Forbes: Star Citizen - A Video Game That Raised $300 Million But May Never Be Ready To Play

borntoulouselautrec · May 1, 2019

Forbes published an article on Star Citizen development:
Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $300 Million—But May Never Be Ready To Play

It's a great read for those who want to learn about Chris Roberts and how the game went from a very successful kickstarter to the most expensive crowdfunded game in history. Spoiler: it's pretty negative. The SC community (mostly on reddit) is already calling the article a 'hit piece' but some of the stuff is heavy. The authors go into Roberts history of producing games and movies, his financial problems, his development style and the people he works with. The part about Sandi Gardiner, Roberts' wife and Cloud Imperium head of marketing is just terrifying.

Some quotes:

It’s October 2018 and 2,000 video game fanatics are jammed into Austin’s Long Center for the Performing Arts to get a glimpse of Star Citizen, the sprawling online multiplayer game being made by legendary designer Chris Roberts. Most of the people here helped to pay for the game’s development—on average, $200 each, although some backers have given thousands. An epic sci-fi fantasy, Star Citizen was supposed to be finished in 2014. But after seven years of work, no one—least of all Roberts—has a clue as to when it will be done.

On "this is a scam":

Rough playable modes—alphas, not betas—are used to raise hopes and illustrate work being done. And Roberts has enticed gamers with a steady stream of hype, including promising a vast, playable universe with “100 star systems.” But most of the money is gone, and the game is still far from finished. At the end of 2017, for example, Roberts was down to just $14 million in the bank. He has since raised more money. Those 100 star systems? He has not completed a single one. So far he has two mostly finished planets, nine moons and an asteroid.

This is not fraud—Roberts really is working on a game—but it is incompetence and mismanagement on a galactic scale. The heedless waste is fueled by easy money raised through crowdfunding, a Wild West territory nearly free of regulators and rules. Creatives are in charge here, not profit-driven bean counters or deadline-enforcing suits.

On transparency and development:

Up to a point, Roberts has been transparent about where the money has been going. He released years’ worth of financial statements last December. But he won’t say how much he or other top Cloud Imperium execs have made from the project. His wife and his brother both work in senior positions at the company.

“There’s no two ways about it, man. Star Citizen is nuts,” says Jesse Schell, a prominent game developer and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “This thing is unusual in about five dimensions. . . . It is very rare to be doing game development for seven years—that’s not how it works. That’s not normal at all.”

On the development length:

In the fall of 2012 Roberts announced his first crowdfunding campaign, which quickly raised $6.2 million. It doesn’t seem like a lot in a world where budgets for quality games can easily reach into the tens of millions, but Roberts left the impression that it would be enough. After all, Star Citizen was already “12 months into production.” It seemed like a redemption song from a man who had been out of gaming for a decade after his partnership with Microsoft had gone sour. (Today, Roberts says that initial year of development doesn’t count because “it was more proof-of-concept work.”)

On people spending thousands of dollars on an unreleased game:

Cloud Imperium has churned out new versions of ships it has already sold and allows players to trade in their old ships to help buy new ones. The company also introduced the concept of “warbonds,” selling ships at a discount if new cash is used to purchase them. Players gain elite concierge club status by spending $1,000 (High Admiral) or $10,000 (Wing Commander). High-status players get bonus items like the “arclight II laser pistol executive edition” or a digital bottle of space whiskey.

It may seem silly, but there are real victims. Ken Lord is a 39-year-old data scientist from the Denver area, who suffers from worsening multiple sclerosis. Lord first backed Star Citizen in 2013 and eventually spent $4,500 buying spaceships. Last year, Lord unsuccessfully sued Cloud Imperium for a refund. “You take something that is bad, like spending too much money on a video game, and turn it into a socially exclusive club and make it desirable—cheers to their marketing department,” he says. (Bizarrely, Lord, who claims to have “poor impulse control,” continued to buy more spaceships after his lawsuit failed.)

“It’s not my place to talk about what people spend their money on,” says Gardiner.

Trace · May 1, 2019

Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

vestan · May 1, 2019

This article is bullshit, lmfao.

Cloud Imperium have made insane progress these past few months with 3.5.0. Even though I'm not a fan of Roberts, the game is seriously shaping into something impressive and there's no denying that. Squadron 42 will launch in 2020 anyways, so what's the deal?

