Star Citizen Hits $49 Million, Still Needs Crowdfunding Support

[Fanghawk]

Star Citizen Hits $49 Million, Still Needs Crowdfunding Support

Star Citizen is just shy of $50 million, but needs additional funds to "sustain this level of development".

Star Citizen is the question of exactly how much money the project needs is a common one. Upon reaching the $49 million mark, Chris Roberts addressed the issue by stating that crowdfunding is essential to Star Citizen's continued development.

"We've had a lot of questions about why we still need to continue crowd funding," Roberts writes. "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."

To Roberts' credit, Star Citizen's production values are incredibly expensive, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125488-Star-Citizens-Spaceships-Are-Ridiculously-Expensive>reaching as high as $150,000 per ship. On the other hand, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130613-Star-Citizen-Dogfighting-Module-Delayed-to-Early-2014>Star Citizen has already seen delays despite its crowdfunding model, and continued timeliness is far from guaranteed.

Regardless, Roberts' plan is to scale Star Citizen's development team based on crowdfunding, assigning resources to key areas as necessary. "If we need more artists to produce additional ships, we'd like to be able to hire them," he explains. "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."

On that note, Roberts announced that instead of offering new in-game stretch goals, Star Citizen will give donors control over its production schedule. Leading up to the $51 million mark, backers are able to vote on upcoming features that would be given top priority. The current list of features is as follows:

Orgs Drop 2 - Divisions, jobs and the 3D Organizations browser.Orgs Drop 3 - Private forums for each Star Citizen Organization.Galactapedia - Your guide to the Star Citizen universe which ties directly into Star Citizen's persistent universe.Web Scoreboards - Want to see your Arena Commander history on the website, or find out how you stack up against other Citizens?Known Universe Map - An interactive map of Star Citizen's known universe which will expand along with the game.

As of writing, the Known Universe Map is currently in the lead with 54% of the vote.

Source: <a href=https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14055-Letter-From-The-Chairman>Roberts Space Industries

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[synobal]

Every time I see a story about Star Citizens crowd funding scheme the song "money for nothing" pops into my head and I google it and enjoy a few minutes listening to a good song. So good job star citizen.

 

[Jadak]

For a game launched by a kickstarter originally asking for $500,000... What in the fuck.

I'm still looking forward to the hypothetical game that may one day exist, but damn if this isn't the worst case of scope creep and 'make it up as we go' project management I've ever seen.

It's funny really, the more money this game gets the less hope I seem to have of it ending up as anything more than pretty.

 

[Slash2x]

If you have not played the Arena Commander module then I could understand why you would ask why they are taking so much money. The point is they could have been done already. They keep adding more on to the game before it comes out. They are not doing what Elite Dangerous did and just put the Alpha and Beta games out before they add all the content in. The final game is supposed to be HUGE. The irony is that the more money invested the longer the game takes.......

 

[Exterminas]

At this point I would be surprised if this turned out to be anything else than a complete disappointment. Just based on the fact that they seem to be expanding the game instead of finishing it.

 

[Xan Krieger]

If more money equals faster development then what is Valve doing with Half-life 3, giving them a penny a day? All jokes aside it's amazing what this has become, the more money you give them the more they want to add, the more they want to add the more money they need so it's an endless cycle. At what point will the developer feel that it's enough and any other stuff they want to add can be dlc or expansion packs? Funny this is making me pro-DLC but it seems it's the only way to get it released within our lifetimes.

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I'm convinced that at some point they'll release a statement that will simply be "STOP GIVING US MONEY, WE'VE GOT TOO MUCH" along with a notice that each copy of the game now comes with a stack of dollar bills.

 

[Bke]

It sounds like they seriously don't know how to manage their time and organize their development schedule. Usually you want the base game done; have the core experience hashed out as soon as possible with the fiddly extras done later (to put it in very simple terms) that way if there is a sudden need to release its not like to lose any of that core experience. From what I've seen they've still to finish the persistent world which is meant to be the main feature in which the ships will interact... cause MMO.

This just screams of poor design process, plain and simple.

 

[Kyr Knightbane]

Really? These people need MORE Money?

The game originally started as a $500,000 Kickstarter.

Now they need MORE MONEY? How about this, how about they stop wasting money on stupid Web Connectivity features and stupid social media nonsense and focus on... gee I dunno.... THE GAME


50 Mil.... Yeah i'm already starting to hate this game.


Seeing as how they already dedicated 150k per in game ship model, they need to hire new modelers. It shouldn't cost that much for a game to render an asset.

Plus what the hell happened to the last update? Where things were going so well they SKIPPED A DEVELOPMENT MODULE?!

What is wrong with people. When things are going good, you push forward, not apply the fucking brakes. If everyone did that, the Indy 500 would last 20 years.

"Oooops, i'm in first, better stop and calm down"

EDIT: Apparently I'm wrong and games cost money. Who knew?

 

[Jadak]

If you have not played the Arena Commander module then I could understand why you would ask why they are taking so much money. The point is they could have been done already. They keep adding more on to the game before it comes out. They are not doing what Elite Dangerous did and just put the Alpha and Beta games out before they add all the content in. The final game is supposed to be HUGE. The irony is that the more money invested the longer the game takes.......

