there are people who have spent 100s of thousands of dollars. they do server wipes about every 18 months. Only things that stay are the purchase items. some people who bought ships 10 years ago and those ships are not even in the game.
You can also not whale and just buy ships with in game currency. Though if wipes are pushing you off, better to wait for it to fully release, so might as well never get to play it.
One of the neat things about Star Citizen is all of those whales need people to man their ships, cant run a $3000 ship solo. Engineering and damage control alone will take a small crew at least. So I get to enjoy the game without needing to spend more than the $50 to get access to it. Just gotta find an org with chill people.
It's one of those MLM scams where you have to buy product to work your way up the chain and once you've spent enough money they give you access to the special store where they sell the $15k ship packages.
Here's the article about the $48,000 bundle available to anyone who has spent $10,000 on the in-game store.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who holds grudges against my past self for comparatively low investments. Some purchases just make you mad when you think of them and I'm sure Star Citizen has plenty of those.
It’s not and “alpha” no matter what they say because alpha is the playable build of a game a developer intends to finish. They don’t intend to finish Star Citizen because they’ll keep printing money by never finishing it.
It’s not a “scam” in the Theranos sense, but it’s not a pc game either. It’s a whale-driven monetization machine that makes more money by never finishing. Selling $1,000–$3,000 virtual ships, keeping the project in permanent “alpha,” and endlessly expanding scope removes all delivery pressure. Alpha becomes a shield. Bugs, wipes, missing systems, everything is excused.
There is a playable build, and real dev work happens. That’s why it’s not a technical “scam.” But the business model is selling aspiration, status, and belief, not a completed product. Development is literally never ending by design, because completion would harden expectations and shut off the money.
i'm confused. i play star citizen and i feel like they are losing *potential* money because the game is so buggy and incomplete. this isnt some big brained strategy to intentionally handicap the game to make _more money_ because that makes zero sense.
it's just incompetence with people who have sunk cost fallacy and want it to succeed real bad.
This is it. Anyone who knew Chris Roberts' history called this when Star Citizen first got off the ground. You can find posts back in 2012 absolutely calling it out and saying a finished game would never release. As long as Roberts is in charge, a finished game never will be released, because it will never be finished in his estimation. He's never gotten a game out the door without threat of being fired (and he was fired at least once, from the Freelancer project). Now that he's calling the shots, nobody can, so the bank account either runs dry or he dies.
Freelancer is one of my favorite games of the 00’s, and as much as what’s there is substantially pared back from what was promised, it’s because his goals for the game just weren’t feasible. His development process is similar to how gas expands to fill its container. Without hard limits he’ll just keep adding shit.
Molyneux is a hype man who promises things to be in games that release and aren’t nearly as ambitious as the marketing material. Roberts is more the living avatar of feature and scope creep and has largely resolved to die at the helm of this title before it can fully release
And Garriot, and Romero, and all the other people who went from directing games in the 80’s and had their big ideas run into the actual economies of putting them together. I don’t think any of them pitched their shit trying to defraud people, I think that they thought that they would be able to scale their ideas with the existing tech and didn’t miss that the requirements on the human side would actually outpace what the technology could do.
It makes sense when you look at the games they used to make, too! Look at anything Molyneux made with bullfrog and you can see how he would expect technology would just keep letting him deliver bigger and bigger ideas. In the early 90’s, Magic Carpet would sound like insane bullshit but he went and did it in like 94.
Gosh Freelancer makes me irrationally angry. Not the game itself, but the fact that nobody has been able to replicate that game's controls since. Is it really so hard to add a button that makes your ship continue flying by inertia in a straight line while allowing you to turn around freely?
I didn't know his history and was reading his wiki and ending up finding this post. His wiki is more interesting than what he puts out (or promises to eventually put out, rather).
It's honestly impressive how fun Freelancer was despite its numerous flaws (and unfinished content). Ship balance was almost entirely linear and the single player story gives you a high powered ship almost for free to ensure you can finish the game. Exploring it in multiplayer with friends was a lot of fun even though you ultimately end up using one of several ships because everything else was just vastly inferior.
I think the last time I played it was a decade ago and with a lot of player-made mods it was considerably better but nothing short of a full remake will ever fix the fact that it's a game that very clearly only got shipped in a "finished" state because someone was holding Roberts' leash since he'd still be working on the game otherwise.
I want it to succeed because it has the potential to be the best space game to date but I just don't think it will ever reach that status realistically. It is interesting to see how they became filthy rich by tricking people into thinking Pixels in an alpha are rare and worth 1,000s of dollars.
You’re assuming they’re trying to make money like a normal finished game. That’s the disconnect.
Star Citizen doesn’t rely on mass adoption, reviews, or release sales. It relies on a relatively small group of whales who are already invested. For that audience, bugs and incompleteness don’t stop spending because “it’s alpha” explains everything. That excuse only works while the game is unfinished.
Finishing the game would actually increase expectations and accountability. Features would have to converge, scope would have to be cut, and people would judge the final product instead of the promise. Infinite development keeps the funding narrative alive.
Also, “losing potential money” doesn’t matter when you’re already printing money. They’ve raised hundreds of millions selling virtual ships. They don’t need mass-market success. They need continued belief from people already bought in.
When? I expected that to happen 10 years ago. And 5 years ago. SC is almost cultlike. People are way to invested at this point. Anyone from the outside sees a perpetual early access game that might never come out and even if has no way to live up to the expactations of 15 years or so of development. But that doesn't seem to matter, the funding keeps going, the promises keep getting bigger. Financially they have zero reason to actually release a game.
How are they losing "potential" money when they made over a billion already. The potential is in keeping it in whatever state it is that is able to generate that kind of income. If they finish the game or change anything up too much they are potentially gonna lose money.
It has long been apparent that the monetisation model set up an incentive structure that is built on it not being released.
Adding to what you said, there is an anachronistic aspect to game development compared to other art forms. Largely they are judged more on the quality of the product and marketing. Films are different - people will watch Nolan, Cameron, Villneuve etc. regardless and the totality of control they have often ensures quality of the film based only on the name of the director. Similar with musicians, book authors etc. - you can be largely sure that if you enjoyed their previous work, you will enjoy the new one. And the purchase risk is low if you don't. And they are not pieces of art that need to offer tens of hours of value.
Games are not like this. They are too collaborative and require more creativity for each new project. A sequel cannot just be a continuation of the story but it has to "improve" on the core of the game - the gameplay. A great dev might make a create souls-like but they can't repeat the trick without it being significantly different. And just because they cracked one particular version of a genre it doesn't mean they can have success elsewhere.
So there is never a guarantee that one development house will produce multiple hits let alone in different topics/genres. It happens but it's rare. And typically it takes a huge amount of time and development resource to ensure it. Just look at the length of a development cycle at Valve or Rockstar.
And yet, companies (which these devs are) employ people, need to retain talent and would want (like any other company) predictable, secure, long-term income. These realities are odds.
Enter Star Citizen and they have succeeding in everything you could want from a games company. Except the game.
And there is every incentive for them to keep it like this for as long as they can.
I just wonder what these people get after dropping thousands on ships that will never matter because the game will never release after being finished. Do they just have a picture of it in their office or wallet? Just seems like I'd experience buyers regret at some point and request a refund.
See the thing is you can't even buy those ships. They're sold in limited quantities during specific events and are all sold out in seconds. We got whales doing f5 wars to spend money on ships the aren't even released yet.
With that said. It's a pretty cool game. Amazing, when it works, which recently has actually been a lot more often than it used to.
Depends on the shard you join and where you go. If you're mining in the glaciem ring, you're unlikely to find anyone even in a busy server. If you're going to a contested zone in ruin station (a pvp hotspot right now), even the low population servers are gonna be busy.
Some spots are designed to bring people together (not always in a co operative manner). Others are not.
Please understand that tastes and opinions vary. I personally have put in more hours than that but I don't think more than 20 were fun, there's just not that much novel to do right now and most gameplay there is can be done better by other games that are complete.
Yeah. In my other comment I mentioned I have over 70 hours in game. But I’d rather set other people’s expectations low, especially when it comes to Star Citizen.
but people have told me the bugs are unplayable. Do you disagree?
The most correct answer to that is it depends. Right now the majority of bugs are annoying, but there are very, very few that are actually game-breaking. However, patch-to-patch, the state of bugs in the game shifts. Some patches are really good and the game works really well. Other patches will break half the shit that worked in the previous patch.
The bigger problem I think is that the new player experience sucks ass and there's precious little help or direction about how to work around the existing bugs. When you know how to work around them the majority of them are an annoyance. If you don't, then the game is likely to be downright frustrating. If you've got a lot of tolerance for asking in chat or whatever about how to handle certain issues when they crop up, you'll probably get something out of it. If things not working exactly as they're supposed to 50% of the time annoys the fuck out of you, avoid Star Citizen.
If you've got a lot of tolerance for working around nagging issues and the occasional one that can be downright frustrating, give it a shot.
A simple example of a bug that I find annoying but not game breaking: Since patch 4.4, computer terminals sometimes freeze. The solution is just to back away to "exit" the terminal, then go back to it. It's not game breaking by any means but it's annoying. Another, is that on a slower server the inventory screen can be slow to catch up. So you'll move something into or out of inventory, and it takes 5-10 seconds for the UI to catch up and properly register it. There's lots of little bugs like that. Not game breaking but annoying.
