No, I don't think it will fail.
No, I don't think it will fail.
In addition, everything is set up so all titles can be bought with in-game coins earned from gameplay, completely free of charge. The only expense is the initial purchase price of the game (I recall spending around $45 on the base Aurora ship, though I’m part of an original Kickstarter). Very few backers contribute large sums at once. Those are the big donors, and they appear everywhere in the market. Linus is among them (unless he received a refund)—he likely grabbed the Constellation package, probably (Corvette-sized multi-crewed vessel). Most players opt for the $45 starter set. That’s it. Few are interested in upgrades. They usually have DLC available? No, not at all. The game isn’t even complete yet. Unless you’re talking about ship purchases? Those are small in-game payments, not full DLCs. You might think Squadron 42 functions as a DLC—it’s a standalone package, but it’s released through the same distribution system. You can purchase them individually or in bundles. No, the developers didn’t request an immediate release. That’s unrealistic. They clearly expect the game to be finished in at least a year, probably longer. The backers are aware of this timeline. Once it launches, they’ll sell copies for around $60 on the base ship. They’ll likely drive more sales afterward. There’s no chance the entire core audience has already bought it. Why? Because I’m certain there are many fans of this genre who will wait until the release—or if it fails—before purchasing. Also, some players will keep buying ships via microtransactions, which can help sustain the project long-term. What’s going on? Well, I’m running an i7-6700 with 16GB RAM at work. Most office workers have similar hardware, and we replace our equipment every four to five years.
The situation is complex and worth careful consideration. It seems there’s confusion about pricing strategies and player expectations. Many players are concerned about whether the game will become free to play, which could affect sales of premium items like ships. Some argue that if the game is free to play, additional funding requirements might not apply, but others believe companies have a right to set pricing based on current models. The idea of declaring the game finished isn’t practical since players continue to invest financially, similar to how games like Minecraft release updates. Offering alternatives like bug fixes or acknowledging limitations can help maintain trust, rather than making abrupt changes. Ultimately, understanding what players value—whether it’s price, features, or stability—is key to making informed decisions.
The project might transition to a free-to-play model within 3 to 5 years after launch—this is feasible. However, I doubt they would do it unless it was the sole method to cover ongoing expenses. Right now, the game isn't free; you must purchase at least the base version which contains SC, though not SQ42 unless you were an early supporter who got both—after that, you need the pricier bundle to access everything. I believe this is incorrect. Ideally, they should launch a fully public version (Public 1.0) once all core features are complete and stretch goals are achieved. After that, they can keep developing it continuously, similar to how Elite: Dangerous evolves. The expansion strategy post-launch could involve various approaches—DLCs, microtransactions, or in-game purchases. Upfront DLC items (like expansions) aren't the same as optional downloads; they suggest additional content that can be bought with real money. While some players might spend extra on a $750 ship, most prefer sticking to the base game. This keeps the experience accessible for everyone while still allowing those who want more to invest.
I was hoping I could edit my replies, and respond to Dalekphalm's before you guys saw it, but here's my replies now; my edits will slash old text and have the new next to it. Yes, but you have to pay to enter. The people funding the game aren't spending hours grinding to get everything for free. They're spending the money to get the things you grind for. Most people aren't funding the game. Your petty $45 is nothing in the big picture. Not that I'm a major credidation, however in talks I have attended at a Game Development program-The people funding your game ARE the 1% of very few people donating $1000 in one shot. Believe it or not, but there are people out there that only play 1 free game, and spend tons of dollars funding the studios. You highly underestimate the amount that the "few people" are actually doing to fund this game. I adopted a lot of points stated in this video, and within it-there is an alignment with the talks I had attended. Spoiler I did use the wrong word. I did mean Micro-transaction however I'm hoping you can see my point, without nitpicking. You have to pay to get the extra "content." Though you don't DOWNLOAD it, it's a micro-transaction but it's close enough that it's almost interchangeable, but I did use the wrong word. It is a standalone package. I did acknowledge this in an earlier post. Spoiler I linked a video above, but here's the article I linked to Helly Spoiler https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon...ding-sails Just because they sell more standalone copies doesn't mean they'll make more money. As I talked about in an earlier post. Spoiler It's a gamble to say "Maybe SOME people are waiting for the game to come out." That margin is very likely insignificant. You can play the game now, and there's tons of content. I don't know anyone that waited for Minecraft to come out before buying it. There were so many people buying it in alpha that there was no point really. In how I stated above it's the very small 1% or insignificant population that donate the most money into a