Star Citizen Development Discussion (Is Derek Smart Right?)

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rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Squadron 42 won't be in any playable state this year. Too many things are still missing. And I can't see CIG going much further into next year. They are slow and obese.

The main game (Star Citizen) is in such bad shape that it won't attract any meaningful number of new players (new customers). You can only sell that many ships to the same people, with no real game to use them in.

Completely agree. I'm hoping that maybe SQ42 development is "sold" to a publisher that has actually produced games and can finish and release it as an entire single-player game.....and the game is at least decent. I like the story and I've like the little that we've seen of it.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Stagnation imo. They actually had a pseduo-playable game for a while, in a sandboxy environment (around the time I purchased). What happened to that?
They added more features, assets and ships to it. And it got a lot more buggier and system requirements shot up (back in the early days, you could get by with 8GB RAM and a traditional HD....now you need 16GB, an SSD, and a hope and a prayer of a stable server).
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
Completely agree. I'm hoping that maybe SQ42 development is "sold" to a publisher that has actually produced games and can finish and release it as an entire single-player game.....and the game is at least decent. I like the story and I've like the little that we've seen of it.

nobody wants to buy all that engineering debt. Why would they? They game has already been sold to everyone who cares.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
nobody wants to buy all that engineering debt. Why would they? They game has already been sold to everyone who cares.

Nah. You put Squadron 42 on consoles and it sells another million units. There is enough star power in the characters to attract some interest.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,009
417
126
Nah. You put Squadron 42 on consoles and it sells another million units. There is enough star power in the characters to attract some interest.
You are making a huge assumption that the consoles could even run a version of the game. I don't think they have the CPU or GPU horsepower to handle it, without adding a bunch of view/draw distance limits, and cutting down on the physics (however doing that would essentially be stripping a lot of the reason for the game in the first place).
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
You are making a huge assumption that the consoles could even run a version of the game. I don't think they have the CPU or GPU horsepower to handle it, without adding a bunch of view/draw distance limits, and cutting down on the physics (however doing that would essentially be stripping a lot of the reason for the game in the first place).

True. But the mo-cap of all the movie stars and the basic story could be used as a foundation for dumbed down console version. Lots of console players would love to play a video game where they're Luke Skywalker's wingman.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
Nah. You put Squadron 42 on consoles and it sells another million units. There is enough star power in the characters to attract some interest.

doubtful. Unraveling all of that mocap is a unknown. Nobody is going to risk 100 million dollars remaking a game that has already sold to everyone who cares.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273335/sales-of-the-worlds-most-popular-console-games-in-2011/

Those are the top selling games and units sold for 2017. Starcitizen isnt a known ip and corberts isnt anything to a game buyer today. The idea that it would sell the same as some of those other ips isnt reality and certainly wouldnt warrant someone buying the ip and assets from bankruptcy to make that game.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
True. But the mo-cap of all the movie stars and the basic story could be used as a foundation for dumbed down console version. Lots of console players would love to play a video game where they're Luke Skywalker's wingman.

again you dont know that state of all that mocap. There are rumors that most of it is unusable.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
plus I doubt that any of those peoples contracts say the work can be used in any other project. This would be a new project as cig will go bankrupt. Croberts et al will be rich but cig will die. Lawsuits will swing and pick over the assets but it will be done. As I was saying years ago.
 

Artorias

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2014
2,106
1,380
136
Now that I think about it Chris would fit in great at Valve. He could work on whatever he wants for however long, spend all the money in the world developing something, scrap it because it didn't meet creative expectations, restart and 10 years later not have anything of value.

There is a reason no one in the game or film industry would even considering hiring him.
 

Father Torque

Member
Aug 7, 2011
103
3
81
According to Dr. Smart , Croberts has been shopping around Star Citizen for a buyer or strategic partner / investor with no takers.

If he truely is our of money like Derek suggests, just release it on Steam as early access as a last ditch effort. He can sell a steam upgrade pack to the remaing whales.There will buy lots if impulse buyers once it is plastered all over the steam store.
 

