Bootcha posted:

If I can do some math...

The development cost has been handled by pledgers, there are no companies or persons aside for some simple profit sharing agreements from current and ex employees to owe (which we'll assume final profits exceed final development cost). Assuming every cent is spent on development. We'll set the final tally of funds raised, which will be cited as the total development cost, at $120 million, because fuckit spergy whales are stupid.

Let's say, conservatively, SQ42 sells 300k units at $50.
$15 mil in revenue. All new units and sales.
And let's say that 60% of those sales will buy the next episode, or season pass as it may be marketed. Actually fuckit, 20% Season Pass, 30% new episode. $100 for the former and $40 for the latter.
$6 mil and ~$4mil.

So we have a total of $25 mil in revenue from SQ42 Launch.

Back when this was a $6.2 mil project, or even a $32 mil project, that's not a bad figure.

So we have $25 mil to spend over the course of, let's say 16 months of continued development to push SC out the door, accounting for roughly $1.2 mil monthly operating costs, $19.2 mil total. So profit has been cut down to $5.8 mil.
On top of this, let's assume the annual pledger amount also dips due to SQ42 release, sales and poo poo notwithstanding. $3 mil in 2017. However due to a product release this becomes profit. Back up to $8.8 mil.

Now, SC, as it stands it'll be $45 bucks a pop until release or something, but I suspect it will be a $60 retail. Conservatively, looking at customer bases the likes of Eve Online/E:D, let's say the new sales will be 200k units. At this point, NO OTHER PLEDGES.
$12 mil in revenue.
Note that there is no advertised "subscription" for the SC PU services. But for the sake of the VD Store or whatever it's called, they're able to gain about... $100k in monthly ship/skin/trinket/swag purchases.
Day/Month 1 in 2018 profit will total at about $20 mil give or take a million for the whole shebang so far.

However, Episode 2 of SC needs to be mocapped as well. The figure thrown around was $20 mil for the actors and the recording. Let's say that they simply can't do mocap the way CR did the first time, and the A-list stars can only do voice but knowing CR he'll still play with his mocap toys at Imagineerium, so let's cut the cost in half, $10 mil. So $10 mil in profit.

Let's surmise that operating costs will cut down with the launch of the SC PU, they'll still need server staff, CS, CMs/GMs, Foundry42, Santa Monica, and Frankfurt. Austin's turned into the basement ops with the GMs, CS, and server monkeys. So let's say CIG ops now cost... $800k per month.

From the launch of the Star Citizen PU, CIG needs to cover $9.6 mil in operations costs annually, plus $10 mil per each SQ42 episode. Let's round that out to $20 mil.

The VD Store will bring in $1.2 annually.
At $40 per episode, CIG will need to sell nearly half a million copies of SQ42 each year to keep up with development costs.

Let's say the manage to but only barely above the margin, only $5 mil in profit annually and a hell of a treadmill to keep pace with devops and production. But's let's be generous and say they manage to do this year after year.

2019: $15 mil total
2020: $20 mil total
2021: $25 mil total
etc
etc

IT WOULD TAKE 22 YEARS BREAK EVEN WITH THE FINAL PROJECTED DEVELOPMENT COST FOR THE ENTIRE PROJECT IF EVERYTHING GOES MARGINALLY FINE!

As any prospective investor, to quote CR himself...

This is bullshit.

starkebn posted:

The reason no other game has done something like "grabby-hands" and just use an inventory screen instead is because "grabby-hands" is loving stupid and pointless and unfun after the second time you try and wrestle cargo into your ship.

Crazy_BlackParrot posted:

Bootcha posted:

If I can do some math...

The development cost has been handled by pledgers, there are no companies or persons aside for some simple profit sharing agreements from current and ex employees to owe (which we'll assume final profits exceed final development cost). Assuming every cent is spent on development. We'll set the final tally of funds raised, which will be cited as the total development cost, at $120 million, because fuckit spergy whales are stupid.

Let's say, conservatively, SQ42 sells 300k units at $50.
$15 mil in revenue. All new units and sales.
And let's say that 60% of those sales will buy the next episode, or season pass as it may be marketed. Actually fuckit, 20% Season Pass, 30% new episode. $100 for the former and $40 for the latter.
$6 mil and ~$4mil.

So we have a total of $25 mil in revenue from SQ42 Launch.

Back when this was a $6.2 mil project, or even a $32 mil project, that's not a bad figure.

So we have $25 mil to spend over the course of, let's say 16 months of continued development to push SC out the door, accounting for roughly $1.2 mil monthly operating costs, $19.2 mil total. So profit has been cut down to $5.8 mil.
On top of this, let's assume the annual pledger amount also dips due to SQ42 release, sales and poo poo notwithstanding. $3 mil in 2017. However due to a product release this becomes profit. Back up to $8.8 mil.

