Star Citizen Stretch Goals Are "Examples" Of Where the Money Goes

[Andy Chalk]

Star Citizen Stretch Goals Are "Examples" Of Where the Money Goes

As Star Citizen hits $28 million, creator Chris Roberts says the crowdfunding stretch goals are "examples" of what's being done with the money.

Star Citizen continues to bring in ridiculous amounts of money from "the crowd" and has now topped the $28 million mark, meaning that yet another stretch goal has been reached: the Mustang, a personal spacecraft produced by Roberts Space Industries competitor Consolidated Outland. The Mustang will be available as a starting ship alongside the Aurora, offering superior speed and power at the expense of cargo space, weapon hardpoints and stability.

In a message announcing the $28 million achievement, Roberts clarified that it does not in fact cost a million dollars to design a new starship for the game, or to accomplish a lot of other stretch goals that have come and gone. They're "examples," he said, of "one big thing we will be doing with some of the money."

"Every additional million means that we're hiring additional artists and programmers, equipping the team with better development tools and increasing the size of the talented outsource groups being trusted with aspects of Star Citizen's development," Roberts wrote. "Every dollar improves the project. That isn't as sexy as spending large amounts of money on impressive, headline-grabbing stretch goals... but it means a significantly better game in the end."

To reflect that fact, Roberts said that instead of promising specific new features, money from the next several stretch goals will simply go to "improving all aspects of Star Citizen's development," with the addition of new ships from each of the game's "big manufacturers" as milestone rewards.

Source: Roberts Space Industries [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13382-Letter-From-The-Chairman-28-Million]


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[lacktheknack]

As they should be. I'd be disappointed if all the extra money was only going to one feature.

Is... Is this actually something that people thought was happening?

 

[JamesBr]

As they should be. I'd be disappointed if all the extra money was only going to one feature.

Is... Is this actually something that people thought was happening?

While it was probably hyperbole, yes, a lot of people have been complaining about "millions of dollars spent on a ship model" for some weird reason, showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the development process.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

As they should be. I'd be disappointed if all the extra money was only going to one feature.

Is... Is this actually something that people thought was happening?

Yes. It's the reason why most not-a-star-citizen-fans think the kickstarter is the greediest grubbiest money-grab/scam to ever reach the earth.

I always thought it was odd they never talked about what was going into the game outside of a spaceship here, another one there. I understand that the diehard fans follow it closer than some of us, but the only big news to ever come out of the game is "Oh we made a new model." Woop-dee-do, I've seen starving art students make similar models and a ton faster. The company is purposely obtuse with its press releases (most are in character with RSI) and it's actually turned my interest off because I can't ever for the life of me figure out what it is the game is about past "It's a space sim, you do simmy simmy spacey things."

 

[lacktheknack]

While it was probably hyperbole, yes, a lot of people have been complaining about "millions of dollars spent on a ship model" for some weird reason, showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the development process.

Yes. It's the reason why most not-a-star-citizen-fans think the kickstarter is the greediest grubbiest money-grab/scam to ever reach the earth.

Hrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnng! D:<

I always thought it was odd they never talked about what was going into the game outside of a spaceship here, another one there. I understand that the diehard fans follow it closer than some of us, but the only big news to ever come out of the game is "Oh we made a new model." Woop-dee-do, I've seen starving art students make similar models and a ton faster. The company is purposely obtuse with its press releases (most are in character with RSI) and it's actually turned my interest off because I can't ever for the life of me figure out what it is the game is about past "It's a space sim, you do simmy simmy spacey things."

Well, the Wikia has 522 pages right now, so I imagine fans have gleaned the good stuff if you want to read it.

http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

 

[Product Placement]

Now, guys, hear me out. I know this may sound ridiculous and all but isn't it possible that this game has received enough funding?

By now, Star Citizen has gathered enough development funds to rival the budget cost of most AAA games (yeah, I've heard how much GTA5 cost but Rockstar owns like 3 out of top 5 most expensive game budgets; they kinda like to throw allot of money at their things).

Edit: With this, I'm not claiming that this game is...

the greediest grubbiest money-grab/scam to ever reach the earth.

...I'm merely stating that the game has a very healthy amount of funds that grants Chris Roberts all the financial freedom he wants with this game and that your money could be better spent funding other promising projects.

You know... that whole "starving children in Africa" fallacy.

 

[lacktheknack]

Now, guys, hear me out. I know this may sound ridiculous and all but isn't it possible that this game has received enough funding?

By now, Star Citizen has gathered enough development funds to rival the budget cost of most AAA games (yeah, I've heard how much GTA5 cost but Rockstar owns like 3 out of top 5 most expensive game budgets; they kinda like to throw allot of money at their things).

Edit: With this, I'm not claiming that this game is...

the greediest grubbiest money-grab/scam to ever reach the earth.

