can someone explain the logic behind Star Citizen's anniversary sale?

[Areloch]

Keeping in mind for the claimed scope of this game (or pair of games, considering Squadron 42 is technically an independent game), 3 years isn't enough time to finish a game.

This is MMO and open world game territory. - Closest analogy would be GTA 5 in terms of scale and cost. That took 5 years, I believe. Or perhaps 6...

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the company has hired more people then it needs to use a 5 or 6 year development cycle for a similarly sized game. The game is already one of the most expensive ever made, and unless they're massively underpaying their staff they've already burned through almost all the case they had on salaries alone. At this point the game ever seeing the light of day and the company surviving the next few years is itself an open question, to say nothing of the fact that the game delivering on what it has promised is unrealistic.

Are you sure about that? I don't mean cost, I mean people.
http://www.gamechup.com/gta-5-dev-team-size-more-than-1000-manpower-dependent-on-game-detail/

GTA 5 - 1000 people is what they say they needed to make that.

CiG has about 350 employees at the moment? If anything they seem a little understaffed for the scope of their project.

But let's see if we can work out the cost factor. (just very roughly, to get a sense of things. This is far from accurate), let's say 6 years of development, with their funding being at about 100 million, they'd need to keep to about 16 million a year...

Leaving aside other expenses, they have enough to pay about $47,000 a year to 350 staff for 6 years...
If you look into typical industry pay, some people are paid much less, the highest end staff something like twice that...

It's not really that unreasonable honestly...
Not sure what it is you think game developers get paid. The pay for game developers in general has for ages hovered in the region of 70% of the industry norm for that field.

Those numbers seem plausible to me, in terms of what the pay rates would likely average out to.
Even if your lead programmer is being paid $80,000 - that could be balanced out by paying a junior artist something like $20,000
Or whatever.

Anyway, I'm not sure your claims about development team sizes or expenses really add up. Depending on what they spent, they may not have enough for 6 years, but they certainly shouldn't be in major financial trouble already, unless they have had some seriously extreme financial mismanagement...

Of course, you can't forget about needing to pay for buildings, electricity, taxes, medical coverage for each employee, etc. All of that(especially when you have multiple studios) chews up a sizable chunk of each year's budget as well, which is where the "they're likely underpaying employees" is coming from.

No idea if they're in actually in financial trouble or not, but off-the-cuff budget estimations don't paint the brightest of pictures, which is why so many people seem to be concerned.

 

[Something Amyss]

There's only two possible scenarios for Star Citizen:

A) It's gonna actually deliver on the promises, but the gigantic feature bloat will create the most expensive game ever produced in the history of the industry
B) It's gonna dissapoint in a bombastic way

I'm pretty sure some permutation of both is coming. At this point, if the game doesn't resurrect every one of our childhood pets, there will be a shitstorm.

The precarious position CIG has put themselves in is actually of more interest and more entertainment value than their game, far as I'm concerned. This sale? It just ups the stakes. CIG has been given a lot of rope. I'm waiting to see whether they create something amazing or just hang themselves.

 

[Dalisclock]

There's only two possible scenarios for Star Citizen:

A) It's gonna actually deliver on the promises, but the gigantic feature bloat will create the most expensive game ever produced in the history of the industry
B) It's gonna dissapoint in a bombastic way

I'm pretty sure some permutation of both is coming. At this point, if the game doesn't resurrect every one of our childhood pets, there will be a shitstorm.

The precarious position CIG has put themselves in is actually of more interest and more entertainment value than their game, far as I'm concerned. This sale? It just ups the stakes. CIG has been given a lot of rope. I'm waiting to see whether they create something amazing or just hang themselves.

The other thing that concerns me, other then the expectations they're now burdened with, is one of growth. They've raised something like $100 million at this point from their fan base....which presumably is being entirely spent on development. So if and when the game is finished and released, I'm not sure who they expect to buy the game. Everyone who is actually interested presumably has already kick started it(if not bought ships for it) and gaining additional fans requires it to actually meet, or even exceed expectations. And since it's an MMO, there are still persistent operating costs after the game is released, such as servers, tech support and customer service, not to mention any content updates. This is all before profit even comes into the picture.

It's possible that Star Citizen will become the most successful MMO ever and makes billions of dollars in profit. I just don't think it's likely at this point, not from a logistical point of view. Not unless it convinces a significantly large amount of people that this is the MMO for them.

