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Comment by ehnto | Hacker News Reader

Edit: to be clear, I am implying SC stands to make much more than 50mil a year, much like GTAV and COD make multiples of their development cost year over year. /edit

They still have that incentive, because SQ42 is a standalone game they intend to sell to a broader market and SC is an MMO "forever game" they intend to monetize.

If you think 500m is a lot, go look at how much money games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto Online make year over year. 500m over 10 years is 50m a year, and not in profit. Blockbuster games are making much more than that much more quickly. To say nothing of the billions in scummy phone game microtransactions.

Cloud Imperium Games is multiple offices and 700+ employees, if the intent really was to not release they definitely don't need that many people sucking down wages. It's not like a VC scam where they can trick investors with headcount growth.

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> If you think 500m is a lot, go look at how much money games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto Online make

GTA V had production costs of $265 million and was the world’s most expensive video game when it was released.[0]

GTA budget vs cities’ operating costs quiz at the time: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kevintang/gta-vs-produc...

$500 million in funding is, yes, a lot of money.

[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/1466/most-expensive-video...

Thats development and marketing combined though, for GTA 5.

So the contrast is even larger. I doubt Star Citizen spent anywhere close to as much on marketing as GTA 5 did.

That makes SC look even worse. The spent twice as much money on development without even getting to marketing.

Making two games, and the game making is the marketing. The proof of that is in the very topic of the conversation, the funding.

I won't pretend it's not still a lot, but you can't point to another project like this for comprison. GTAV was built by an established team with history of making that kind of game, using an established IP and engine. It is not apples to apples.

You can't point to another project because anything else would have been canceled five years ago

That's the whole point of the project being done this way. It's an unconventional project, publishers weren't interested.

I am talking about what SC stands to make. Revenue from GTA Online was 1 billion dollars in 2020 alone, which was 8 years after it launched.

Games are often run like an ongoing concern now, a business all of it's own. SC stands to gain more than 50m a year if they reach their goal of being "the" space MMO.

> if the intent really was to not release they definitely don't need that many people sucking down wages.

Of course they do. They need artists to build the ships they sell and they need developers to create demos of stuff they have no hope of delivering, in order to convince people to continue parting with their money.

Frankly, you have not researched the project if you think this is what is happening. Invest some time into checking it out, you will probably be surprised. The information is right there, it's become a very transparent development.

You are also still wildly off the mark if you think the farce you imagine happening would take 700 people.

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