Are delays helping Star Citizen?

fatears · July 2016

I am making a supposition here, that Star Citizen, much like many so-called F2P games, is thriving off whales. By whales I mean people with either, or both, of the following; a) a hell of a lot of money; b) poor impulse control. The big money comes from those with an addictive personality, the collectors, the people who can't resist buying a new skin to complete their hangar.

While the game remains substantially a concept (yes I know elements have been released in a piecemeal and semi-playable state, but the original vision of the game is still just a vision, yet to be realized) it allows people to project their own hopes and aspirations onto it. Those people who have already heavily funded development, who have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on a wishlist of ideas, can fill in the blanks with wishful thinking. The skillful marketing of CIG combined with an over-abundance of fervent optimism and a drip-feed of information has allowed the creation of a virtual Shangri-La in the minds of backers. The delays in this project and the ever-increasing budget is a perfect storm that has built expectations to religious levels, and as a result the donations keep coming, the concept ships keep getting bought.

I was always told that expectation is better than fulfillment. Is this the fate for Star Citizen backers?

GeezerGamer · July 2016

Delays are never good for anything. But releasing something that isn't ready is even worse. And with this project public image and trust are everything with the funding of Star Citizen wholly dependent on it. If that trust begins to waiver, it could create a viscous cycle that would be difficult to recover from. Best thing is to deliver on time with the promised results. If that isn't possible, well, that's not good no matter how you look at it.

Shinimas · July 2016

Well, yeah. This is their business plan. At any rate, only time will tell, but as someone who's invested into this, it's a damn fun show to watch. After all, there's nothing more satisfying than watching illusions of cultists, that used to wave their faith in your face, crumble before their very eyes... I will have fun rubbing it in and, on the off chance it actually releases in a playable state, I'll have fun playing it. A sour asshole such as myself couldn't have hoped for a better game to follow.

The only thing that troubles me is the huge blow to crowdfunding this game will deliver, but that bubble was to burst sooner or later.

jcrg99 · July 2016

You nailed it. I just don't agree with the idea of "skillful marketing of CIG".

A good marketing approach provided by real skillful marketing teams, would be able to create a more healthy sustainability for the project/company without ruining their image in the process, without the regular use of bait-and-switch and other illegal actions like deceptive marketing/false advertising.

Marketing approaches that are not tied to customer satisfaction and retention are not good. Specially for MMO's.

While the SC strategy (which is far to be smart and its just short-sighted, just taking advantage blindly of a crazy demand) is all good to gather easy money, but certainly will ruin them in the medium/long term.

The only chance that they would have to escape from a catastrophic result would be if they were efficient/effective and delivered a great product sooner rather than later, or great/stable earlier modules at least. The constant "sharing" only helps the whole thing to become old too. And the way that CIG deals with dissenters is even worst, be consumers, be press... they only revealed that are totally unprepared for the task of making this venture a truly successful one, instead just a temporary show to fill personal pockets of a few executives.

They went so deep in this hole of been deceptive, they had to go so deep to sustain the ship-sales shangri-la scheme, that not even the better development team of the world would be able to accomplish with what they are willing to try to fulfill the level of hype and expectations raised, in any acceptable time frame that would make their business to stay fine with the majority of the customers and to fight against competitors.

It's important to realize that the ship-sales scheme was promised as ending on "release". Just this fact raises suspicious of their own interest of ever releasing and instead, just keeping adding excuses to make it take longer and longer. Which finishes their argument that they are "working on it" so you have no quarrel to complain. Any half-brain judge when looked to this case would understand that the company is earning much more money than possibly would if just releasing the game and selling just copies of it. And that they would have the direct interest of never releasing their product and keeping what could be called a "ponzi-like" scheme and totally unfair and irregular, disrespecting constantly advertising laws and the consumers.

It's like the good and the bad drug dealer what is going on here. Both are selling shit for addicted people, but the good drug dealer will sell drugs but will take care to do not sell too much for one customer in order to keep him alive, instead killing him of overdose. The bad, will just look to the easy/quick money and soon will have killed a lot of addicted people and will start to call a lot more attention of the cops for him due that. CIG has been acting like the bad one.

Another analogy from what their bad marketing causes is from a bar who sells unlimited drinks to some assiduous cusotmers, without caring with the mess that those will do, just because they spend more money. Meaning a few drunk people ruining the party for the rest, making most people do not feel comfortable and do not staying in the bar for too long. CIG has been acting like this kind of bar.

