hot balls man no homo posted:

Mine was actually a plan for an underground clubhouse that could only be accessed by going through quicksand like in SMB3

big nipples big life posted:

Even if the initial reaction is "omg, we waited for this?!?" they will convince themselves it is the best game ever and totally worth 40 thousand dollars.

Hav posted:

We used to build fairly large dens out of the bales in nearby fields that culminated in the farmer threatening us, then finally bringing out the plod to tell us off. The late seventies was great.

Colostomy Bag posted:

Still facepalming on the revisioning number scheme after getting over the other 10 sextillion fuckups on this aborted fetus of a game.

Three point oh.

But still pre-alpha.

Fat Shat Sings posted:

Actually this is why I figured they use the numbering convention they do. Since these patches should be like 0.0026 or 0.026 or 0.2.6 or something.

http://www.wisebread.com/party-like-its-1999-the-psychology-of-pricing

quote:

Consumers tend to place more emphasis on left digits than right ones (also known as the left-digit effect). And they "ignore the least significant digits rather than do the proper rounding." I like to think that I round $19.99 up to $20.00 rather than mentally truncating the last two digits to $19.00, but research suggests that most people retain the first two numbers only, possibly because people have gotten used to .99 as a price ending.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-things-cost-1995/

quote:

Psychologists have been studying cognitive bartering for some time, and several basics are well established. For example, an opening “bid” of any sort is usually perceived as a mental anchor, a starting point for the psychological jockeying to follow.

University of Florida marketing professors Chris Janiszewski and Dan Uy suspected that something fundamental might be going on, that some characteristic of the opening bid itself might influence the way the brain thinks about value and shapes bidding behavior. In particular, they wanted to see if the degree of precision of the opening bid might be important to how the brain acts at an auction. Or, to put it in more familiar terms: Are we really fooled when storekeepers price something at $19.95 instead of a round 20 bucks?

Basically an incredibly effective retail scam tactic that takes advantage of peoples instinctual reactions, just applied to a game development scam. It's plainly obvious, It's like a used car dealership or credit card commercial, except nobody is making CIG put a giant asterisk down with a ten page disclaimer about their lies and misrepresentations.

In an actual game being developed, I'll pick Star Sector as an example, the version numbers are 0.XX.rcX. I got into the game at 0.39.x 0.40 was a leap in functionality but the real star was what was in the game itself. 0.5X.rcX, 0.6X.rcX. 0.7X.rcX. After years the guy has been adding things to his game, and the game speaks for itself with easily trackable progress, the version numbers are doing what they are supposed to do, keep track of his development.

CIG is just using version numbers as marketing, their product right now is barely even a prototype. It's like if Apple had a giant malfunctioning phone that couldn't make calls with a bunch of exposed circuitry and a giant AC cord instead of a battery and called it the IPhone 2.0. Putting a cover on it makes it the IPhone 3.0. Changing the screen time out effect is the IPhone 4.0.

Most companies aren't that blatantly scamming people, but most customers aren't as stupid as backers.

I'd argue that the PU isn't even a prototype since you typically need to be working toward actually making something. Promising literally impossible technology in a dead end engine is the same thing as selling those rebreathers that were scientifically impossible. Sure they had "prototypes" but the project was a lie from the start.

RagnarokZ posted:

Didn't they all claim that the engine change wouldn't cause any real delays?

How delayed is the latest patch now? Six or seven months or so?

shrach posted:

This it a bit of accounting but that is much simpler to explain when you work backwards from cashflow and consider how people tend to treat companies as their own personal money.

In 2015 they had expenses that had to be paid of ~£15m so they had to transfer £15m to the UK because they had to cover these expenses. That is probably the entirety of their accounting records. So at the end of the year, they just said that £15m was their turnover and they arrived at their turnover by basing it on their costs and then gave it no further thought. Because the tax credit was still just accrued income, they didn't really think about the future when they would actually be receiving the money.