DGenerator · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

Forbes spoke to 20 people who used to work for Cloud Imperium, many of whom depict Roberts as a micromanager and poor steward of resources. They describe the work environment as chaotic.

Gotta love astroturfers or people who clearly didn't read the source material but really wanted to get that first post regardless.

Whether you agree on the content or not, speaking to 20 people who work for the company is not "poorly sourced."

Soul of Miyazaki · May 1, 2019

I'd feel robbed if I put money into this game.

Theorry · May 1, 2019

This is kinda amazing tho.

Trace · May 1, 2019

DGenerator said:
Gotta love astroturfers or people who clearly didn't read the source material but really wanted to get that first post regardless.

I've read the entire reddit thread on this hours ago. This article is bullshit.

TheJackdog · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

regardless what you think of SC at this point i think its pretty obvious Roberts is not the best producer in the world

Dreams-Visions · May 1, 2019

I'll give it a look, but these thread titles really need to start adding "Contributor" after "Forbes".

Lowrys · May 1, 2019

I don't think a scam. But I also don't think that it can come anywhere close to their vision.

makonero · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

Wow you read that quick

(Star citizen is a scam or massively incompetent, take your pick)

Aztechnology · May 1, 2019

Already read the article last night, as for the question I don't think it's even possible to deliver on its promises. So a yes or no is a little... Hmmm. But I think it'll break ground in places we've never seen before.

As for the article. It's pretty scathing. I think this thread given the nature of the article and it's suppositions. And the kind of attention it gathers will really provide a productive discussion for your question.

Trace · May 1, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
I'll give it a look, but these thread titles really need to start adding "Contributor" after "Forbes".

This isn't a Forbes Contributor article. It's an actual Forbes article, which makes the whole thing even worse.

makonero said:
Wow you read that quick

(Star citizen is a scam or massively incompetent, take your pick)

Some of us manage to get information outside of Era, I read this hours ago. Crazy I know.

Deleted member 47654 · May 1, 2019

Forbes writing about video games... and isn't about COD or Halo launch weekends.
Reliability= 0

Anthony Hopkins · May 1, 2019

It's like a no man's sky with realistic and better graphics.
The devs are just tagging along, I wish they would just finish the game.

vestan · May 1, 2019

DGenerator said:
Gotta love astroturfers or people who clearly didn't read the source material but really wanted to get that first post regardless.

Whether you agree on the content or not, speaking to 20 people who work for the company is not "poorly sourced."

Mate, this article has been around for hours. This article is literally full of character assassination, misrepresentations and straight up lies.

DGenerator · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
I've read the entire reddit thread on this hours ago. This article is bullshit.

Nothing about what you said defends the fact you called it "poorly sourced" despite the sources being 20 people who worked at the company.

mael · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
I've read the entire reddit thread on this hours ago. This article is bullshit.

It's a very funny retort.
Next you'll tell us that the real source is official PR by the people making the game.

borntoulouselautrec · May 1, 2019

vestan said:
Mate, this article has been around for hours. This article is literally full of character assassination, misrepresentations and straight up lies.

Can you point out the lies?

Lant_War · May 1, 2019

makonero said:
Wow you read that quick

(Star citizen is a scam or massively incompetent, take your pick)

Yes, they're definitely trying to scam people by making a game.

Rodjer · May 1, 2019

PopcornMegaphone · May 1, 2019

I have no dog in this fight but it would be nice if the people calling this article bs to show their receipts.

mrmoose · May 1, 2019

Every discussion about Star Citizen seems like it turns into a holy war the likes of religion, politics, MLMs and consoles.

ody · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
I've read the entire reddit thread on this hours ago. This article is bullshit.

Thanks for providing sources for your claims

brandonbrb · May 1, 2019

Forbes doing Forbes things, nothing new.

Siggy-P · May 1, 2019

Theorry said:
This is kinda amazing tho.

That's incredibly impressive, but as someone who mostly hasn't followed Star Citizen did they really promise 100 star systems with that level of detail?

You'd struggle to get 100 star systems of worth with random generation.

ParanormalFupa · May 1, 2019

Theorry said:
This is kinda amazing tho.

Is it though? It just looks like a camera panning around a 3d modeled city in the absence of physics. Google Earth VR is more kinda amazing than that. Elite Dangerous STILL looks more kinda amazing than that.

vestan · May 1, 2019

borntoulouselautrec said:
Can you point out the lies?

