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12 Years and $700 Million Later, What's Going on With Star Citizen's Development? (insider-gaming.com)
submitted 4 weeks ago by Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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[-] Jrockwar@feddit.uk 175 points 4 weeks ago

$700 million is the estimated development cost of the Falcon Heavy.

Not a game, not a space simulation, but the actual Falcon Heavy rocket. A rocket that can actually go into space.

I know they're different things but I thought I'd leave this here to put things in perspective.

[-] TheYang@lemmy.world 7 points 4 weeks ago

but only as in the modifications to Falcon 9 to make Falcon Heavy, right?

[-] Jrockwar@feddit.uk 5 points 4 weeks ago

I don't think so, SpaceX claimed (and NASA apparently verified) that the development costs for the Falcon 9 were $300 million. It's in the Wikipedia article, also here: https://newspaceeconomy.ca/2022/10/23/how-much-would-falcon-9-have-cost-if-it-was-developed-by-nasa/?amp=1

I was under the impression that the Falcon Heavy was a ground-up development. But in any case the Falcon 9 was cheaper, so go figure...

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[-] Mandy@sh.itjust.works 81 points 4 weeks ago

All bs and scam atuff aside. This is what happens when you have a leader who never gets told no.
Dude never finished and feature krept freelancer too before Microsoft kicked him to the curb and finished it themselves.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 26 points 4 weeks ago

Yep, feature creep is basically this entire dev cycle. Dude just keeps adding more and more and never really finishing anything. I grabbed the game on sale a few years ago, I have maybe 15 hours into it. It's got stuff to do, but not what I would expect from the money and time that's been spent on it.

[-] LouNeko@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

At those time frames it's not just feature creep you have to worry about, but tech- and social creep as well. Think back what games were popular 12 years ago and what hardware we had. That's why usually in longterm, large scale projects you have a technological freeze, where you essentially ignore all progress made outside of your project for the sake of completion, which Star Citizen clearly hasn't done.

[-] Mandy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

Onebof the reasons it runs like shit with seemingly going random glitches
They changed engines 4 times.

Their code is held together like an ork gargant

[-] FancyLad@lemmy.world 65 points 4 weeks ago

Vaporware until proven otherwise. I've given up on caring

[-] Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 29 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah, and it’s sad bro. I put about 900 hours into Elite: Dangerous, which I enjoyed a great deal, but it still left me longing for something with more depth. Back then I thought Star Citizen would be the next leap forward in my career as a space trucker who dabbles in bounty hunting and deep space exploration. I wanted to have games worthy of justifying a home cockpit setup, and now it seems like a lost cause.

I really hope someone picks up the torch. Even if it’s just Frontier making a generational leap with the Elite IP.

[-] subignition@fedia.io 24 points 4 weeks ago

Elite:Dangerous is sad for its own reasons, too, and I have a similar count of hours logged. Glacial pace of development and a lack of strong game design / sense for balance. I'm still stunned by how much of a selling point the background simulation was, and how limited it actually is in practice (it did get some love over the years, but far too little too late IMO.)

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

I really wanted to like it, but it just never scratched the itch when I played it. I love stuff like freespace 2, but E:D just never did it for me. Which sucks, because the community search thing sounded really fun at the time.

[-] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago

It annoyingly needs a more complex HOTAS to properly play than most cheap entry-level ones have, while also not having ENOUGH complex need to justify me pulling my godamn keyboard over for

Literally the main reason I don't play it even though slapping my quest 2 on and space VR flying is fucking fun

[-] erin@lemmy.sidh.bzh 9 points 4 weeks ago

you can try X4: Foundations ^^

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 8 points 4 weeks ago

The controls in X4 are so horrible though.

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

Good lord if that ain't the truth.

It has every opportunity to be good, but I can't even navigate the goddamn menus, let alone step into my ship.

Forget about using something other than a mouse and keyboard too, it just won't work.

[-] Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah, I never even bought it after reading the reviews about how janky it is, I want to use a HOTAS and rudder pedals and it doesn’t sound possible in X4

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[-] PushButton@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Like any of these games, you need to change the key bindings.

I have a set that I use in all space sim. What I am trying to say is that the control can be the same as any other space sim.

This type of game might not be your kind of stuff.

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

No, X is absolutely my type of game. Don't blame me for the horrible controls and menus, I didn't create that hot mess. It's also a well complained about part of the game.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 3 points 4 weeks ago

I couldn't find a way to bind a double press in X4, so hold RB and tap X for example. These combinations are essential because there is no other way to use a controller to perform all of the necessary controls. It's a shame because I would have invested a lot into the game if that was surmountable.

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[-] FancyLad@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

I remember how awesome Distant Worlds was, as a community event, and I wish I appreciated it more at the time. 65000 light years and back, I even bought a T-shirt and coin to commemorate the event lol o7

[-] Fecundpossum@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

My big in game accomplishment was making it to SagA*, I spent some time in colonia and joined a discord of nerds that hung out there getting big exploration creds. I actually made the trek all the way back to the bubble after spending about a month in the galactic core. It was an epic adventure in my mind, but afterwards it was hard to be motivated for the engineering grind.