company. The company MUST pander to this audience to keep the company afloat. In mobile games a lot of them are free, but you CAN spend money. You or your friends may have spent 5-50 dollars maximum. However there are people spending hundreds weekly, if not daily. Those are the people funding the games. This is why they keep adding things you can buy so there are things for those crazy spenders to keep spending money on. For the majority of businesses they keep the old equipment running as long as they can. This was a metaphor. If they stay in early access and it's working to fund the game, then there is no reason to say they are releasing. I talked about some benefits of saying "We're still working on it" above. This was an analogy of "if it's not broken don't fix it." Stay in Early access and people will keep funding you to help you finish it. I hope you can understand that analogy. If not, can you say what part you didn't understand and I can try to explain it differently? I wasn't saying they'd move to a free to play model. I was trying to find a way for his theory to work, but stated the game is already Free to Play, you just need a ship. They already have plenty of funding for the ongoing costs, so I don't believe a released Free To Play would be a good idea. Free To Play itself brings out a negative reaction with most people as common monitization techniques that occur. Scroll up this post to see a bit of what I'm talking about in monetized of mobile games. I was under the impression you could buy a ship secondhand (Each ship can transfer accounts at most 1 time) and play the game that way without having to buy a package. In the article I posted, it said Chris Robberts (The guy designing, and leading the Star Citizen team) keeps coming up with new ideas for the game, as well as adding stretch goals. Exactly what I'm saying. I think they will stay in "Early access" forever because of the benefits of saying "We're not done yet. Please help us finish the game and donate today!!" They make plenty of money with the microtransactions, but they can get continued donations through their "We need funding from customers to help develop the game" instead of "We have to finish this DLC before we get more money." The mile-markers like DLC and expansions are less profitable long term in my opinion as they get less donations, and not everyone buys DLC. As I've been saying-People keep donating money to the company, so they're getting funded by the small % (Which may very well be thousands of people) donating thousands of dollars. I'm sure there's additional private funding at this point that may have contracts to say "We'll fund you as long as you're in development." This helps the company keep making money, and develop the game without ever "coming out." If they release DLC whilst not "Out" they'll get slammed like ARK Survival Evolved with the "Why are they releasing DLC before finishing the game?" I responded to this earlier. I mislabeled micro-transactions as DLC. I will edit this in my previous posts. As I explained a few times, some people are funding the game. Most are not. In this statement you acknowledge the amount these people are actually doing to fund the game. They ARE funding the game. The insignificant petty 45$ ships, and small $60 purchases will not fund this company to the length they are at. If they have a 750 dollar ship the fan base would say "You're done making the game. Why do you need 750 dollars?" This helps "develop the game." Electronic Arts had an aggressive monitization model AFTER a 60 dollar price tag. Star Citizen knows better than to do this. In fact people were mad at Microsoft for charging $10 for the Left 4 Dead map pack on Xbox when it was free on PC. (Video Staring at 5:28) Spoiler There are other games you may have seen that had Premium tags to enter the game, then included common Free To Play Monitization in the game on top of this. I cannot find the clip, however Portal 2 on Day 1 had instantly loading skins you could pay for in the game on PC. They don't want community backlash, nor to alienate their core audience as I explained earlier: Spoiler The same thing occurred with the Star Wars MMO when it took 5 years for the first person to become a Jedi. They simplified the entire game alienating their entire core audience keeping the company afloat. Then the new players didn't really stick around.
Diablo III started making progress in 2001 and launched for PC in 2012. Many thought it was a mediocre action role-playing game, lacking anything truly groundbreaking. Fans were relieved when the next update arrived. Everyone is pleased? Yes? No? A straightforward hack-and-slash experience... nothing like Torchlight I & II, which performed similarly, let alone the many other RPGs out there. On the positive side, no one had to invest money upfront; funding came from Blizzard’s broader earnings. Star Citizen Development kicked off in 2011. By version 3.0, CIG offered space combat, first-person shooter options, EVA missions, ground transport, planetary landings, and more. When compared to the complexity and depth of DIablo III, CIG managed a significant amount in just about seven years. Still in alpha, it remains unstable, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become a solid final product. The main issue is that people had to pay for early development, which caused frustration over the lengthy wait times. Although we didn’t witness it, Blizzard likely needed to convince investors to keep D3 in development. Will SC fail? Honestly, it would require an extreme level of incompetence or greed from the SC team to lose fans and deter newcomers. Despite the confidence I have in the SC project, major setbacks like CR or senior staff losses could change that. EA taking over would certainly be a disaster... (T_T) Just my opinion. Peace.