...I'm merely stating that the game has a very healthy amount of funds that grants Chris Roberts all the financial freedom he wants with this game and that your money could be better spent funding other promising projects.

You know... that whole "starving children in Africa" fallacy.

We know.

But if I decided that I want to play Star Citizen when it comes out (I'm getting very close), then they'll have another wad of money. That's how it works.

Funding other projects doesn't get me a copy of Star Citizen.

 

[cerebus23]

Each person has to decide what a project is worth to them.

Some of you it is clearly not worth it.

Still who cares? I know some people hate kickstarter with a passion, and there is no argument from me about it needing more safeguards and oversite. But games from major studios run around the 100 million mark, now these are big lumbering corporations with all sorts of overhead, all these project or most of them i should say are smaller scale and should use money more efficiently.

At lest with a project like this you can see where the money is going and i do not think anyone has any right to complain. This is one of the projects that is simply above board, one of the projects ks was made for.

How many space sims are there really? How many has EA, MS, ubi, so on made over the years? oh thats right hardly any. You got X series but is so niche it is barely known outside the fans of the series, and the last x i played was hardly HD even modded to hell and back it did not look that shiny.

SO we have about 20 years of major publishers shunning space sims, flight sims, why because it does not fit on a xbox 360 controller? Where back int he day the pc landscape had any number of high quality sims out there janes, micropose, even microsoft, wing commander, freelancer, then nothing.

You can say that most of what SC got was 20 years of lack of quality games for simmers. So 28 million seems low to me.

Any space sim fans out there you should check out diaspora, the bsg mod by the former beyond the red line team, it is not full on sim but it gets the feel of the show right, combat is heart pumping amazing, very very much worth a look if you are into space or flight sims.

 

[Product Placement]

But if I decided that I want to play Star Citizen when it comes out (I'm getting very close), then they'll have another wad of money. That's how it works.

Funding other projects doesn't get me a copy of Star Citizen.

But you see, now you're talking about sales profits and that's what it's starting to sound like. You're no longer interested in funding a game, in order to visualize a dream. You want to buy the game because it sounds awesome.

So why not call it what it really is, a pre-order?

But games from major studios run around the 100 million mark,

That's usually counting the excessively bloated marketing department.

 

[lacktheknack]

But if I decided that I want to play Star Citizen when it comes out (I'm getting very close), then they'll have another wad of money. That's how it works.

Funding other projects doesn't get me a copy of Star Citizen.

But you see, now you're talking about sales profits and that's what it's starting to sound like. You're no longer interested in funding a game, in order to visualize a dream. You want to buy the game because it sounds awesome.

So why not call it what it really is, a pre-order?

Because their budget isn't set yet.

But hey, I have no problems with calling it a pre-order. That's the only reason it's still getting money.

 

[Product Placement]

To be fair. I'm perfectly fine with people donating as much money as they want to this project. Hell I played the Wing Commander series to death and loved it. I understand why people trust this man with making a good space sim.

It's just that good games don't need a 100 million dollar budgets, contrary to what big studios like to claim sometimes.

 

[JamesBr]

To be fair. I'm perfectly fine with people donating as much money as they want to this project. Hell I played the Wing Commander series to death and loved it. I understand why people trust this man with making a good space sim.

It's just that good games don't need a 100 million dollar budgets, contrary to what big studios like to claim sometimes.

It should be noted that this games doesn't come close to $100m. Even if you took a bloated marketing budget, I can't imagine a whole lot of companies actually pay three times the cost of the game in advertisement. I mean, GTA V had a $137m development budget to its $120m marketing budget. $28m for development is just not that much for a AAA game.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

While it was probably hyperbole, yes, a lot of people have been complaining about "millions of dollars spent on a ship model" for some weird reason, showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the development process.

Yes. It's the reason why most not-a-star-citizen-fans think the kickstarter is the greediest grubbiest money-grab/scam to ever reach the earth.

Hrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnng! D:<

I always thought it was odd they never talked about what was going into the game outside of a spaceship here, another one there. I understand that the diehard fans follow it closer than some of us, but the only big news to ever come out of the game is "Oh we made a new model." Woop-dee-do, I've seen starving art students make similar models and a ton faster. The company is purposely obtuse with its press releases (most are in character with RSI) and it's actually turned my interest off because I can't ever for the life of me figure out what it is the game is about past "It's a space sim, you do simmy simmy spacey things."

Well, the Wikia has 522 pages right now, so I imagine fans have gleaned the good stuff if you want to read it.

http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Nononono, you see that's the problem. I don't want to read 522 pages just to see if I want to get involved in the game, that is for after someone chooses to take the plunge. The only thing gleemable from the videos is that there are a few different ships you can fly and that they use realistic space physics. What is needed isn't a comprehensive and exhaustive list of everything in the game.

