Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Noo, I paid money to lurk here and enjoy the trainwreck that is Star Citizen. You can't just take my main supply of schadenfreude away.

I'm a long-term SA lurker. I never pledged but I have been following the project with an odd fascination since the kickstarter days. I have a soft spot for doomsday cults that look forward to specific dates for the rapture/jesus patch and then have to rationalize when nothing is ever delivered. shoutout to ggangensis as I'm also checking in on the German Citizens on gamestar.de every once in a while.

So uh, buy an Idris, is what I'm saying I guess

# ¿ Jun 24, 2020 14:28

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:39

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Mr.PayDay posted:

Visiting threads and streams of German SC Cultists , makes you realize that there are still and nonstop discussions what jpegs to buy next.
The 40-50 year old guys with well paid jobs in their nerdism are discussing what JPEGs to buy next , because their disposable income is meant to make the BDSSE reality.
You still underestimate how many of these freaks feel that their 700-1000 Euro ships are a small investment and they plan their ship portfolio to have sth. between 2K and 10K.

The focus/target group seems to have 1000-2000 Euro/Dollars per YEAR spare to buy more ships.
I met and watched so many of them that I doubt the tracker is fake. The CI not G Videos are fake, the tracker, I fear, is not.

These dudes feel SC is their hobby and 100-200 bucks every month for SC is nothing that harms or limits their lifestyle in any way.

5000 of these guys who spend 1K -2K yearly already guarantee them 5-10 Million on ship sales.
I guess 5000 nerds is a very defensive calculated number.
It�s more like 10-15K who spend 1-2K yearly-
Add the whales and the newcomers and the regular annually�ship sales� buyers and 30 -40 Million per year add up.

I wholeheartedly agree. Especially the German cultists seem happy to keep spending. And boy, do they get angry when someone calls them out for funding a broken Crysis mod. I just paid my favorite chapter of cultists on the gamestar forums a visit. My favorite post from today (upvoted by the thread regulars):

Translated from German posted:

My sister believes in chemtrails.
There are some people online who believe in a flat earth.
There is even some people who believe that birds are government surveillance drones.
And then there's those people who believe that CIG lies and wants to cover up something.

Everyone lives in their own bubble and believes in their own conspiracy theories.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 14:45

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Mr.PayDay posted:

The German PC Games and Gamestar magazines sold their journalistic ethics for exclusive coverage the last years, they were and are indirect paid-with-personal-Infos-from-CR shills that dropped all critical questions.
They earned money by increasing sales of their magazines whenever they had SC specials for 4-8 pages.

The editors and writers are heavily invested in SC with their private money , and that�s a a great and totally honest fundament for cognitive dissonance when you are covering CIG and SC.

You can't sell out you if never had any journalistic ethics to begin with

Yeah, they were happy to let the cultist editors and writers shill for Star Citizen as long as it got them some more (ad) revenue. I think that there's also some patriotic element to it since CIG uses a German engine and has developers in Frankfurt. German game magazines have always lamented the lack of artisanally produced games from domestic German Spieleschmieden. Whenever there is a game that has some ties to Germany, as tenuous as they may be, it receives lots of uncritical coverage and favorable reviews.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 16:07

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

I actually tried looking for anomalies using Benford's Law in the hourly funding data a few months ago but I didn't find anything. Neither absolut numbers nor hourly changes stood out. Even pledge frenzies during their ship sales followed Benford's Law. Of course that doesn't prove that the numbers are real sales. It just means that the hourly funding numbers that CIG puts in their funding tracker probably aren't made up by an intern who has the task of inventing numbers for the tracker.

If I wanted to fudge the numbers in the tracker I wouldn't just invent numbers anyway. I would say "OK let's add 591 accounts that have a subscription and sprinkle 12 Idris sales throughout the next month". I'd conjecture that such a procedure would produce numbers following Benford's Law.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 08:33

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

I just extracted the whole set, daily pledge numbers, 2830 values in total. And it seems to show as fake.

Oh, I missed that you were talking about the daily pledges, sorry. I didn't look at daily pledges since I figured that they would fudge the hourly numbers and just sum up the hourly pledges for the daily numbers. Maybe they're doing it the other way round?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 08:47

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

I dont know. Does it matter? Weather you use hourly or daily should not change the result no?