They say they spoke to 20 people that were involved with the development of Star Citizen but only quote 2 people who worked at CIG nearly 6 years ago. The article goes after Roberts' family for some reason????????????? And the article makes it seem as if the whole thing is a scam even though CIG are transparent as fuck and backers knew what they were getting into. I'm convinced the person who made this article hasn't even played the game. As far as Star Citizen's development is concerned, CIG have made insane progress these past two years.

DGenerator · May 1, 2019

vestan said:
Mate, this article has been around for hours. This article is literally full of character assassination, misrepresentations and straight up lies.

Hey look, that's exactly what the second-highest comment on the Reddit thread said!

Totally sounds like original thinking and not hivemind parroting!

I've yet to read anything that comes close to explaining how it's "character assassination, misrepresentation and straight up lies" other than people saying so because they're invested (emotionally or monetarily).

Imitation Of Life · May 1, 2019

This game will never live up to the expectations or resources put into it. It's still a tech demo. No sympathy for the fools spending thousands on digital ships like the one mentioned in the article.

Aztechnology · May 1, 2019

Anthony Hopkins said:
It's like a no man's sky with realistic and better graphics.
The devs are just tagging along, I wish they would just finish the game.

I mean the multi crew ship containers and activities while flying, ship boarding, E.V.A, various MP states and persistence take the application far beyond NMS. The tech here is no joke. There's not another game that can do what it does to my knowledge.

Just in the alpha spaces with some people here on discord I've done things I never would have imagined I would see in a game.

BeI · May 1, 2019

Dunno if I'm convinced the game will amount to much more than some pretty ships and a few nice set pieces. It feels like work on the game has gone on so long to "only" be where it is.

But I'll admit I haven't taken any extended looks at the game lately.

lupinko · May 1, 2019

I don’t get why a Financial magazine like Forbes ever decided to talk about video games.

The Anonymous Wizard · May 1, 2019

7 years and millions of dollars and all they have to show for themselves is some disjointed tech-demos absolutely full of glitches and bugs... I really feel like this project has no clear focus, they keep spending money on things like new ships to sell to the kind of suckers who'll keep buying them at extortionate prices but the game they promised is nowhere in sight!

I don't think it's a scam but it's certainly making enough money in its current state that they're in no rush to actually finish a game...

Deleted member 44371 · May 1, 2019

CIG's biggest sin according to "Games Journalists" is not releasing an Alpha game and calling it a finished AAA game "like OTHER companies"

A summary

Developers and their families are human too and live strange human lives
Chris Roberts has money to buy a nice house after a long successful career
People still keeps backing this game and they don't understand why, so they assume it's a scam
The game is taking too long time to make according the the author. (The game isn't out yet like Anthem, Fallout 76 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.. you know; proper AAA games released on a schedule. The way it's supposed to be done. And CIG's workers aren't treated like shit with a neverending crunch and 16 hour workdays like other succsessful tripple A companies does it in order to meet company deadlines. Shame on CIG for doing it the wrong way.)
Chris Roberts is a stickler for details and had a guy work three months on the new ship shield effects (I can't wait for those, apparantly they will make ships crashing more performant as well :) )
Jesse Schell, a random "prominent game developer", with huge hits behind him like "Water bears", "Domino world" and "Peg + Cat" !? thinks Chris Roberts doesn't know how to make games
Chris Roberts once spent too much time on Freelancer to make the game he wanted to make; and that made Microsoft upset
A majority of the concepted ships have already been made, the ships that are not finished yet are still concepts
A man named Ken that has multiple sclerosis did not get his money back after purchasing ships. (Nothing was stated about if stores like Steam had offered refunds due to his illness, I guess the important point was that SC didn't.) Ken has continued to buy ships after he was refused a refund
A backer that offers an alternate view on matters, that CIG is really working towards something awesome, gets a tiny paragraph in which he is identified as a "Believer"
Star Citizen is a game currently in active development where you can purchase one or more ships at varying prices to help fund the game (With the lowest price for full access to the game being 45USD)

The 100 star systems quote was back when they said they will only make landing zones and not full fledges planets... of course full planets with no loading times inbetween are better so it takes more time. also you can check out the game right now for yourself there is a freefly weekend.
also the journalist saying he is following the money LOL you can literally check out all their finances on their company website

borntoulouselautrec · May 1, 2019

vestan said:
They say they spoke to 20 people that were involved with the development of Star Citizen but only quote 2 people who worked at CIG nearly 6 years ago. The article goes after Roberts' family for some reason????????????? And the article makes it seem as if the whole thing is a scam even though CIG are transparent as fuck and backers knew what they were getting into. I'm convinced the person who made this article hasn't even played the game. I have my gripes with CIG but this is a really poorly made article that reads like a hit piece more than anything. As far as Star Citizen's development is concerned, CIG have made insane progress these past two years.