Ultimately, CIG is tied to a lot of marketing bait-and-switches and promises that were never compatible with the capacities of this company (or any company). To feed the wishes of their whales, of more minimum details (which barely matters for gameplay and just fed dreams) at the same time, they create an unrealistic design making them totally out of the capacity to compete with the market. In the scenario that we have now and in the next years, CIG will lose ground to any indie team with 5 people that is more worried to make a space game and deliver to get results than selling dreams and hype. They always will be behind of others, because while others care more with what matters more - gameplay - CIG tries to push the limits of minimum details (more clothes, ship bathrooms, etc) that do not adds too much for the whole and sacrifies their abilities of been faster, and has been just used to hype and to make easy money.

There is this guy which in the other day claimed that CIG (SC) will kill Frontier (ED). Which is absolutely ridiculous because ED have a design/engine/mature team that makes them way ahead to deliver more results faster, and by results I mean, actual meaningful gameplay finished/stable, instead just a bunch of mechanics thrown in a pre-alpha tech demo which none of them works properly and are years away of becoming stable (and that is just 5% or less of their promised design).

So, the delays are terrible and the marketing of CIG is actually the cause of it. Roberts definitely feels the need to feed the wife's plan. Making her plan to get results. It's a natural behavior of a man and one of the issues that nepotism causes on companies. The proof of that that he, Chris Roberts, know about the realities of the market and what would mean to take a lot longer, as he mentioned in 2012:

https://www.themittani.com/features/exclusive-interview-star-citizens-chris-roberts

You have stated that you expect to have an Alpha up and going in about 12 months, with a beta roughly 10 months after that and then launch. For a game of this size and scope, do you think you can really be done in the next two years?

Really it is all about constant iteration from launch. The whole idea is to be constantly updating. It isn’t like the old days where you had to have everything and the kitchen sink in at launch because you weren’t going to come back to it for awhile. We’re already one year in - another two years puts us at 3 total which is ideal. Any more and things would begin to get stale.

In conclusion here you realize that the man knows the drill, knows that in the game industry the things cannot take too long to come out or competitors destroy them. It's hard to take anything that Chris Roberts say serious, but I think that in that time he was been more honest, because in that time was interesting to be more honest to convince people that he could make a great game fast and with less money. Now and since a few years ago, it became just about to convince that is a good thing to take longer. It's not. It's just good for their pockets, not for the game, not for the company, not for the space genre and the reputation of its public, not for the crowdfunding business, as even mentioned by his VP Ortwin:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-06-23-how-indie-film-financing-could-shape-the-future-of-games

"While the Star Citizen case is a first to take crowd funding to this new level, it does show the potential of this fundraising method when pursued properly. However, as many commentators have pointed out, if crowd funding is to mature as an alternative funding source for games of all budget sizes, it will ultimately need to include safeguards against insufficient planning or plain abuse. Several projects, even some with raises in the seven digits, have failed already to deliver on their promise."

Check the irony of this comment and what happened since June 2014. We are now in 2016 and SC failed to deliver on their promises and are far far away to fulfill it. Besides, clearly, they have been demonstrating insufficient planning AND plain abuse. In conclusion, following his logic, even the major associate of CIG thinks that we all need safeguards against CIG.

goboygo · July 2016

They are not milking the project, they are not purposely taking longer than they need to. The conspiracy theories I read about on this site are childish and ignorant.

The game is a massive undertaking, its taking longer than planned simply because its harder to pull off than imagined, and they are perhaps spending time in areas they shouldn't.

Its as simply as that. Whether it hurts the game in the long run hard to say. I don't think so, I don't think because the game took longer to make than someone thinks it should, that person wouldn't buy the game on release day. Like me for example, I've donated nothing, and don't care how long it takes, when its done Ill but it. How hard is that to grasp.

When its done other people will buy it. How many I cant say.

jcrg99 · July 2016

goboygo said:

Like me for example, I've donated nothing, and don't care how long it takes, when its done Ill but it. How hard is that to grasp.
When its done other people will buy it. How many I cant say.

If that was the case, every single game developer would make "open" development and selling content to keep people tied to the project, despite taking longer or not.