Hey, I’m not sure where these ideas come from, but most SC players really plan to spend time grinding and purchasing items within the game without spending real money. The majority of supporters tend to be those who bought the cheapest base package, which is essentially the same deal as buying the retail version. You start with one ship, some credits, and you’re free to earn more through play. While some might opt to buy with real currency if they have time, most prefer the free route. The key advantage for backers is lifetime protection on their ship—so if something goes wrong, they get it restored without cost. Otherwise, you’ll need to spend in-game credits to fix damage. This acts like a pre-order perk. In the worst case, if your character runs out of money and can’t afford repairs, you’d have to restart with a new one. I don’t get your perspective here.
You’re asking if everyone is actually funding the game? Well, it’s not just the general public—it’s mainly backers and those who might buy now. I’m focusing on backers and future buyers, not the whole industry. My $45 isn’t huge, but with thousands of people it adds up to a lot. Large groups like whales buying low-cost ships will definitely help bring in revenue.
Everyone who plays needs to contribute some money upfront, just like in other economy games such as Freelancer or Elite: Dangerous. The goal is to sustain the game financially, not rely on free purchases alone. Selling more copies will boost earnings without extra cost.
There’s a lot of confusion here. The main point is that the company aims to fund itself through ship sales, offering free access to everyone. Once it’s fully developed, more sales will follow. There are even people on forums who say they won’t buy until it’s complete. That’s understandable, but the reality is that more players mean more revenue.
Your analogy about office equipment was a good way to think about staying in Early Access, but it doesn’t add value. The company has clear objectives and is relying on player investment to grow. I’ll keep this in mind—this is getting a bit tangled.
Did you read my response? I told you that the people you're talking about don't fund the game. You even acknowledged that in your own reply. I'm telling you that on their end the people dropping 1k on ships do that all the time. Your 45 dollars is petty as in insignificant compared to them. Yeah, you help. You pay 2~ people's salary with 450k dollars for 1 year. When someone drops a few thousand every month or so, they pay 1 person's salary themselves. You don't realize this because you aren't in the company, so it's mostly shielded from you. I acknowledged this and told you there are people pouring money into the game instead of grinding to fund this game. I said they'd make some more initial money once the game is done. If you look at sales figures for games, or anything- most of the time, 85+% of sales occur within the first day of release. Yes, they make a huge initial profit, but that doesn't last the company very long to keep at it. Take a look at this article: Spoiler link Spoiler http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own...-producer/ Companies do everything to get these large spenders satisfied because they put out. I had sat in on a monitization lecture for games where a company literally went to the person's house, and fixed the person's computer for free so they could continue to spend 200 dollars every day on their game. People only do this because they actually spend the money. Your 10k people spending 45 dollars as I said exist, but in the grand scheme, you don't stick around. You admitted yourself, you aren't playing the game. You don't spend money. Here's another article talking about people's time spent in a game correlating to money spent: Spoiler https://kotaku.com/who-are-the-whales-dr...1197333118 I didn't say there was an issue with people being able to buy ships. All I'm trying to explain is why the game will never leave early access. Clearly you didn't understand it. I should have used a closer analogy, but thanks for not even trying to understand it. The community has stated they want more features to continually be added. I doubt their core audience will feel betrayed by the label "early access" when they're getting more of the same that they ask for. No one complained that minecraft was in early access as more and more features were being added. It was described in a video I linked, but here's another source Spoiler Accounts and things list Spoiler https://www.epicnpc.com/forums/353-Star-...tems-Ships Ship example Spoiler https://www.epicnpc.com/threads/1256043-...2f8f9cd47f We're not talking about Squadron 42, we are talking about star citizen. You cannot buy the game. Only ships and packages. See above. If you look at this page: Spoiler https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals You can see all the stretch goals have been accomplished 100%. Why would the game still be in early access right now? However at the top of the chart, you can see daily funding. Each day is over 40.000 USD a day. 4 years after your finalized stretch goals, and funding campaign. This is so they can get help to "develop" the game. There's no reason to say "Release build 1.0" ever. Did they say they'd have DLC? (link) Sounds bad for a game over 4 years in crowd sourced