Star Citizen - The E.L.E.

[dsmart]

It's cute you've followed Derek from SA to here by the way. Not a cult huh? Something something glass houses and stone throwing.

I don't even... ::)

[AP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cir3w-wIx9U


I like the holograms the EMP grenades and the fighting in zero g looks awesome.  Also actually read the piece I linked it sounds great.

I read the article 18 months ago when it came out. Back when the illfonic work was good. You are a cheeky monkey linking the old video. That stuff will come in time and the latest demo showed people floating in zero g and firing guns, so that will be there too in some form. There's no need to attempt to hoodwink me with faux positivity. I've read enough of the SA thread to recognise your name and the MO of this group of internet denizens. I'm here to exchange views because I enjoy it. No need for the bait attempts.

If you know my posts then you should believe that I'm more excited than anything to play the long awaited Star Marine.  There's no "faux positivity" involved, I want to compare the disaster that might someday be delivered to years worth of marketing promises.  So I'm very excited to see release.

[ConfusedMonkeh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cir3w-wIx9U


I like the holograms the EMP grenades and the fighting in zero g looks awesome.  Also actually read the piece I linked it sounds great.

I read the article 18 months ago when it came out. Back when the illfonic work was good. You are a cheeky monkey linking the old video. That stuff will come in time and the latest demo showed people floating in zero g and firing guns, so that will be there too in some form. There's no need to attempt to hoodwink me with faux positivity. I've read enough of the SA thread to recognise your name and the MO of this group of internet denizens. I'm here to exchange views because I enjoy it. No need for the bait attempts.

If you know my posts then you should believe that I'm more exciting than anything to play the long awaited Star Marine.  There's no "faux positivity" involved, I want to compare the disaster that might someday be delivered to years worth of marketing promises.  So I'm very excited to see release.

I do like a bit of honesty. Fair enough. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how it 'feels' now I've seen how it looks. It should be a bit of fun should the networking get sorted. Playing with horrid lag, no compensation and de sync will be super super fun times. You'll have all the ammunition you need, worry not.

It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.

[AP]

I messed my last post up so edited it to correct the small text issue.

[dsmart]

For sometime now we've said that CIG are running out of money, due to how long it's taken them to even get out of pre-Alpha. Of course they're doing that through sales.

Back in 2015 when I said they barely had 90 days to go; something that other insider sources told the media, Shitizens were up in arms. And to this day - despite the fact that when we all made that analysis, it was based on info (just like analysts) we had on hand - they keep harping on "oh you said they would collapse in 90 days" nonsense. This despite the fact that they were the ones funding it and keeping it afloat, even as CIG pulls every trick in the book to continue milking whales.

And the recent cash sales, coupled with bullshit tech demos, has continued the trend.

So it should come as no surprise that Lesnick made this comment on Twitter yesterday that they "have to" do sales, and not because they "want to".

[AP]

It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.

Also don't do this, it always been a really stupid thing to say.  "Well Derek's game is X therefore his opinion on Star Citizen is invalid".  I mean keep doing it if you want as I'll laugh at you but it's really incredibly dumb.

[ConfusedMonkeh]

It's cute you've followed Derek from SA to here by the way. Not a cult huh? Something something glass houses and stone throwing.

I don't even... ::)

Oh come on, you're even giving them their little 'smarties' badges so they can all be part of the gang/cult!

LMAO.

[ConfusedMonkeh]

It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.

Also don't do this, it always been a really stupid thing to say.  "Well Derek's game is X therefore his opinion on Star Citizen is invalid".  I mean keep doing it if you want as I'll laugh at you but it's really incredibly dumb.

Fair point. I just saw he quoted me and wanted to lash out. I'm really angry you see. Almost PGabz levels of angry!