Vivendi

Senior member
Nov 21, 2013
697
37
91
So they started developing this game six (or more?) years ago. I'm guessing a significant amount of the work they put in is outdated by now.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
So they started developing this game six (or more?) years ago. I'm guessing a significant amount of the work they put in is outdated by now.

clearly you dont know anything about game development and further more barf.
 

Vivendi

Senior member
Nov 21, 2013
697
37
91
clearly you dont know anything about game development and further more barf.

Hmm you're right that I don't know much about game development. Crazy to think that their funds could be possibly running out, they raised so much money...

Beg to differ on the barf though.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,009
417
126
Most games from established studios and teams take about 4-5 years. Factor in them building the team and studio, add old/inexperience for a lot of the main players, and they are just a little behind where I expected them to be. I really thought they should have had a shot at releasing Squadron 42 this year, but not looking like it with the number of buggy ships still at this point. Also add to it that MMOs also take the longest average to develop, with most in the 7-9 year range then continuous development afterwards to keep things exciting/new.
 

gorobei

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2007
3,654
980
136
clearly you dont know anything about game development and further more barf.

Hmm you're right that I don't know much about game development. Crazy to think that their funds could be possibly running out, they raised so much money...

Beg to differ on the barf though.
on the off chance you havent been following this thread in its entirety, he is parodying the arguments of those who defend cig on how long it is taking them to get the game out. the barf part being the regurgitated repeated phrases from cig apolgists. and yes, 6 years is very much within the perishable date of a game engine becoming outmoded (barring the outlier extended lifespan of dx9 pipeline) by new render/code/hardware improvements. duke nuken forever was in development for ~12years. they had to scrap a bunch of their builds because new gpus/render tech kept making their old build look archaic.


with the $27k legatus package, at least cig has narrowed down its grifting to squeezing funding out of just the whales.

Most games from established studios and teams take about 4-5 years. Factor in them building the team and studio, add old/inexperience for a lot of the main players, and they are just a little behind where I expected them to be. I really thought they should have had a shot at releasing Squadron 42 this year, but not looking like it with the number of buggy ships still at this point. Also add to it that MMOs also take the longest average to develop, with most in the 7-9 year range then continuous development afterwards to keep things exciting/new.
i came across the Failuretoreport vids and another channel's interview of the SunkenCostGalaxy creator, where i found out there was a clause in the initial crowdfunding agreement that if they didnt deliver sq42 in two years that there would be a full review where cig would open its accounting books so backers could see where the money went. that clause was removed on a subsequent milestone. that and roberts being in LA rather than the actual dev offices in TX is very telling.
if they cant squeeze out a single player game like 42 in 6 years, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the management.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
Most games from established studios and teams take about 4-5 years. Factor in them building the team and studio, add old/inexperience for a lot of the main players, and they are just a little behind where I expected them to be. I really thought they should have had a shot at releasing Squadron 42 this year, but not looking like it with the number of buggy ships still at this point. Also add to it that MMOs also take the longest average to develop, with most in the 7-9 year range then continuous development afterwards to keep things exciting/new.
hahahahah. no
 

Skel

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2001
6,214
659
136
Most games from established studios and teams take about 4-5 years. Factor in them building the team and studio, add old/inexperience for a lot of the main players, and they are just a little behind where I expected them to be. I really thought they should have had a shot at releasing Squadron 42 this year, but not looking like it with the number of buggy ships still at this point. Also add to it that MMOs also take the longest average to develop, with most in the 7-9 year range then continuous development afterwards to keep things exciting/new.

How many of those games have taken on as much funding as SC has? Seems to me that SC has taken on more crowd funding than most game houses make. How many other game devs have continued to sell in game assets under the guise of "donations", let alone selling for more than a car? My amusement (as I honestly don't care as much as it might seem, I'm not one of the Wounded Star Children) is that this game continues to pretend that it's normal development when it's done everything abnormal.
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
Cyberpunk 2077 was announced about the same time without ever taking a penny, and it's probably even coming out at the end of the year.