[-] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 weeks ago

I haven't played E:D so I can't really make comparisons, but maybe X3/X4 can pique your interest?
I don't think they can justify a home cockpit setup, they're also kinda hard to get into (especially X3, you can't get far without a guide), but hey, there's a combined 1.5% chance that you haven't heard of them and that you'll enjoy at least one of them if you don't care much about graphics. Or voice acting. Or UI/UX.

[-] Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

X3 is a fun game, with a very developed universe (you'll see factions conduct invasion in real-time as you do your own thing) with a wide variety of gameplay. The universe of X3 honestly makes Star Citizen seems like a theme park for children.

That being said it is extremely difficult to get into them both because there are so many gameplay options and the UI/UX is subpar (prepare to be constantly fiddling with menu and looking up how to execute a given course of action).

[-] limitedduck@awful.systems 26 points 4 weeks ago

Stat Citizen has its problems, but it's literally not vaporware since there's something available that you can download and play with.

[-] Cagi@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

It is the exact opposite of vapourware, even. They have over a thousand employees in multiple studios across the globe pushing out regular, massive updates.

[-] morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I sold my pledges off 9 years ago, the reason I even made a reddit account in the first place. Was getting disillusioned with it back then and I was super excited when I initially backed it, had a decent amount of ships in the hangar at the time, but felt like I was only ever going to see them in the hangar

[-] brsrklf@jlai.lu 55 points 4 weeks ago

Roberts is relatively well-known in and out of the Star Citizen community for being a perfectionist at the best times.

In a parallel universe, Roberts would have been allowed to continue working on Freelancer, and it would still be in development hell in 2024 with no end in sight.

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[-] misk@sopuli.xyz 50 points 4 weeks ago

I imagine that the news headlines of the future will be:

12 Dyson Spheres and 700 Million Years Later, What's Going on With Star Citizen's Development?

[-] jagermo@feddit.org 31 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I backed it with about 60$ on the Kickstarter and have tried a few alphas. It's nice but unpolished. I don't care about the drama and by this point, if they release a game, I'll be happily surprised - and if not, meh.

[-] itsnotits@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago

It's* nice but unpolished.

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 4 points 4 weeks ago

Tits* nice but unpolished.

[-] blargbluuk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 weeks ago

I prefer unpolished tits personally

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[-] fulg@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago

Same for me, though I did splurge a bit ($150 I think) to get the game on a USB key shaped like one of the starships in the game. I will never get that USB key…

If they ever get done I will consider spending more time with it, I don’t really care for early access into an unfinished game.

I should have asked for a refund when we had the chance…

[-] jagermo@feddit.org 5 points 4 weeks ago

Oh, wait, it was 30 usd. And i backed Shadowrun Online for 66, so Star Citizen might even be the better bet :)

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 18 points 4 weeks ago

Why finish the game when you can sell "ships" for hundreds of dollars each?

[-] Murvel@lemm.ee 15 points 4 weeks ago

Try thousands. Most expensive ship runs you about 3000$

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 points 4 weeks ago

Jesus. That's hilarious

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

No, it's horrific. And the reason why is evident in what the previous commenter said.

The most expensive "package" costs $48000. You just don't see it till you already spend like $10k on the game. They have two additional hidden stores that unlock when you spend money on the game already. The commenter above probably didn't see those two stores and only knows about the "reasonable" pricing.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 18 points 3 weeks ago

12 years of early access. Thousand dollar DLC spaceships. Remaining players "happy".

This is as close to a cult as you will find in gaming.

[-] Harvey656@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

They aren't listening to their community is what. I play almost daily, and all they fucking talk about is 'wait for 4.0, it's going to be so much better!' But they refuse to fix major problems, performance sucks, and the recent 3.24.2 patch may or may not have borked the game in many ways.

They need to perfect the game that already exists, fix the issues and iron out the code before working on more fucking mechanics. I swear it's so bad. The article calls Chris a perfectionist, but that couldn't be furtfrom the truth, he is a dreamer, that says put this amazing thing in then forgets about it and moves on to the next thing overnight. The game will go nowhere until he's gone.

Edit: fixed a spelling error and added some basic formatting.

[-] dax@feddit.org 8 points 3 weeks ago

The interesting part is, if they say the game is complete or at least in "1.0" shape, it will suddenly mean that people will judge it as a product and not just a vision. CIG won't call it finished as long as they possibly can.

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

The game was supposed to be finished 6 years ago. 12 years in development for what we have now is a joke

[-] Denjin 6 points 3 weeks ago

Bug fixes don't bring in new whales with investment money, new silly features does.

The point ceased to be about making the game years ago and became about attracting new money because that's easy and making good games is hard.

[-] ms_lane@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago

It was a scam then and it's still a scam now.

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

Apparently the player base is happy with how things are and the only people complaining are doing from outside

[-] Mango@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

I get the emails all the time and have no idea what's going on.

[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 weeks ago

I try to follow the emails also but its a hot mess. I can never understand any interesting developments. Its like reading AI jibberish.

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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
205 points (96.8% liked)

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