Honestly as someone who tries to stuff way too many mods into one run of a game, sounds like I could probably tolerate this. Thank you for your in depth thoughts on the matter.
It’s definitely not unplayable, and the game offers what is likely the most gorgeous space flight simulation out there. Your ship actually feels like your own personal vessel, with tons of customization. What i recommend is spending the bare minimum on it, and enjoying the game for what it’s worth (which imo is no more than $40). The game begins to feel very hollow and janky if you start to really invest time into it, but what it does well, it does very well.
Just wait for the next Free Fly event. They have one like ~3-4 times a year. During Free Fly you get quite a few starter ships of various classes to try different career loops. Game is entirely free for like a week during the events. Servers usually go to shit due to number of people playing, but it’s definitely playable majority of free fly events. Just be on the lookout.
My advice is actually to just buy it when it's not super busy. Wait like a week or two from now and it should be a good time. Try it out, ask for help in chat, ask to try ships, etc. Avoid USA servers if you find the chat is just talking politics.
If you don't like it, just ask for a refund in the 30 day window.
If you want a referral code, DM me. I can also give you my discord in dm if you have questions or help with bugs.
Only true to a point. There is an exclusivity period after new ships release where they are ONLY available with real money purchases. This varies in month and theyre never exactly strict with this.
Some ships are also an absolute pain in the ass to earn in game, relying on grinds that can be almost impossible to complete by a lone player, and are also commonly lost when they drop patches. The only reliable way to earn a ship and keep it, is by buying it on the website.
Keep in mind that a lot of that stuff, including ships and credits, are lost whenever the dev team decide to do a full server wipe, usually with the launch of a major patch.
The only true way to retain anything is to have bought it with real money from the cash shop.
The examples are the most extremely expensive ships available. Most people just own the 40 dollar ship. Which is more than enough. Earning ships in game is currently laughably easy.
Chris Roberts is the king of scope creep. His vision will never be realized because he always wants to add more. It’s why he had to be kicked off the lead role for the development of Freelancer, Microsoft realized that the game would never come out otherwise.
You don't have to take a salary to benefit from corporate riches. That's a big part of how the rich stay rich by being wealthy enough to fiddle the system and get away with it. But some how being bailed out by the taxpayer when the economy goes tits up acting like they're in the poor house.
I paid $45 like 10 years ago. All I really want is Squadron 42. They did the motion capture with Gary Oldman and Mark Hamil back then. Where the hell is the game?!
A couple months back they gave a 2026 release date for Squadron 42. I'd guess actual release is Dec 2026 or early 2027. Maybe they will have a beta release in November or December.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
That release was planned for 2014. They have given a new release date every few months ever since. And missed all of them. What makes you think this one is different?
Watch the hour-long prologue gameplay footage from last year. Last week Chris wrote that all game chapters are playable from start to finish and the game is in internal beta state for final polishing. Still slated for 2026 and he mentioned that there won’t be long drawn out marketing campaign. 40 hours long campaign though some developer has said there’s up to 70 hours if you go out of your way to explore everything.
I think the issue is still the engine. Just still riddled with performance issues. If they can iron that out say 95% then it will be a huge success. Its ok to be a little biggy, people accept cyberpunk and elderscrolls issues.
A ton of the performance issues are related to the multiplayer infrastructure. Even in the PU if you get on a server that's running properly, especially if you're running Vulkin locally, the performance is generally pretty good.
I generally agree, however Star Citizen has had an (almost) literal billion dollars spent on it and over 10 years in development.
Cyberpunk and all of the Elder Scrolls games took nowhere near this long to release and had a smaller budget. It may even be the case that Star Citizen's budget is bigger than all Elder Scrolls games plus Cyberpunk combined.
If this game is anywhere near Cyberpunk or Bethesda levels of buggy, it should be deemed a failure. It absolutely needs to be held to a higher standard than all other games in history.
It's not enough, CIG is spending most of the funding on development, so there is not much reserve.
But as we can see with another record funding year, it looks like they will have enough money until they hit 1.0, and they have a relatively fixed scope for 1.0 now.
They call is an alpha because core features are still been developed, but in term of how playable the game is, it's on par with some beta or early-access games.
And they will keep developing the game beyond 1.0, adding more features and content.
How can a game still be in early access with $1billion in funding…. there are much more complex games that were fully realized for a fraction of the cost.
Almost like having a boss who keep on introducing feature and scope creep isn't a good idea. They are "only" 10 years behind their original estimate for release date.
Because the game was initially mismanaged. It doesn’t have shareholders, its backing players, and they kept voting for more and more features and the games vision is now vastly different than it was a few years ago.
They’ve also lost their original engine, had to build one from scratch, and have built new technologies and features never seen before. Also, if you’re saying there are other games that are much more complex, then I assume you’re playing the game and know the features being built.
I’ve been following star citizen for many years, i don’t think you guys understand how much $1 billion is. And any competent studio would’ve outlined the features and roadmap of the project long before development.
What you’re saying is
1) their designers / producers are incompetent
2) they’re mismanaging funds
3) they were woefully unprepared for a project of this scale, maybe still are.
In a way they were a victim of their own success. Because of the large amount of funding CIG was able to hire some of the best people possible (like a bunch of the Crytek engine wizards on Frankfurt). Unfortunately when you hire extremely talented people and don't give them very specific rails to stay on, you end up with stuff like them randomly figuring out how to do entire planets easily in Cryengine, then showing it to someone like Chris Roberts how doesn't have any ability to say "no" and decides to refactor the entire game 4 years into development. And that's how you get stupid amounts of scope creep and 4 years of wasted time.
Uh. Forgot about that, guess that means i won't be able to fund my various cravings (mostly pringles and ice cream) every week from my Curseforge creator money
Ads are worth the most during November and December as it's before Christmas. the value of ad views plummets in January as no one is buying things. Therefore ads pay less to their sites, and YouTube creators in January, nicknamed the adpocolypse
i try to stay in the middle haha. for what it's worth i think it'll be something potentially worth playing in, I'm guessing ~2years at the rate theyre going.
I got a 45$ version of this game gifted to me 13 years ago, when I was an intern on my first job. Nowadays I'm a senior software engineer and I will be moving to a purchased home in one month, and the game is still not finished. There's no hate on my side, I actually find fascinating that it has taken me -and average developer- less time to become "senior" and get a mortgage than these guys to complete the game.
Honestly, I don't think this game will ever see the light of day, and I think that what other people say that their business model is, right now, milking whales, is more or less spot on.
For real, I swear I've seen the same 'Star Citizen has hit $1 billion in funding' post like 5 times in the past couple of weeks in different variations.
It's not even hit a billion and won't until well into next year when I'm sure these articles will repeat again lmao. It's just easy gaming journo clickbait.
FYI, the majority of ships are purchasable in game. The community is generally nice that if you ask, they will straight up let you fly a ship they own if you wanna try it.
I enjoy playing it a lot. It's better with friends.
This title insinuates ships are only purchasable with cash. Author knows what he's doing.
It still needs to be said though, YOU CAN BUY PRETTY MUCH EVERY SHIP WITH IN-GAME CURRENCY. You can get the barebones package for the game, then do stuff in game for in-game currency and just buy whatever ship you want. They only do wipes like once a year now that the game is in a very stable state so this idea that you have to use IRL currencies to use the ships you want to is just false. If people want to spend irl money on fake spaceships, I'd say let them. They fund the game, it's a win-win for everyone.
I used to think the prices on these ships were insane but then I got addicted to Where Winds Meet. You want to talk whales? There is a ship that can be built and launched to host player parties. Google that sucker. It’s 40 to 70 thousand dollars worth of draws in the cash shop to get the material needed for it and there are people launching that ship every fucking day.
A 3 thousand dollar ship is absolute peanuts to many people.
Yeah. that's how "whale" games work. Some people just have "I literally do not give a shit" money and no reason not to spend it on a game they enjoy, and they help to fund the game for everyone else to play.
Hard to have a real discussion about the game since redditors seem intent on just dogpiling the topic. Sad really.
Don't personally care if people wanna spend their own money on this. Doesn't fit my definition of scam when you're very aware of what you're buying into. And I think it's kinda neat there's a game with a near infinite budget just having at it. Hope it amounts to something cool in the future.
Tbh this has been going on for a decade at this point. All the reasonable conversations have been had and minds have been made up. The only things left to do are play it, or move on, or post the same copy paste article a few times a year with the funding number changed to keep the clicks going.
I was super excited for this game 13 years ago. Now my only interaction with it is seeing a dumbass headline every once in a while to see how much more money has been sunk into it. So I guess it’s not completely useless.
For 45$ you get a very small ship that can be used as a taxi to get you from a to b, you can do the easy combat missions with it and after one-two hours (if you figure out how to fly very fast) you have enough money to rent ships. You get them for 24 hours and can use them to make more money. Then, if you have enough time on a rainy weekend, and you know what to do, lets say someone guides you along and helps a bit, you have enough to buy better ships that would cost like 200$. You keep these ships until they wipe the game the next time.
