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Star Citizen is selling a $40,000 ship bundle.

Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,030
I don't usually keep up with Star Citizen much, but I am currently reinstalling No Man's Sky and kind of got curious about how the game was doing. I remembered the thread about it reaching $400,000,000 a couple months ago and was interested to see what they had done with it. So I started looking around for gameplay footage and screenshots.


And then I came across this on the Star Citizen Reddit lol

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com


w0o52yowff781.png




Now I'm no game developer, but if they have raised over 400 million dollars for the project why the heck do they need to sell something for 40 grand? You could fund several games for that kind of money right? Or am I missing something here?
 
Dust

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,265
I want detailed autobiography of every person who buys this.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,632
Coyote Starrk said:
I don't usually keep up with Star Citizen much, but I am currently reinstalling No Man's Sky and kind of got curious about how the game was doing. I remembered the thread about it reaching $400,000,000 a couple months ago and was interested to see what they had done with it. So I started looking around for gameplay footage and screenshots.


And then I came across this on the Star Citizen Reddit lol

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com


w0o52yowff781.png




Now I'm no game developer, but if they have raised over 400 million dollars for the project why the heck do they need to sell something for 40 grand? You could fund several games for that kind of money right? Or am I missing something here?
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That's 400 million over time. It's been in active development for like 10 years now and they have 5 studios totalling around 1000 employees now.
The project had been heavily mismanaged for years and they are probably still paying the price for it, but its scope is also several games worth. Squadron 42 and the MMO are two games and the MMO has a scope larger than anything basically. We should get server meshing in the next 4-6 months which basically means we can have several thousand people in the persistant universe. Once that's done the MMO is for all intent and purpose "out" even if it won't be 1.0. Squadron 42? I don't know, though they did open a new studio a few months back to fast track work on it.
 
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Bufbaf

Bufbaf

Don't F5!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,658
Hamburg, Germany
Did they ever finish and make available any of these 10k+, or even 5k+ ships they've been selling for years and years? Does anyone who actually plays know?
 
Jedi2016

Jedi2016

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,681
Is this how they expect the final game to go? Or will I be able to pay $60 for the full game and get this very same ship using only in-game currency, a la Elite: Dangerous?
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,407
Coyote Starrk said:
Now I'm no game developer, but if they have raised over 400 million dollars for the project why the heck do they need to sell something for 40 grand? You could fund several games for that kind of money right? Or am I missing something here?
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They have 600 employees. If we make a very rough estimate of $100K per employee each year, then they'd be going through $60M per year in labor costs alone.

I think they aren't solely relying on crowdfunding though. Didn't they get private investors?
 
Gay Bowser

Gay Bowser

Member
Oct 30, 2017
17,707
Jedi2016 said:
Is this how they expect the final game to go? Or will I be able to pay $60 for the full game and get this very same ship using only in-game currency, a la Elite: Dangerous?
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I think it's clear at this point that this is what Star Citizen is, that they're not going to do any sort of reset when the "final game" comes out and that selling ships to whales for large sums of money is going to be a big part of their business model indefinitely.
 
Bufbaf

Bufbaf

Don't F5!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,658
Hamburg, Germany
Coyote Starrk said:
Wait wait wait. The ships don't even exist yet?!


What the hell are you getting then when you drop 40 large on this?
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As far as I know, basically a preorder on good faith. Last i checked barely any of them were even close to finished, and that was like two or three years ago, which is why I'm hoping anyone actually knows lol

Kinda interested at checking it out still but haven't yet, mostly because I literally have no idea what's actually in the game and what's either an unconnected mess or not included at all. A real ot on it might be helpful for that, do we have one?
 
OP
OP
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,030
tokkun said:
They have 600 employees. If we make a very rough estimate of $100K per employee each year, then they'd be going through $60M per year in labor costs alone.

I think they aren't solely relying on crowdfunding though. Didn't they get private investors?
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If they have such a large team shouldn't the game be basically done by now?


