Star Citizen, Roberts Space Industries - Chris Roberts' life support and retirement fund [2012-]

[eastmen]

So i finally tried this again and I have to say its improved quite a bit.

1) There is a tutorial which is pretty decent but can still use some work.

2) The game doesn't crash on me every play session now

3) The FPS is better... still not great but better than before. In stations I still lag but out in space I get 60fps


The newest patch added a bunch more content.

If they keep going like this I could see them having a game in the next 5 years.

 

[hughJ]

I wonder how bus-proof that operation is. I think my one big reservation of the never-ending development is their ability to cope with losing key people and not have the project backslide or implode. People die, people lose interest, people retire.

Kind of funny to imagine that they conceivably have people whom were first hired as juniors fresh out of school and they've since risen to a senior or leadership position -- like some kind of game dev equivalent of Starship Troopers. Perhaps that's not necessarily unheard of in the context of MMOs/GaaS that have decade+ lifespans.

 

[eastmen]

I wonder how bus-proof that operation is. I think my one big reservation of the never-ending development is their ability to cope with losing key people and not have the project backslide or implode. People die, people lose interest, people retire.

Kind of funny to imagine that they conceivably have people whom were first hired as juniors fresh out of school and they've since risen to a senior or leadership position -- like some kind of game dev equivalent of Starship Troopers. Perhaps that's not necessarily unheard of in the context of MMOs/GaaS that have decade+ lifespans.

Ultima Online came out in 97. So that is 26 years Wow was what 2002 ? So yea that seems to happen a lot in these games. I think if they are actually able to et the game working right they shouldn't have an issue even if chris roberts leave. It's already full of in game purchases

 

[cheapchips]

People die

In CIG's case, next generation development means something else entirely.

 

[milk]

Kind of funny to imagine that they conceivably have people whom were first hired as juniors fresh out of school and they've since risen to a senior or leadership position -- like some kind of game dev equivalent of Starship Troopers. Perhaps that's not necessarily unheard of in the context of MMOs/GaaS that have decade+ lifespans.

Makes me wonder how hireable such a person would be by other studios. I cant imagine having worked one's entire carrer in a single unshipped product where deadlines, scope and budget are relative to the extreme is not a massive red flag.

 

[Dictator]

Makes me wonder how hireable such a person would be by other studios. I cant imagine having worked one's entire carrer in a single unshipped product where deadlines, scope and budget are relative to the extreme is not a massive red flag.

Very hirable If you follow any CIG Alumni on. Twitter or LinkedIn (×I do!)

 

[milk]

Very hirable If you follow any CIG Alumni on. Twitter or LinkedIn (×I do!)

Good for them.

 

[hughJ]

It would depend on their role I'd imagine. CIG would still have some semblance of deadlines and crunch dictated by their internal targets, so it's not like people working there would be completely undisciplined or untempered from the realities of software development. I'd wager that there'd be a bigger culture shock going from a place like Valve to EA than CIG to EA, and I doubt anyone is going to feel shy putting that on their resume. On the engineering side SC might be a huge boon for work experience given that a lot of the stuff they're tackling is pretty forward-looking. Even if CIG never reaches their destination, the knowledge acquired in the attempt should carry forward to other projects via their employees.

The one silver lining of Moore/Dennard plateauing is that they're not exposed to the Duke Nukem Forever effect where their technology and design aspirations have a very limited shelf life. The problem set and solution set that CIG was working on 5 years ago are still going to be relevant today, and probably even 5-10 years from now. To their credit they managed to avoid drinking too much VR kool-aid during that hype bubble to have it commandeer their tech choices. Likewise Stadia/streaming. Likewise RTX/RT.

Not hard to imagine that without their financial independence that somewhere along the way they'd have ended up partnering with (or acquired by) a platform holder and everything interesting about the project would have been gutted in the name of catering to a broader market.

 

[cheapchips]

Not hard to imagine that without their financial independence that somewhere along the way they'd have ended up partnering with (or acquired by) a platform holder and everything interesting about the project would have been gutted in the name of catering to a broader market.

Hard to see MS going anywhere near Roberts after Freelancer.

 

[Seanspeed]

Not hard to imagine that without their financial independence that somewhere along the way they'd have ended up partnering with (or acquired by) a platform holder and everything interesting about the project would have been gutted in the name of catering to a broader market.

Pretty sure every professional software business in the gaming world understands that Chris Roberts is a disaster and to stay the F away. It's only naive gamers and people who dont understand 'sunk cost fallacy' that are keeping Star Citizen a semi-viable project. In any reasonable situation, this whole game would have been cancelled a long time ago, or at least released in a terrible, barely functional state that didn't remotely live up to what it was promising.

 

[hughJ]

Also desperate gamers. In a world where every big budget project necessitates making games for the lowest common denominator, the only place to put your money are crowd-funded projects. In the case of Star Citizen people seem to be getting value from the project even before it's finished, so it's not like there's zero return. I have no idea what the story is for the whales regularly sinking large sums of money into it, but the world is filled with expensive hobbies/vices that seem absurd from outside. It makes no more or less sense to me than those who sink money into magic cards, warhammer figurines, etc.