You say that "perhaps" they are spending time in areas they shouldn't. Well... we are dealing with veterans here of the game and movie industry. They definitely are not naive when putting money on ventures or "passionate" as their retard marketing speech make them appear to be, to approach to the "gamers". If they are doing something, there is a reason for that.

And the only logic reason is to make it take longer. Because 90% of their revenue is based on ship sales and those ship sales were promised to stop on release. And this is the kind of game focused to a niche that never would make this quantity of money just from copies sold. How hard is that to grasp?

And if there is no issue, Roberts never would said what he said and Ortwin never would said what he said. But they obviously forgot about how this market works in the moment that they figured out that, regardless what they produced, they never would be able to fulfill the promises that they made in any acceptable time frame.

Believe that they are on this because are passionate and "are gamers making a game for gamers" is what you could call childish and ignorant.

Erillion · July 2016

Star Citizen in 2012 was clearly aimed at people with high end computer rigs. Delays allow the technology curve to catch up with the minimum specs needed for Star Citizen. Which means more people will be able to play SC with decent settings. As we see from fan made videos done with Ultra settings for a 4k monitor, the game looks really good on high end rigs. Much better than what you see in your average, compression-loss hampered standard Youtube video.

More specifically the newest generation of NVIDIA cards is MUCH better suited to handle SC as compared to last years (and older) versions. In the past I would have recommended AMD cards for SC. Also the Windows10 + DX12 plus Vulkan combo might help a lot to improve performance (with a sprinkle of AMD specific "Mantle" technology legacy).

Have fun

CrazKanuk · July 2016

jcrg99 said:

goboygo said:

Like me for example, I've donated nothing, and don't care how long it takes, when its done Ill but it. How hard is that to grasp.
When its done other people will buy it. How many I cant say.

If that was the case, every single game developer would make "open" development and selling content to keep people tied to the project, despite taking longer or not.

You say that "perhaps" they are spending time in areas they shouldn't. Well... we are dealing with veterans here of the game and movie industry. They definitely are not naive when putting money on ventures or "passionate" as their retard marketing speech make them appear to be, to approach to the "gamers". If they are doing something, there is a reason for that.

And the only logic reason is to make it take longer. Because 90% of their revenue is based on ship sales and those ship sales were promised to stop on release. And this is the kind of game focused to a niche that never would make this quantity of money just from copies sold. How hard is that to grasp?

And if there is no issue, Roberts never would said what he said and Ortwin never would said what he said. But they obviously forgot about how this market works in the moment that they figured out that, regardless what they produced, they never would be able to fulfill the promises that they made in any acceptable time frame.

Believe that they are on this because are passionate and "are gamers making a game for gamers" is what you could call childish and ignorant.

You are right, they do make the majority of their revenue from ship sales...... right now. 90%? I don't know. You seem to grab random numbers from thin air. What I WILL go out on a limb and say is that every game funded through a crowdfunding campaign has gone on to sell significantly better once released. Even if we were to just use Steam numbers as an example, Elite: Dangerous had 25k backers and sold 700k+ copies through Steam. Divinity Original Sin was backed by 20k people and has over 1 million owners on steam. Wasteland 2 had 61k backers and has 600k owners on steam. Shadowrun Returns had 36k backers and 1 million owners on steam. Shovel Knight had 15k backers and has 370k steam owners.

I'm really sorry, but this whole idea that they are delaying release intentionally is retarded. Every single metric available points to the fact that crowdfunded games to better, revenue-wise, once they're released versus when they are in development. Granted, it's unlikely that SC will see 10x sales once released, but it is with CERTAINTY that they will be able to increase revenues significantly once released. Why? Well, on a released game you can do so much more, sell so much more. You can sell planets, buildings/shops, space stations, etc. If they decided to become that aggressive. Right now, what is it that you're going to sell beyond ships?

To believe that even an amateur business person doesn't understand that their revenues will be limited with crowdfunding until their product is released, is ignorant.

jcrg99 · July 2016

Not a single one of your examples requires powerful machines to play. And all them were designs that were able to be released faster and stable, without too many promised features missing.

And you say that it was retarded. Nope. It's just ignorance and a bad/superficial analysis that you are making here sir.

Why? Well, on a released game you can do so much more, sell so much more. You can sell planets, buildings/shops, space stations, etc. If they decided to become that aggressive. Right now, what is it that you're going to sell beyond ships?