You don't have to spend real money. At the moment you can also get nearly every ship thats playable. Even a 1500$ capital ship. Exeptions are the ships they released the last few months. But they will probably become available in the game in the next months.
Thats how the game really works right now. But sadly thats not what people talk about.
The last one was december 2024. Because of a big update. They don't plan to do many more, but one is coming soon, because of an exploit that gives people billions of ingame money. When they fix that they will probably wipe with the next patch.
If you like the free fly, just know, that's as bad as the servers get cuz theyre crowded. If you decide to dive in, get a cheap ship + game package for $60 or whatever it runs these days and don't upgrade it. Stick to buying ships in game and if u want to play with the bigger stuff, find one of the many guilds you can join.
ive tried it here and there over the years, but have been playing more than i ever have this week specifically, and i gotta say when its working smoothly its really awesome. it is pretty jank a lot of the time though but personally the cool parts of it outweigh the jank. a lot of the shit you read about how expensive the game is and all that is honestly just bs. you can buy almost every ship in the game from just playing.
It’s just an incredible space simulator, but with no free of bugs content whatsover.
If you like games like flight simulator or ace combat, then you will surely like it, if you search for a good mmo to waste your time, then you better just wait for 1.0, whenever it will be out on the next decade
It’s really hard for something to be as bad as the articles say they are. Things are sensationalized to get clicks.
The reality is, it’s an unfinished game that will probably give you 10-20 hours of buggy fun if you enjoy flying around and exploring.
I only spent $40 on the game, so that was a fine trade off for me. (Though I have closer to 70 hours, since I enjoyed the barebones gameplay loop they have in place and the various events RSI held).
Hop on a free fly event for a weekend, have fun, then forget about the game until the next article pops up in a years time.
When it works it's easily the best co-op multiplayer game I've ever played. Nothing comes close. But there are definitely times where bugs make it frustrating.
I play it often with a bunch of friends and I really don't understand the hate. In its current state it's a solid game with a lot to do and explore. The player base is only growing at this point. In most instances the hate is directed from people who have never played, or assume you need to buy a $3000 ship to even place SC. A $35 starter is all you need!
I just hope the announcement is accurate from about 6 days ago that SQ42 is now fully playable at about 40 hours of game play and still slated for the 2026 release noted when they informed it was feature complete a while ago.
Game is pretty fun for like 45-60$. It will be pretty cool for about 30 hours or more. I even got the game free at one point because of referral free ships and support later refunded my purchase. But I decided to upgrade to a cooler ship without grinding and spend 60 bucks again but this time I could use the free ships as extra collateral for the upgrade which was a big discount
I have it. I dropped $100 for a ship a year ago or so. I feel like I have gotten my money outta the game several times over. The game is fun AF when you're playing with friends. It's pretty buggy still, but it's not game breaking stuff, at least in my experience. You do have to have a beefy rig to play it with really good graphics. My system does just fine, but I also have high-end hardware. I know a lot of people on mid-tier and low-tier systems complain about that kinda stuff, and that's understandable.
I'm not one of the brain-dead players who will defend SC and die on that hill, but it is fun AF IMO. I enjoy it. There is enough content in the game to keep me happy. It obviously has its issues when it comes to optimization, performance, crashes, sometimes game breaking bugs, general bugs that never seem to get patched even though everyone working on the game has to know about them. The game is still in a long term Alpha state, which is just wild. It's incredible how this game is still getting the financing it does, lol. The people in leadership roles who run the show are pretty incompetent for sure.
I have commented lots on YouTube videos about the game and whenever I say the game is fun for me and how I dropped $100 on a ship these weirdos come outta the woodwork to tell me how delusional I am and how I am defending a scam game. You know, the typical stuff those types of weirdoes say to people who play the game. Like, I enjoy the game. It has content that I feel is (and still is) worth the $100 I put into a ship. Why some people get so offended over that is beyond me. Why do people care so much about what other people like and value? You can tell some of these weirdos actually get mad IRL over all of this stuff. It's like it consumes them, the way they type towards people who enjoy the game. It's OK to not like the game and think whatever you want about it, but to attack people who do like the game and say the awful stuff they do and even make threats to their safety and security is just insane behavior.
I would say just wait for a free to play event they sometimes do. Try the game. Have a buddy play with you for the most fun. The game isn't for everyone. Never hurts to try something new, even if you have a negative opinion on it. Worst that happens if you hate it and uninstall it, and at best you found a new game to play with your buddies.
It has really scummy real money store especially for an Alpha game, but you can enjoy everything in the game with just the $45 pledge that includes game access(I've only spent 120$)
My biggest annoyances with the game is bugs from rushed updates that take some time to fix and the amount of time it takes to get to part of the game most enjoy. I'll try to answer what I can if people are curious
They recently added VR support out of nowhere, which has been getting some buzz in the VR community. I haven't tried it, but most of the commentary I've seen around that has been positive
It's a really solid initial implementation. No full locomotion or motion controls yet but the game itself was essentially built with VR in mind so almost all of the UI is perfectly set up for it
Mostly yeah, he did give a shoutout to several other devs who helped out off and on (mostly with testing, but also some implementation work) as well though
He seems to have a pretty good handle on what the next steps will be too, so it should only improve
So many people in here talking like they are experts in a game they have never played themselves (or played years ago) and have only gotten information from whatever gaming publication puts out their (similarly ignorant) opinion on the game.
As someone that hasn’t spend thousands on the game, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had gaming, and it led me to create an org in the game which has membership in the couple hundreds.
What about GTA6, all new Call of Duty Games?
Call of Duty Cold war was approximately 700 Million Dollars.
GTA6 is estimated to cost more then 1 Billion.
Its bonkers to see this game get the hate (some criticism is valid) when it is supported by people who like to see something else succeed then the yearly CoD Slob. But to not set the price in comparison to other games just to hate on Star Citizen because people have a personal vendetta against it. Just mind boggling to me
And GTA VI is most likely the first billion dollar game with their sharks cards from GTA online. They just don’t have to air their dirty laundry legally.
Yeah, it's just intentionally misleading rage baiting for engagement. "Free" games like Fortnite and Roblox rake in several billion every year, the difference being of course not reinvesting that wealth back into the game and that's somehow better?
CIG are developing two games plus a game engine with half of GTA 6's budget. I think the game is really fun but every gaming subreddit is so anti star citizen it's insane lol.
Genshin isn't a finished product though, the story was far from complete at launch and still isn't close to finished years later. Games as a service are just a rolling release excuse to keep engagement up over time
Genshin Impact was already released as finished product, and they didn't have that much at the time.
I think way too much focus has been put on labels. Is Star Citizen "released?" Yes. Yes it is "released." You can play it. It is out. Is it "finished?" no, it is not, but neither is Genshin, Fortnite, No Man's Sky, or WoW. It is a game in continued development. Now is it as polished as some of those games were at their own 1.0 release state? From what I hear, in many ways it's not, and they do need to work on that, but that's really up to the people who actually play the game to decide where their focus should be, and the players seem largely ok with it, so who are we to judge?
But anyway, my point is that there have been likely at least several games that have had a total budget of over a billion dollars, in many cases over a similar amount of development time.
CIG have crowdfunded nearly a billion to develop TWO games, not just one. The vast majority of which is going towards the single player game, Squadron 42, instead of Star Citizen. Note that while SQ42 and SC share a bunch of tech, there's a whole lot that's unique to each game.
SC is not at all the first game to have be nearing the one billion mark. Rockstar's GTA6 has already surpassed that mark and is rumored to be hitting two billion by the time it releases. It too is in active alpha development.
The number of SC ships in the thousands or even high hundreds as listed in the article are a tiny minority of the total purchasable ships in the game. The overwhelming majority are in the tens or low hundreds.
Not saying CIG doesn't have mismanagement issues or questionable funding, but they are for more honest about their funding than pretty much all AAA studios at this point. There's no special premium currency, no loot boxes, no addictive gambling mechanisms whatsoever. All pledge store ships are purchasable with in game currency within 6 to 8 months, meaning the vast majority of currently flyable ships are not pledge store exclusive by any means.
Alas, gaming "journalists" really love clickbaity articles, especially when it comes to this game in particular. At this point, I expect nothing less. Even if Squadron 42 releases on time and to wide player acclaim, I strongly suspect they will do their absolute best to trash it as not doing so means having to admit they were wrong.
People only rip it apart because it's public knowledge and crowd funded, if they weren't legally obligated to show their numbers people wouldnt have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing it as much aside from development time. Its best not to take these articles seriously, they've been happening forever lol
People should chill about Star Citizen. No one is stealing their money away, those who buy 3k ships did it willingly, let them finance this game if they want to.
I'll buy it when each part of the game will finally reach the 1.0. This is the case when the sentence "vote with your wallet" means something.
If people is so foolish to pay x0K for an ingame ship its their problem, I mean CIG is just following a demand from players.
Again: vote with your wallet.
This always surprise me ... not because of the game. But because it feels like beating a dead horse. Yeah. Sure. Millions, Alpha, Costly ships ... anything new? Nope.
This game is never going to release. And why would it? They've made a billion off of bigger and bigger empty promises. Releasing would hurt their business model.
