The space simulation game Star Citizen has found a new way to extract money from the crowd:
Crowdfunded space simulation game Star Citizen has launched its $27,000 (£20,000) Legatus Pack, which includes nearly all its spacecraft plus extras.
Only players who have already spent $1,000 in the game can access the pack.
Cloud Imperium, the creators of Star Citizen, has received more than $200m in crowdfunding since launching a Kickstarter campaign for it in 2012.
According to its website it has more than two million players, although the game itself is still in development.
Previously: Star Citizen Reaches $100 Million in Crowdfunding, Alpha 2.0 Released
Star Citizen Developers Sued by Crytek
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The space simulation game Star Citizen has reached $100 million in crowdfunding:
Star Citizen continues its reputation as one of the most highly-anticipated, yet controversial games around, mainly because the ambitious space-based game has a large amount of crowdfunding but no final release date. Even with many uncertainties for the game's future, people are still giving the developers money. This past weekend, another milestone was reached as the total funding for Star Citizen passed $100 million.
The timing worked out perfectly, as the game's alpha was updated to version 2.0 this weekend. The latest version finally included some features that early backers thought would come earlier, such as first-person shooting, multi-crew ships (which also means new ships specifically for multiple players), and a new planet to explore (along with some moons and space stations).
[...] The funding for the game started in September 2012. One month later, backers raised $2 million. Since then, the developers put stretch goals if various levels of funding were successful, such as a facial capture system at $22 million, or a new salvage ship at $32 million. However, the goals stopped after the $65 million mark. The last reward allowed developers to work on a modular feature for "any suitable ships" in the game, so that pilots can swap interior and exterior parts to build a spacecraft suitable for combat, mining, bounty hunting, or whatever hobby they wish to partake in the large in-game universe.
The seemingly endless amount of money also allowed the developers to enhance the game's single-player campaign, titled Squadron 42 , with a cast of celebrities such as Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson and Andy Serkis.
As if Star Citizen didn't have enough problems, now its developers are being sued by Crytek:
Star Citizen's lengthy and heavily crowd-funded development has been marked by numerous changes to the project's direction and scope, including a move from Crytek's CryEngine to Amazon's Lumberyard in late 2016. That change is now the focus of a lawsuit from Crytek, which accuses Star Citizen developers Roberts Space Industries (RSI) and Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) of copyright infringement and breach of contract.
The complaint, filed in the US District Court for Central California, lays out how RSI agreed to work exclusively with CryEngine in a 2012 agreement, an agreement it says was broken when RSI moved to Amazon's Lumberyard engine in late 2016.
In a blog post following that transition, RSI's Chris Roberts explained that Lumberyard was essentially a more promising fork of an earlier CryEngine build that fit better as a base for "StarEngine," his name for the "heavily modified" version of CryEngine the developers were then using. "Crytek doesn't have the resources to compete with this level of investment and have never been focused on the network or online aspects of the engine in the way we or Amazon are," Roberts wrote.
Previously: Star Citizen Reaches $100 Million in Crowdfunding, Alpha 2.0 Released
'Star Citizen' Reaches $200 Million in Funding
Dedicated Star Citizen fans have pushed the game's crowdfunding revenue to a new milestone with the game now having raised over $200,000,000.
Currently playable in an alpha version that's available after purchasing one of the various game packs, the most common starter packs totaling around $45, Star Citizen and its developer and publisher Cloud Imperium Games have been raising money for the game for several years. According to the live stats for Star Citizen's crowdfunding progress, the game has raised $200,024,490 at the time of publishing with exactly 2,121,588 "Star Citizens" contributing to the game. That equates to just over $94 spent on the game per person.
[...] Star Citizen is currently in development and has a playable alpha with no official release date announced for the full game.
It'll come out of Beta around the $1 billion mark.
Also at Wccftech.
Previously: Star Citizen Reaches $100 Million in Crowdfunding, Alpha 2.0 Released
Star Citizen Developers Sued by Crytek
Star Citizen Begins Selling a $27,000 DLC Pack
'Star Citizen' Court Documents Reveal the Messy Reality of Crowdfunding a $200 Million Game (the story was updated with a correction stating that the actual number was a little over $190 million)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @12:51PM (6 children)
Holy crap.
Take a look at the roadmap [robertsspaceindustries.com] here. No sign of another system being rolled out besides Stanton. The cynical joke is that the best way to make money in the 'verse right now is by rescuing people from the Levski fly trap. (If you land on Levksi, good luck getting out. Like 3/4s of the server instances are bugged, and you'll just fall through the planetoid when you get in the elevator to go up to the hanger level.) Olisar isn't much better since you have to try about 2 or 3 airlocks before you find one that will open. No female avatar until 2019, but I think we all know that it's only transsexual freaks bitching about that, because cisgender women are perfectly fine waking up in the easy hab and seeing a package between their avatar's legs.
I can't imagine what on earth concierge (what is it, over $1k?) backers were thinking. I'm starting to feel uneasy about the measly $100 I've thrown at the game (started with an Aurora but melted it and upgraded to a Cutlass). $27k?! lol!
The hype prints money!
