Why I already got my money's worth out of Star Citizen

[Aya Reiko]

Your reasons are ludicrous as they are absurd.

The industry does not care about the success or failure of SC.  If anything, ED is doing far more in that regard than SC ever will.  ED is a success, SC is a joke.  Why invest in a joke while the success is right over there?
This "game" is only worth $10, and I'm being extremely generous here too.
FTL was out before the SC Kickstarter even finished.  And the recent re-emergence of the sci-fi genre is probably happening due to one thing: Star Wars.

Your reasons are almost childish if not naïve.

[Moeis]

Your reasons are ludicrous as they are absurd.

The industry does not care about the success or failure of SC.  If anything, ED is doing far more in that regard than SC ever will.  ED is a success, SC is a joke.  Why invest in a joke while the success is right over there?
This "game" is only worth $10, and I'm being extremely generous here too.
FTL was out before the SC Kickstarter even finished.  And the recent re-emergence of the sci-fi genre is probably happening due to one thing: Star Wars.

Your reasons are almost childish if not naïve.

FTL isn't the kind of space combat sim I am talking about.

I am talking about games like Starway Fleet, Astrokill, House of the Dying sun, those are just some examples.

It would be hard for the industry to completely ignore the amount of money that was put into SC, and then not to realize that is s clear sign that there are a lot of people wanting space combat sims. So if anything, for anybody to not see the loud voice that the backers of SC have shown for this genre are the ones that are naive or just don't want to admit that SC, whether it succeeds or not, already made an good affect on the space combat sim genre, and no not the FTL type games.

[Aya Reiko]

Your reasons are ludicrous as they are absurd.

The industry does not care about the success or failure of SC.  If anything, ED is doing far more in that regard than SC ever will.  ED is a success, SC is a joke.  Why invest in a joke while the success is right over there?
This "game" is only worth $10, and I'm being extremely generous here too.
FTL was out before the SC Kickstarter even finished.  And the recent re-emergence of the sci-fi genre is probably happening due to one thing: Star Wars.

Your reasons are almost childish if not naïve.

FTL isn't the kind of space combat sim I am talking about.

I am talking about games like Starway Fleet, Astrokill, House of the Dying sun, those are just some examples.

It would be hard for the industry to completely ignore the amount of money that was put into SC, and then not to realize that is s clear sign that there are a lot of people wanting space combat sims. So if anything, for anybody to not see the loud voice that the backers of SC have shown for this genre are the ones that are naive or just don't want to admit that SC, whether it succeeds or not, already made an good affect on the space combat sim genre, and no not the FTL type games.

So, what will those industry onlookers take away when SC inevitably fails?

[Moeis]

Your reasons are ludicrous as they are absurd.

The industry does not care about the success or failure of SC.  If anything, ED is doing far more in that regard than SC ever will.  ED is a success, SC is a joke.  Why invest in a joke while the success is right over there?
This "game" is only worth $10, and I'm being extremely generous here too.
FTL was out before the SC Kickstarter even finished.  And the recent re-emergence of the sci-fi genre is probably happening due to one thing: Star Wars.

Your reasons are almost childish if not naïve.

FTL isn't the kind of space combat sim I am talking about.

I am talking about games like Starway Fleet, Astrokill, House of the Dying sun, those are just some examples.

It would be hard for the industry to completely ignore the amount of money that was put into SC, and then not to realize that is s clear sign that there are a lot of people wanting space combat sims. So if anything, for anybody to not see the loud voice that the backers of SC have shown for this genre are the ones that are naive or just don't want to admit that SC, whether it succeeds or not, already made an good affect on the space combat sim genre, and no not the FTL type games.

So, what will those industry onlookers take away when SC inevitably fails?

If it fails, it won't have an effect on how it showed to the industry that there is a lot of money to be had in this genre.  If it fails it will be more about not having feature creep, about being more focused, not being such a perfectionist.  If it fails, it will be more about what not to do when it comes to managing a crowd funded game.

[Motto]

When it fails, it will probably be a sign for most developers to stay away from crowdfunding. They will all first want to know what legal ramifications a failure will have and watch the Chris and Sandi show unfold...

[Moeis]

When it fails, it will probably be a sign for most developers to stay away from crowdfunding. They will all first want to know what legal ramifications a failure will have and watch the Chris and Sandi show unfold...

Considering we already have years of experience with crowdfunded games, good and the bad, if it fails I doubt it will have that much effect on crowdfunding over all, if anything it would be nobody else would do the same kind of continued campaign of raising money by selling in game assets, and instead just do the traditional things of pledge tiers with specific rewards and the campaign would have an end time and stretch goals would not go so far.

[Exitramp]

It would be hard for the industry to completely ignore the amount of money that was put into SC, and then not to realize that is s clear sign that there are a lot of people wanting space combat sims. So if anything, for anybody to not see the loud voice that the backers of SC have shown for this genre are the ones that are naive or just don't want to admit that SC, whether it succeeds or not, already made an good affect on the space combat sim genre, and no not the FTL type games.

I'm not sure that's true though, is it?

If the $160m raised by CIG had come from 2.6m unique backers each pledging an industry standard $60 you might have a point. Instead Star Citizen has far fewer individual backers (likely less than 1m) with the bulk of the funding provided by an even smaller number of whales who have been irresponsible enough to pledge amounts well into the four figures and often way beyond that. That is not a model that that can be used by the wider industry - in fact rather than demonstrating a wide appeal for 'space combat sims' it actually proves that this genre has a HUGE appeal for only very small subset of gamers. It's also valid to speculate that when CIG fails (and it's only matter of time) the appetite of the whales responsible for most of the funding will disappear and they will be reluctant to take such risks in future.