ITT: Star Citizen fanatics + casual players arguing arguing with Star Citizen anti-fanatics + uninformed casual observers/gamers. The truth lay in the middle.
There is a bare-bones game to play. Hauling, scavenging, mining, FPS combat, ship combat are in-game to some degree. You might find yourself having an hour or two of 'fun' just checking these things out then quitting, or you might enjoy them enough to play regularly... it depends on your personal tastes. Obviously if you find a group you like, you might even 'main' the game.
You can indeed play using a cheap $45 ship and work your way up. Or you can go nuts and just use IRL $$$ to buy it outright. The idea of P2W is interesting because currently there's really no end-game, so there's really fk all to 'win' lol. The only thing to do is just earn more cash to buy more ships in-game.
They just added VR support a couple weeks ago and it's cool and everyone seems to agree it's very good.
I think the game will have more appeal to the wider gamer audience in a couple years at the rate their going. Currently, I don't think it has enough content to keep people engaged outside of just playing for a few hours to see how it is.
It also runs smoothly if you have a good computer. It'll run a little ass in hubs where you buy stuff and refuel/reload/spawn ships, but once you get out of there, it's smooth...which is where you actually need it to be smooth. If it's laggy in hubs, sure it feels bad but it's not like you need 120fps cuz you're shooting at something.
In conclusion... conversations like this don't matter at all, funding is increasing if you believe their tracker so clearly theyre doing some things right and heading in the right direction, albeit slowly af, and will continue to do so no matter how many inaccurate news articles and flame posts pop up. We're just flapping our gums for no reason haha. Merry Christmas!
Oh look, it's this article and thread again. Frustratingly devoid of all nuance as usual.
As a longtime backer (2014), that's a couple thousand dollars and probably 800+ hours into the game, let me set the record straight with reality for everyone here. So we can just copy paste this comment into this thread when it's posted again someday.
Is it a scam? No.
Haters love to dogpile on this boring, low energy hot take. It's objectively not a scam, there's over 7,000 players online a day and they're consistently shipping content, patches, fixes, and new game systems.
Is it the be all end all? No.
Cultists love to white knight defend CIG (the devs) even when they're wrong or completely misguided.
The truth is:
The bad
It's a bloated mess. Far too buggy and unreliable even after 2025 as "the year of playability"
Game systems are being shipped half thought through with endless tier 0 prototype implementations without baseline reliability to make any of it worth it
"Tedium" is consistently mistaken as "fidelity". Countless innovations and UX systems exist in other games to make player life easier, and it's 900 years in the future. Why can't I remotely lock/unlock my ship and open/close doors? Why can't I remotely place orders to be delivered upon my landing at space stations? Don't make me PHYSICALLY GO TO STORES.
The game feels less worth it to play just to have 2 hours of work disappear to an elevator bug sending you to the void.
CIG keeps trying to have it both ways, simultaneously excusing jankiness as an alpha....yet running marketing campaigns events and ingame lore events designed to drive player engagement like a released LIVE service. Which is it? Can't have it both ways. Players and backers are frustrated and you better believe we let CIG hear it.
The economy ingame is a mess, CIG should stop trying to directly manage it and build systems that let players drive it just like EVE has pioneered.
The Good:
The reason I'm so freely complaining about all this is that this game is absolutely singular. Incredible. When it works. I have had experiences in this game unlike anything else in video gaming. Despite everything, I am having an absolute fucking blast. Sometimes.
When this hits v1.0, I can see this being the main video game I play for the next 10 years. And I say that already having 800+ hours in the Alpha, from 2.18 back in the day to 4.5 now.
It's less an MMO and more an immersive space universe life sim. Expectations should be managed accordingly, but if you approach it like that, it's unbelievably fun. Especially with other people.
The emergent gameplay is so cool. Unpredictable interesting things happen when interacting with other people all the time, and the high fidelity of physics and graphics make it seem like you are THERE. I've found myself lost to various nights of mining, running bounties, clearing out FPS bunkers and stuffing crates full of loot, just because it genuinely feels like an adventure instead of playing an MMO game loop.
And I haven't even gotten to the recently released experimental VR support yet, spearheaded as a passion project by a single internal dev. People are RAVING about how amazing it is as a first attempt and I cannot wait to try it with a steam frame. Some folks said they just landed on a cliff on a moon and sat there for 10 minutes watching the lunar sunrise. Forget game loops, that's a real experience.
TL;DR?
Not a scam. Deeply flawed. Overly ambitious, and sometimes the devs are bad at this. But they're earnest and genuinely trying to build this crazy thing and I'm having a good time. Go try a free fly event, pay nothing, and see for yourself what you think before judging anything. 🙂
I remember reading about Star Citizen in a freaking gaming magazine prior to 2010..
I bought the game somewhere around 2018.. Never got very far due to lag or bugs annoying me before i got hooked.
This week is the first week Ive actually played more than an hour or two because I got dual joysticks for Christmas and they finally implemented VR.
HOSAS + VR Star Citizen is absolutely amazing. Ive dreamed of this for a long time and its finally working.
There is now a game worth playing, but I dont think it would be as magical on a monitor and a keyboard.
I also already got distracted by Mechwarrior 5 VR with the HOSAS and put SC down, its just so badass in VR with the sticks its a completely different game.
People keep shitting on this game while the developers are actually genuinely building a game that has never been attempted before, while spending billions of dollars on Shark Cards and Brand(TM) skins in Fortnite and Call of Duty.
It costs 45$ to play all the content in the game, all else is the consumer's choice. I've logged hundreds of hours and had some of the best gaming experiences of my life so far.
“Ships can be purchased via the Pledge Store, with jaw-dropping prices such as $3,000 for a Javelin or $1,650 for the Kraken.”
Wow, there’s a lot of whales playing this game. No wonder why it hasn’t even hit Beta.
Those aren't even the most expensive "pledges".
there are people who have spent 100s of thousands of dollars. they do server wipes about every 18 months. Only things that stay are the purchase items. some people who bought ships 10 years ago and those ships are not even in the game.
Welp, I’m never playing this game. Am I poor? Yup, but even if I had bags of cash, I still wouldn’t waste it on this.
You can also not whale and just buy ships with in game currency. Though if wipes are pushing you off, better to wait for it to fully release, so might as well never get to play it.
I have more faith in half life 3 actually being released than this game going to full release
One of the neat things about Star Citizen is all of those whales need people to man their ships, cant run a $3000 ship solo. Engineering and damage control alone will take a small crew at least. So I get to enjoy the game without needing to spend more than the $50 to get access to it. Just gotta find an org with chill people.
There's nothing forcing you to buy a thousand dollar ship. The base game package is $45.
It's one of those
MLMscams where you have to buy product to work your way up the chain and once you've spent enough money they give you access to the special store where they sell the $15k ship packages.Here's the article about the $48,000 bundle available to anyone who has spent $10,000 on the in-game store.
https://www.ign.com/articles/star-citizen-introducing-a-48000-ship-bundle-but-only-for-players-who-have-already-spent-10000
That's not an MLM, that's like getting access to the special champagne room after you spend two grand at the strip club.
It's almost like the Champaign room is on a level above the basic strip floor.
More like a watch shop where you need to spend enough over the course of a year to buy whatever special nonsense their preferred brand releases
Do you just not understand what an MLM is orrrr? I’m confused..
Right? It's bad but it's got nothing to do with multi level marketing
You don't realize the defense force you've just sent up a flare to lol.
The people defending it are just victim to sunken cost fallacy.
I spent 75$ on that game almost 12 years ago and I'm still mad that I wasted it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who holds grudges against my past self for comparatively low investments. Some purchases just make you mad when you think of them and I'm sure Star Citizen has plenty of those.
SC really does have the most enthusiastic dick riders.
No shit. That place is so scummy and a horrid work environment. The “fans” are lunatics.
It’s not and “alpha” no matter what they say because alpha is the playable build of a game a developer intends to finish. They don’t intend to finish Star Citizen because they’ll keep printing money by never finishing it.
It’s not a “scam” in the Theranos sense, but it’s not a pc game either. It’s a whale-driven monetization machine that makes more money by never finishing. Selling $1,000–$3,000 virtual ships, keeping the project in permanent “alpha,” and endlessly expanding scope removes all delivery pressure. Alpha becomes a shield. Bugs, wipes, missing systems, everything is excused.
There is a playable build, and real dev work happens. That’s why it’s not a technical “scam.” But the business model is selling aspiration, status, and belief, not a completed product. Development is literally never ending by design, because completion would harden expectations and shut off the money.
i'm confused. i play star citizen and i feel like they are losing *potential* money because the game is so buggy and incomplete. this isnt some big brained strategy to intentionally handicap the game to make _more money_ because that makes zero sense.
it's just incompetence with people who have sunk cost fallacy and want it to succeed real bad.
It’s really just what happens when you expose Chris Roberts’ legendary scope creep to an effectively bottomless well of cash.
This is it. Anyone who knew Chris Roberts' history called this when Star Citizen first got off the ground. You can find posts back in 2012 absolutely calling it out and saying a finished game would never release. As long as Roberts is in charge, a finished game never will be released, because it will never be finished in his estimation. He's never gotten a game out the door without threat of being fired (and he was fired at least once, from the Freelancer project). Now that he's calling the shots, nobody can, so the bank account either runs dry or he dies.