Now, SC, as it stands it'll be $45 bucks a pop until release or something, but I suspect it will be a $60 retail. Conservatively, looking at customer bases the likes of Eve Online/E:D, let's say the new sales will be 200k units. At this point, NO OTHER PLEDGES.
$12 mil in revenue.
Note that there is no advertised "subscription" for the SC PU services. But for the sake of the VD Store or whatever it's called, they're able to gain about... $100k in monthly ship/skin/trinket/swag purchases.
Day/Month 1 in 2018 profit will total at about $20 mil give or take a million for the whole shebang so far.

However, Episode 2 of SC needs to be mocapped as well. The figure thrown around was $20 mil for the actors and the recording. Let's say that they simply can't do mocap the way CR did the first time, and the A-list stars can only do voice but knowing CR he'll still play with his mocap toys at Imagineerium, so let's cut the cost in half, $10 mil. So $10 mil in profit.

Let's surmise that operating costs will cut down with the launch of the SC PU, they'll still need server staff, CS, CMs/GMs, Foundry42, Santa Monica, and Frankfurt. Austin's turned into the basement ops with the GMs, CS, and server monkeys. So let's say CIG ops now cost... $800k per month.

From the launch of the Star Citizen PU, CIG needs to cover $9.6 mil in operations costs annually, plus $10 mil per each SQ42 episode. Let's round that out to $20 mil.

The VD Store will bring in $1.2 annually.
At $40 per episode, CIG will need to sell nearly half a million copies of SQ42 each year to keep up with development costs.

Let's say the manage to but only barely above the margin, only $5 mil in profit annually and a hell of a treadmill to keep pace with devops and production. But's let's be generous and say they manage to do this year after year.

2019: $15 mil total
2020: $20 mil total
2021: $25 mil total
etc
etc

IT WOULD TAKE 22 YEARS BREAK EVEN WITH THE FINAL PROJECTED DEVELOPMENT COST FOR THE ENTIRE PROJECT IF EVERYTHING GOES MARGINALLY FINE!

As any prospective investor, to quote CR himself...

This is bullshit.

Toops posted:

I'm not sure what to call the "Destruction Derby" Game mode, anybody got some good names? Right now I'm going with "Destructo-Derby Paaarp Arena" which is weak.

Basically, all weapons are deactivated, there is only ramming, and you can't leave the arena under pain of death. The object is to destroy your opponents. Last plebe standing wins.

Beyond kill points, you get points for the following:
- Ramming (there's Dinky, Boss, and SAVAGE ram levels)
- Ice Burns (where you flip around and blast enemies with your thruster exhaust)
- Paaarps (I'm not sure what a paaarp attack is yet, but it involves an airhorn. Maybe just a sonic blast radius on a long cooldown timer?)
- Fatalaties (ships have finishing moves)

Crazy_BlackParrot posted:

Daztek posted:

I wonder how many manhours CIG spends trying to keep up with this thread

Bolow posted:

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/6343920/#Comment_6343920

Khanstant posted:

Who the gently caress chose those names for the directions?



This was helpful but I'm still not a fan of name. "Yaw"? What the hell.

Toops posted:

Credit to the creator: BMan

AP posted:

Anyone have a link to the time this happened?

Kakarot posted:

Hey /r/starcitizen! I think my videos were submitted to your lovely sub a few times and even reached your frontpage. In them, I was defending Star Citizen from unfair criticism, whilst not being a backer myself. I have now finally given in, and made another vid to explain to my viewers what convinced me in the end. With you I just want to share the script of said video so I don't bore you with my YT shenanigans, but if you are interested in the visual part, I'll link to the video at the end of the post.

Today, I want to talk about something that happened to me recently. An epiphany, so to say. As some of you know, I'm opposed to funding early-access games. I still find that whole concept silly and against the best interests of consumers. BUT, and that is quite the big BUT indeed, I was always fond of Chris Roberts' work, fond of spaceflight simulators, and fond of games that try to do something that others haven't tried before. Yet, in all my previous videos I proudly stated that I was not a backer, keeping true to my pro-consumer colours. This has changed. I have betrayed my principles. I have pledged 45 dollars to Star Citizen. And now, let me explain to you why I deem this betrayal of principles the best game purchase I have made in a long time.

