It’s really simple. They realized they could make more money by never releasing it. That realization has made them more money than the vast majority of game studios. It’s a glorified ship showcase simulator, that’s about it, not really a game. If they set a release date they’d reduce the amount of money they make, why would they do that?
Feels very similar to the trend of ‘why QA our AAA game before release when we can call it GaaS?’
Do you think they could finish the game if they wanted to?
I really don’t think it’s a conscious choice. Just Chris Roberts’ typical perfectionism and nobody there to say “Ok, this is enough, we must ship something”.
Having said that, I used to think Elite Dangerous had the superior model, but they’ve proven me wrong by going to absolute shit with Odyssey (no VR support, no walkable ships) and pretty much dropped all development thereafter.
I was a kickstarter for this way back in the day. I used to not feel bad about the delay until I realised I bought it a few years after high school. More than once I had completely forgotten about this game and that I had paid for it. Which obviously pretty drastically changed my view on it and the devs, especially after learning a bit more about Chris.
That was years ago and before I learned about shit like the store page for ship pledges that’s hidden and only unlocks when you spend ridiculous amount on ship pledges. The $10,000 ship pre orders…
I’ve gone full circle, now I just want the game to succeed so I can never hear about it again.
The buyers remorse game. Just give them a tiny bit more money and then a bit more and another, then the game will release, eventually, maybe, hopefully. Please release the game, we spend so much money on it. Here, take more money, we hope that helps. What, you need more? Okay, next quarter. We can’t stop spending now guys or the money was all wasted.
Sunken cost fallacy: the game.
True, sunken cost is the correct terminology. That’s what I mean.
Is there any content?
I played during a free week (dunno if it’s still going). The game offers this world of awesome prospects. Even in a state where there’s no additional content to the current, it’s already a relaxing game with beautiful scenery. But: OMG the bugs. The tutorial waypoints sometimes don’t appear for minutes. Interaction work at the servers whim. I bugged out one of my starter items (the helmet). I had to buy a new one. The first mission is the one I failed when I was delivering goods and they bugged out, so I couldn’t deliver them anymore and the mission was bricked.
Pirate Software put it best: “what the game wants to be is great, but the only thing I see expanding is the storefront and I’d like it to not be that”
And I would extend that quote to “as long as the storefront expands while the core game doesn’t function, this is not a game but a development service and as long as it’s not a game you shouldn’t buy it or anything related to it”. I wanna play games and not glorified tech demos. Especially when there is more than 10 years of development. We definitely gave them enough leeway.
There is! I play it all the time with my friends and its some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a video game. The other day we hijacked some guy’s space yacht and flew it to deep space, I left the ship with my friend while we brought our huge salvage ship over and scraped off all the metal from the ship, then chewed it up with the mounted claw/grinder. The whole process took 3 people 2 hours and it was so much fun.
It’s not for everyone and may very well never release. But I’ve been waiting for a game like this for years and I can’t get enough of it. The immersion is insane.
What about the guy who’s space yacht you stole. Was he another player or an NPC? If he was another player, will he have to buy a new space yacht for real money?
It was a player. They can insurance claim it and be back in it before I was even done scrapping it most likely. Or they might have been able to track it down and attack me to get it back, and I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself in the scrapping ship which is basically a big space barge not made for combat, which would have been cool as hell.
No not at all, it’ll be available again after a cooldown period of up to like 45 minutes depending on ship size. Meant to simulate insurance buying you a new ship etc etc
Thanks for your reply. Are his insurance premiums going to go up?
I want to like it but the last time I tried to play the game, it tried to kill my computer. Have they optimized it at all?
It depends on when you last played it. A few updates ago they improved performance a ton, but its still rough sometimes, especially if you have 16gb or less RAM.
Oh it was a couple years ago at this point. I’ll give it another shot.
so another rust… wow, can’t wait. /s
Yep. But it is still “Early Access” so it isn’t finished. But like other early access games, it’s a playable game. Think first person Freelancer or a better Elite Dangerous.
a better Elite Dangerous.
Elite Dangerous was released. This is not.
I’ve actually enjoyed my time in SC far more than E:D. One is a buggy mess that is occasionally fun, and the other is a space sim with no gameplay at all and just wants a boring soulless grind.
Not defending SC’s development practices, just shitting on E:D which I put 80 hours into.
It’s more than just “playable”, but it also is not a finished, fully fleshed out game, either. Definitely worth checking out during the occasional free-fly events (though one has just ended, so might be a little while for the next).
freelancer had its problems but at least it was a shipped product, and didn’t cost nearly a billion dollars and wasn’t funded by players based on hopes and prayers. I’d much rather play 40 freelancers, which could probably be made from scratch back to back in less time and with less money.
People paid money for a game to be made and it’s both being worked on and has playable content, just like other early access games. Why does Star Citizen get the hate for doing the same thing as other games?
same thing? like what? which game did the same thing?
Star Citizen is the Oak Island Money Pit of games.
It’s because it’s a scam.
EDIT: all the downvotes, yet no explanations. I wonder if it’s because there isn’t any way to prove it isn’t.
Scam Citizen
I haven’t even read the comments yet and I already know what they look like.
Dear Star Citizen simps/haters:
Can someone who has played both Star Citizen and Eve Online tell me what the major differences are?
I haven’t played SC, and i haven’t played Eve in a while, but here is some readily available information:
- Eve has been in release state for 20 years.
- Eve has an ancient dedicated player base that probably knows the game better than the devs.
- Most old players place a priority on helping new players and keeping the game healthy.
- You can’t walk around outside your ship.
In Eve, you control your ship in a 3D view more akin to a strategy game. In SC you pilot it from the cockpit like say Elite Dangerous or other space sims.
Thank you! Great explanation <3
Eve Online is much much more strategy (third-person) and diplomacy. You don’t get anywhere without getting involved deeply with other player groups (corporations). It’s more of a business sim than a space sim.
SC is much more pew pew and first-person and teamwork will be much more casual.
Ah, the classic quarterly Star Citizen drama.
Never will be a release date. Never ever sell a cash cow
Just another $100 million bro. I swear, just another $200 million. Another $300 million and we can finish this!
I understand that no release date yet is bad but could people follow the development before complaining? Squadron 42, the game’s single player campaign, is FEATURE COMPLETE. This means that once all the features are ported to star citizen, the only thing it will be missing is server stuff (like a living market and server meshing) and in game locations like new star systems (the first of which is scheduled to release this year) and star citizen is feature complete as well. The developers have even announced that they are already planning a 1.0 release and will reveal more info soon, which the article did mention. I hate the fact that you can buy ships as well with real money but to think this game will never release is coming close to hoping the game will fail.
I’ll believe it when I see it
the only thing it will be missing is server stuff
This read a little bit like “once I’m done building this boat, I’ll just be missing the space stuff to fly to Mars”
I hope it’s not taken negatively, I’m just extremely uncertain that they could reuse anything from the offline to online part. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re wrong with the release schedule and so on.
They actually already have! In the most recent patch they updated the flight system to use the one from the single player game and overhauled the ui to be like the single player one (the old system was very outdated and slow)
