Star Citizen news

[eddie]

People getting fed up with how long its taking to finish this game and how much the whole thing is costing. Last time I looked at their site for a new ship, they wanted $150.00 for one in real money, not virtual dollars!:huh: Not interested in it anymore, glad I didn't invest this kind of money the guy in this article did!

http://kotaku.com/report-star-citizen-backer-gets-2550-refund-1783699701?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

[NeonSamurai]

I fear people are going to find out that the game has largely squandered the cash on film stars (the lead dev always wanted to be a Hollywood director) and other foolishness, along with actual development costs, and there wont be much if any left if the project fails. When they kept trying to raise more and more and more money, going higher than even most AAA titles (117,365,453 USD according to their website as of today, which makes it the 6th most expensive game to develop (3rd if you don't count advertising) according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop)) I started to really worry about the odds of success for this project, particularly with the litany of stretch goals. It felt like they needed the money to keep flowing in just to stay ahead of their expenses (and there have been a lot of questionable expenses).

The greed displayed though was disheartening, the most expensive ship sold, was 2,500$... 2,500 dollars... for just one ship! Or better still you can spend 15,000$ for all the ships. 1.5 Million backers have forked over nearly 120 million so far.

I blame the hype plus the endless stretch goals that made it more and more unlikely this game would ever get released. I mean just look at the stretch goals listed (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals[/URL). A lot of them were ships that we then got the privilege of being able to buy for hundreds to thousands of dollars after they were funded.

The odd thing is they stopped adding more stretch goals at 64 million (slightly over half the amount they have raised). So umm what exactly is going to happen with that extra 53 million... polish or profit (something that is supposed to come after you put your finished game on the market. Backers are not supposed to be a source of profit, the purpose of backers is to enable the game to be made, except unlike investors, we just get the game out of it, and not any profit paid to us. To profit off of backers, on top of taking the game they paid to have made, put on the market for the company to profit from is an insult. You make your profits from selling the finished game, not from us.

I think laws need to be made to further protect backers, such as backers having the right to access company spending reports, and other laws relating to reimbursement. A backer is not just a source of free money, there needs to be consequences when they fail to deliver, just like there are with investors.

[eddie]

I agree, seems like greed took over Roberts plans.

[NeonSamurai]

I still hold out some hope the game will succeed, I'm one of the original backers, though I intentionally have not fed them more money since the 40$ or so I spent, particularly after the feature creep. The promises are gigantic, and would cost a lot of money. I'm worried they just wont deliver in the end.