Freelancer is one of my favorite games of the 00’s, and as much as what’s there is substantially pared back from what was promised, it’s because his goals for the game just weren’t feasible. His development process is similar to how gas expands to fill its container. Without hard limits he’ll just keep adding shit.
So he’s the scifi molyneux?
Molyneux is a hype man who promises things to be in games that release and aren’t nearly as ambitious as the marketing material. Roberts is more the living avatar of feature and scope creep and has largely resolved to die at the helm of this title before it can fully release
I think the real difference is that molyneux has had someone to kick his shit out the door whether it met his vision or not.
And Garriot, and Romero, and all the other people who went from directing games in the 80’s and had their big ideas run into the actual economies of putting them together. I don’t think any of them pitched their shit trying to defraud people, I think that they thought that they would be able to scale their ideas with the existing tech and didn’t miss that the requirements on the human side would actually outpace what the technology could do.
I'll be honest, I felt bad for Molyneux when RPS did that interview (if you know, you know.)
I don't think any of these people are doing any of this out of malice. They're just optimists and dreamers. Obviously to a fault, but still.
It makes sense when you look at the games they used to make, too! Look at anything Molyneux made with bullfrog and you can see how he would expect technology would just keep letting him deliver bigger and bigger ideas. In the early 90’s, Magic Carpet would sound like insane bullshit but he went and did it in like 94.
Gosh Freelancer makes me irrationally angry. Not the game itself, but the fact that nobody has been able to replicate that game's controls since. Is it really so hard to add a button that makes your ship continue flying by inertia in a straight line while allowing you to turn around freely?
I didn't know his history and was reading his wiki and ending up finding this post. His wiki is more interesting than what he puts out (or promises to eventually put out, rather).
It's honestly impressive how fun Freelancer was despite its numerous flaws (and unfinished content). Ship balance was almost entirely linear and the single player story gives you a high powered ship almost for free to ensure you can finish the game. Exploring it in multiplayer with friends was a lot of fun even though you ultimately end up using one of several ships because everything else was just vastly inferior.
I think the last time I played it was a decade ago and with a lot of player-made mods it was considerably better but nothing short of a full remake will ever fix the fact that it's a game that very clearly only got shipped in a "finished" state because someone was holding Roberts' leash since he'd still be working on the game otherwise.
Yep.
Chris desperately needs someone above him to tell him, emphatically, "no".
I want it to succeed because it has the potential to be the best space game to date but I just don't think it will ever reach that status realistically. It is interesting to see how they became filthy rich by tricking people into thinking Pixels in an alpha are rare and worth 1,000s of dollars.
You’re assuming they’re trying to make money like a normal finished game. That’s the disconnect.
Star Citizen doesn’t rely on mass adoption, reviews, or release sales. It relies on a relatively small group of whales who are already invested. For that audience, bugs and incompleteness don’t stop spending because “it’s alpha” explains everything. That excuse only works while the game is unfinished.
Finishing the game would actually increase expectations and accountability. Features would have to converge, scope would have to be cut, and people would judge the final product instead of the promise. Infinite development keeps the funding narrative alive.
Also, “losing potential money” doesn’t matter when you’re already printing money. They’ve raised hundreds of millions selling virtual ships. They don’t need mass-market success. They need continued belief from people already bought in.
Wont last forever tho. Eventually the whales will move on
So? The money they made now is more money then developers make when releasing a game.
Lets say the cash is coming for another 3 years. That’s probably still more money then most small time developers make.
They had more new accounts created this year than any year since the Kickstarter was first created.
When? I expected that to happen 10 years ago. And 5 years ago. SC is almost cultlike. People are way to invested at this point. Anyone from the outside sees a perpetual early access game that might never come out and even if has no way to live up to the expactations of 15 years or so of development. But that doesn't seem to matter, the funding keeps going, the promises keep getting bigger. Financially they have zero reason to actually release a game.
How are they losing "potential" money when they made over a billion already. The potential is in keeping it in whatever state it is that is able to generate that kind of income. If they finish the game or change anything up too much they are potentially gonna lose money.
How does it make zero sense? It's generated a shit tonne of money for the owners.
It has long been apparent that the monetisation model set up an incentive structure that is built on it not being released.
Adding to what you said, there is an anachronistic aspect to game development compared to other art forms. Largely they are judged more on the quality of the product and marketing. Films are different - people will watch Nolan, Cameron, Villneuve etc. regardless and the totality of control they have often ensures quality of the film based only on the name of the director. Similar with musicians, book authors etc. - you can be largely sure that if you enjoyed their previous work, you will enjoy the new one. And the purchase risk is low if you don't. And they are not pieces of art that need to offer tens of hours of value.
Games are not like this. They are too collaborative and require more creativity for each new project. A sequel cannot just be a continuation of the story but it has to "improve" on the core of the game - the gameplay. A great dev might make a create souls-like but they can't repeat the trick without it being significantly different. And just because they cracked one particular version of a genre it doesn't mean they can have success elsewhere. So there is never a guarantee that one development house will produce multiple hits let alone in different topics/genres. It happens but it's rare. And typically it takes a huge amount of time and development resource to ensure it. Just look at the length of a development cycle at Valve or Rockstar.
And yet, companies (which these devs are) employ people, need to retain talent and would want (like any other company) predictable, secure, long-term income. These realities are odds.
Enter Star Citizen and they have succeeding in everything you could want from a games company. Except the game.
And there is every incentive for them to keep it like this for as long as they can.
But it would be really worse or different if they finish it
Is it even like... A game? The last time I tried it, it was just an empty sandbox with cool physics simulations, but there was no game there.
Has that changed?
I just wonder what these people get after dropping thousands on ships that will never matter because the game will never release after being finished. Do they just have a picture of it in their office or wallet? Just seems like I'd experience buyers regret at some point and request a refund.
See the thing is you can't even buy those ships. They're sold in limited quantities during specific events and are all sold out in seconds. We got whales doing f5 wars to spend money on ships the aren't even released yet.
With that said. It's a pretty cool game. Amazing, when it works, which recently has actually been a lot more often than it used to.
I really do hate how SC's marketing heavily leans into FOMO, and even more so how dishonest CIG is about it.
how crowded is the game? do you meet other people in game a lot or is the universe empty?
Depends on the shard you join and where you go. If you're mining in the glaciem ring, you're unlikely to find anyone even in a busy server. If you're going to a contested zone in ruin station (a pvp hotspot right now), even the low population servers are gonna be busy.
Some spots are designed to bring people together (not always in a co operative manner). Others are not.
I was thinking about giving it a try, but people have told me the bugs are unplayable. Do you disagree?
I mean, your mileage may vary but it’s not unplayable. You could probably get around 10-20 hours of fun if you like flying and exploring.
I recommend just getting on in a free fly event and playing free for the weekend. I don’t recommend buying it unless you really really had fun.
There is absolutely more than 10-20 hours of fun available, not sure when the last time you played it was
Please understand that tastes and opinions vary. I personally have put in more hours than that but I don't think more than 20 were fun, there's just not that much novel to do right now and most gameplay there is can be done better by other games that are complete.
Yeah. In my other comment I mentioned I have over 70 hours in game. But I’d rather set other people’s expectations low, especially when it comes to Star Citizen.
The most correct answer to that is it depends. Right now the majority of bugs are annoying, but there are very, very few that are actually game-breaking. However, patch-to-patch, the state of bugs in the game shifts. Some patches are really good and the game works really well. Other patches will break half the shit that worked in the previous patch.
The bigger problem I think is that the new player experience sucks ass and there's precious little help or direction about how to work around the existing bugs. When you know how to work around them the majority of them are an annoyance. If you don't, then the game is likely to be downright frustrating. If you've got a lot of tolerance for asking in chat or whatever about how to handle certain issues when they crop up, you'll probably get something out of it. If things not working exactly as they're supposed to 50% of the time annoys the fuck out of you, avoid Star Citizen.
If you've got a lot of tolerance for working around nagging issues and the occasional one that can be downright frustrating, give it a shot.
A simple example of a bug that I find annoying but not game breaking: Since patch 4.4, computer terminals sometimes freeze. The solution is just to back away to "exit" the terminal, then go back to it. It's not game breaking by any means but it's annoying. Another, is that on a slower server the inventory screen can be slow to catch up. So you'll move something into or out of inventory, and it takes 5-10 seconds for the UI to catch up and properly register it. There's lots of little bugs like that. Not game breaking but annoying.
Honestly as someone who tries to stuff way too many mods into one run of a game, sounds like I could probably tolerate this. Thank you for your in depth thoughts on the matter.
It’s definitely not unplayable, and the game offers what is likely the most gorgeous space flight simulation out there. Your ship actually feels like your own personal vessel, with tons of customization. What i recommend is spending the bare minimum on it, and enjoying the game for what it’s worth (which imo is no more than $40). The game begins to feel very hollow and janky if you start to really invest time into it, but what it does well, it does very well.
Just wait for the next Free Fly event. They have one like ~3-4 times a year. During Free Fly you get quite a few starter ships of various classes to try different career loops. Game is entirely free for like a week during the events. Servers usually go to shit due to number of people playing, but it’s definitely playable majority of free fly events. Just be on the lookout.