For whatever it's worth: I only bought into SC a couple years ago for whatever the basic package was. Whether I see anything more from it doesn't particularly bother me. I don't think I've played a Roberts game since Wing Commander 4, and have no real attachment to him as a developer beyond WC1-4. I don't follow CIG/SC updates, and only fire up SC maybe once a year. Even as an incomplete project that I hardly ever engage with it's at the very least something I find interesting, which puts him at a higher rung than pretty much every major western studio for me.

 

[eastmen]

Hard to see MS going anywhere near Roberts after Freelancer.

I don't fully agree. Ms could make a deal for SQ42 on the xbox or perhaps even the PU but I think that would come after SQ42 actually releases to PC.

I'm guessing the series X could run this resonably well and maybe even the S as this game seems to be largely cpu bound.

 

[cheapchips]

I don't fully agree. Ms could make a deal for SQ42 on the xbox or perhaps even the PU but I think that would come after SQ42 actually releases to PC.

They'd be mad to before that release, after, think that'd be fair enough. It's a very hypothetical scenario.

A console port would be a cost challenge I'd have thought, even if they had a finished game? Their branch of Cryengine/Lumberyard is a fair distance from a console compatible variant.

 

[eastmen]

They'd be mad to before that release, after, think that'd be fair enough. It's a very hypothetical scenario.

A console port would be a cost challenge I'd have thought, even if they had a finished game? Their branch of Cryengine/Lumberyard is a fair distance from a console compatible variant.

I mean I have been playing the game for about 8 years now on hardware far behind the current gen consoles. So I don't see it being a huge issue moving it over to either the series or ps5 hardware. I think it would take a lot of optimization which I hope they are already doing for SQ42.

I think there is two senarios that can happen.

1) SQ42 releases prior to next gen console hardware. That means the game will likely run well enough on Ryzen 3x00 series parts and RDNA 2 even if its on the lower end of settings. They have a lot of people who have invested a lot in this game. I doubt they want to come out and say oh yea game is launching Holiday 2025 and you need a 5000 series geforce and 8000 series radeon to run it.

2) SQ42 releases around or after next gen consoles. At that point the new consoles should be able to run the game just fine. With this according to MS they would have another 4 years to get the game done lol

 

[eastmen]

New refer a friend special going on now. Add that to the current sale on starter ships



If anyone is interested in signing up , make sure you use a friends referral or ask someone here for theirs. Both get that speeder

 

[tuna]

It's only naive gamers and people who dont understand 'sunk cost fallacy' that are keeping Star Citizen a semi-viable project. In any reasonable situation, this whole game would have been cancelled a long time ago, or at least released in a terrible, barely functional state that didn't remotely live up to what it was promising.

I know people who enjoy playing SC. Have you tried it?

 

[Seanspeed]

I know people who enjoy playing SC. Have you tried it?

I keep close tabs on it. I'm a giant sci-fi and space fan. Star Citizen was very obviously a 'dream game' for many of us.

But no, I haven't actually played it. I did actually buy a code for a basic package a long time ago, but I'm largely not a fan of 'early access' sort of things and eventually sold it on. I wanted to experience the full game when it came out and it was in an especially poor and limited state back then. This was back in like 2016.

I completely stand by what I said. Anybody who has any decent grasp on what is involved in game development can see the absolute catastrophe that is Star Citizen from a mile away. And to be clear, I think Star Citizen could have a 1.0 release that makes *some* people happy. After all, you dont get $600+ million in crowdfunding without a large contingent of impossible-to-reason-with sunk cost fallacy types that will tell you everything smells great no matter what. I similarly have a morbid interest in memestock cultists, who portray a similar lack of ability to grasp reality and rely on toxic positivity to keep morale up in the community.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

I don't fully agree. Ms could make a deal for SQ42 on the xbox or perhaps even the PU but I think that would come after SQ42 actually releases to PC.

I'm guessing the series X could run this resonably well and maybe even the S as this game seems to be largely cpu bound.

Squadron 42 and the MP are definitely appearing on Xbox and Playstation. The question is whether Star Citizen is appearing on either. It's an MMO and that 30% console tax is a lot to ask for that. If one or the other offered to cut it to 15% or so, maybe for console exclusivity, then that's something we might see.

 

[hughJ]

Have you tried it?

If it were a company making model railroad kits the onlookers wouldn't feel nearly as outraged because they'd feel no sense of ownership or entitlement to that space. The fact that it's a game (or at least game-adjacent) leads to a lot of strong opinions. You see a very similar kind of salt from people when they find out how much flightsim DLC, plugins, and hardware kits cost. What they won't tell you is that they don't play the genre. In the case of Star Citizen the obvious question is how much time they have logged in Elite Dangerous. After some prodding you find out they don't even own a hotas.

 

[eastmen]

Squadron 42 and the MP are definitely appearing on Xbox and Playstation. The question is whether Star Citizen is appearing on either. It's an MMO and that 30% console tax is a lot to ask for that. If one or the other offered to cut it to 15% or so, maybe for console exclusivity, then that's something we might see.

The PU is supposed to be free with no subscription.

So the question is what's worth more? The ps5/xbox series install base or that 30% transaction fee.

Also MS may be more amendable to a lower fee https://www.thurrott.com/games/pc-gaming/249608/microsoft-eases-fees-for-pc-game-developers