If they (manually) fudge the daily numbers, they still need to come up with hourly numbers. They can't just divide daily numbers by 24 so they might use a randomizer that produces hourly numbers that add up to the daily number. Random numbers typically observe Benford's Law, so you'd get a conspicuous daily number and an inconspicuous hourly number.

Or I screwed up somewhere, that's actually more likely

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 09:14

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

I may be wrong but as far as I can see in the tracker sheet they capture hourly figures and then the first tab simply collects the hourly data and summarizes the numbers for a daily view.

Sure. I'm not talking about the tracker but about CIG since they produce the numbers, both daily and hourly. I'm just trying to come up with an explanation why the daily numbers show a conspicuous pattern and the hourly numbers do not. So either CIG fudge the daily numbers and randomize the hourly numbers as a function of the daily numbers or I screwed up.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 09:22

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

Which set of figures you used for the hourly?

The hourly data from the funding tracker spreadsheet. I figured that they'd come directly from CIG's pledge tracker.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 09:43

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

We might need to work this offline to avoid thread derail so to get to the bottom of it but I just did a similar exercise with hourly data and it still yields a fake result for me :p

For info; what i used is the data in the second tab "Hourly Pledge Capture". In there you have total fund absolutes hour by hour, so to get the hourly actuals I had to create a new table and substract absolutes at a given hour from the previous hour. Using that it still gives me a fake. I had to clean a few rows that had zero values and a few other oddities.

I couldn't find the the code that I used so I quickly redid the analysis. I copy/pasted the hourly pledges, converted everything into numbers and fed it into R. I used the benford.analysis package. For absolute hourly pledges I get a very conspicuous result. But in my opinion that's not a fair test because Benford's Law only concerns the first digit and the absolute hourly numbers are not independent. Imagine if you have 9.200.000 $ and you add some random ships every day. The leading number is going to be 9 for a long time even though there is no fudging.

So instead I looked at changes in hourly pledge numbers, i.e. how much is added every hour to the tracker.

The graph in the top left is the most important one. The first digit in the change of the pledge seems to follow Benford's Law pretty closely. There are some caveats though: For the other measures it doesn't follow Benford's prediction though, it seems. The statistical test that the package produces says:

Mantissa Arc Test

data: diff(data$pledge)
L2 = 0.010266, df = 2, p-value < 2.2e-16

Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): 0.01254406
MAD Conformity - Nigrini (2012): Marginally acceptable conformity
Distortion Factor: -6.625748

So it's statistically significant but the mean absolute deviation seems to be so low that it's marginally acceptable.

I can share the code if you want.

chadbear fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Aug 14, 2020

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 10:26

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

Btw, do you mind uploading somewhere the file with the raw hourly change data? Just so I can compare with mine, I am still puzzled that the dcode site, as simple as it is, yields such a different result from yours. The only explanation I can see is that we are using very different data.

Sure. Here's the raw hourly change in the tracker:

https://pastebin.com/8Dc6QF0K

Here's the R code that I used if anyone is interested. Before running it copy/paste the hourly pledges, convert everything to numbers (days and $ values), delete the last column because it's identical to the first column of the next day, and save as a csv.

https://pastebin.com/dVQLyidu

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 12:42

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

Thanks. Yeah, we are using pretty much the same figures. Dcode just returns a fake result with both your set and mine though: https://www.dcode.fr/benford-law

I don't think it's a fake result. The test is also significant when I run it in R. If you compare the observed rates on the left with the predicted rates on the right you see that there are some differences but they are not large. I would call such a difference statistically significant but not significant from a smoking gun perspective.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 13:55

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

MedicineHut posted:

Yeah, I also noticed the distribution % are eyeballed close to expected distribution but I presume the fact it is actually rejected suggests the rejection criteria for p-value has other control elements that are beyond eyeball smoking guns. That p-value is really tiny.

What this may mean in practical terms is that CIG is indeed cooking certain numbers into the real numbers in that tracker; maybe not in enough quantity to allow a smoking gun eyeball confirmation but enough to get absolutes to record level funding all the while not fooling Benford Law.