And that's the problem. It's great from a "hey, that should make for a good game" perspective, but ass backwards from a practical project management standpoint. You set your goals, you complete them, then you expand.

Continually expanding a project without ever completing any one thing is quite often the number one thing people will advise you not do do. It takes longer, it costs more, and you lose the ability to intelligently plan, hence taking forever and costing a fuckton of money.

 

[Ishigami]

From my POV this ongoing crowdfunding campaign is simply sketchy.
If I recall it right CR estimated something between 30 and 40 million to realize everything he envision for SC. Now we are close to 50 million and it is still going and of course every penny still counts towards? something?
This is a PC only game and a space sim on top of that so sales probably wouldn?t be that great.
My random guess of the day is that the money collected with crowdfunding greatly surpasses the potential income by regular sales in a normal business model. This thing has become very profitable before it even launched.

Arena Commander for me was a rather sobering experience. Lucky for me with a digital scout pack I?m only in with the lowest pledge that includes a full release version. So if it crashes and burns I won?t be to heart broken.

 

[RoonMian]

Really? These people need MORE Money?

The game originally started as a $500,000 Kickstarter.

Now they need MORE MONEY? How about this, how about they stop wasting money on stupid Web Connectivity features and stupid social media nonsense and focus on... gee I dunno.... THE GAME


50 Mil.... Yeah i'm already starting to hate this game.


Seeing as how they already dedicated 150k per in game ship model, they need to hire new modelers. It shouldn't cost that much for a game to render an asset.

Plus what the hell happened to the last update? Where things were going so well they SKIPPED A DEVELOPMENT MODULE?!

What is wrong with people. When things are going good, you push forward, not apply the fucking brakes. If everyone did that, the Indy 500 would last 20 years.

"Oooops, i'm in first, better stop and calm down"

Actually it started as a two million crowdfunder outside of kickstarter to prove to investors having another 10 to 15 millions ready that there is a willing audience.

For the stuff they originally wanted in the game over time they needed all in all about 22 millions. With what they got now they did lots of things (for example established their own mocap studio) and expanded the scope which also requires a bit more time.

And also, have you any idea how detailed and elaborate each individual ship is? My personal profession is automotive engineering, I have an inkling on what development of an actual car costs. Taking away obvious stuff from that real design process since the ships are not real and all but at the same time knowing how elaborate the ships in SC are 150k sound about right to me.

 

[Brian Tams]

I'm assuming that the company coke buckets have run dry again, and need to be refilled.

Seriously, at some point they have to competent enough to say "Enough is enough" and stick with a single vision. At this point the game is going to risk spiraling out of control and turning into a mess.

 

[William Fleming]

If we give you more money, do promise not to throw it at more stuff your game honestly does not need right now. Seriously, finish up development with everything you have now and release then use profit from sales to fund everything you want to throw in for good measure.

No more feature creep, okay?

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Wake me up from cryogenic sleep when the game is released, is seen by all as the biggest masterpiece and actually made money from being released other than simply begging for more cash because at this point the game is just piling on more and more promises that still have yet to be fully realised.

Then again if it flops it will be probably the biggest lesson to the games industry as a whole and this time it won't be from the likes of EA, MS or SOny let alone Nintendo, probably a lesson that's needed anyway.

 

[lacktheknack]

Dammit, Escapist, I was going to have a Surprise $50M Funded thread, but you've gone and ruined it.

That said,

On that note, Roberts announced that instead of offering new in-game stretch goals, Star Citizen will give donors control over its production schedule. Leading up to the $51 million mark, backers are able to vote on upcoming features that would be given top priority.

FINALLY! THE INCREASINGLY TERRIFYING SCOPE-CREEP COMES TO AN END. I guess he realized that he was never going to top "Actual learnable language developed by linguists for the three main alien races".

EDIT: More people demanding they stop feature creep? Under the OP that freaking says that they are, and how?

Reading the OP: For chumps.

 

[jpoon]

So long as it keeps ALL publishers far the fuck away from this game, I care not. Let them make their own game, no need to complain about them funding themselves when PEOPLE WANT THIS GAME TO HAPPEN. Let it go folks, let the devs dev, and let us all enjoy a good space sim in a couple years.

 

[Daemascus]

Really? These people need MORE Money?

The game originally started as a $500,000 Kickstarter.

Now they need MORE MONEY? How about this, how about they stop wasting money on stupid Web Connectivity features and stupid social media nonsense and focus on... gee I dunno.... THE GAME


50 Mil.... Yeah i'm already starting to hate this game.


Seeing as how they already dedicated 150k per in game ship model, they need to hire new modelers. It shouldn't cost that much for a game to render an asset.

Plus what the hell happened to the last update? Where things were going so well they SKIPPED A DEVELOPMENT MODULE?!

What is wrong with people. When things are going good, you push forward, not apply the fucking brakes. If everyone did that, the Indy 500 would last 20 years.

"Oooops, i'm in first, better stop and calm down"

The last update was last week, with patch 12.5 which fixed many problems with the multilayer for Arena Commander, and a much larger patch/update in the works for around Gamescom. And its not 150k per each model, that's the average for a game complete ship. A 1000 meter ship like the Bengal Carrier takes a lot more work than the fighters. And its not like they are asking for money, they have had polls about stretch goals and even having the dollar total available to see.