I could also make a comparison to the infamous South Sea Company debacle, but for the moment I'm assuming there is an actual product and they aren't just planning to scamper off with the money. If the whole thing ends up crashing and burning, I can only imagine the sheer fan outrage(and possibly lawsuits) that will result(though I'm sure some will continue to insist it's awesome and just denounce the haters, blaming the failure in the idea that "people didn't believe in it enough")

 

[Something Amyss]

I could also make a comparison to the infamous South Sea Company debacle, but for the moment I'm assuming there is an actual product and they aren't just planning to scamper off with the money. If the whole thing ends up crashing and burning, I can only imagine the sheer fan outrage(and possibly lawsuits) that will result(though I'm sure some will continue to insist it's awesome and just denounce the haters, blaming the failure in the idea that "people didn't believe in it enough")

And I mean, that's the thing, innit? Even if we assume the absolute best intentions (and I'll do so until we see evidence to the contrary), this model seems naive at best and untenable at worst. They may have the purest and noblest of intentions, but I just don't see how they can turn it into something workable.

But maybe they do.

In the meanwhile, I'm gonna keep my eyes glued on those two trains getting closer.

Spoiler: dis gun be gud

 

[CrystalShadow]

Keeping in mind for the claimed scope of this game (or pair of games, considering Squadron 42 is technically an independent game), 3 years isn't enough time to finish a game.

This is MMO and open world game territory. - Closest analogy would be GTA 5 in terms of scale and cost. That took 5 years, I believe. Or perhaps 6...

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the company has hired more people then it needs to use a 5 or 6 year development cycle for a similarly sized game. The game is already one of the most expensive ever made, and unless they're massively underpaying their staff they've already burned through almost all the case they had on salaries alone. At this point the game ever seeing the light of day and the company surviving the next few years is itself an open question, to say nothing of the fact that the game delivering on what it has promised is unrealistic.

Are you sure about that? I don't mean cost, I mean people.
http://www.gamechup.com/gta-5-dev-team-size-more-than-1000-manpower-dependent-on-game-detail/

GTA 5 - 1000 people is what they say they needed to make that.

CiG has about 350 employees at the moment? If anything they seem a little understaffed for the scope of their project.

But let's see if we can work out the cost factor. (just very roughly, to get a sense of things. This is far from accurate), let's say 6 years of development, with their funding being at about 100 million, they'd need to keep to about 16 million a year...

Leaving aside other expenses, they have enough to pay about $47,000 a year to 350 staff for 6 years...
If you look into typical industry pay, some people are paid much less, the highest end staff something like twice that...

It's not really that unreasonable honestly...
Not sure what it is you think game developers get paid. The pay for game developers in general has for ages hovered in the region of 70% of the industry norm for that field.

Those numbers seem plausible to me, in terms of what the pay rates would likely average out to.
Even if your lead programmer is being paid $80,000 - that could be balanced out by paying a junior artist something like $20,000
Or whatever.

Anyway, I'm not sure your claims about development team sizes or expenses really add up. Depending on what they spent, they may not have enough for 6 years, but they certainly shouldn't be in major financial trouble already, unless they have had some seriously extreme financial mismanagement...

Of course, you can't forget about needing to pay for buildings, electricity, taxes, medical coverage for each employee, etc. All of that(especially when you have multiple studios) chews up a sizable chunk of each year's budget as well, which is where the "they're likely underpaying employees" is coming from.

No idea if they're in actually in financial trouble or not, but off-the-cuff budget estimations don't paint the brightest of pictures, which is why so many people seem to be concerned.

Well, yes, there are other costs no doubt. Still, it's very hard to reliably judge these expenses. So much wiggle room one way or another depending on the details of what they've been paying for, and lots of other stuff that is just plain unpredictable from the outside...

Still, knowing the budget for GTA 5 was said to be about 150 million (not sure if that included marketing or not), and involved 1000+ people, and apparently took about 5-6 years...
If you were to calculate that with rough ballpark figures you could still wonder how they managed...

Problem is, this stuff being the way it is, at the end of the day the only way to reliably know they are in trouble would be for the project to actually collapse.

Doubts can continue for however long the development keeps going, the only certainty would be if something happens one way or another. (the project completes, or falls apart.)

Anyway... So... Yes. Who knows? And perhaps, that, more so than anything, is the real problem...
Uncertainty.