development. They can likely as I've been saying make more money through the donations, and whales donating so much money. I explained this in the original comment I made explaining it. Casual gamers don't fund the game. They had a core audience that liked the difficult, hard core grind of the game. Do you know how long that game lasted as a non-casual friendly game? Released in 2000, and people liked doing the "boring" classes, and whatnot. However they simplified the game multiple times, and you can read about how players claimed they didn't like the simplifications, and "casual" change the game was making. Spoiler http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies Maintaining a game company is not about pandering to casual games, it's about pandering to the people paying for your game. Imagine if Dark Souls made a huge change and just added in M16s, and made it so you can't lose souls, and you have recharging health to get a larger audience? The casuals wouldn't stay because they're casual. They don't stick with games. You admitted to this here: Your hardcore audience as linked in articles above spend the most time in game, and stick with it. And the game started to slow down, and lose players. That wasn't my point. You're looking at my points too much for face value, and ignoring my input. I said the company changed the game so much, it alienated the core audience. Right now the core audience funding the game wants it to be in development, and add more features to the base game. If they release, then they'd already have lost half of what the people funding the game want. If they add DLC to help monetize the game, that destroys the other point. People want it IN the game. At 40.000 dollars plus a day from a link I showed earlier, you better as heck stay in development and add stuff to the base game. This is in fact going up from the by month view reaching 6~ million dollars per month. Spoiler When you quote me, please split my quote so I can more easily respond to things, and understand exactly what you're responding to like in my format. If you press enter twice~ it should split on the desktop. You may need to do it on a blank line.
I'm dealing with yet another headache from the constant updates. So I'll keep it brief—you really don't get the stretch goals page. That list doesn't guarantee 100% completion once it's in-game; it just means the funding was met. For example, when they hit 10 million, they promised to set up their own development studio, which they did as shown in some videos. What the list actually says is that everything will eventually be added to the game, but it doesn't confirm it's finished yet. The initial launch isn't here yet. An alpha version doesn't count in this context. So the 85% sales figure is likely still two years away. As I mentioned before, once the game drops, you won't be able to purchase any real-money items in-game. At that point, you can only spend a limited amount of in-game currency. The earnings will come from sales and that in-game money. That's the whole deal. Nothing else. They've explained this in several videos before, and it hasn't changed. Right now, you can only buy a small amount of in-game currency, but you can't use it inside the game. The money you spend is UEC. In the alpha version, UEC is temporary and resets often. On the website, UEC can be used for hanger items and ship parts—like weapons or shields. You can purchase them via the shop's Voyager direct option. If you want to test another ship before buying, you can earn REC through Arena Commander. REC can be used in the Electronic Access shop to unlock ships in Arena Commander, which feels like renting them. Just to try one out, you might earn some REC (though I don't know how long it lasts). To clarify, renting a Vanduul ship requires completing the Vanduul swarm option in Arena Commander. The aUEC will be replaced by UEC at the game's gold release, possibly before that. They haven't mentioned what happens after launch, so they're focusing on getting the game ready now. I'm sure someone in the company has considered post-launch plans, but nothing has been confirmed in any of their videos. Ugh, that was longer than I expected...
I can review and connect relevant articles to your concerns. Please note that I haven’t seen most of the links you shared, and I understand you’re focusing on specific aspects. If you’d like, I can also help clarify any points you’re unsure about and try to restructure them for better understanding.
Here’s a summary of the key ideas from your statements:
- You’re questioning the validity of certain arguments and want evidence to support them.
- You’ve expressed frustration with ignored links and a lack of transparency.
- You reference multiple sources, including a 2017 article from The New York Times about game funding.
- You’re emphasizing the potential for indefinite development and community support.
For your reference, here are some articles you might explore:
- [The New York Times – Game Funding by Fans](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/techn...ssues.html)
- [Spaceflight About the Game](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about...paceflight)
If you’d like, I can help you reconstruct your points in a clearer format or provide more context for each argument. Let me know how you’d like to proceed.