I learned in my statistics education that with enough data points you can falsify any single hypothesis. As you gather more data points the empirical pattern converges ever closer to its true pattern. A theory like Benford's Law will never actually be "true" though, because theories are simply inadequate human tools to organize patterns. All theories are wrong. It's a question of how useful a theory is. Useful theories give better predictions than bad ones. Benford's Law definitely fits the data better than a uniform distribution, for example.

Since the number of data points that this dumpster fire has generated over the last decade is quite large I would also eyeball the data instead of relying on a single p-value. My gut feeling says that the test is inconclusive.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 15:00

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

trucutru posted:

My theory is that CR is a hack and my prediction that SQ42 is gonna suck. Prove me wrong, brainiac.

That's not a theory that's a physical constant.

@MedicineHut: Agreed. It would be really interesting to look more into the irregularities. There could be something there.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 15:23

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

I just checked in on the German faithfuls posting on gamestar.de. They're relishing in Star Citizen's (technical) achievements.

quote:

2014: first scripted multicrew demo on a ship
2015: Port Olisar and surroundings, multicrew not just on a ship but on a space station, space, ship, etc.
2016: planet tech mission with sandworm + ground vehicles + editor showcase + Idris ingame teaser
2017: planet text on another level: Area 18. An entire city planet. Jump to Hurston (and Idris Capital showcase in a mission + Idris vs Idris MP showcase at gamescom)
2018: yet more planet tech, showcase of the awesome Face over IP. mission teaser. Law and order System. Lorville+space station+train showcase.
2019: Carrack showcase, Microtech showcase + storm and weather system showcase + Cloth Physics + Inventory and Inner Thought Wheel + Tools + Climbing System + Player State System + Ship AI in Atmosphere + Jump Point Showcase + Pyro System Teaser

you can see how they make huge strides in development each year (and yet the haters cry that there has been no development in the last 5 years) and every year they ticked another "it's impossible" off the list ^^

I'm exected what they will show us this year
Volumetric clouds on planets are probably coming. Maybe we can gather (Starfarer love?) and process fuel, fitting with space nebula in 3.12?
Maybe even water planets?

They're even celebrating the fake sandiworm as a huge achievement for Star Citizen :aaaaa:

# ¿ Sep 24, 2020 10:06

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

ggangensis posted:

Haven�t looked into the Gamestar thread in month... I assume DeathSnake is still shilling hard?

Yeah, it's the regulars. They always complain about the haters who supposedly don't let them enjoy the game and spread FUD. Anyone who enters their thread not believing in Star Citizen being good is eventually banned by the mod who is part of the cult. But then they are brigading the gamestar news comments, where non-cult commenters laugh about Star Citizen, which annoys the other mods so now they force the cult mod to police his cultists.

But apart from that drama it's still just screenshots, dreams.txt and jpg investment strategies.

�: sniped. Well then, meet the cat that's living somewhere around my apartment block. I always get to pet it when I meet it in the street.

chadbear fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Sep 26, 2020

# ¿ Sep 26, 2020 08:25

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

The Rabbi T. White posted:

All jpegs anywhere are worth their weight in gold.

Let's say a Crobbler jpg weighs 4GB because of all the fidelity. Then the information comes in at 10^�18 grams. (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25qna.html) The price of gold currently is US$ 61.14 per gram. Hence, a Crobbler jpg is worth US$ 6.114 * 10^-17 or 0.00000000000000006114 dollars.

Checks out if you ask me

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 12:54

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Sarsapariller posted:

https://v.redd.it/28satz3pxqt51/DASH_1080.mp4

So that's why CIG implemented the fidelitous ouch-my-rear end death animation.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2020 21:20

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Mirificus posted:

"Theaters of War before the new year?"

remember the Sataball gamemode that everybody memory holed yeah Theaters of War is not like that :lol:

# ¿ Oct 25, 2020 18:41

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

boviscopophobic posted:

If those poll numbers aren't made up, which CIG would never have a history of doing, then the smallest total number of votes compatible with those percentages (assuming correct rounding) is 2750, with the candidates receiving 247, 372, 390, 492, and 1249 votes respectively. (The total number of votes could well be larger -- this only shows that 2750 is the most pessimistic possible "honest" scenario.)