[jcrg99]

It does not seem to me that it will colapse. Notice the big changes that were made along 2015/2016 specially, with features removed, not delivered, and expectations now set very low in terms of universe size and feature set by the end of 2017/18.
Even with all that, just a little number of whales are enough to sustain the show of smoke and mirrors going on. The Amway scheme.
I mean.
The game and project itself, obviously is done, it cant be done as pitched, it cant live to his hype and noise created along all these years and the constraints that they created to themselves (high fidelity in tiny little things sacrificing the timing to deliver meaningfull and working stuff) wont ever end and only will become worst.
Its going to stay as a shadow of some corner of the industry that nobody, but 2000 whales care and sustain it under the payment of thousands of dollars for individual in game items that should have the value of 1 dollar to be still considered expensive.
But I dont believe on them colapsing. Just making changes that will be always accepted by these people that lost totally any sense of value related to games. People that will become more and more defensive and hostile, while singing to each other that they are the great community, special snowflakes, heroes, saviors of the game industry, of the genre, etc etc.
All power to them and their money, but the reality is that Star Citizen is already a fail.
If it wasnt a fail, it wouldnt need this kind of monetization scheme to survive. Period.

[AP]

It's cute you've followed Derek from SA to here by the way. Not a cult huh? Something something glass houses and stone throwing.

I don't even... : :)

Oh come on, you're even giving them their little 'smarties' badges so they can all be part of the gang/cult!

LMAO.

 :boom:

[ConfusedMonkeh]

It does not seem to me that it will colapse. Notice the big changes that were made along 2015/2016 specially, with features removed, not delivered, and expectations now set very low in terms of universe size and feature set by the end of 2017/18.
Even with all that, just a little number of whales are enough to sustain the show of smoke and mirrors going on. The Amway scheme.
I mean.
The game and project itself, obviously is done, it cant be done as pitched, it cant live to his hype and noise created along all these years and the constraints that they created to themselves (high fidelity in tiny little things sacrificing the timing to deliver meaningfull and working stuff) wont ever end and only will become worst.
Its going to stay as a shadow of some corner of the industry that nobody, but 2000 whales care and sustain it under the payment of thousands of dollars for individual in game items that should have the value of 1 dollar to be still considered expensive.
But I dont believe on them colapsing. Just making changes that will be always accepted by these people that lost totally any sense of value related to games. People that will become more and more defensive and hostile, while singing to each other that they are the great community, special snowflakes, heroes, saviors of the game industry, of the genre, etc etc.
All power to them and their money, but the reality is that Star Citizen is already a fail.
If it wasnt a fail, it wouldnt need this kind of monetization scheme to survive. Period.

I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed. There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on and there is still plenty of people wanting to play. Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.

Let's assume that Tony Z used to be a hedge fund manager and has a clue how to invest copious amounts of cash reasonably efficiently. Now let's assume overheads in years one and two were significantly less than today. Now let's assume they've taken around 30 million a year for 4 years running. Is money running out? I highly doubt it. Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.

It's going to be fun watching what happens whatever side of the fence you're sitting on. Can't wait.

[dsmart]

Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.

Are you still going about this? Seriously? 

[Kyrt]

I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed. There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on and there is still plenty of people wanting to play. Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.

Let's assume that Tony Z used to be a hedge fund manager and has a clue how to invest copious amounts of cash reasonably efficiently. Now let's assume overheads in years one and two were significantly less than today. Now let's assume they've taken around 30 million a year for 4 years running. Is money running out? I highly doubt it. Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.

It's going to be fun watching what happens whatever side of the fence you're sitting on. Can't wait.

Are CIG running out of money?

Always an interesting question.

Currently they have about 400 developers and programmers. At an average wage of $40k a year, that's $16 million right there. Add in a ballpark 25% just to allow them to work - running costs, support staff, etc - and you are looking at a rough estimate of $20 million a year.

Those figure are also likely conservative and on the low side. Devs likely get more than $40K a year. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that CIG are burning $25-$35 million a year. Paid the reported US average you'd be looking at yearly costs of $36 million...but it is difficult because it has teams in the UK and Germany and Austin and so on.

And so far, it is earning an average of £33 million a year from sales and crowdfunding. And costs in the beginning were lower as well...there were fewer developers.  So even if CIG were losing money, they would still have a healthy buffer.

But there have been other costs. Linguists. Movie stars. Scriptwriters. Motion Capture. Third party deals that have had to be scrapped. Legal fees.

And in the future? There is marketing. CIG will need to spend huge amounts of money to effectively market the game. Trouble is - a lot of players have already "bought" it. But without new players, there is a potential revenue problem. They say they won't sell ships, and servers and development will cost money. But maybe CIG will be happy with the existing base.