Hey it looks like a lot of people already replied but I'm gonna disagree with the people saying to wait until free fly.
Free fly is one of the times that the game is essentially unplayable because the servers get rekt. Same with the holidays.
They have a 30 day refund policy.
https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002466313-Refunds-FAQ
My advice is actually to just buy it when it's not super busy. Wait like a week or two from now and it should be a good time. Try it out, ask for help in chat, ask to try ships, etc. Avoid USA servers if you find the chat is just talking politics.
If you don't like it, just ask for a refund in the 30 day window.
If you want a referral code, DM me. I can also give you my discord in dm if you have questions or help with bugs.
You can literally buy the ships in game.
Tbf, I've heard a lot of that stuff can be bought by in-game currency?
Not "a lot of that stuff", you can buy or grind everything that is sold in store.
Only stuff you can't get in game are some re-colors of skins, armor/weapon/ship etc.
Only true to a point. There is an exclusivity period after new ships release where they are ONLY available with real money purchases. This varies in month and theyre never exactly strict with this.
Some ships are also an absolute pain in the ass to earn in game, relying on grinds that can be almost impossible to complete by a lone player, and are also commonly lost when they drop patches. The only reliable way to earn a ship and keep it, is by buying it on the website.
Keep in mind that a lot of that stuff, including ships and credits, are lost whenever the dev team decide to do a full server wipe, usually with the launch of a major patch.
The only true way to retain anything is to have bought it with real money from the cash shop.
And my lifetime insurance I got from over a decade ago! Unless that's added back in the game
The examples are the most extremely expensive ships available. Most people just own the 40 dollar ship. Which is more than enough. Earning ships in game is currently laughably easy.
As long as the whales buy them, the studio won't care if it stays in alpha for 30 more years
I hope $1B is enough to fully realize their vision.
Or at least enough for a beta.
Chris Roberts is the king of scope creep. His vision will never be realized because he always wants to add more. It’s why he had to be kicked off the lead role for the development of Freelancer, Microsoft realized that the game would never come out otherwise.
I suspect his scope creep now is more. A bigger yacht and a nicer house. Than things actually going into code....
No, he’s been doing this since the goddamn 90’s when budgets weren’t like that. It’s why he got fired off Freelancer in 01.
Aye. But that's scope creep for you. Especially now he's got the infinite money glitch down.
To Chris Robert's credit, he's not taking a salary from CIG (well, he is, but it's like $1). The guy was already rich when he started the studio.
You don't have to take a salary to benefit from corporate riches. That's a big part of how the rich stay rich by being wealthy enough to fiddle the system and get away with it. But some how being bailed out by the taxpayer when the economy goes tits up acting like they're in the poor house.
I paid $45 like 10 years ago. All I really want is Squadron 42. They did the motion capture with Gary Oldman and Mark Hamil back then. Where the hell is the game?!
A couple months back they gave a 2026 release date for Squadron 42. I'd guess actual release is Dec 2026 or early 2027. Maybe they will have a beta release in November or December. I'm cautiously optimistic.
A couple years back they gave a 2016 release date for Squadron 42. I'd guess actual release is Dec 2016 or early 2017.
That release was planned for 2014. They have given a new release date every few months ever since. And missed all of them. What makes you think this one is different?
Watch the hour-long prologue gameplay footage from last year. Last week Chris wrote that all game chapters are playable from start to finish and the game is in internal beta state for final polishing. Still slated for 2026 and he mentioned that there won’t be long drawn out marketing campaign. 40 hours long campaign though some developer has said there’s up to 70 hours if you go out of your way to explore everything.
I think the issue is still the engine. Just still riddled with performance issues. If they can iron that out say 95% then it will be a huge success. Its ok to be a little biggy, people accept cyberpunk and elderscrolls issues.
A ton of the performance issues are related to the multiplayer infrastructure. Even in the PU if you get on a server that's running properly, especially if you're running Vulkin locally, the performance is generally pretty good.
I generally agree, however Star Citizen has had an (almost) literal billion dollars spent on it and over 10 years in development. Cyberpunk and all of the Elder Scrolls games took nowhere near this long to release and had a smaller budget. It may even be the case that Star Citizen's budget is bigger than all Elder Scrolls games plus Cyberpunk combined.
If this game is anywhere near Cyberpunk or Bethesda levels of buggy, it should be deemed a failure. It absolutely needs to be held to a higher standard than all other games in history.
It's not enough, CIG is spending most of the funding on development, so there is not much reserve.
But as we can see with another record funding year, it looks like they will have enough money until they hit 1.0, and they have a relatively fixed scope for 1.0 now.
They call is an alpha because core features are still been developed, but in term of how playable the game is, it's on par with some beta or early-access games.
And they will keep developing the game beyond 1.0, adding more features and content.
How can a game still be in early access with $1billion in funding…. there are much more complex games that were fully realized for a fraction of the cost.
Which game is more complex?
Specifcally from a game development/technical standpoint?
Yea I'd like to know too.
Almost like having a boss who keep on introducing feature and scope creep isn't a good idea. They are "only" 10 years behind their original estimate for release date.
Because the game was initially mismanaged. It doesn’t have shareholders, its backing players, and they kept voting for more and more features and the games vision is now vastly different than it was a few years ago. They’ve also lost their original engine, had to build one from scratch, and have built new technologies and features never seen before. Also, if you’re saying there are other games that are much more complex, then I assume you’re playing the game and know the features being built.
I’ve been following star citizen for many years, i don’t think you guys understand how much $1 billion is. And any competent studio would’ve outlined the features and roadmap of the project long before development.
What you’re saying is 1) their designers / producers are incompetent 2) they’re mismanaging funds 3) they were woefully unprepared for a project of this scale, maybe still are.
In a way they were a victim of their own success. Because of the large amount of funding CIG was able to hire some of the best people possible (like a bunch of the Crytek engine wizards on Frankfurt). Unfortunately when you hire extremely talented people and don't give them very specific rails to stay on, you end up with stuff like them randomly figuring out how to do entire planets easily in Cryengine, then showing it to someone like Chris Roberts how doesn't have any ability to say "no" and decides to refactor the entire game 4 years into development. And that's how you get stupid amounts of scope creep and 4 years of wasted time.
in retrospect cryengine was actually the right pick
No there aren't lol
Sites needing those last minute ad revenue clicks before the January adpocolypse
Uh. Forgot about that, guess that means i won't be able to fund my various cravings (mostly pringles and ice cream) every week from my Curseforge creator money
Wdym
Whenever a games media site needs a payday, they post about star citizen. Lots of clicks based on rage
What is a "January Adpocalypse"?
Ads are worth the most during November and December as it's before Christmas. the value of ad views plummets in January as no one is buying things. Therefore ads pay less to their sites, and YouTube creators in January, nicknamed the adpocolypse
Is it a requirement to post about this game daily?
Yup. It's r/pcgaming, where there's a daily quote of anti Windows and anti Star Citizen posts.
Don't forget the weekly AAA bad, indie game good post.
And the daily quote from Larian studios turned into a meaningless article.
The only post that really makes sense if you ask me.
The game definitely has its issues, but its probably the most ambitious game ever created or at least in the top 5.
Instead of taking a reasonable middle ground, people either totally hate or fanboy it.
i try to stay in the middle haha. for what it's worth i think it'll be something potentially worth playing in, I'm guessing ~2years at the rate theyre going.
What's the "reasonable middle ground" here?
I got a 45$ version of this game gifted to me 13 years ago, when I was an intern on my first job. Nowadays I'm a senior software engineer and I will be moving to a purchased home in one month, and the game is still not finished. There's no hate on my side, I actually find fascinating that it has taken me -and average developer- less time to become "senior" and get a mortgage than these guys to complete the game.
Honestly, I don't think this game will ever see the light of day, and I think that what other people say that their business model is, right now, milking whales, is more or less spot on.
Their vision was probably pretty unrealistic for the late 2000s/early 2010s.
But, at least they tried something big and stuck with it for over a decade. And they have a product out that's playable in alpha.
For real, I swear I've seen the same 'Star Citizen has hit $1 billion in funding' post like 5 times in the past couple of weeks in different variations.
It's not even hit a billion and won't until well into next year when I'm sure these articles will repeat again lmao. It's just easy gaming journo clickbait.
Its the easy slow news day posts that upsets gamers, easiest clickbait in the west. haha
Gaming “””journalists””” don’t actually have much to say other than clickbait so reposting this tracks.
Yes, and for each of these posts there's a sub-requirement for there to be at least 50 of each of the baseless:
"Sunk cost fallacy" comments.
"People who like it are in a cult" comments.
"Scam Citizen" comments.
There's plenty more, but these are the major 3.
I see more people complaining about Star Citizen than actual posts about Star Citizen, which is to say, understandable lol.
FYI, the majority of ships are purchasable in game. The community is generally nice that if you ask, they will straight up let you fly a ship they own if you wanna try it.
I enjoy playing it a lot. It's better with friends.
This title insinuates ships are only purchasable with cash. Author knows what he's doing.
Yup.
Hell a mate lent me the in game cash to buy a ship.