That's such an embarrasingly low number that it must be true. Thanks for doing the math.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2020 22:49

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Aramoro posted:

I mean I pressed install and it downloaded a 30 gb file, then went back to the launcher again with the only option being 'install'. Pressed it again and it downloaded a 800mb set of files then back to 'install'. Pressed it again and now onto a 55gb set of files. What the ever loving gently caress is happening?

I started with a 12gb download and clicked install. Now I'm at a 55gb update download.

Where are my missing 18.8gb Chris

# ¿ Nov 21, 2020 16:35

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

The Titanic posted:

Highly doubt bunny man has millions of dollars.

I've always hoped somebody like Derek was going to uncover the huge smoking gun of fraud or something. But it never happened.

So it seems like there's literally just thousands of people or more out there spending millions of dollars on non existent space ships in a game that's mostly broken.

They're not playing the game, everything is empty.

They're not posting on Reddit because there's not nearly enough traffic.

Doubt they're on spectrum.

It's just people, apparently buying stuff silently they don't want to interact with in a video game they don't play.

I... guess this has to make sense... somehow.

I believe the tracker and I think it makes sense. If you go on any big German website with a forum you'll find a local chapter of cultists who do nothing but plan their next purchase and theorycraft. Every once in a while they try to meet up in the 'verse to awe at each others' chariots until the server crashes or they get killed due to a bug. Their AARs are quite something.

I think that many true believers have abandoned reddit and Spectrum because there are too many FUDsters for their taste. They don't want to fight over Star Citizen endlessly and downvote heretic posts. They just want to talk about dreams.txt. So instead they retreat to their own little bubbles that they police very aggressively. Anybody who is suspected of heresy against the church of St. Christopher Roberts the Savior of PC Gaming is exiled immediately. These cults are relatively small, tight-knit groups that have formed social bonds over Star Citizen, and your standing in the cult is determined by the amount you donated.

Now, there may be more going on with the grey market. Personally, I find the idea of money laundering very plausible. But in the end, any money laundering operation needs some real and clean demand too. And much of this real demand comes from German game dads.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2020 10:13

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Rotten Red Rod posted:

I was gonna do another stream of playing the SC free fly where I try to fly a ship... But I don't really want to. Can someone post an uninstall guide so I can be sure I get every trace of it off my system?

I set a Windows restore point before downloading the installer when I tried Star Citizen this weekend. I have to type up a report of all the fun I did not have playing it.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 19:03

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Kosumo posted:

When was the last time any Vanduuls where shown in engine?

Like, anit they a major part of SQ38?

They showed off some janky animations last year, I think. I still have it in my browser history.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/9prrneucdubxqr/mp4/StarCitizen_Squadron42_VanduulAttacks.mp4

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 12:10

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Kosumo posted:

No, I'm asking about Chris Roberts triple A (if not more) Squadron 42 game. Not Unreal from 1998.

You say that but could the Unreal engine from 1998 do melee attacks with the direction based on the location of the target. It's never been done before!

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17863-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-October-2020

# ¿ Jan 11, 2021 13:16

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

L. Ron Hoover posted:

Wait, Star Citizen is a space sim? I don't see any evidence to support this.

It certainly has reinvigorated space simps

# ¿ Jan 18, 2021 08:25

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Zazz Razzamatazz posted:

Well yeah, but how many bathrooms were there in Skyrim?

Zero.

While SC has lovingly crafted _^(unusable) bathrooms in nearly every ship and wankpod!

Checkmate

That reminds me. I fear that bathroom gameplay is one of the few things that CIG will be able to push out the door in the near future. It's another meter that ties in with their hydration/food meter "game play" loop. Prepare for bathrooms sticking out like a sore thumb in the endless soulless corridors of the Star Citizen space mall. Also all the ships will have to be refactored to make their bathrooms useable.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2021 17:22

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Pixelate posted:

Toilet gameplay is still waiting on baby pipeline technology. Smart money is on vending machine gameplay first

Maybe 2022?

I totally forgot about that gem. It's hard to keep track of everything CIG is failing at.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2021 18:36

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Awesome, looking forward to the show.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 20:54

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Beet Wagon posted:

Happy coramor or whatever, you loving weirdos

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 08:27

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Of all the ridiculous Star Citizen lore I find the Xenothreat name... dull but passable. It's not unheard of to call yourself after what you oppose. Just think of Antifa.