So in 2016 when they started to actually receive the tax credits they no longer needed to cover the full expenditure in the UK from the US. One of the core concepts in accountancy is consistency, which means they couldn't just change their policy without changing the previous year comparatives. So last year their policy and turnover was basically 100% of costs. Their new policy is 80% of costs with the tax credits covering the other 20%. So they retrospectively pretend that some of the money in the previous year was just an interest free loan or prepayment.

Are you sure about this I thought the earliest was mostly during the three month shoot in Mid 2015 from this: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14803-Letter-From-The-Chairman

D_Smart posted:

No loving way that's real.

TheAgent posted:

wait wait *looks down at the ps4 controller in my hand*

OH GOD NO ITS A CONSOLE GAME WHAT HAVE I DONNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The Crobbler posted:

Bishop, a very well-known and -liked admiral of the UEE—think of him like Maximus from Gladiator—won a battle [with the enemy Vanduul] at great personal loss; his daughter commanded one of the other ships in the fleet, and she sacrifices herself to save Bishop's ship. That's one of the reasons why Bishop is haunted.

You start out in the military earning citizenship, and you get your wish to become a fighter pilot. While you're training, Admiral Bishop and the [UEE] task force go off into Vanduul space and take the fight to them. As you come out to deploy, the news comes through that they've lost contact with the task force. Bishop goes missing, and the rest of the game is you trying to find him.

You go behind enemy lines, trying to find out where Bishop is, and you see things that have happened along the way that gives you [a reaction] like, Has he lost his mind? What's happening? It's sort of the Ninth Legion mixed with Heart of Darkness.

So you get behind enemy lines, and you find out there's a Vanduul plan to shortcut past the Earth's defenses, and you have to stop it.

At the end of it there's this big last stand, and you get back to human space. But Bishop is still left, behind the Vanduul side, kind of like Commander Cain on the Pegasus in [classic] Battlestar Galactica. You come back a bit of a war hero, and you muster out, and potentially Bishop's still out there fighting the battle behind enemy lines.

The Crobbler posted:

At the end of it there's this big last stand, and you get back to human space. But Bishop is still left, behind the Vanduul side, kind of like Commander Cain on the Pegasus in [classic] Battlestar Galactica. You come back a bit of a war hero, and you muster out, and potentially Bishop's still out there fighting the battle behind enemy lines.

hot balls man no homo posted:

My clubhouse got as far as a hole in the ground where my dad dug out a tree stump. So it is a pretty apt comparison between the plans for Star Citizen vs what is being delivered.

Sappo569 posted:

Everything from start to finish with cig has been a massive marketing campaign , there is no game citizens

Tippis posted:

Now play Uncharted 4. Once you discover the nose-squishing, anything CIG has ever said on the topic of fidelity starts to sound like a dung beetle opining on plasma physics.

Tippis posted:

Where's your sense of adventure, wonder, and joy you old curmudgeon?


Now play Uncharted 4. Once you discover the nose-squishing, anything CIG has ever said on the topic of fidelity starts to sound like a dung beetle opining on plasma physics.

teh_Broseph posted:

teh_Broseph posted:

Hav posted:

Just wish the story was as solid as Uncharted 3.

CaptainBtaksDad posted:

jesus christ

Space Crabs posted:

I'm channeling Derek by shamelessly self quoting but I was puzzling this out earlier in the thread


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-things-cost-1995/


Basically an incredibly effective retail scam tactic that takes advantage of peoples instinctual reactions, just applied to a game development scam. It's plainly obvious, It's like a used car dealership or credit card commercial, except nobody is making CIG put a giant asterisk down with a ten page disclaimer about their lies and misrepresentations.