Did a few salvage runs with it and chucked him his money back :)
Some ships are only purchasable with cash. My daily driver is one of those ships
Which one? If they're new there's a short exclusivity period but you can even earn the Idris and Polaris in game currently
Edited
right now because of AUEC exploits people are giving away billions
It still needs to be said though, YOU CAN BUY PRETTY MUCH EVERY SHIP WITH IN-GAME CURRENCY. You can get the barebones package for the game, then do stuff in game for in-game currency and just buy whatever ship you want. They only do wipes like once a year now that the game is in a very stable state so this idea that you have to use IRL currencies to use the ships you want to is just false. If people want to spend irl money on fake spaceships, I'd say let them. They fund the game, it's a win-win for everyone.
I used to think the prices on these ships were insane but then I got addicted to Where Winds Meet. You want to talk whales? There is a ship that can be built and launched to host player parties. Google that sucker. It’s 40 to 70 thousand dollars worth of draws in the cash shop to get the material needed for it and there are people launching that ship every fucking day.
A 3 thousand dollar ship is absolute peanuts to many people.
Don't know about that game, but so far in Star Citizen, all playable ships are earnable in game.
Yeah. that's how "whale" games work. Some people just have "I literally do not give a shit" money and no reason not to spend it on a game they enjoy, and they help to fund the game for everyone else to play.
Hard to have a real discussion about the game since redditors seem intent on just dogpiling the topic. Sad really.
Don't personally care if people wanna spend their own money on this. Doesn't fit my definition of scam when you're very aware of what you're buying into. And I think it's kinda neat there's a game with a near infinite budget just having at it. Hope it amounts to something cool in the future.
Tbh this has been going on for a decade at this point. All the reasonable conversations have been had and minds have been made up. The only things left to do are play it, or move on, or post the same copy paste article a few times a year with the funding number changed to keep the clicks going.
I was super excited for this game 13 years ago. Now my only interaction with it is seeing a dumbass headline every once in a while to see how much more money has been sunk into it. So I guess it’s not completely useless.
Now I have to try it to see if its actually as bad as these articles say it is. Every time I think this game is dead it hits another milestone
The way the game is currently, I wouldn't spend hundreds on it for sure, but for the $45 buy in price, you'll definitely get your money's worth.
Consider it right now more like a fancy tech demo already doing things no other game does.
I didnt realize it was $45 to buy in. Does that include a ship and the whole game?
The most basic ship as well as the game, yup. Play as much as you want.
Thank you. If the game doesnt release. $45 isnt a terrible loss.
For 45$ you get a very small ship that can be used as a taxi to get you from a to b, you can do the easy combat missions with it and after one-two hours (if you figure out how to fly very fast) you have enough money to rent ships. You get them for 24 hours and can use them to make more money. Then, if you have enough time on a rainy weekend, and you know what to do, lets say someone guides you along and helps a bit, you have enough to buy better ships that would cost like 200$. You keep these ships until they wipe the game the next time. You don't have to spend real money. At the moment you can also get nearly every ship thats playable. Even a 1500$ capital ship. Exeptions are the ships they released the last few months. But they will probably become available in the game in the next months. Thats how the game really works right now. But sadly thats not what people talk about.
How often is the game wiped?
The last one was december 2024. Because of a big update. They don't plan to do many more, but one is coming soon, because of an exploit that gives people billions of ingame money. When they fix that they will probably wipe with the next patch.
Play on the "free fly" events, you get to try those expensive ass ships for free.
Was pretty fun although abit buggy
The biggest problem is that the servers can be kind of shit on those days because of how many people try it out
Kinda perfect, then. If the shittiest servers are still fun, youll like the game. If not, no skin off yer back.
Thanks for letting me know I can try it free. The articles I read dont ever mention that
The articles aren't interested in actually reporting on the game, only how much money it's generated
If you like the free fly, just know, that's as bad as the servers get cuz theyre crowded. If you decide to dive in, get a cheap ship + game package for $60 or whatever it runs these days and don't upgrade it. Stick to buying ships in game and if u want to play with the bigger stuff, find one of the many guilds you can join.
You can buy virtually every ship with in game currency too.
ive tried it here and there over the years, but have been playing more than i ever have this week specifically, and i gotta say when its working smoothly its really awesome. it is pretty jank a lot of the time though but personally the cool parts of it outweigh the jank. a lot of the shit you read about how expensive the game is and all that is honestly just bs. you can buy almost every ship in the game from just playing.
It’s just an incredible space simulator, but with no free of bugs content whatsover.
If you like games like flight simulator or ace combat, then you will surely like it, if you search for a good mmo to waste your time, then you better just wait for 1.0, whenever it will be out on the next decade
It's not. I used to be a SC hater. I still am, but it's also my favorite game. There is truly nothing else like it. It's just a buggy fucking mess.
Its literally not, these articles are just shitily written hit pieces that come out a few times a year when news is slow 😂
I've played this game every day for over a year. Built a clan of about 20 and we all play together, there is honestly nothing like it out there
It’s really hard for something to be as bad as the articles say they are. Things are sensationalized to get clicks.
The reality is, it’s an unfinished game that will probably give you 10-20 hours of buggy fun if you enjoy flying around and exploring.
I only spent $40 on the game, so that was a fine trade off for me. (Though I have closer to 70 hours, since I enjoyed the barebones gameplay loop they have in place and the various events RSI held).
Hop on a free fly event for a weekend, have fun, then forget about the game until the next article pops up in a years time.
play with other ppl its way more fun
Spoiler alert, it’s pretty damn good and an experience no other game can offer, if you’re into space games. Nothing comes close.
You can try it any time and ask support to refund you if you don’t like it within a month or two I believe
Well the money doesn't come from people that hate the game. Can tell you that.
Watch some of DTOX's videos on YouTube
When it works it's easily the best co-op multiplayer game I've ever played. Nothing comes close. But there are definitely times where bugs make it frustrating.
It definitely scratches an itch that no other game comes close to when it works.
It’s not, the game is truly unlike anything else and is an absolutely crazy experience at times.
If you enjoy sim/immersive games that require some effort to learn their systems, with little to no handholding, it’s well worth a shot.
I play it often with a bunch of friends and I really don't understand the hate. In its current state it's a solid game with a lot to do and explore. The player base is only growing at this point. In most instances the hate is directed from people who have never played, or assume you need to buy a $3000 ship to even place SC. A $35 starter is all you need!
I just really want to play Squadron 42.... sigh..
I just hope the announcement is accurate from about 6 days ago that SQ42 is now fully playable at about 40 hours of game play and still slated for the 2026 release noted when they informed it was feature complete a while ago.
Time for some nuanced and well researched opinions from r/pcgaming
Game is pretty fun for like 45-60$. It will be pretty cool for about 30 hours or more. I even got the game free at one point because of referral free ships and support later refunded my purchase. But I decided to upgrade to a cooler ship without grinding and spend 60 bucks again but this time I could use the free ships as extra collateral for the upgrade which was a big discount
Oh no...Anyways.
I have it. I dropped $100 for a ship a year ago or so. I feel like I have gotten my money outta the game several times over. The game is fun AF when you're playing with friends. It's pretty buggy still, but it's not game breaking stuff, at least in my experience. You do have to have a beefy rig to play it with really good graphics. My system does just fine, but I also have high-end hardware. I know a lot of people on mid-tier and low-tier systems complain about that kinda stuff, and that's understandable.
I'm not one of the brain-dead players who will defend SC and die on that hill, but it is fun AF IMO. I enjoy it. There is enough content in the game to keep me happy. It obviously has its issues when it comes to optimization, performance, crashes, sometimes game breaking bugs, general bugs that never seem to get patched even though everyone working on the game has to know about them. The game is still in a long term Alpha state, which is just wild. It's incredible how this game is still getting the financing it does, lol. The people in leadership roles who run the show are pretty incompetent for sure.
I have commented lots on YouTube videos about the game and whenever I say the game is fun for me and how I dropped $100 on a ship these weirdos come outta the woodwork to tell me how delusional I am and how I am defending a scam game. You know, the typical stuff those types of weirdoes say to people who play the game. Like, I enjoy the game. It has content that I feel is (and still is) worth the $100 I put into a ship. Why some people get so offended over that is beyond me. Why do people care so much about what other people like and value? You can tell some of these weirdos actually get mad IRL over all of this stuff. It's like it consumes them, the way they type towards people who enjoy the game. It's OK to not like the game and think whatever you want about it, but to attack people who do like the game and say the awful stuff they do and even make threats to their safety and security is just insane behavior.
I would say just wait for a free to play event they sometimes do. Try the game. Have a buddy play with you for the most fun. The game isn't for everyone. Never hurts to try something new, even if you have a negative opinion on it. Worst that happens if you hate it and uninstall it, and at best you found a new game to play with your buddies.
Time for another round of pcgaming's tri-weekly Star Citizen hissy fit...
Bills are due, time to generate some clicks with another Star Citizen article.
I like that their last article misspelled Jared's name calling him "Jake" and got a bunch of shit blatently wrong just to cry about star citizen 😂
I know people that spent more money on the game than my car is worth
I paid like $50 for the game and TBH, its pretty fun.
