Windows Star Citizen

I don't think it started out as a scam but I agree that continuing to take money from backers at this point is extremely poor form, especially in the form of "pledges". I also have my doubts about how genuine the figures are re: the money they claim to be receiving - I think it's greatly exaggerated in an attempt to convince the community that this game is still viable and boost confidence in CIG. I find it incredibly hard to believe that they are bringing in $7-8m a month (and per the tracker, they did $19.7m last month) from a userbase of under 5m, many of whom will be inactive and most of the rest will not be putting any significant money in (and more fool them if they do).

Apologies, as this is all old ground

 

No it's fine.

I cannot guess at accuracy. The number of devs they allegedly have would need that amount of funding to support.

Not sure what they're doing of course, these devs

 

Yeah, most recent accounts (31/12/21) say they (CIG UK) have 432 devs (up from 370 the previous year), and 74 other staff. Salary roll was £27m so they're paying £53k a skull on average.

Apparently they turned a profit of £4m in the year to 31/12/21 and had £23m cash in hand. One thing I did spot was that they have £17m of non-cancellable leases to pay within the next 5 years, and a further £25.6m beyond that. Probably not unrelated to them moving to bigger offices in both UK and Germany to accommodate the increased headcount. Better keep that money coming in for the forseeable future!

 

I like to sometimes read through the SC refunds subreddit. According to them, there are 1,200 staff and they have had the biggest funding drop in July since 2016.

People have claimed the sky is falling with CIG for years but it could be a sign of difficulty leading to project shut down. Hard to keep going for a decade+ without releasing an actual saleable product.

 

Aye, I think there's a lot of noise and speculation but it's understandable given how opaque CIG are and the size of the numbers being thrown about. Will be interested to read their 2022 accounts when they appear - theoretically that should be October (but the last accounts weren't filed until January which is late by my reckoning).

Definitely agree that it's hard to see how these numbers can be sustainable indefinitely, or where their revenue is coming from should they actually release a finished product.

I'm just so far beyond caring about the actual game at this point, though The intrigue about finances and whatnot is all I have left

 

Exactly where I am. I am wondering what an ending will look like and how it will go down. An announcement on the website and server shut down? A refund of pennies to the pound?

 

Actually I was wrong, Star Citizen has one killer feature... https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9UrOf7GXCCc

 

I think I'm now in the mindset where the completed game being released will just be a nice surprise.

That certainly is special...

 

this. glad i realised how deep i'd got down the rabbit hole, whilst still being able to get out!
when/if the single player comes out i will be pleasently suprised, give it a spin, fully expecting a meh experience...

 

In the meantime Starfield is out shortly, so we may have forgotten all about SC soon!

EDIT: something just occurred to me - given the (broken) timescales involved, they should have treated backers like investors and started banging out dividends. That would have been nice .

 

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if we also got a sequel to Elite Dangerous before SC is either complete/officially abandoned.
...or some other major developer sneaks in with a secret space game project... some of the studios out there have been awfully quiet the past year.

 

It is essentially a Ponzi scheme now.

They have a mass of legacy backers. The majority of them are not paying money for concept ships or other "items" still for sale.

So they need to keep acquiring new backers and produce new concept ships to sell to them. Meanwhile, some of these assets get made while the core underlying systems and tech are critically flawed and have never worked.

It is literally robbing Peter to keep the ever increasing amount of Paul going.

We may have a Bernie Madoff situation with Chris Roberts in that he will never concede how broken the funding model and "game" is until the feds arrive to shut them down.

 

Thats not a ponzi scheme... Thats a business...

 

Not if the business' product or service does not exist!

 

Thats just a scam, a ponzi scheme is where the investors at the beginning directly benifit from the ongoing fraud...

 

Well a bonafide ponzi scheme, if you forgive the oxymoron, is a scam or fraud.

But yes it is not a direct comparison as it is not about making money for investors. But in the case with SC the original pledges (who are still waiting to receive pledged for goods) are only relevant providing new ones come in (hence the comparison). There is no meaningful product after over a decade, much like Charles Ponzi had no meaningful business or product.

 

They could have rewritten this slightly to make it appear as if they had more than two backers.

 

Squadron 42 is officially "Feature complete"

 

So only another half decade to go then?

 

Yep, another 10 years of "polishing".

I cannot believe people are still donating to this lie! It's been 11 years since I backed.