I'm certain you're unaware of how bad this is, otherwise you wouldn't be propping it up as a sign of strength for the project. When it was announced it was closer to release than it is now. 6 years on and they barely have any work done. It looks like they've been designing ships in that time and put together the minimal acceptable product for most backers to be fine with, if this thread is anything to go by.People dont pay 160+ millon to play SC, people can pay basic gamepack more cheap than RDR2 or Cyberpunk when they launch, nobody is forcing to pay more than the minimun, i wanna pay now 45$ for Cyberpunk.
You are wrong speaking of "their original goal", because the scope change drasticaly the last years, in the original goal we cant go to a planet/moon and land whenever i want, now i can do it, this is a masssive change in the gameplay base and need to be done in the skeleton of the game before launch, you can see how games like Elite Dangerous cant do anything now like FPS without years of rework because they cant introduce this gameplay before.
One thing you need to know, they are gonna release 2 games, in 8 years of development we surely have Squadron 42 out and a big part of the MMO in hands of the baker testing and improving the game, if you follow the roadmap in the official web you can see how the patch is showing so much content for the game in the next months, think about 2-3 patchs more and maybe you can see how the game would have this feeling of "beta" gameplay.
The mayority of this roadmap is getting in date, when this content is out what is the next "bullshit" of the haters?
I dont see the problem in add more gameplay base in the big universe, we are in the 6º year of development, now is the time to add all the basic mechanics, games like Cyberpunk or RDR2 do the same before launch, and you maybe think this not gonna be finish but for SQ42 the content was cut some months ago and now they are polish the base gameplay, the Universe MMO can add more content in the next 1-2 year of development easy because is the normal time for develop one of the biggest MMO ever seen in the industry.
I wouldn't go so far as to call this a scam, it's clear they're doing their best, but I would call it mismanaged and it will either never release or release and be so scaled back as to disappoint many members of the community. Every time they add a new ship they add new mechanics, new "jobs". They then have to go back to make sure that it can fit into their core design. This increases workload and is an active hindrance to the development. I'm nearly certain they've run out of money or are close to it, at the very least. I don't see any reson to keep putting things up for sale otherwise. Those sales are effectively another round of funding. Hell, they're at 475 employees now. That's ~$24M USD annually in just basic payroll at $50k per person. That's not including the price of senior or board member salaries. That's not including studio overhead, which is 2 divisions and 4 subsidiaries, for stuff like toilet paper and rent. That's not including things like insurance for each employee. Out of $189M USD funding.
And please, stop comparing this to Red Dead 2 or Cyberpunk. It's dishonest. The devs of those games are developing those games independently of their communities. They're not using them as personal coffers. Cyberpunk could take 15 years to release but CD Projekt Red has never sold in-game items to help finance the game. They're working on a budget, whereas these devs are only limited by the amount of money their fanbase is willing to spend. Which, if history is anything to go by, is a metric fucktonne. CDPR knows what they have at all times. At this point CIG seems to have limitless funding, as long as they keep pumping out new ships and adding more development.
Don't feel bad. I got in on the early rounds of Fortnite, way before Battle Royale was a thing. I have zero interest in BR.