It would just be nice to see a summary somewhere stating
1. Who are you in game
2. What is your purpose? (or choosable purposes) It sounds like there's a single player campaign and essentially a sandbox MMO, but no information on why bother playing either.
3. Why bother? Is there a plot? Is there player progression, and if so a few details.

These three basic questions are trivial to Wing Commander fans. All of Chris Roberts' major popular games are getting pretty old, so it's not even safe to assume that many people know what it is about or how it plays, much less that it even exists. Since his game is essentially built for wing commander fans, no one has ever simply put that info out into the nether to attract noobies, thus why everyone thinks the game is just an absurdly expensive ship modeling simulator.

I'm sure that if/when he finally finishes the game and ships it this info is going to come out either through an official PR team or straight through reviews, but if that's so until that magical "when it's ready" time comes SC is going to just be known as the Kickstarter with million dollar ships and a mismanaged budget.

 

[lacktheknack]

Nononono, you see that's the problem. I don't want to read 522 pages just to see if I want to get involved in the game, that is for after someone chooses to take the plunge. The only thing gleemable from the videos is that there are a few different ships you can fly and that they use realistic space physics. What is needed isn't a comprehensive and exhaustive list of everything in the game.

It would just be nice to see a summary somewhere stating
1. Who are you in game
2. What is your purpose? (or choosable purposes) It sounds like there's a single player campaign and essentially a sandbox MMO, but no information on why bother playing either.
3. Why bother? Is there a plot? Is there player progression, and if so a few details.

These three basic questions are trivial to Wing Commander fans. All of Chris Roberts' major popular games are getting pretty old, so it's not even safe to assume that many people know what it is about or how it plays, much less that it even exists. Since his game is essentially built for wing commander fans, no one has ever simply put that info out into the nether to attract noobies, thus why everyone thinks the game is just an absurdly expensive ship modeling simulator.

I'm sure that if/when he finally finishes the game and ships it this info is going to come out either through an official PR team or straight through reviews, but if that's so until that magical "when it's ready" time comes SC is going to just be known as the Kickstarter with million dollar ships and a mismanaged budget.

There's a FAQ page there, which answers a lot, I guess.

Also, there's an official anticipapted timeline, it's not "When It's Ready".

But to address your actual point, they haven't really targeted marketing right now because... well, they don't have a ton to market (and the game isn't complete until 2015 anyways). There's trailers out already, and the website isn't nearly as opaque as you're making it out to be, so if people are getting the wrong idea of what the game is, it's because they're too disinterested to even Google the game.

As for "Why bother?" Uh... why play any game? You can tell just by watching a trailer that you'll be flying a space ship. If you hear rumors of persistent universe, that'll act as a hook by itself. It doesn't need justification.

 

[lacktheknack]

To be fair. I'm perfectly fine with people donating as much money as they want to this project. Hell I played the Wing Commander series to death and loved it. I understand why people trust this man with making a good space sim.

It's just that good games don't need a 100 million dollar budgets, contrary to what big studios like to claim sometimes.

Well hey, I've always wanted to see what happens if you give a small company a huge budget. Maybe they'll use it really efficiently and we'll get an insane gaming classic.

 

[Product Placement]

It should be noted that this games doesn't come close to $100m. Even if you took a bloated marketing budget, I can't imagine a whole lot of companies actually pay three times the cost of the game in advertisement. I mean, GTA V had a $137m development budget to its $120m marketing budget. $28m for development is just not that much for a AAA game.

You're still comparing this to the most expensive game that has ever been developed, ever. It's 65 million dollars more expensive than it cost to make The Old republic MMO, the second most expensive game, ever. Was the Old Republic any good?

A game doesn't need a 100 million dollar budget.

 

[JamesBr]

It should be noted that this games doesn't come close to $100m. Even if you took a bloated marketing budget, I can't imagine a whole lot of companies actually pay three times the cost of the game in advertisement. I mean, GTA V had a $137m development budget to its $120m marketing budget. $28m for development is just not that much for a AAA game.

You're still comparing this to the most expensive game that has ever been developed, ever. It's 65 million dollars more expensive than it cost to make The Old republic MMO, the second most expensive game, ever. Was the Old Republic any good?

A game doesn't need a 100 million dollar budget.

Aaaaand my point remains that it doesn't have a $100m budget. It has a quarter of that with a comparatively small marketing budget cutting into it. Of course you don't need $100m, you "can" make a game on a couple hundred grand if you want. But ~$20m is not that bad, especially since most of it is being shunted to development. A lot of good games have come out of this bracket of cost (Assassin's Creed 1 & 2 come to mind) without being bloated piles of shit.