My opposition against early-access games, as I elaborated in previous videos, is explained by two core statements: I'm not willing to pay a company for the quote-on-quote 'privilege' of being a beta-tester for their unfinished product and I don't see any incentive for early-access developers to actually finish their games, due to them being able to keep a game in early-access indefinitely, circumventing the consumer expectation of delivering a finished product whilst ALREADY demanding the full price for it. So in order to lure me into spending money on a product that is unfinished and may never come out, something extraordinary has to happen. After thinking about this a lot, I have come to the conclusion that Star Citizen as a whole is exactly that extraordinary thing.

First off, I have been craving for some proper innovation in gaming for a very long time. In a gaming world in which triple A publishers get praised by their corporate slaves for releasing the same drivel over and over, the only way to show them that Call of Duty kids are not the only demographic worth catering to is to vote with ones wallet. This usually means NOT buying a product you deem unworthy of your money. But it CAN also mean buying another product. So in order to cast my vote, I chose to spend money on a company that promises me a literal universe filled with content, a company that says to me: 'You can fly a spaceship! But you can also walk around in it, and float in space in your spacesuit! How about shooting other pilots in the face after you've spent the night drinking in a space bar?' Or in other words, a company that is trying to combine many features and playstyles that are usually seen in separate games, into one. The ambition to create a wholesome simulated universe is therefore my number one reason for betting my money on the Robert Space Industries horse, but this reason alone would have never convinced me to do so.

Hilariously, the other reason for pledging, the one that gave me a virtual push to finally take that leap of faith, were the critics of Star Citizen. Do you remember that Escapist article by Liz Finnegan in which ominous and anonymous sources claimed to be able to prove that Roberts and his wife were evil personified, and that their hiring practices were racist and sexist? Not only did we never hear of them again after RSI threatened to sue - or at least I haven't - but these allegations made me research the whole project deeper, delving into dev logs and speeches Chris Roberts gave, and made me watch a couple of the countless videos that the developers produce on a regular basis in which they explain what they are up to right now and how the progress is going. And guess what? The buggers are transparent as gently caress! Never before have I seen the development of a game so well documented, never before have I seen the devs showcasing their work on such a regular basis. I would not have done that research without all the voices on the internet trying to cut down the tall poppy, as they say here in Australia. And that is what much of the criticism of Star Citizen is: trying to drag an ambitious team down into the mud that said critics are used to swim in.

Of course there is valid criticism, and there are valid concerns too, but when most of the criticism boils down to 'Vapourware LOL' or 'cash grab scam ROFL' in spite of the obvious progress being made, and in spite of the current playable version of Star Citizen, then a person like me ALSO gets the urge to support that game just to spite those who want to obviously continue to live with a gaming industry in which creativity gets punished, and ambition gets called a pipe-dream. Yes, you heard that right. One of the reasons to pledge for me was to prove those who willingly fellate the megalomaniac corporate publisher blobs wrong. To be part of what may very well be the second coming of PC gaming. Or its biggest failure. But hey, even if Star Citizen fails, at least they loving tried.

So here I am, a newly pledged Star Citizen, and proud of it. In the end, it all boils down to to the concept that if I want the game industry to change, I figured that voicing my criticism and NOT buying games I abhor isn't enough. I decided to put my money where my mouth is. Now, please, for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, don't prove me wrong, Star Citizen.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCiE80VNHmY

AP posted:

Anyone have a link to the time this happened?

Sandweed posted:

ARK is one of those early access survival crafting games that will never get released.

The Kins posted:

Amazon just launched their own fork of CryEngine, with hookers and blackjack.

Incombibulator posted:

Yep. This cannot go unnoticed.
For a direct link go here.

Amazon Lumberyard is a free AAA game engine deeply integrated
with AWS and Twitch – with full source.

See, I'm betting a few enterprising folks can make a better SC clone with this than CIG have already done.
I'm going to look forward to seeing that in a couple of months.

Berious posted:

I wish I could still stomach playing EVE. Nothing else was quite like it.

Sandweed posted:

Mad Catz always attach themselves to the wrong games, they also had a Titanfall series of mouse and keyboards.

They also produce the most unconformable mouse in the world.

Toops posted:

Yeah this one really kills me. I've had to deal with chaos and change in every field of software engineering I've worked in. Games is no different.

The only real difference between game development and all other software dev is that games are entertainment, and the entertainment business is run by loving con men and hooligans. A career in games mainly appeals to these stunted, teenage, punk rock "gently caress rules" personalities. This is normal for code jockeys like me. But when this attitude persists all the way to senior management, you get clowns like Chris Roberts, with the mind of a spoiled 11-year-old rich kid, in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars. He doesn't like deadlines for the same reason kids don't like vegetables: He's not mature enough to know they're good for him.