That’s all thanks to you, Star Citizen’s backers. We’ve had a lot of questions about why we still need to continue crowd funding. The answer is that that money is letting Star Citizen tackle longer term features and content sooner than we normally would. To sustain this level of development, we need to keep bringing in additional funds. Star Citizen is still much less than the other published backed AAA games that have similar levels of ambition (some would even say a little less :-) ) like GTA V, Watch Dogs or Destiny.
We know that Star Citizen is an incredibly ambitious project, after all its basically several high fidelity AAA games all rolled into one; a MMO Space Sim, a First Person Shooter, a rich Single Player story and a fully-fledged Trading and Economy game. I’m pretty sure this level of ambition is why the majority of you backed. If I had pitched Star Citizen to a typical publisher, told them I wanted all these features and wanted to make it just for a PC I would have been laughed out of the room. (Of course, you all showed publishers that a AAA space sim for the PC is no laughing matter!)
Our plan is to scale the team based on the crowd funding, with the goal to be able to double down on development wherever it’s possible to do so. If we need more artists to produce additional ships, we’d like to be able to hire them. Or if we need more engineers to get a head start on some longer term technical issue before it blocks other parts of development, we want that option! It’s the new players hearing about Star Citizen and Arena Commander for the first time and jumping in as well as sales like the M50 that enable us to continue to chase our shared dream of the BDSSE to the highest fidelity. So thank you for your support.
winston149 wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:19:
Reading through the comments here, I'm kind of surprised at most. Just trolling for fun? I've followed the development of SC closely, and as far as I can tell, it seems to be pretty well on track. The core space sim technology is obviously there, and it's actually pretty fun to play around with all by itself, frankly.
[VG]Reagle wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 21:35:
Good morning. In less than an hour, I will join others from around the world supporting Star Citizen. And together we will be launching the largest crowd sourced aerial battle in the history of mankind.
"Crowd Sourcing."
That word should have new meaning for all of us today.
We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today we are once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from your very right to support the games you want to play.
You see we are fighting for our freedom to support Star Citizen. And should we win the day, then this game will no longer be known as an American game, but as the game that the world declared in one voice: "We will support this game with our donations!" We will not let it vanish without a fight! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate Star Citizen!
Zanthar wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:27:
I don't think you can judge whats going on behind the scenes in production from just a few press blurbs. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Chris Roberts has an impressive track record of delivering some awesome games back in the day.
If he doesn't deliver with SC, his career in the gaming industry will be over for good. He will lose respect and all of his achievements will become worthless. There will be no recovery from failure since he took $50mil directly from the pockets of gamers. If that's not enough motivation for him NOT to fail then he'll deserve the brutal end to his career that he will get.
Zanthar wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:27:
I don't think you can judge whats going on behind the scenes in production from just a few press blurbs. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Chris Roberts has an impressive track record of delivering some awesome games back in the day.
If he doesn't deliver with SC, his career in the gaming industry will be over for good. He will lose respect and all of his achievements will become worthless. There will be no recovery from failure since he took $50mil directly from the pockets of gamers. If that's not enough motivation for him NOT to fail then he'll deserve the brutal end to his career that he will get.
DangerDog wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:17:
Hello Star Citizen, are you not entertained!?
Even if this project fails I think I'll have gotten my $45 worth of backer pledge out of all the drama this has created.
ItBurn wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 10:26:SpectralMeat wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 10:19:ItBurn wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 10:08:I guess it wasn't obvious from my comment.SpectralMeat wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 09:43:
I kind of lost interest in this project and the amount of money it collected.
It is awesome to show off the power of PC gamers when it comes to funding to shove it in the console companies face, but at the same time I really wish he would focus on making the game instead of all the other crap he does, like those web tv things and commercials and new ship designs etc.
Sure the new ships are awesome but until you have a game to play those in it is kinda ass backwards to work on those imo.
Just like you have to build a house from the foundation up not from the roof down.
Hmm. When you make a game, a lot of things are being made a the same time. They don't just make a single ship and then move on to creating gameplay... Everything happens at the same time. As for the movies and stuff, that's a completely different source of funding. It's being funded by the subscribers who shell some money each month.
I was talking about time management, and effort being put into the game itself rather than the fluff.
They don't even know if the CryEngine will be able to handle all the shit they want to pour into this game but hey they have 2 gazillion space ships designed and modeled already.
Sure design some ships say 5-6 or whatever but have a stable base game running before add more stuff into it.
These guys go the opposite direction. They have a working toilet and doorknob in your space ship but will the CryEngine handle the scale of this game? Who cares. Let's make another pretty commercial movie for a new ship.
Ok. Well, the modelers aren't going to just stand there and do nothing all day. I'm guessing that making the ships that people paid for is a good investment of their time. Making the engine work is more of the work of programmers. I wouldn't worry about the Cryengine being able to handle it. That's why you hire programmers, so that they can do their job and develop things so that they work...
Like I said, the commercials are a side thing that don't drain resources from the main game. I mean it's a video, not 3d modeling or programming.
To reiterate, they aren't only working on doorknobs, it's just that that's easy to do and show right now.
DangerDog wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:17:
Hello Star Citizen, are you not entertained!?
Even if this project fails I think I'll have gotten my $45 worth of backer pledge out of all the drama this has created.
In other news I've somehow managed to log 22 hours into the combat test and beta version of Elite Dangerous only playing a few hours at night. That said I would recommend people to hold out for the release of Elite as it's really just a shell of core game functions that they have implemented.
winston149 wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:19:
Reading through the comments here, I'm kind of surprised at most. Just trolling for fun? I've followed the development of SC closely, and as far as I can tell, it seems to be pretty well on track. The core space sim technology is obviously there, and it's actually pretty fun to play around with all by itself, frankly.
The negativity is just bizarre. Based on the information published so far, and the state of the tech as I have seen it myself, I expect a beta test period probably next summer or autumn, and physical copies shipping on conclusion of that. What's the problem?
Star Citizen just feels more and more like Battlecruiser with way more feature creep. For the next few years or more, it's going to be entertaining to keep watching this.
Zanthar wrote on Aug 5, 2014, 14:27:
I don't think you can judge whats going on behind the scenes in production from just a few press blurbs. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Chris Roberts has an impressive track record of delivering some awesome games back in the day.
If he doesn't deliver with SC, his career in the gaming industry will be over for good. He will lose respect and all of his achievements will become worthless. There will be no recovery from failure since he took $50mil directly from the pockets of gamers. If that's not enough motivation for him NOT to fail then he'll deserve the brutal end to his career that he will get.