Another failed analysis. On release, people will have the ability to gather stuff playing the game, which they don't have now.
That means that most of their current whales actually will stop to buy stuff for real dollars and will just play the game to acquire them... even because they already started with a lot of resources making easier to them gather money.

And for the matter of reviews, not a single of that games made 200 million dollars before releasing, and releasing without tons of promises fulfilled, yet to be fulfilled, that will be the case of Star Citizen and for what was released, due all the complexity involved, certainly more bugs than any game that was ever released in the past for any developer.

Definitely the SC sales figures will be severely affected by that. The money financed, the delays, the competition out there, will have a strong weight in how everyone will evaluate this game and most of people won't find reasons to forgive, after years of JPEG's been sold by ridiculous prices and challenges made to the game industry and lack of consumer-friendly attitude of these devs shared constantly by the media.

fatears · July 2016

Erillion said:

Star Citizen in 2012 was clearly aimed at people with high end computer rigs. Delays allow the technology curve to catch up with the minimum specs needed for Star Citizen. Which means more people will be able to play SC with decent settings. As we see from fan made videos done with Ultra settings for a 4k monitor, the game looks really good on high end rigs. Much better than what you see in your average, compression-loss hampered standard Youtube video.

More specifically the newest generation of NVIDIA cards is MUCH better suited to handle SC as compared to last years (and older) versions. In the past I would have recommended AMD cards for SC. Also the Windows10 + DX12 plus Vulkan combo might help a lot to improve performance (with a sprinkle of AMD specific "Mantle" technology legacy).

Have fun

Yeah, without a doubt delays also help technology catch up with minimum requirements. I remember the release of APB, which besides being largely broken, required rigs that most people did not own in order to be played on decent settings. It hurt that game a lot.

Kefo · July 2016

The delays help the game because once they release then all of the dreams and fantasies of the backers will be thrown against the rocks and they will be confronted with reality. As long as they put off release then they can continue to milk the player base for as much cash as possible before reality sets in.

GrumpyHobbit · July 2016

For someone so anti SC you sure do spend a lot of time writing walls of text (and I mean annoyingly long walls of text) about the game jcrg99. You are like the stalker who 'loves' their ex partner but despite restraining orders and mutual friends telling you to stay away because you are 'getting creepy now' you still think you might have a chance....

CrazKanuk · July 2016

jcrg99 said:

Not a single one of your examples requires powerful machines to play. And all them were designs that were able to be released faster and stable, without too many promised features missing.

And you say that it was retarded. Nope. It's just ignorance and a bad/superficial analysis that you are making here sir.

Why? Well, on a released game you can do so much more, sell so much more. You can sell planets, buildings/shops, space stations, etc. If they decided to become that aggressive. Right now, what is it that you're going to sell beyond ships?

Another failed analysis. On release, people will have the ability to gather stuff playing the game, which they don't have now.
That means that most of their current whales actually will stop to buy stuff for real dollars and will just play the game to acquire them... even because they already started with a lot of resources making easier to them gather money.

ED Requires a somewhat powerful machine. 1GB of video memory? SC? 1GB Video memory. If you'd like to play it at high fidelity, sure, you might need a more powerful card, but that has very little bearing on sales. Check out the number of owners for Fallout 4, Witcher, Elder Scrolls, GTAV. There are literally millions of players playing games which require higher graphics card specifications. It is A barrier, but not THE barrier.

I'M MAKING A SUPERFICIAL ARGUMENT?!?!? I'm not even sure how to respond to that. You're acting like you gave some sort of Masters Thesis on the fucking game. That's absolutely laughable. Why not go out, do some ACTUAL research instead of pulling random numbers from your ass and using them as fact? At least I pulled verifiable numbers!! My argument is 1015% more valid than yours because of my research.

How is what I said a failed analysis? Have you ever played a F2P game? Do you even understand how they work? It doesn't seem like it. How do all these mobile games survive? I'm sorry, but the fact that you see that as a failed argument doesn't really help your credibility. Feel free to show me some research that shows how once a game is released, the whales all of a sudden stop paying, lol. The evidence is quite the contrary and is why game developers cater to the whales.

jcrg99 · July 2016

GrumpyHobbit said:

For someone so anti SC you sure do spend a lot of time writing walls of text (and I mean annoyingly long walls of text) about the game jcrg99. You are like the stalker who 'loves' their ex partner but despite restraining orders and mutual friends telling you to stay away because you are 'getting creepy now' you still think you might have a chance....