So there's a free fly for the next two weeks. Last time I tried it, I successfully rode the metro, got stuck in the non-opening hangar doors, and then clipped through the walls of Grim Hex I think. I hope to motivate a friend or two to have some laughs playing Star Citizen together.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 17:41

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

I hope the lore writers expand on the origins of Xenothreat's name. Maybe even a full panel session at the next Citizencon. (Although I belive that CIG is quite happy with not having Citizencon happen anymore due to COVID and they won't relaunch it post-COVID unless forced to.)

edit: sniped. Ugh I don't have a good pic on me.

chadbear fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Feb 15, 2021

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 18:11

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/WavyChubbyGharial-mobile.mp4

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 20:50

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

So I tried the free fly again yesterday and I streamed via Twitch to a dozen friends to give them an impression of Star Citizen's shittyness. Some random Star Citizen Fan discovered my stream and tried to give me advice in Twitch chat for hours. Since I wasn't monitoring the Twitch chat but communicating with my buddies on other channels I didn't see his advice (press button #3952 to do function #1130) and this guy was getting more and more angry because I didn't play the game correctly and I was not following his very good advice lol.

Apart from that everything was as lovely as ever. Most of my time I spent riding the train or in transit to some mission objective. The space malls were lifeless and sterile as usual. The NPCs stared into the wall, phased into each other and stood on chairs. The server also crashed once. On the plus side I found Wally's and experienced CIG's next-gen barkeeper. Sadly the barkeep was buggy, ignored me for a few minutes and then took some more minutes to pour my beer. lol at the liquid "physics".

After Wally's I accepted the 890 Jump Mission, took my Anvil Arrow there and started shooting at the AI ships. The AI ships were jiggling around in space as if they had no weight. I shot at these guys for minutes but I couldn't get through their shields. Neither could the AI penetrate mine. So after 15 minutes of dull space pew-pew I ejected and called it a night.

I can't see any progress at all. This is the state the game will be in in two years. Sure there will be another ship or mission type here or there, but nothing will fundamentally change. I don't think I will be back for another free fly tbh.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 10:19

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Kosumo posted:

Sounds like you are just a content locust tbh.

Star Citizen is not being made for you anyway, it's being made for Chris Roberts by Chris Roberts*. It's his dream game.

*Not with Chris Roberts money though.

Yeah I don't blame Chris, obviously I only have myself to blame for being a filthy casual and not appreciating Chris' DREAM and VISION

I shall repent and buy an Idris as indulgence

chadbear fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Feb 18, 2021

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 11:53

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Pixelate posted:

SC The Musical

https://clips.twitch.tv/HomelyAbstemiousDragonWholeWheat-LJHa6AZqxMcDnYsP

I can't thank you enough for posting these. This one is just :kiss:

# ¿ Feb 19, 2021 17:19

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Flannelette posted:

It's because given how unstable just walking up a ramp and sitting in a chair is in game, trying to make a realistic size tank where you have to climb on top of it and go into a cramped space through a hatch would be completely impossible.
It's big for the same reason lego vehicles and action figure vehicles are big.

I agree with your analysis of the technical necessity but you�re talking about CIG as if they knew the limits of their engine. Counterpoint: The tank isn�t in the game yet, it exists purely as a jpg. The only input for the jpg probably comes from the art department and Chris himself. If the large size were a conscious decision due to engine limitations, the artists would either have to know what they�re doing (lol) or they would have needed some input from programmers through functioning communication channels (lol) or the code whisperer would have to know something about the engine they�re using (lol) when he was signing off on the colour of the pixels.

Any design decision that makes sense in Star Citizen must be accidental.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2021 09:28

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

On the topic of AI drones: Isn't AI outlawed in CIG's lore or something like that? I remember this being a "hot topic" in the last Imperator elections.

�: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17782-2950-Imperator-Election#laylani-addison

quote:

First Act: Loosen the current restrictions on AI research to allow for the exploration of new ideas and innovations that would benefit the entire Empire.

Core Campaign Promises: Increase government spending on education and scientific research initiatives to launch a new era of innovation. Would authorize highly regulated AI research to support these advances.

Riveting

chadbear fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Mar 15, 2021

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 15:31