
Fans have dropped $77M on this guy’s buggy, half-built game - sajid
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/fans-dropped-77m-guys-buggy-half-built-game/
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brandonwamboldt
This title is clickbait and hyperbolic.

It's not even a half built game, it's pre-alpha, in development, "early
access". Almost everyone who pledged money should know that.

Fans who donated $77M did so to support the development of the game, with the
hope that it would one day be complete and live up to their expectations.

People who bought some of the more expensive ships didn't do it just to get
the ship. It's like those expensive dinners where you pay $250 per plate. It's
not worth that much money of course, but you're doing it to support a cause
(whatever it may be).

Also, an interesting note: CIG employs over 300 people working on Star Citizen
at the moment. They also publish monthly development status reports which are
interesting to read.

Disclaimer: I pledged $60 during the kickstarter and have closely followed the
development of the game.

~~~
kidmenot
> This title is clickbait and hyperbolic.

That's precisely why I have been skipping entries pointing to Wired for a good
while now, and haven't looked back ever since. Their articles are worth next
to nothing.

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DannoHung
As someone who has spent a pretty significant amount of money (not compared to
some, mind you, but pretty far up there) and is heavily involved in following
the game's development progress, I have two things to say that I don't think
almost _any_ article correctly addresses (this one touches on the first, but
doesn't really lean enough into the point and it's buried towards the end of
the article):

1) Most fans who are dropping more than about ~$100 have no expectation that
the money they are spending on ships is going to be equivalent to the effort
that they would have spent in game on acquiring said ship. Most of those fans
would probably really rather have that conversion ratio be extremely "poor"
just because if it isn't, then the game is pay to win, and absolutely not a
single lick of us want the game to be pay to win. I bought a Constellation,
which is kind of an in-universe equivalent to the Millenium Falcon. Since it's
a multi-crew ship, I would expect it to be about equivalent to when someone
gets access to player housing in a MMO. If it takes a player who hasn't
dropped a dime more than the basic purchase fee of the game at launch much
more than 15 to 20 hours of effort including setbacks to get into one of their
own, I am going to be really, really worried about the long term prospects of
the game.

2) Star Citizen has had the single most open development of any major title
ever. Short of indie developers who live-stream the programming of their
entire game, I don't know anything that comes close. If nothing else comes out
of it, we've all purchased some of the most interesting inside-baseball
content on video game production ever.

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VLM
I read the clickbait title and thought "Good for you, Toady, Dwarf Fortress
really does rock" and divided the $77e6 by the $50 I sent him to get 1.5M
players which seemed a bit high but semi-believable?

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retardedelk
<sigh> Overly ambitious try-to-do-everything pay-to-win monstrosity, when all
I really wanted was a modernized Wing Commander.

Obviously the people pay $5000 for a space ship really like the game, but a
lot of Chris Roberts old fans (like me) are a bit put off.

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Igglyboo
Better Title: Fans have willingly dropped $77M on this guy's buggy, half-built
game that is in pre-alpha and all backers were made aware that the game would
not be released anytime soon.

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spiritplumber
In fairness "this guy" has a reputation at having made excellent space sims
before.

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brandonmenc
Hopefully this turns out to be more Wing Commander, and less Strike Commander.

