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Comment by radcon | Hacker News Reader

I was considering "pledging" to this game a year or two ago. Luckily I didn't, and it was because the supporters on every SC forum were the most cult-like, rabid fanboys I've ever encountered in the gaming world.

It felt like they were all using the same playbook to respond to any question that could be considered negative. E.g. If you asked about the game being Pay-to-Win, they'd all say "There's no such thing as winning an MMORPG, so it can't be Pay-to-Win", which is an impressive feat of mental gymnastics when literally everything in the game can already be purchased with real money.

There are people who have "invested" over $20,000 in this game. Other people built gaming PCs three years ago specifically to play it, most of which will be woefully inadequate by the time it launches.

I hope someone makes a documentary about this one day. Or maybe that was Chris Roberts' plan all along?

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I never backed the game but I watch their dev videos on youtube from time to time and quite enjoy doing so, because they are quite transparent about a lot of issues as well as solutions they came up with. There are e.g. Episodes where they specifically explain how they do project managment, which tools they use etc.

From what I saw I didn’t have the feeling the game was in apathological state. There seems to be a lot of movement (but it is a huge project).

Not sure if I would ever play it, but they came up with many interesting solutions that seem to work better than many existing things out there and I kinda like their way of sharing it without assuming the viewers are idiots

Bugsmashers was a particularly fun series, unfortunately (for us) Mark Abent got promoted, didn't have time for it, and the show was canceled.

My other favorite thing was the monthly updates from their Frankfurt studio where most of the engine development happens, but it's been a while since they did those too.

All the community outreach content is currently getting rejiggered and the jury's still out on whether the new lineup is any good. Last week was the first episode of "Inside Star Citizen" and there should be a new one later today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKvI_eDpOgg

If you're curious to check it out but not interested in shelling out $45, they're currently a "Free Fly" event where anybody can play until the 8th.

https://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-is-free-to-fly-for-a-we...

It started out in a pathological state, and it's been getting worse ever since. The specific pathology is one of excessive scope. The game is trying to do and be far too much, even with the level of funding they've gotten. They seem to want to do Eve Online, X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, and Halo, but all in one game.

Eve Online alone took fifteen years to get where it's gotten, and probably spent much more than $300 million to do it over that time period. That's just for one of the three things Star Citizen is trying to be. By the way, it's a lot cheaper to build out a game like this when you do it gradually. Doing anything fast is generally more expensive than doing it slow, because you need a bigger team and there is consequently more coordination overhead and risk. You also run less risk of building the wrong thing when you take it slow, because you have an established player base that's telling you what it wants.

One of my close friends joined the team as a programmer not long ago, and he's said that since then the team has grown massively. Say what you will about their way of investment (ridiculously overpriced ships and whales throwing ten's of thousands at the game for things that don't exist yet), they're not squandering that money. They've gone all out on hiring talent, and a huge amount of investment is still going in.

I don't think that's true about the gaming computers. I'm playing with fine with a GTX 970, which is a midrange enthusiast card from 2014. Not stable 60 fps or anything impressive, but it runs. And the framerates are trending upward with new updates, not down.

The $20,000+ backers do strike me as crazy, yeah. But on the other hand, it's not a total waste like Clash of Clans where you're just throwing money into a pit with no hope that anything useful will come of it. These are people supporting a game that would never have gotten made through the traditional publisher model.

And like the Forbes article says, maybe it will never get finished on the crowdfunded model either. But I don't think that's a forgone conclusion.

If you want to see where it's at, it's open to everyone until the 8th. https://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-is-free-to-fly-for-a-we...

> The $20,000+ backers do strike me as crazy, yeah.

I have the same feeling. Yeah, it's a bit crazy to throw so much money at a game. But it is also crazy to throw that much money at a car or any other hobby. But no one blinks an eye. People just say "you've earned it" or "but it's a really nice car" as if that somehow changes the fact that it's just a vanity item which you can throw away in a few years.

I've thrown 45 Dollar at SC. Maybe that's crazy. But I've also thrown more than money at Anthem and that is an AAA game by a well known studio with "proper" management. And so far it didn't turn out really well.

People don't throw away cars. Where did you get that idea? Those who don't want to keep their car after a few years already lease and everyone else sells their car if they want a different one. Even cars that have lost 90% of their value can still be exported to developing countries. Meanwhile video game servers often shutdown within 10 years and you will be left with nothing.

Nobody's talking about throwing away cars, he's talking about throwing money at cars. There are definitely people who have spent an extra $20,000 on a car that they didn't need to spend, with no expectation of getting a return on investment out of it. Lots of people have done that.

> with no expectation of getting a return on investment out of it

Is this in reference to using it to get to work or something? They would be correct to not expect a return from investing in a depreciating asset.

I don't know if it's what you have in mind, but a YouTuber actually looked over the history of Star Citizen in pretty good detail:

https://youtu.be/8IcPsIwC-pU

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