I am not anti SC. I am not supporting the sales of U$ 2500,00 JPEG for a game that does not exist and which developers failed in 100% of their presented plans after 4 years of development.
I am not applauding a company that mislead and deceive consumers constantly for the sake to feed this insane business model that only will make harm to the image of the company and will burn consumers, just because I put a lot money on that or because I love the idea of what they are supposedly doing.
I am not applauding nepotism, mismanagement and devs with more celebrity complex than responsibility with their business, with the consumers and the crowdfunding/space genre/game industry as a whole.

Supporting or applauding all that because what matters is to watch a Roberts/Sandi/Lesnick weekly youtube show filled with lies and marketing bs is what would make me get creepy.

laserit · July 2016

jcrg99 said:

GrumpyHobbit said:

For someone so anti SC you sure do spend a lot of time writing walls of text (and I mean annoyingly long walls of text) about the game jcrg99. You are like the stalker who 'loves' their ex partner but despite restraining orders and mutual friends telling you to stay away because you are 'getting creepy now' you still think you might have a chance....

I am not anti SC. I am not supporting the sales of U$ 2500,00 JPEG for a game that does not exist and which developers failed in 100% of their presented plans after 4 years of development.
I am not applauding a company that mislead and deceive consumers constantly for the sake to feed this insane business model that only will make harm to the image of the company and will burn consumers, just because I put a lot money on that or because I love the idea of what they are supposedly doing.
I am not applauding nepotism, mismanagement and devs with more celebrity complex than responsibility with their business, with the consumers and the crowdfunding/space genre/game industry as a whole.

Supporting or applauding all that because what matters is to watch a Roberts/Sandi/Lesnick weekly youtube show filled with lies and marketing bs is what would make me get creepy.

I see a Nobel in your future

You should put some of that hate towards companies with destructive business practices such as the Monsanto's of the World

MadFrenchie · July 2016

CrazKanuk said:

How is what I said a failed analysis? Have you ever played a F2P game? Do you even understand how they work? It doesn't seem like it. How do all these mobile games survive? I'm sorry, but the fact that you see that as a failed argument doesn't really help your credibility. Feel free to show me some research that shows how once a game is released, the whales all of a sudden stop paying, lol. The evidence is quite the contrary and is why game developers cater to the whales.

I have no real grasp of the overall argument, so I won't comment at the target object of this discussion.. But since CIG has (from my knowledge) stated they won't be selling ships for real money upon release, I do see sense in the assertion that money coming in will slow significantly if CIG cannot supplant those ship sales with items just as enticing (and comparatively as pricey) as the ship sales. Those sales are bringing in major dollars every month right now. I don't see ship skins or spacesuits being enticing enough to continue that kind of revenue (though it could).

I don't think CIG plans on closing shop after they release SC, so they will need to continue to make money. With so many of their fanbase already having paid the entry fee to fund development, I don't see their box sales making enough to continue developing at their current pace (a must if the game releases without all the stretch goal content). So I am curious as to how CIG plans to keep the income coming after release. This may have already been talked about (I don't follow SC very closely), so if you have some info on what their plan is, I'd be interested in hearing it for curiosity's sake.

jcrg99 · July 2016

CrazKanuk said:

ED Requires a somewhat powerful machine. 1GB of video memory? SC? 1GB Video memory. If you'd like to play it at high fidelity, sure, you might need a more powerful card, but that has very little bearing on sales. Check out the number of owners for Fallout 4, Witcher, Elder Scrolls, GTAV. There are literally millions of players playing games which require higher graphics card specifications. It is A barrier, but not THE barrier.

I'M MAKING A SUPERFICIAL ARGUMENT?!?!? I'm not even sure how to respond to that. You're acting like you gave some sort of Masters Thesis on the fucking game. That's absolutely laughable. Why not go out, do some ACTUAL research instead of pulling random numbers from your ass and using them as fact? At least I pulled verifiable numbers!! My argument is 1015% more valid than yours because of my research.

How is what I said a failed analysis? Have you ever played a F2P game? Do you even understand how they work? It doesn't seem like it. How do all these mobile games survive? I'm sorry, but the fact that you see that as a failed argument doesn't really help your credibility. Feel free to show me some research that shows how once a game is released, the whales all of a sudden stop paying, lol. The evidence is quite the contrary and is why game developers cater to the whales.

