Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
The story of the game Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium, the company developing it, is almost too ludicrous to believe: a crowdfunding effort to create a space sim of unparalleled size and realism, raising hundreds of millions, with backers paying thousands for ships and gear in a game that's years from release. Yet it's real enough that it just pulled in $42 million in private funding to help bring it closer to release.
[...] A huge amount of work has been done on the game, so this isn't just a colossal con, though there are plenty who think the game, and its first-person shooter counterpart Squadron 42, can't possibly ever fulfill its ambitions and justify the money people have put into it.
That doesn't seem to be the opinion of Clive Calder, founder of Zomba and producer in a variety of entertainment formats, whom Roberts met during a clandestine campaign to solicit funding.
[...] Calder's family office agreed to invest $46 million for a 10 percent stake in Cloud Imperium, which all told puts it near a half-billion valuation. One may very well question the sanity of such a valuation for a company that has not yet shipped an actual product — working prototypes, sure, but not a completed game — but hell, at least they're making something people are excited about. That's got to be worth a couple bucks.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday December 25 2018, @05:14AM
This is RandomFactor's ideal Long Term Project for humanity.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday December 25 2018, @11:07AM (4 children)
So the question is why was this necessary? CIG has clearly put their spin on this, but it does make you wonder just how much cash they have left in the bank. Incoming community funding has been fairly steady for a few years now, and at a level that seems highly like to be below the operating costs of their multiple studios/offices, outsourced contractors, hosting costs, business costs (taxes, insurance, utilities) and everything else it takes to run a business. Over 400 staff, 5 (or more?) studios, ~$35m/year income - even with some tax breaks etc. that does not compute. I can't help but wonder if perhaps the long term financial situation is not quite as rosy as CIG would like us to believe.
Disclaimer: Former backer here. Got a refund due to a combination of the MMO morphing into something I was no longer interested in, the continual "we're going to do X... um, no, actually we're going to scrap that and do Y", and the quite frankly disgusting attitude certain members of CIG's staff took towards the community; for me it definitely wasn't the community that was "toxic".
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @02:10PM (1 child)
You're just salty because you couldn't afford a better ship.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday December 25 2018, @09:18PM
My issue was that what I most definitely didn't want was a game that seems like it's going to require the level of commitment that now seems to be the case. When it comes to my spare time, I've got better things to do with it than spend it on MMOs with all their clan allegiances, seemingly endless arrays of upgrades, and the need to continually level-up to avoid being completely outclassed. That might be a much better game for those still on-board (and I hope it eventually is), but it's not what I wanted and the community issues were just the final straw that prompted my exit. I'm still following the project though, and assuming it ever ships and gets decent reviews I might get a copy of Squadron 42 to relive the Wing Commander days, but this way that's a zero risk proposition.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday December 25 2018, @07:43PM (1 child)
I suspect this may be a good thing. You comment that Roberts is a perfectionist, and while that creates beautiful tech demos it also results in games that are released well past their expected release date. Maybe a new voice in the upper management will push the software to something releasable.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday December 25 2018, @09:35PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @07:25PM
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse [cloudflare-ipfs.com]
It has blood on it! [cloudflare-ipfs.com]
NASA Allais Effect Eclipse Experiment [archive.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26 2018, @12:55AM (1 child)
Gotta wait until Q1 for the female player, ArcCrop, and the reputation/law system, and then it should start looking like a game. New flight model also coming Q1. Count on at least one of those things being pushed back to Q2. (Female player was already pushed from Q4 2018. Wasn't ArcCorp in Q4 at some point too?)
Female player: 72/91 tasks.
New flight model: 122/144 tasks.
ArcCorp: scheduled, but Area18 landing zone (that we all remember from the "social module") at 13/121, moon Lyria at 8/9, and moon Wala is in polishing.
Reputation/Law system: scheduled.
(As of this comment. Updates here [robertsspaceindustries.com].)
The rep system is so being pushed to Q2.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 26 2018, @01:16PM
100 beeeellion dollars
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]