Once again not a game developer, but I was under the impression that most large AAA games get done in a few years or so with a smaller team and a much smaller budget? Or am I way off in my estimates?
 
scare_crow

scare_crow

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,309
I mean, I think you're way off the mark with thinking you can develop "several games" for $40,000, but yes this is completely ridiculous.
 
tr1b0re

tr1b0re

Member
Oct 17, 2018
1,329
Trinidad and Tobago
At this point I think this is what they want from the game, just whales spending tons of money while development gets strung out as long as people keep paying up
 
Ovvv

Ovvv

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Jan 11, 2019
10,030
Skab said:
Everything else aside for a moment, no. No you cannot. Do you really not realize how expensive games are to make lol
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You definitely can fund several games on 400mil lol. I'm curious how much you think your average game costs? Not every game is a 200 million dollar blockbuster
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,112
at least tell me that is all the ownable ships in the game, including the unreleased ones
 
Lump

Lump

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,027
2 buyers subsidizing one year's salary for a developer though. They should sell these as Adopt-a-Dev. Shelter and feed a Dev today.
 
Alek

Alek

Games User Researcher
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
8,471
tokkun said:
They have 600 employees. If we make a very rough estimate of $100K per employee each year, then they'd be going through $60M per year in labor costs alone.

I think they aren't solely relying on crowdfunding though. Didn't they get private investors?
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Probably lower than 100k average because the largest work force is often QA and localisation who are on very low salaries. Unless they're outsourcing they're probably employing 200+ QA/LOC with salaries

Only specific jobs in game dev are well paid. Many are not. Then they also have a lot of positions outside of LA. EU game dev is quite poorly paid when compared to West coast US.

But, you probably have a few people pulling six figure salaries too I would imagine... so that messes up the averages also.
 

Deleted member 1190

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,663
Ovvv said:
You definitely can fund several games on 400mil lol. I'm curious how much you think your average game costs? Not every game is a 200 million dollar blockbuster
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It read like they were talking about the 40 grand, not the 400 mil. Wasn't the only one to take it that way either, it seems.
 

Calvinien

Banned
Jul 13, 2019
2,970
HylianSeven said:
Can I put my NFT ape on it?
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Comparing star citizen to NFTs is unfair.

Star citizen people buy jpegs of ship in the hope of one day using them.
NFTbros buy receipt for shitty apes in the hope of one day selling them.

Also star citizen is much cheaper and has better art.

This isn't a defence of SC (lord knows we'll get the defence force in this thread soon enough) so much as it is a condemnation of NFTs. They are so stupid, even SC's startship jpegs are a better investment.
 
Dark Knight

Dark Knight

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,306
This remains one of the funnier on-going schemes in all of gaming. The promised scale of this project will both never deliver the complete goods and far overshadow the actual enjoyment and engagement of the gameplay when all is said and done.
 
OP
OP
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
53,030
Skab said:
Everything else aside for a moment, no. No you cannot. Do you really not realize how expensive games are to make lol
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How much do you think a big AAA game costs to make?

I just googled it and Witcher 3 Wild Hunt was made for 81 million. And if I remember right the cost to make GTA V was like 260 million and that made it the most expensive game ever.


So yeah you can take $400 million and make several video games with that.
 
Forsaken82

Forsaken82

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,926
Coyote Starrk said:
I don't usually keep up with Star Citizen much, but I am currently reinstalling No Man's Sky and kind of got curious about how the game was doing. I remembered the thread about it reaching $400,000,000 a couple months ago and was interested to see what they had done with it. So I started looking around for gameplay footage and screenshots.


And then I came across this on the Star Citizen Reddit lol

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com


w0o52yowff781.png




Now I'm no game developer, but if they have raised over 400 million dollars for the project why the heck do they need to sell something for 40 grand? You could fund several games for that kind of money right? Or am I missing something here?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

How exactly do you think they've reached that 400 million mark? They've been selling these outrageously priced ship packages for years. This project has an incredibly enthusiastic small fan base willing to shell out this kind of money for this content.
 
404LinkNotFound

404LinkNotFound

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,603
Coyote Starrk said:
How much do you think a big AAA game costs to make?

I just googled it and Witcher 3 Wild Hunt was made for 81 million. And if I remember right the cost to make GTA V was like 260 million and that made it the most expensive game ever.


So yeah you can take $400 million and make several video games with that.
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I think they thought that it was th 40K figure the other person was talking about
 
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