None of your examples can be compared with Star Citizen. All them were delivered with their promises accomplished. That won't be the case of Star Citizen as already confirmed by its CEO (but just a few of his backers and press actually paid attention so, in the end, if ever achieving such mark, will be faced as a surprise for most of people).
They were released without too many missing features that were hyped and sold in exchange of real dollars, and they are all for a different niche, except by Elite Dangerous, but ED actually delivered and is not even near of the requirements that SC have in terms of hardware, which are not decreasing at all, as some people think. Obviously ED will escalate well in powerful machines. But they are not required. That is not the case of SC that, unless you have a powerful/expensive rig, which most of people don't have, including many of their backers who are dreaming that one day they will get a game that escalate well, it will become simply impossible to play the game. Those people will lost their assets for lags and all the kinds of ridiculous bugs. That won't make them happy. I agree with people. Star Citizen has a much more complex design to be build, worst team and worst engine to work. So, why you are trying to make it appear so simple as other games that you mentioned?

Yes. You are making superficial argument, because you are bringing irrelevant data of games that have a large different reality of development, of delivery, without people invested financially, and waiting for years more than expected. So yes, my "random" numbers does not need to be exact to have "credibility" as you claimed, because everyone knows and can see easily that SC revenue is almost completely based on ship sales, expensive in-game assets sold by real dollars and bought, because those assets are not acquirable by gameplay. Oh! It's not 90%. Its 92.45%. Seriously?

Then you brought the reality of mobile games and F2P games. Star Citizen also does not match because is not F2P (and is not cheap as even B2P Mobile games) and because their in-game assets are much more expensive than mobile game offers. All different. Platform. Public.... So yeah... you guys are a joke. When its a matter to compare game designs you are the first to claim that you can't compare apples and bananas, even when you try to compare ED design with SC design. And now, suddenly, you can compare sales figures of totally different realities. No. You can't. And it's wrong. Because you can't expect what you had in those other games because they had good and smooth development processes, or those that did not have, you never heard about it, so, it didn't affect in anything the expectation of the game or its image.

How do all these mobile games survive?

Are you trying to compare the cost of a mobile game with the cost of Star Citizen? LOL

Feel free to show me some research that shows how once a game is released, the whales all of a sudden stop paying

Because its obvious? You don't need a research for that. Its fucking obvious that if you have the possibility to acquire stuff a lot of people won't feel the need to spend their dollars on it anymore. I didn't say that ALL the whales will stop. But most of them will.. And, in fact, the drop in the sales of their ships has been already showing that even without having the game, people are already stopping to buy insanely these assets.

So, yes. They have a lot of financial reasons to keep developing and selling hype. It summarizes in what the other guy said:

"The delays help the game because once they release then all of the dreams and fantasies of the backers will be thrown against the rocks and they will be confronted with reality. As long as they put off release then they can continue to milk the player base for as much cash as possible before reality sets in. "

I won't bother to pursuit the data again. Pursuit that yourself if you are soo interested. Or anyone else. I already know... so I don't care to convince you. But I already checked and analysed that, for example, their ship sales sell a lot less when they are flyable than they sell when offered in JPEG status. See?

Erillion · July 2016

MadFrenchie said:

So I am curious as to how CIG plans to keep the income coming after release. This may have already been talked about (I don't follow SC very closely), so if you have some info on what their plan is, I'd be interested in hearing it for curiosity's sake.

MIssion Disks for SQ42 solo campaign (e.g. the planned "Behind Enemy Lines") - first military related, later non-military related (e.g. explorer, pirate, builder, mining etc.)

Temporary tune up kits (e.g. a +5 % stat tune up with limited duration)

Ship skins

Basic weapons and modules (nothing like you will get as a mission reward)

Decoration items for the hangar

Cosmetic items

Limited in game currency sales (1000 UEC = 1 $ .. a very bad rate IMHO)

Merchandising !

Novels

Animated series

Optional subscription benefits (--> Jump Point magazine etc.)

etc.

Have fun

Scot · July 2016

Extra time is good for any game.

And for someone like me, don't pre-fund, wait for the reviews, hardly ever give a thought to the game being in the pipeline.

