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Comment by zamalek | Hacker News Reader

Let's take Grand Theft Auto 5 as a comparison point as it's probably the only game at the moment with a scope comparable to Star Citizen - out of the two Star Citizen likely has the larger scope. GTA 5 cost $137 million to develop and, due to the comparative scopes, it can be estimated that Star Citizen would cost more.

People are unbelievably ignorant about how much a AAA title costs to produce. SC is going to need much more money if it is ever going to meet Robert's grandiose plans.

However, Chris seemingly has virtually no discipline in terms of product management. The scope of the game is accelerating in the face of decelerating sponsorship.

Where has the money gone? Probably to the features that he has promised - sadly, not enough to any one single feature. $94 million simply isn't enough. If Star Citizen doesn't get more money it might end up being a bag of half-implemented features and is going to be a text-book example of runaway scope creep.

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I want to add to this:

- This has the graphics / production quality of a AAA game

- They need to redo the crytek engine in 64bit to be able to handle the necessary math (they made some vague-ish explanation)

- The game is 3 years in. With a more or less fresh engine. GTA5 took much longer to build AND they had the GTA4 engine as a starting point. So yeah, this project is not minor.

Criticisms:

- Seriously, they could have focused on features in the progression of: A space sim game at least on par-ish with similar games. Then afterwards get the "walking around a hangar" working. Then afterwards get the FPS mode working. Then afterwards get the "landing on a planet" working. It's all cool but stretching resources thin makes the features come in slow and the game not fun.

- Also they need to make the game approachable on non $500 graphics cards with $200 joysticks. Then again if you spent $2500 on a ship, I doubt you care.

> $200 joysticks

I got an HOTAS for Elite Dangerous. <satire>Let me say that it wasn't at all a wasted purchase for SC because I never intended it for that game - the support is currently terrible.</satire> You are wasting your time if you are playing with anything but a mouse and keyboard. I unplugged the joystick after little more than 30min. In addition, "2.0" has mouse-driven UIs in the ship, driving further nails into the idea of competent joystick control[1].

Don't feel bad about not having a joystick/HOTAS - they are second-class citizens in SC. This is not a bad thing, the HOTAS definitely gives me an unfair advantage in ED.

> Seriously, they could have focused on features in the progression

If they had used an iterative approach we probably would have had an actual game at this point. I firmly believe it's not too late to switch strategies to something similar to what you suggested. The other issue with the "module" approach is that there is no guarantee that the modules will work well together when they are combined - in whatever terms are appropriate (fun, stability, feasibility, etc.).

[1]: https://player.vimeo.com/video/144917841

> I got an HOTAS for Elite Dangerous. <satire>Let me say that it wasn't at all a wasted purchase for SC because I never intended it for that game - the support is currently terrible.</satire> You are wasting your time if you are playing with anything but a mouse and keyboard. I unplugged the joystick after little more than 30min. In addition, "2.0" has mouse-driven UIs in the ship, driving further nails into the idea of competent joystick control[1]. Don't feel bad about not having a joystick/HOTAS - they are second-class citizens in SC. This is not a bad thing, the HOTAS definitely gives me an unfair advantage in ED.

... what?

He's saying that in ED a HOTAS makes the whole game sing (and with a vr headset and a hotas it's pure silky heaven). And that SC has dropped the ball on HOTAS support.

I use HOMAS (hands on mouse and stick), plus my own voice software CASI, and i get much better level of control that with keyboard mouse.

The control of a joystick with the accuracy of a mouse, with the command possibilities of a keyboard ( due to voice).

I think your comments are spot-on. I'll admit that as much as I would like to play an amazing space sim again, I am sort of munching on popcorn while watching SC development from the sidelines. When the project comes crashing down, I wonder how much it is going to hurt the crowd-funding model for video games.

> When the project comes crashing down

Almost guaranteed at the current trajectory, however I still think that there's time to save it: even with the current $94 million (massive scope re-adjustment). Also in truth nobody, myself included, knows what's going on internally at CIG (part of the reason for this drama wave) - I could be very wrong either way.

Not that throwing extra people on a project always helps, but $94m can buy quite a bit of developer FTE, even over a 6 year timespan. I wonder how many employees they currently have working on the project?

Also, 96 million is a significant investment. Usually investors would demand progress reports, would also share in the profit. As it stands its just "here's my moneys!"

Agreed, and it's basically like watching Battlecruiser 3000AD [1] happen all over again...

"Battlecruiser 3000AD (also known as BC3K on Usenet) is a science fiction computer game, noted for its long, troubled development history."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD

Derek Smart, the author of BC3K, has been writing about Star Citizen for a while:

http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/

Derek Smart has had a long standing and documented vendetta against Chris Roberts. He's most certainly not a neutral party and his actions have been malicious at the least.

Smart has a small amount of good points which are all likely pure coincidence: his way of communicating his point of view incites conflict. Conflict is one of the worst ways to reach a beneficial solution and this makes me strongly doubt the guy actually has the best interests of the game in mind.

That being said, everyone (Backers, Roberts, Smart and Escapist) have been immature about this fiasco to varying degrees.

But the fun benefit of Smart's posts here are just the layers and layers of beautiful schadenfreude irony of multiple pots calling kettles black. Also, with BC3K as the benchmark, Roberts could still beat Smart and if he doesn't, it will be hilarious.

Meanwhile ED has beaten them both, quietly.

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