In an actual game being developed, I'll pick Star Sector as an example, the version numbers are 0.XX.rcX. I got into the game at 0.39.x 0.40 was a leap in functionality but the real star was what was in the game itself. 0.5X.rcX, 0.6X.rcX. 0.7X.rcX. After years the guy has been adding things to his game, and the game speaks for itself with easily trackable progress, the version numbers are doing what they are supposed to do, keep track of his development.

CIG is just using version numbers as marketing, their product right now is barely even a prototype. It's like if Apple had a giant malfunctioning phone that couldn't make calls with a bunch of exposed circuitry and a giant AC cord instead of a battery and called it the IPhone 2.0. Putting a cover on it makes it the IPhone 3.0. Changing the screen time out effect is the IPhone 4.0.

Most companies aren't that blatantly scamming people, but most customers aren't as stupid as backers.

I'd argue that the PU isn't even a prototype since you typically need to be working toward actually making something. Promising literally impossible technology in a dead end engine is the same thing as selling those rebreathers that were scientifically impossible. Sure they had "prototypes" but the project was a lie from the start.

Tippis posted:

I was looking through old GDC videos and came across this:



Look at it. Just look at it.
Are there even numbers small enough to portray the how much of Fallout's janky excellent SC will struggle to achieve?

1500 posted:

It is also tied to ED, CIG started using 1.0 right after ED released, then when ED released its first expansion (going to 2.0), CIG also followed right after.

Tippis posted:

Are there even numbers small enough to portray the how much of Fallout's janky excellent SC will struggle to achieve?

Hav posted:

is it Alpha, Beta.....

I know it's meaningless, but the iteration of actual version traditionally revolves around '1' being a release candidate, not the point where they realize they have nothing for a couple of years.


Isn't that the original Fallout, in which case 'lol interplay'.

aleksendr posted:

Not completely. Its the egg in the cake mix.

Earlier cake mix recipes in the 60's had everything needed in powder form, just add water, mix, bake and voila, delicious cake. Guess what ? They did not sell, like, at all, untill some psychomarketer genius told the industry to let the buyer add a single egg to the mix. Just adding water made the cake some kind of "not good for you, machine made slurry" in the buyer mind. But by having to crack an egg it turn into a quick cooking a home desert.

Picking your mission from a drop down menu availabe anywhere make you feel like a cog in a machine. Having to walk a little, see the sight, spot the npc and press <use> turn it into an adventure. You just have to find the right spot between making the player walk all over the map for no good reasons and giving all the quests from a single billboard right beside the savepoint.

Hav posted:

Isn't that the original Fallout, in which case 'lol interplay'.

YellerBill posted:

Hey does anybody have some Captain B'tak (or whatever his name was, the crazy paranoid guy on the RSI forums a while back) quotes saved? I want to share them with friends.

teh_Broseph posted:

The Crobbler posted:

Bishop, a very well-known and -liked admiral of the UEE—think of him like Maximus from Gladiator—won a battle [with the enemy Vanduul] at great personal loss; his daughter commanded one of the other ships in the fleet, and she sacrifices herself to save Bishop's ship. That's one of the reasons why Bishop is haunted.

You start out in the military earning citizenship, and you get your wish to become a fighter pilot. While you're training, Admiral Bishop and the [UEE] task force go off into Vanduul space and take the fight to them. As you come out to deploy, the news comes through that they've lost contact with the task force. Bishop goes missing, and the rest of the game is you trying to find him.

You go behind enemy lines, trying to find out where Bishop is, and you see things that have happened along the way that gives you [a reaction] like, Has he lost his mind? What's happening? It's sort of the Ninth Legion mixed with Heart of Darkness.

So you get behind enemy lines, and you find out there's a Vanduul plan to shortcut past the Earth's defenses, and you have to stop it.

At the end of it there's this big last stand, and you get back to human space. But Bishop is still left, behind the Vanduul side, kind of like Commander Cain on the Pegasus in [classic] Battlestar Galactica. You come back a bit of a war hero, and you muster out, and potentially Bishop's still out there fighting the battle behind enemy lines.