People see the prices for the ships and think "how could anybody pay a lot of money for this ship that isnt even released yet?"
But star citizen really sells the dream.
I know a lot of guys that sunk huge amounts of money because they think it will be greater in the future
Incoming Downvotes, but I enjoy the game.
It has really scummy real money store especially for an Alpha game, but you can enjoy everything in the game with just the $45 pledge that includes game access(I've only spent 120$)
My biggest annoyances with the game is bugs from rushed updates that take some time to fix and the amount of time it takes to get to part of the game most enjoy. I'll try to answer what I can if people are curious
They recently added VR support out of nowhere, which has been getting some buzz in the VR community. I haven't tried it, but most of the commentary I've seen around that has been positive
It's a really solid initial implementation. No full locomotion or motion controls yet but the game itself was essentially built with VR in mind so almost all of the UI is perfectly set up for it
Apparently its been worked on by a single dev in his free rime
Mostly yeah, he did give a shoutout to several other devs who helped out off and on (mostly with testing, but also some implementation work) as well though
He seems to have a pretty good handle on what the next steps will be too, so it should only improve
Yeah I need some smaller glasses so I can bust out my Index to try it. Space flight and even just exploring some planets sounds crazy good in vr
I want Euro Truck Sim 2 in space, multi-player, dynamic economy etc. No need for combat. Ets2 popularity is undeniable
So many people in here talking like they are experts in a game they have never played themselves (or played years ago) and have only gotten information from whatever gaming publication puts out their (similarly ignorant) opinion on the game.
As someone that hasn’t spend thousands on the game, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had gaming, and it led me to create an org in the game which has membership in the couple hundreds.
What about GTA6, all new Call of Duty Games? Call of Duty Cold war was approximately 700 Million Dollars. GTA6 is estimated to cost more then 1 Billion. Its bonkers to see this game get the hate (some criticism is valid) when it is supported by people who like to see something else succeed then the yearly CoD Slob. But to not set the price in comparison to other games just to hate on Star Citizen because people have a personal vendetta against it. Just mind boggling to me
Oh look the gamers are misery posting again
And GTA VI is most likely the first billion dollar game with their sharks cards from GTA online. They just don’t have to air their dirty laundry legally.
Yeah, it's just intentionally misleading rage baiting for engagement. "Free" games like Fortnite and Roblox rake in several billion every year, the difference being of course not reinvesting that wealth back into the game and that's somehow better?
Nice to see the karma farming season going well.
CIG are developing two games plus a game engine with half of GTA 6's budget. I think the game is really fun but every gaming subreddit is so anti star citizen it's insane lol.
"First $1b game," what nonsense is this?
Do they think there haven't been billion dollar games before? What about Genshin Impact?
$1B in funding for development, not revenue.
Genshin Impact was already released as finished product, and they didn't have that much at the time.
I believe you're mixing up Net Worth and Gross Worth together.
Genshin isn't a finished product though, the story was far from complete at launch and still isn't close to finished years later. Games as a service are just a rolling release excuse to keep engagement up over time
I think way too much focus has been put on labels. Is Star Citizen "released?" Yes. Yes it is "released." You can play it. It is out. Is it "finished?" no, it is not, but neither is Genshin, Fortnite, No Man's Sky, or WoW. It is a game in continued development. Now is it as polished as some of those games were at their own 1.0 release state? From what I hear, in many ways it's not, and they do need to work on that, but that's really up to the people who actually play the game to decide where their focus should be, and the players seem largely ok with it, so who are we to judge?
But anyway, my point is that there have been likely at least several games that have had a total budget of over a billion dollars, in many cases over a similar amount of development time.
Let's deconstruct this article, shall we?
CIG have crowdfunded nearly a billion to develop TWO games, not just one. The vast majority of which is going towards the single player game, Squadron 42, instead of Star Citizen. Note that while SQ42 and SC share a bunch of tech, there's a whole lot that's unique to each game.
SC is not at all the first game to have be nearing the one billion mark. Rockstar's GTA6 has already surpassed that mark and is rumored to be hitting two billion by the time it releases. It too is in active alpha development.
The number of SC ships in the thousands or even high hundreds as listed in the article are a tiny minority of the total purchasable ships in the game. The overwhelming majority are in the tens or low hundreds.
Not saying CIG doesn't have mismanagement issues or questionable funding, but they are for more honest about their funding than pretty much all AAA studios at this point. There's no special premium currency, no loot boxes, no addictive gambling mechanisms whatsoever. All pledge store ships are purchasable with in game currency within 6 to 8 months, meaning the vast majority of currently flyable ships are not pledge store exclusive by any means.
Alas, gaming "journalists" really love clickbaity articles, especially when it comes to this game in particular. At this point, I expect nothing less. Even if Squadron 42 releases on time and to wide player acclaim, I strongly suspect they will do their absolute best to trash it as not doing so means having to admit they were wrong.
People only rip it apart because it's public knowledge and crowd funded, if they weren't legally obligated to show their numbers people wouldnt have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing it as much aside from development time. Its best not to take these articles seriously, they've been happening forever lol
I love these misleading ass articles lmao
The game is $45. Simple as.
fuck off bro I've seen like 10 posts this week with this garbage.
People should chill about Star Citizen. No one is stealing their money away, those who buy 3k ships did it willingly, let them finance this game if they want to.
It's nice to see the discussion here is pretty balanced, despite the ragebait title.
karma farming as usual
I'll buy it when each part of the game will finally reach the 1.0. This is the case when the sentence "vote with your wallet" means something.
If people is so foolish to pay x0K for an ingame ship its their problem, I mean CIG is just following a demand from players.
Again: vote with your wallet.
This always surprise me ... not because of the game. But because it feels like beating a dead horse. Yeah. Sure. Millions, Alpha, Costly ships ... anything new? Nope.
Slow news day?
You can quite literally get Elite Dangerous which is literally the finished game that Star Citizen wants to be.
😭😭😭
This game is never going to release. And why would it? They've made a billion off of bigger and bigger empty promises. Releasing would hurt their business model.
ITT: Star Citizen fanatics + casual players arguing arguing with Star Citizen anti-fanatics + uninformed casual observers/gamers. The truth lay in the middle.
There is a bare-bones game to play. Hauling, scavenging, mining, FPS combat, ship combat are in-game to some degree. You might find yourself having an hour or two of 'fun' just checking these things out then quitting, or you might enjoy them enough to play regularly... it depends on your personal tastes. Obviously if you find a group you like, you might even 'main' the game.
You can indeed play using a cheap $45 ship and work your way up. Or you can go nuts and just use IRL $$$ to buy it outright. The idea of P2W is interesting because currently there's really no end-game, so there's really fk all to 'win' lol. The only thing to do is just earn more cash to buy more ships in-game.
They just added VR support a couple weeks ago and it's cool and everyone seems to agree it's very good.
I think the game will have more appeal to the wider gamer audience in a couple years at the rate their going. Currently, I don't think it has enough content to keep people engaged outside of just playing for a few hours to see how it is.
It also runs smoothly if you have a good computer. It'll run a little ass in hubs where you buy stuff and refuel/reload/spawn ships, but once you get out of there, it's smooth...which is where you actually need it to be smooth. If it's laggy in hubs, sure it feels bad but it's not like you need 120fps cuz you're shooting at something.
In conclusion... conversations like this don't matter at all, funding is increasing if you believe their tracker so clearly theyre doing some things right and heading in the right direction, albeit slowly af, and will continue to do so no matter how many inaccurate news articles and flame posts pop up. We're just flapping our gums for no reason haha. Merry Christmas!
Oh look, it's this article and thread again. Frustratingly devoid of all nuance as usual.
As a longtime backer (2014), that's a couple thousand dollars and probably 800+ hours into the game, let me set the record straight with reality for everyone here. So we can just copy paste this comment into this thread when it's posted again someday.
Is it a scam? No. Haters love to dogpile on this boring, low energy hot take. It's objectively not a scam, there's over 7,000 players online a day and they're consistently shipping content, patches, fixes, and new game systems.
Is it the be all end all? No. Cultists love to white knight defend CIG (the devs) even when they're wrong or completely misguided.
The truth is:
The bad
The Good:
TL;DR?
I remember reading about Star Citizen in a freaking gaming magazine prior to 2010..
I bought the game somewhere around 2018.. Never got very far due to lag or bugs annoying me before i got hooked.
This week is the first week Ive actually played more than an hour or two because I got dual joysticks for Christmas and they finally implemented VR.
HOSAS + VR Star Citizen is absolutely amazing. Ive dreamed of this for a long time and its finally working.
There is now a game worth playing, but I dont think it would be as magical on a monitor and a keyboard.
I also already got distracted by Mechwarrior 5 VR with the HOSAS and put SC down, its just so badass in VR with the sticks its a completely different game.
Star Citizen was announced in 2012. Development likely started in 2010/2011 to produce the initial proof of concept for the crowdfunding.
People keep shitting on this game while the developers are actually genuinely building a game that has never been attempted before, while spending billions of dollars on Shark Cards and Brand(TM) skins in Fortnite and Call of Duty.
It costs 45$ to play all the content in the game, all else is the consumer's choice. I've logged hundreds of hours and had some of the best gaming experiences of my life so far.