Star Citizen is unlikely to have any effect on the industry in future other than as an object lesson in how NOT to finance and manage a project such as this. That alone is to the benefit of gamers though.

Considering we already have years of experience with crowdfunded games, good and the bad, if it fails I doubt it will have that much effect on crowdfunding over all, if anything it would be nobody else would do the same kind of continued campaign of raising money by selling in game assets, and instead just do the traditional things of pledge tiers with specific rewards and the campaign would have an end time and stretch goals would not go so far.

On this I completely agree with you.

[Moeis]

It would be hard for the industry to completely ignore the amount of money that was put into SC, and then not to realize that is s clear sign that there are a lot of people wanting space combat sims. So if anything, for anybody to not see the loud voice that the backers of SC have shown for this genre are the ones that are naive or just don't want to admit that SC, whether it succeeds or not, already made an good affect on the space combat sim genre, and no not the FTL type games.

I'm not sure that's true though, is it?

If the $160m raised by CIG had come from 2.6m unique backers each pledging an industry standard $60 you might have a point. Instead Star Citizen has far fewer individual backers (likely less than 1m) with the bulk of the funding provided by an even smaller number of whales who have been irresponsible enough to pledge amounts well into the four figures and often way beyond that. That is not a model that that can be used by the wider industry - in fact rather than demonstrating a wide appeal for 'space combat sims' it actually proves that this genre has a HUGE appeal for only very small subset of gamers. It's also valid to speculate that when CIG fails (and it's only matter of time) the appetite of the whales responsible for most of the funding will disappear and they will be reluctant to take such risks in future.

Star Citizen is unlikely to have any effect on the industry in future other than as an object lesson in how NOT to finance and manage a project such as this. That alone is to the benefit of gamers though.

Considering we already have years of experience with crowdfunded games, good and the bad, if it fails I doubt it will have that much effect on crowdfunding over all, if anything it would be nobody else would do the same kind of continued campaign of raising money by selling in game assets, and instead just do the traditional things of pledge tiers with specific rewards and the campaign would have an end time and stretch goals would not go so far.

On this I completely agree with you.

Star Citizen currently has 1,874,802 backers, that is an average of ~$84 per person. I wouldn't call nearly 1.9 million people a small subset, and that would be very enticing for indie/AA developers.

[the_wolfmann]

Star Citizen currently has 1,874,802 backers, that is an average of ~$84 per person. I wouldn't call nearly 1.9 million people a small subset, and that would be very enticing for indie/AA developers.

You can't honestly believe this marketing gimmick to be 100% accurate. This (1.9M backers) is most probably the number of registered accounts. Excluding duplicates, refunded backer accounts, gray market throwaways and other irrelevant types we're looking, at best, at a number around 1M people that gave them the minimal ammount of money to be a "backer". That increases your projected average pledge by a double to $ 160 a piece. Then again, the $ 160M figure is also exagerrated and doesn't account for refunds at the very least. Also when most of these (the more than averagely intelligent) 1M people get burned by the collapse of the project they will be very wary of repeating the same mistake - giving money to unproven software developers that promise everything imaginable in a single game. Only time will tell though. Sadly history has a way of repeating itself... :argh:

Edit: wording.

[Moeis]

Star Citizen currently has 1,874,802 backers, that is an average of ~$84 per person. I wouldn't call nearly 1.9 million people a small subset, and that would be very enticing for indie/AA developers.

You can't honestly believe this marketing gimmick to be 100% accurate. This (1.9M backers) is most probably the number of registered accounts. Excluding duplicates, refunded backer accounts, gray market throwaways and other irrelevant types we're looking, at best, at a number around 1M people that gave them the minimal ammount of money to be a "backer". That increases your projected average pledge by a double to $ 160 a piece. Then again, the $ 160M figure is also exagerrated and doesn't account for refunds at the very least. Also when most of these (the more than averagely intelligent) 1M people get burned by the collapse of the project they will be very wary of repeating the same mistake - giving money to unproven software developers that promise everything imaginable in a single game. Only time will tell though. Sadly history has a way of repeating itself... :argh:

Edit: wording.

it is a live tracker and I tested it my self.  Created a new account, and the tracker did not increase in Citizen number.  The only time I have seen it increase in citizen number , the amount funded also increased as well.

I didn't say it was 100%, but it is most likely not to far either, but that isn't the point.  This still shows at one point, whether you want to believe it is a much smaller number now or not, it shows that about 1.9 Million people were/are interested in a space combat sim, that is not a small number to ignore.

[Motto]

I didn't say it was 100%, but it is most likely not to far either,

Yes it is. That has been verified as well somewhere now. There's no 1.8 million unique backers. That's about one million too high.

[Moeis]

I didn't say it was 100%, but it is most likely not to far either,

Yes it is. That has been verified as well somewhere now. There's no 1.8 million unique backers. That's about one million too high.

What was the source of said verification?

[Motto]

Don't start again. It's somewhere in one of Dereks findings. And if you don't believe it, that's fine, just don't dispute it here again. We all here believe the things Derek has researched and written down.

[Moeis]

Don't start again. It's somewhere in one of Dereks findings. And if you don't believe it, that's fine, just don't dispute it here again. We all here believe the things Derek has researched and written down.

 I wasn't starting anything, I was seriously asking what the source of verification was, and now I have my answer.

[Backer42]

Turbulent published numbers of 500k backing accounts. The unique number of backers is much lower, because whales and grey market traders hold hundreds of those. I estimate the total audience of Star Citizen to about 70k, which is in line with YouTube and Twitch viewer numbers.