 

[slackadacka]

Nononono, you see that's the problem. I don't want to read 522 pages just to see if I want to get involved in the game, that is for after someone chooses to take the plunge. The only thing gleemable from the videos is that there are a few different ships you can fly and that they use realistic space physics. What is needed isn't a comprehensive and exhaustive list of everything in the game.

It would just be nice to see a summary somewhere stating
1. Who are you in game
2. What is your purpose? (or choosable purposes) It sounds like there's a single player campaign and essentially a sandbox MMO, but no information on why bother playing either.
3. Why bother? Is there a plot? Is there player progression, and if so a few details.

So you want to know about the game, you just don't want to read about the game to find out what you want to know. No problem! That's why forums exist.

(Star Citizen) 1. You are your own character. You can be whomever you want. You go about your business in the game and create your own story. It's a sandbox. You don't roll a character like a standard RPG. There are no skill levels or classes. If you want to live a life of piracy, or a life hunting pirates, or a life trading or smuggling, it's up to you. Whatever decisions you make within the game will come with their own set of consequences.

(Star Citizen) 2. That question is far too broad for a sandbox game. Your purpose is to exist in the game and interact within the universe. There is a lore to the game, there are different empires that exist and possibly political considerations for the individual player, but beyond that you're basically asking for the meaning of life.

(Star Citizen) 3. It's a persistent sandbox, so there is no set plot to your character unless you create one yourself. There is no leveling up skill-points or anything like that. You can obtain ships and fly them around for different purposes (fighting, transporting, exploring, etc), competing with and against other players. Your own ability will determine your success. The universe will be filled with NPC's at something like a 10:1 ratio.

(Squadron 42) 1. A pilot in the UEE Navy, kind of like in Wing Commander. Beyond that we don't really know. They want to minimize any spoilers so information is hard to come by.

(Squadron 42) 2. Not really known, but the game will probably consist of campaign(s) built on mission trees, which means your success or failure will dictate the course of the campaign. Once you complete the game, you gain UEE citizenship, leave the Navy, and can then join the persistent Star Citizen server, but you don't HAVE to play Squadron 42 in order to play Star Citizen.

(Squadron 42) 3. Why bother playing any game? If this is the type of game you think will be interesting, you might want to give it a shot. If you couldn't care any less about playing a space-sim, then it's probably not for you.

 

[UrinalDook]

It should be noted that this games doesn't come close to $100m. Even if you took a bloated marketing budget, I can't imagine a whole lot of companies actually pay three times the cost of the game in advertisement. I mean, GTA V had a $137m development budget to its $120m marketing budget. $28m for development is just not that much for a AAA game.

You're still comparing this to the most expensive game that has ever been developed, ever. It's 65 million dollars more expensive than it cost to make The Old republic MMO, the second most expensive game, ever. Was the Old Republic any good?

A game doesn't need a 100 million dollar budget.

Aaaaand my point remains that it doesn't have a $100m budget. It has a quarter of that with a comparatively small marketing budget cutting into it. Of course you don't need $100m, you "can" make a game on a couple hundred grand if you want. But ~$20m is not that bad, especially since most of it is being shunted to development. A lot of good games have come out of this bracket of cost (Assassin's Creed 1 & 2 come to mind) without being bloated piles of shit.

Not to mention that, as has already been mentioned, everyone who donates at least the eventual retail price of the game gets a copy of the game, effectively pre-ordering it. That $28m isn't just it's development budget, it also represents a portion of the game's potential revenue.

It's a weird sort of 'self-fulfilling prophecy' grey area where Star Citizen is being given the money it would have made after release, before it's been made... so that it can, in fact, get made.

In light of that, I'm not sure you can fully compare that $28m with the budget of a game financed prior to development - they sort of represent different things. Especially as I believe that $28m (and growing, of course) will also cover marketing, so even taking that figure at face value, it's probably still only half the budget for your more 'average' triple A game. Given that Star Citizen also looks to be a good deal more ambitious, focused and potentially unique than said average triple A, I really don't see a problem with how large that number is getting.

 

[SeventhSigil]

My interest in the game was at a low simmer, until recently where I started doing a little more research and realized that they would be including multi-crew starships. The idea that I can eventually purchase a medium-sized vessel, and drag along a few of my friends in multiplayer to act as helmsman and gunnery officers as we chart the galaxy... So much want for this game now. Especially when I saw a video on YouTube showing the hanger Alpha for the Constellation class ship. Super early build, not many features functional on it, but considering it's supposed to be a vessel that not only has two turrets, top and bottom ala Millenium Falcon, but even a detachable fighter craft in the cargo bay, AND the very fact that there seems to be a freaking captain's chair... SQUEE. I'm hoping that, even if later on in the games lifespan, capital ships will not only be a fascinating setpieces to visit, but ships that can be crewed and operated by players, or at least captained by player in the single player mode.

I just know that my friends and I are going to end up fighting over who gets that chair. <.<