Come the reviews, if there is a tick there and some positive friends then a likely purchase. I think of this as Angst Free Gaming (tm).

fatears · July 2016

Erillion said:

MadFrenchie said:

So I am curious as to how CIG plans to keep the income coming after release. This may have already been talked about (I don't follow SC very closely), so if you have some info on what their plan is, I'd be interested in hearing it for curiosity's sake.

MIssion Disks for SQ42 solo campaign (e.g. the planned "Behind Enemy Lines") - first military related, later non-military related (e.g. explorer, pirate, builder, mining etc.)

Temporary tune up kits (e.g. a +5 % stat tune up with limited duration)

Ship skins

Basic weapons and modules (nothing like you will get as a mission reward)

Decoration items for the hangar

Cosmetic items

Limited in game currency sales (1000 UEC = 1 $ .. a very bad rate IMHO)

Merchandising !

Novels

Animated series

Optional subscription benefits (--> Jump Point magazine etc.)

etc.

Have fun

Cool! Sign me up for the "I survived Star Citizen, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" T-shirt, or "I'm with stupid". I'll take either.

MadFrenchie · July 2016

Erillion said:

MadFrenchie said:

So I am curious as to how CIG plans to keep the income coming after release. This may have already been talked about (I don't follow SC very closely), so if you have some info on what their plan is, I'd be interested in hearing it for curiosity's sake.

MIssion Disks for SQ42 solo campaign (e.g. the planned "Behind Enemy Lines") - first military related, later non-military related (e.g. explorer, pirate, builder, mining etc.)

Temporary tune up kits (e.g. a +5 % stat tune up with limited duration)

Ship skins

Basic weapons and modules (nothing like you will get as a mission reward)

Decoration items for the hangar

Cosmetic items

Limited in game currency sales (1000 UEC = 1 $ .. a very bad rate IMHO)

Merchandising !

Novels

Animated series

Optional subscription benefits (--> Jump Point magazine etc.)

etc.

Have fun

I like the idea of optional subscriptions (my ideal game would utilize a monetization model very, very closely mirroring what Zenimax has done with ESO).

Ship skins/hangar items/etc. will always bring in some revenue, that seems logical. And, of course, individual expansion pack DLC. The "tune-ups" scare me, specifically if they are, in fact, percentage boosts. On the high-end in fleet battles, percentage boosts can very easily become tipping points in terms of effectiveness. 5% seems a safely low number without knowing much of anything about the general combat systems planned, though.

The novels and animated series stuff... City of Heroes tried that with a comic series (in a genre that lends itself completely to a comic series)... I may be wrong, but I don't remember the idea making waves even though it was included in the normal subscription.

Shodanas · July 2016

fatears said:

I am making a supposition here, that Star Citizen, much like many so-called F2P games,

Can you please direct us to the relevant info showing that SC is a F2P game ?

Erillion · July 2016

MadFrenchie said:

The novels and animated series stuff...

I was thinking about the Wing Commander novels and animated series.

Have fun

Lateris · July 2016

Art work takes the longest, re-coding an existing engine takes some time too.

fatears · July 2016

Shodanas said:

fatears said:

I am making a supposition here, that Star Citizen, much like many so-called F2P games,

Can you please direct us to the relevant info showing that SC is a F2P game ?

I never claimed it was.

CrazKanuk · July 2016

jcrg99 said:
None of your examples can be compared with Star Citizen. All them were delivered with their promises accomplished. That won't be the case of Star Citizen as already confirmed by its CEO (but just a few of his backers and press actually paid attention so, in the end, if ever achieving such mark, will be faced as a surprise for most of people).
They were released without too many missing features that were hyped and sold in exchange of real dollars, and they are all for a different niche, except by Elite Dangerous, but ED actually delivered and is not even near of the requirements that SC have in terms of hardware, which are not decreasing at all, as some people think. Obviously ED will escalate well in powerful machines. But they are not required. That is not the case of SC that, unless you have a powerful/expensive rig, which most of people don't have, including many of their backers who are dreaming that one day they will get a game that escalate well, it will become simply impossible to play the game. Those people will lost their assets for lags and all the kinds of ridiculous bugs. That won't make them happy. I agree with people. Star Citizen has a much more complex design to be build, worst team and worst engine to work. So, why you are trying to make it appear so simple as other games that you mentioned?