(If you think I'm being critical, check out Spectrum where the forums are! Endless bitching and whinging about griefing vs. legitimate piracy, pay to win, where's my Banu Merchantman?!, blablabla.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday May 30 2018, @01:52PM (4 children)
Personally, I think they're financially screwed and are going to have to either cut and run giving thanks to the Crowdfunding God of No-Refunds or try and sell a stake (and transfer at least some control) to a traditional publisher or bank real soon now. Can't wait to see how the true believers in "Chris don't need no stinking publishers" and "perfection takes time" spin that one. They've never come across as particularly skilled on financial shell games either - remember the advance they took on some UK government subsidies to pay the rent or some such a year or so back? - so it's also quite possible that this is a Hail Mary because some bills are due, they don't have enough cash onhand to pay them, and need a quick infusion. Oh, sure, they probably have some extra cash tied-up in the bank, but their revenue seems to have levelled off - and may even have peaked - at a level that seems quite likely to be below their expenditure (four offices, multiple sub-contractors totalling 300-400 staff, IIRC? Current revenue [google.com] is about $35m/yr, total employment cost is typically 150-175% of salary - do the math), which would mean they are now running on borrowed time with little hope of getting anywhere close to their so called "minimally viable product" initial release. Because a half-baked v1.0 product that's missing many of the features promised what will be getting on for ten years ago is somehow going to result in a massive cash infusion from both new and existing backers to drive the next development and deliver the remaining features. Yeah, right. I'd say keep drinking the Kool-Aid, but since this is CIG's Kool-Aid while it might look tasty you can bet it's going to be flat if it ever eventually arrives.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:24PM (1 child)
sunk cost fallacy?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:42PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:31PM
Grepolis seems to have done the same thing: create for the people spending big money and losing in the long run.
https://en.grepolis.com/ [grepolis.com]
feed to the big spenders and lose the players.
Oh well, if you have the money, go for it but you better also learn: if not, you'll be spending big money just keeping from losing.
It was a great game: one of the best i've played. Then just got lost in money. Spend or you can't do this. Spend or you can't do that.
Too bad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @11:14PM
Are you describing Second Life Syndrome?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:18PM
Regarding the forums - to be fair, in most games the well considered and articulated posts are overwhelmed by those of the hysterical minority on either end of the spectrum. (Supporters vs Detractors) One sets off the other in a recursion of diatribe diarrhea, and soon enough that's all anybody sees.
Specifically for Star Citizen, I've noticed that many of the most vocal do have good thoughts and opinions... but in order to be "heard" above the noise they post them in the most inflammatory and aggressive/abusive ways. Then they complain when they get shouted down or have their forum threads locked by moderators.
Lots of good people, lots of good thoughts, sadly many have the manners and delivery of an over-caffeinated 5-year-old.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday May 30 2018, @01:56PM (1 child)
I had a customer who was super excited for Star Citizen (worked with him two years ago). He had already spent around a thousand dollars on digital assets, but for him it was worth it. He was a senior engineer and played all the Wing Commanders previously, so while the money is expensive he could afford it.
Star Citizen still has the base packs to get you playing the game. If they want to sell assets for real money and people are willing to pay, good for them. Granted I have not played the beta that I have access to, so I don't have visibility if these purchases equate to "pay to win".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:21PM
I'm glad that there are projects in the world that can find this kind of backing. Cynical me says that most of the "sales" reported are going to be like "primer" dollars in restaurant musicians' tip jars, but, whatever - if that's all it takes to get you to pay $27K for something is thinking that lots of other people have already paid too... you get what you deserve.
As for "pay to win" games - yeah, that's something I generally don't enjoy at any level. I liked playing Hearthstone for free because it didn't feel too rigged, the free cards were good enough to have a decent win percentage, most of the time.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Snort on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:11PM (6 children)
When it comes out people will be so jelly of my super cruiser.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:30PM
Naah, they'll be mad when you and 50 other people spawn the supercruiser at the same time at Olisar, making everybody else's framerate drop to 2 fps. :-)
(I'm forgetting now which ship was causing that problem. Connie? Starfarer?)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:07PM (4 children)
The $50k pack, released 2 months later, will have the UltraCruiser, making your Super Cruiser look ridiculous.
3 months later, the Overwhelmingly Large Cruiser will be available in the $75k extension...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:51PM
Just wait till they do a package deal to reach into real life with the Uber Cruiser.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:36PM (2 children)
I'm holding out for the Oppressively Colossal Cruiser at $100k.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:41PM (1 child)
Would you like to order it with the Ludicrous Speed option for an extra $10k ?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @10:31PM
But sir! We've never bilked anyone that fast before!!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:45PM (2 children)
The game looks quite amazing and I was looking forward to play. So I went and tried to buy it, that is when I found you basically pay a little less than a AAA title for a single ship with only a few in-game benefits. That game can blow me, I'm tired of the pay-to-win business model.
I try to only support devs who make games out of a love for games, those doing it for the money rarely make the good games with depth beyond the texture files.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 30 2018, @10:21PM (1 child)
It's realism! IRL Space Wars will be won by the rich!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @10:34PM
Yay! Just what I always dreamed of in a video game. I hope they have some sort of mandatory over-play-time so you need to finish a giant quest before logging off or lose all progress.