this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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I'm not on any side of the fence. I just see these posts shitting on games all the time, and get tired of seeing them. If you don't like a game fine, don't play it. But making games is hella difficult. I make indie games in my spare time, and I can honestly say, just making a single player game is hard, let alone a multi-player game, or anything realistic. Like Jesus, if you have such a huge problem with these games, go make a better one yourself.
I agree with you for most games, people are picky and don’t understand the challenges. But this game solicited donations 10 years ago, people bought into the vision, and they were wildly successful, I think they raised $600M, which is like the most money any game has ever raised?
And despite that, 10 years later, it’s still mostly just a tech demo (edit: perhaps I'm wrong? Maybe there is $40 worth of playable content. See discussion in child comments, I haven't tried this myself in many years, out of fear of being disappointed again). They are focused on adding cool but superficial animation things, rather than just making a fun playable experience.
If they were focused on making a fun playable (but possibly buggy and limited) game then it would be different. But instead they seem to be chasing random superficial features like projecting your face from your web cam onto your character. It feels like they are not seriously committed to making even an early access game in a reasonable timeline.
If this project was funded by some billionaire who wanted to spend 30 years to make the most amazing MMO ever with a ton of never before seen features, then that would be fine. But instead normal people chipped in $40+ to fund this game, and the developers don’t seem to be prioritizing actually making a fun playable game. It’s barely beyond a tech demo even 10 years later (edit: maybe this is not completely accurate). It is reasonable to assume that the management of this project does not care about making a playable game, they can work on whatever fun features they want, they’ve already made a ton of money.
edits: perhaps I'm wrong about the state of the game. I haven't tried it in a while. I'll have to give it another try.
I agree that the project has fallen victim to arguably the worst example of scope creep to ever plague the gaming industry, but it's much further along than "barely beyond a tech demo". I know people who play several hours a week and say they're having a great time. There's definitely a full game in the alpha, but it's far from polished or finished.
To your point about feeling different about the slow development if it were funded by a single investor rather than crowdsourcing: what's the difference? Every person I know who's spent money on star citizen seems happy with their RoI. Isn't that all that matters with an investment? I'm not sure why it would be better if it was just a single investor being happy rather than a million investors being happy, even if it is all just delusion.
TL;DR: I may be mistaken about how playable it is, I'll have to give it another try. Thanks for the reassurance. I haven't tried it myself in many years, and have only relied on articles like this to hear about the progress. Perhaps I'm biased since the comments always love to hate on Star Citizen and few people are defending it. RE single investor: if everyone who paid money for it was happy then yeah there would be no difference. But I think a lot of people paid money expecting a longer gaming experience within a few years, and instead it's taken a long time and they're still focusing a lot on cosmetic things rather than gameplay and content. IMO gameplay and content should be the top priority, and cool visual stuff can come later. But if piracy/mining/exploring planets/missions can actually provide ~10 hours of enjoyment without being seriously hindered by bugs, then I'm totally wrong and should update my comment.
Thanks for the info, perhaps I should update my comment. It was barely beyond a tech demo when I tried it so many years ago, but it does seem like it's added a lot since then (and I've only learned about it after digging in more today). I've seen some comments in this post that said there isn't much to do besides walk around and look at stuff, which matches my experience many years ago, but perhaps it's not really accurate anymore. Some articles have talked about piracy and mining actually being viable as ways to make money to get a better ship. If those are enjoyable and not severely limited in content and so buggy that progress is hard, then I'm totally wrong and can maybe say that 10 years later my return on investment is adequate :) , and maybe in another few years there will be even more content and give me something more like ~10+ hours of enjoyment.
This is actually really reassuring to me, I'll have to give it another try.
Perhaps the people you're talking to about it now are somewhat skewed towards people who still enjoy it for what it is now. I've almost forgotten and wouldn't think to mention it to most people, but I paid $40 for it around 9 years ago, because a friend mentioned it to me and it seemed like such an amazing idea. It showed so much promise, the racing seemed fun and complex, and later I tried Squadron 42 and felt like I could see the vision coming together. But then after not trying it for a few years, I keep hearing more of the same thing: new cool superficial feature, but still lacking in significant enjoyable gameplay. I am actually kind of scared to try it again and be disappointed in the lack of content.
I realize too that Squadron 42 is apparently a fairly long and mostly finished experience? That alone might be worth $40, though I do think 10 years is a little long to wait for that. I'll concede that they do seem to be delivering on some of the hype, it just takes way too long, and I'd rather they prioritize on something simple but playable for long periods, versus cool immersion and fancy animations and concepts.
Perhaps a lot of the people who enjoy it now enjoy the kind of role playing aspect of getting in a ship with friends and walking around exploring? I would enjoy that somewhat too, every few years, almost like a really advanced VR chat, I guess. But my friends have lost interest in this due to the never ending development cycle. And I would hate to be the one to say "hey guys let's try this out again, it's way better now", and then have everyone be disappointed when someone gets stuck in a wall or the content seems really limited.
Anyway to summarize: perhaps I'm wrong, maybe the game is worth $40 now and I've just been biased from people loving to hate on a game that they haven't even tried. I'll have to give it another try.
I think it's worth a try if you haven't played in several years! There isn't a lot of gameplay if you don't have a ship geared towards combat/mining/cargo, but those contracts are pretty fun (there wasn't a huge amount of variety, but still several hours of gameplay). I will admit that all my evidence of player enjoyment is anecdotal, but it was a bit shocking to me to hear about how much fun friends were having when I keep seeing so much hate towards the game online. I've gotten a couple ships as gifts from friends/family, but my PC hasn't ever been beefy enough to run the game at a stable frame rate (I've since upgraded so it's probably time to try it again ¯\(ツ)/¯)
Awesome, thanks! It's nice to hear a perspective that is different from the mainstream. I've also been limited by my PC for a while, but I've upgraded since I last tried it, so hopefully I'll have more luck this time.
Every person you know personally? Most comment sections I've seen discussing Star Citizen seems to have at least one or two people who are unhappy with their roi. Personally, I don't feel like I've been able to get my full money's worth yet. I think I will some day, I know it's more than a tech demo, but the gameplay isn't quite there yet and the game is still really buggy and unoptimized.
If they can release Squadron 42 this year or next, I think that'd really start to turn things around for them more than anything else
Let's be honest the people who would defend their ROI have lost interest in defending it to the unwilling. Star Citizen has become a cat call to all the haters whenever it's posted in general gaming (namely r/games and c/games now) communities. The only way the narrative changes is by showing not telling, and that only happens with further polishing like this article is covering, and in future release.
There is a reason they've successfully increased pledge numbers year over year, you just don't hear from people outside that community due to this stigma that's not worth bothering to explain.