might come a cropper if they seek crowdfunding. Even projects with lengthy research-and-development cycles could draw people away from investing in your idea."
And you'll have the basis of this 900 page thread sh*tting on CR..... Can we start another thread already so the circle jerk can continue?

Yup. Even more evidence that whatever CIG are doing, the 'crowdfunding' model is of limited relevance. As for jerks, they seem to be circling elsewhere - we are merely commenting on their enthusiasm...

 

[Ian Skippy]

What? He was pointing out that the article you quote has limited relevance to a project like Star Citizen, and you agree with him before continuing to use it to talk down to the threat contributors?

That makes no sense.

The point he was making is that people are too stupid to deal with large projects, so any criticism against SC is because people cant handle the size. You dont know game development!

 

[Osmanthus]

The point he was making is that people are too stupid to deal with large projects, so any criticism against SC is because people cant handle the size. You dont know game development!

lol that's a hell of a no true scotsman =P

 

[JohnMice]

The point he was making is that people are too stupid to deal with large projects, so any criticism against SC is because people cant handle the size. You dont know game development!

And its true. 90% of the bickering in every discussion about Star Citizen,not only in this thread, is based on ignorance about how game development is indeed a troubled non-linear mess of fluid, as in adapt as you go, decisions. Looking from the outside it looks chaotic and unprofessional but its just how things are done in this type of business.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Ahh, the classic we just don't understand game development