Dude, what is this article tho? Star Citizen is literally using bleeding edge tech not utilised in any other game out there, has hundreds of people around the world working on it and CIG have been documenting the entire thing for years now.

Right, but you didn't say what exactly were the lies in the article?

Mupod · May 1, 2019

In regards to the thread poll, I backed it fully aware there was no chance it'd deliver. All I wanted was Squadron 42 and was fine dropping the cost of a normal game since I figured they'd try to get that out the door and then work on the MMO. So much for that idea, lol.

Dreams-Visions · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
This isn't a Forbes Contributor article. It's an actual Forbes article, which makes the whole thing even worse.

oh. oh my.

Inuhanyou · May 1, 2019

Continuously asking people for money for a project you have never given a timetable for and still has no actual deadline 7 years into development? What could go wrong

DieH@rd · May 1, 2019

Chill out, Forbes.

The game is in a very open development, they are making incredibly ambitious stuff, and updates are constantly coming out.

Aztechnology · May 1, 2019

I really don't understand the character assassination section about Sandi at all. Like it's so out of context for the piece.

mael · May 1, 2019

vestan said:
They say they spoke to 20 people that were involved with the development of Star Citizen but only quote 2 people who worked at CIG nearly 6 years ago. The article goes after Roberts' family for some reason????????????? And the article makes it seem as if the whole thing is a scam even though CIG are transparent as fuck and backers knew what they were getting into. I'm convinced the person who made this article hasn't even played the game. As far as Star Citizen's development is concerned, CIG have made insane progress these past two years.

They don't go after robert's family, they point out that Robert hasn't disclosed how much he gets out of it and that his family have senior position in the company which isn't the best sign for competent management.

Titik · May 1, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
I'll give it a look, but these thread titles really need to start adding "Contributor" after "Forbes".

It’s Forbes Staff.

And it’s not like Roberts has no history and pattern of similar scams like these.

But a fool and their money, I guess.

CopperPuppy · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

Lol nice critique of the article ONE MINUTE after the thread was posted

SteveWinwood · May 1, 2019

mael said:
They don't go after robert's family, they point out that Robert hasn't disclosed how much he gets out of it and that his family have senior position in the company which isn't the best sign for competent management.

whats with the paragraphs about his remarried wife and then people breaking into his house and the restraining order

Lothars · May 1, 2019

DGenerator said:
Gotta love astroturfers or people who clearly didn't read the source material but really wanted to get that first post regardless.

Whether you agree on the content or not, speaking to 20 people who work for the company is not "poorly sourced."

It is poorly sourced and it's a bullshit article but of course some wanna shit on the game no matter if valid or not.

borntoulouselautrec · May 1, 2019

Aztechnology said:
I really don't understand the character assassination section about Sandi at all. Like it's so out of context for the piece.

Roberts family is working with him on the game. It's explained in the article.

PocketchangeTTV · May 1, 2019

Trace said:
Gotta love poorly sourced hit-pieces masquerading as journalism.

I dont think any games live up to their promises, but i have no doubt star citizen will be released.

Trace · May 1, 2019

CopperPuppy said:
Lol nice critique of the article ONE MINUTE after the thread was posted

Why do people keep posting this as a "gotcha"? It was posted six hours ago, more than enough time to read it, discuss it on Reddit, and realize it's full of bullshit.

But ohh no, I'm definitely just here with my hot take, I couldn't possibly have read it earlier.

SofNascimento · May 1, 2019

Of couse it will be ready to play. In the same day The Winds of Winter will be ready to read in fact.

Forbes: Star Citizen - A Video Game That Raised $300 Million But May Never Be Ready To Play

Do you think released Star Citizen will deliver on its promises?

Yes

No

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