However...as things are, it is not unreasonable to suppose the CIG might indeed be running out of money, especially with the latest letter from
Roberts. It's a nice begging letter...but still a begging letter.

Overall? CIG probably has enough money on hand to finish the game. They are probably going to bring in enough from ship sales for a while to slow down any leaks but there is a fair possibility that they are spending money as fast as they can make it.

However, without more data, we can't know for sure.

[jcrg99]

I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed.

133 million dollars in pre-sales with hard possibility of too much sales if any, after "release" and higher possibility of lawsuits instead, considering what we already know about what is coming and coming only 4 years delayed. Tell me what is these banks that you are talking about, because they are extremely fools on how they provide loans.

There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on

Hmmm... Plenty. I wonder what do you mean by that and how meaningful is to make a proper analysis of grow or fall.

and there is still plenty of people wanting to play.

Who the hell wouldn't want to play the game that you can basically do everything ever dreamed. The impossible design in high fidelity. Who the hell wouldn't? Willing to play something does not mean actual sales. Specially considering what Star Citizen promised to be. The problem is. They won't be. It's already know that they won't be. In any time soon. They already failed to met the expectations that THEY created. And that has consequences.

Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.

Only a fool investor would look to this and claim that "time will tell" when you already know the history of the company. What you expect is a turn in the tide that never happened, just as never happened a 90-day full colapse. What this team already shown is that they don't have the capacity to deliver what was promised in any time soon. It's a fact. It's already announced. Or are you telling me that by 2012, after the end of 6 million dollars crowdfunded game, people would be expecting just ONE system with barebones features by the end of 2017/18? No. They were expecting a Loooooot more and for 2014. And by 2017/18, is that what they will get. For some reason, you think that people, press, will ignore all that, and magically, things will work smoothly. Its possible? Of course it is. Miracles happen. But its very naive to think in miracles when you look to the realities of this industry and matches with what already happened with this project/development.

Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.

It does not matter. Star Citizen is mediocre and will continue to be. It's awesome just in the mind of a few whales that sustain it and will continue to sustain it forever. There is no turn in the tide coming. It's a flop. I don't believe in colapse. No question that it was a profitable venture for Roberts and co. But the flop is already set and only fools still need the "wait and see". For these I just say then: "Watch and learn".

[ConfusedMonkeh]

Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.

Are you still going about this? Seriously? 

I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on, so yes. You stated that numerous times in various tweets and other places. It was proved incorrect. Why should anyone believe your latest predictions along the same vein? You've heard of the boy who cried wolf I take it?

@Jcrg99: You offer a lot of opinion. Yes there are lots of people playing the alpha, this is a fact. It may be buggy and broken but people playing it see the potential. Which is huge. If there are only 2,000 whales propping the company up are you suggesting the over 2.5 million in 4 days is solely from them? Seriously? That's ridiculous. Your confirmation bias is showing here I'm afraid. You've lost any and all objective viewpoint you may have once had. The game is coming and there will be many people playing it. It's coming slower than we all wanted, never going to argue with that, but check the funding chart and citizen numbers and tell me again there's no one interested. With a straight face.

@Kyrt: Of course it's all guess work. We can't know. Neither can Derek. Funding isn't slowing down significantly. I believe 10 million over this last few weeks of the year and it's the best year ever in fact. Staff numbers keep on increasing and development keeps on happening. If money was running out I'm reasonably sure we'd be seeing staff cut backs. Unless the upper management of CIG are completely idiotic. Which I admit, is a possibility. There's also a possibility the sun won't rise tomorrow morning.

I refuse opinions on the game not being wanted or not being good because it's evident that people are still throwing money at them and playing the broken, buggy, half a single system alpha. If that doesn't tell you something then nothing will. Whenever I log in there are plenty of folk running and flying around. Chat is busy. Griefers are griefing. It's cool and fun even though there's barely anything to do and it's a tiny fraction of whats to come.

Of course whatever they release there will be this enclave and others calling it poop and refusing to admit any technical achievement or giving a single hint of praise but that's OK.  Others will be enjoying a game that might just be something very special indeed. Que sera sera.