Yes. You are making superficial argument, because you are bringing irrelevant data of games that have a large different reality of development, of delivery, without people invested financially, and waiting for years more than expected. So yes, my "random" numbers does not need to be exact to have "credibility" as you claimed, because everyone knows and can see easily that SC revenue is almost completely based on ship sales, expensive in-game assets sold by real dollars and bought, because those assets are not acquirable by gameplay. Oh! It's not 90%. Its 92.45%. Seriously?

Then you brought the reality of mobile games and F2P games. Star Citizen also does not match because is not F2P (and is not cheap as even B2P Mobile games) and because their in-game assets are much more expensive than mobile game offers. All different. Platform. Public.... So yeah... you guys are a joke. When its a matter to compare game designs you are the first to claim that you can't compare apples and bananas, even when you try to compare ED design with SC design. And now, suddenly, you can compare sales figures of totally different realities. No. You can't. And it's wrong. Because you can't expect what you had in those other games because they had good and smooth development processes, or those that did not have, you never heard about it, so, it didn't affect in anything the expectation of the game or its image.

How do all these mobile games survive?

Are you trying to compare the cost of a mobile game with the cost of Star Citizen? LOL

Feel free to show me some research that shows how once a game is released, the whales all of a sudden stop paying

Because its obvious? You don't need a research for that. Its fucking obvious that if you have the possibility to acquire stuff a lot of people won't feel the need to spend their dollars on it anymore. I didn't say that ALL the whales will stop. But most of them will.. And, in fact, the drop in the sales of their ships has been already showing that even without having the game, people are already stopping to buy insanely these assets.

So, yes. They have a lot of financial reasons to keep developing and selling hype. It summarizes in what the other guy said:

"The delays help the game because once they release then all of the dreams and fantasies of the backers will be thrown against the rocks and they will be confronted with reality. As long as they put off release then they can continue to milk the player base for as much cash as possible before reality sets in. "

I won't bother to pursuit the data again. Pursuit that yourself if you are soo interested. Or anyone else. I already know... so I don't care to convince you. But I already checked and analysed that, for example, their ship sales sell a lot less when they are flyable than they sell when offered in JPEG status. See?

I'm not saying anything about complexity. Your argument is that SC is delaying intentionally because once it releases they will not be able to maintain their game. I gave you a number of examples which show that after releasing a game, out of crowdfunding, that games see 10 TIMES the number of sales, minimum!! MINIMUM!!! Through a SINGLE distribution channel. Instead, you dismiss that data and use anecdotal evidence that isn't supported by any sort of scientific data, or any data whatsoever. You're right, though, your argument is stronger.

On top of that, their current monthly income isn't even paying their bills. At $2 million monthly, they are losing money on a monthly basis. That's just fact. Even if we were to say that EVERYONE who worked there was on linkedin (200 people) and even if we were to assume that an average salary there is $75,000 annually, that $2 million monthly is in serious jeopardy. What we know is that they actually have more than 200 people working there and even the dark prophet himself estimates that their annual costs are between $25-30 million, which means that delaying intentionally is, essentially, putting yourself in the ground. They are not profitable.

With regards to F2P games, obviously you are unable to grasp even the simplest of concepts. You claimed that the whales would simply stop buying stuff when the game releases. However, that's simply not the case, and that's not the way it works ever..... in any F2P game.... on any platform. They have entire symposiums on how to attract whales and keep them spending money on your game, because that's what they do!! Again, use this wonderful thing called the Internet... then head over to Google and start doing some actual research, because you're absolutely laughable. Oh, and your credibility isn't shot because I said it was, it's shot because you make ludicrous arguments that have absolutely no relevant data to support them.

Oh, and your "expert" analysis of ship sales is basically like saying "Toyota sells way fewer 1989 Toyota Corollas than they do 2017 Corollas." Even if you DID have the evidence about ship sales, which is highly unlikely since you claim to have it yet link nothing, any ships that are flyable have been on sale for a great deal of time already, so it wouldn't surprise me at all that their sales would be lower. They have already been purchased. If you do have a link, though, feel free to offer it up and I WILL actually do the research, because that's what I do, I don't just spout complete garbage or throw shit at the wall and hope some of it sticks.

Howdy, Stranger!

Are delays helping Star Citizen?

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Are delays helping Star Citizen?

Comments