Star Citizen - Chris Roberts Interview

VentureBeat interviewed Chris Roberts about why Star Citizen needed to raise 46 million in venture capital.

For me, I think the investment is very important for our independence, because it gives us the ability to take our time. We have the ability to take care of our marketing and not be beholden to someone else. For the future of the company, it's a really good sign. And it's a good sign to show that, even at this stage, the company is worth this kind of money. As we grow and get bigger, it should only increase beyond that. That should give people who are worried about whether we'll be around tomorrow -- they shouldn't be so worried about that.

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Thanks Farflame!

More information.

Feed me, Seymour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QETfA9_b7wM

Don't forget the SP Beta wont release till the end of 2020.:lol:

So almost seven years & 180 million raised just to reach Beta for the SP version.

I don't get his logic - they raised something like fifty times what any other popular crowd-funded game got. Based on the normal amounts that any other crowd-funding gets, no sane person should have expected to get that much money and therefore their game should have been budgeted to be made long before they had to close 'tomorrow' or get venture capital involved at all.

Death by bloat, in my humble opinion. I believe I'll actually be amazed if we ever get a single player version.

The lawsuit explosion will be spectacular with this one.

Avantre said:

I don't get his logic - they raised something like fifty times what any other popular crowd-funded game got. Based on the normal amounts that any other crowd-funding gets, no sane person should have expected to get that much money and therefore their game should have been budgeted to be made long before they had to close 'tomorrow' or get venture capital involved at all.

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It's not that complicated, really.

Once they reached their initial funding goal, CIG noted that people kept throwing money at the project. They then proceeded to make a poll for all backers - asking them if they wanted them to keep the funding model alive in an effort to expand the scope of the project.

An overwhelming majority voted yes on that poll (including myself) - something like 90%.

There's a reason people keep funding it - they actually want to see something beyond the traditional mainstream AAA space game.

As a result, the first 3-4 years were spent trying to establish the final scope and project the necessary team growth - at the same time as releasing the promised modules, which they had obligated themselves to do.

The two games haven't been in full production for more than 3 years, at the most, at this point.

This new deal was made to ensure that the money from crowdfunding can keep going into development - instead of using some of it for marketing.

So, they found some idealistic investors with a similarly bold mindset in terms artistic endeavors - and now they have a very solid foundation from which to market Squadron 42 and, to a lesser extent, Star Citizen. This, without relinquishing control to a publisher.

These games would have been absolutely impossible to make at their current level of sophistication and fidelity - using a traditional publisher model.

However, in never-never land - where a publisher would have agreed to pay for 500+ people working for an unknown amount of years on a has-been genre - much of which would be R&D into unproven technology - it would probably have been possible to shave off a few years of the final and total development time.

But, since we (presumably) live in the real world - where things aren't ideal - I'd argue this is the best anyone could ever hope for.

Well, at least if you're like me - and you actually want to see a 100% PC-centric game taking a beloved genre into a very, very different direction than you see most AAA games heading.

They don't have to please publishers and they don't have to limit their ambition because of console hardware.

This is an enthusiast space simulation aimed at people who love gaming and are very hungry for true evolution and who have been waiting a very long time indeed to see a developer bold enough to go all the way - without being held back by narrow-minded publishers.

It's sort of ironic that so many non-backers are telling themselves this is - somehow - a bad thing. Even if you don't care about space games - and even if you have no interest in seeing something this ambitious come to life - I'd argue you should be supporting it. If for no other reason than to see what can happen when you take the publisher out of the equation - and you allow developers to do what most of them can only dream of doing.

But, whatever floats your boat

I remember back when Star Citizen kickstarter began. It was 2011 and Dark Souls 1 had just come out for PS3. It wasn't on PC yet, but after a petition the publishers liked the idea and made it happen. Publishers are great at making sure games actually release.

Dark Souls II wasn't far off and had a much smoother PC launch. Just like the first it got a large expansion pack full of new late-game content.

Then we saw Dark Souls III and its expansion come and go. Great game, everyone loved it.

But after all that time From Software was so sick of Dark Souls they refuse to make another. Not even a publisher can make them do it. (Yet!)

Now just how sick of Star Citizen do you think Chris Roberts should be? One project in all this time? No developer could remain sane! He's not a real developer. He's a fund-raiser. We haven't seen a single Star Citizen game come out. They tell us 2020 for beta. The whole Dark Souls series has come and gone. That's what a game developer can do. Can you really call them a game studio without a single released game? It's all theory at this point. It's a scam until proven otherwise by the launch of an actual PC game.

They're going to spend 40 million marketing a game that doesn't exist and you're still saying people should support them? That's enough for 10 moderately large kickstarter games wasted on ads to get more backers and not release a game.

If you really wanted to do something different from the publisher model, which was actually for the people, you'd take their 200 million and build them a new open source freeware space sim platform where people could mod and host their own servers with no DRM. QED.

Avantre said:

I don't get his logic - they raised something like fifty times what any other popular crowd-funded game got. Based on the normal amounts that any other crowd-funding gets, no sane person should have expected to get that much money and therefore their game should have been budgeted to be made long before they had to close 'tomorrow' or get venture capital involved at all.

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After kickstarter ( for the most part), you kind of have to revisit common gamer attitude to put all blame on publishers, at least when it comes to managing finances/scope of the project.
In this case, it grew out of control and looks like some enthusiastic movie director who suddenly got a budget beyond his wildest dreams, and started chasing the new tech..and somehow forgot to actually make a good movie. But that's like building a new PC: there is always something new coming out around the corner.
They even spent ton of cash hiring Hollywood celebrities for performances/voice acting.
From what I've seen it look overstretched project impressive only in it's scope..but with bland script/gameplay/systems with a whole lot of doing nothing interesting meanwhile.

This is a pretty good video on it ( more focused on Roberts)

I can't wait for them to release Star Citizen.

No, wait.

I won't wait for them to release Star Citizen.

Much better.

In an interview with GamesBeat, Roberts said the money will be used to develop full marketing campaigns for the single-player game Star Citizen and the larger multiplayer sci-fi universe, Star Citizen.

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Awesome. More marketing. Money well spent.

Well read the whole interview it's no wonder they are burning through their cash reserves. The developer has nearly 500 employees across a few different studios.

Let that sink in they have more employees then Larian, Obsidian and inXile combined. It must cost a fortune to pay that amount of employees, and other bills.

These games will speak for themselves

Even the dunces will have to listen eventually. It is, however, amusing to watch people proclaim knowledge based on nearly zero insight into this game and its development.

Darth Tagnan said:

These games will speak for themselves

Even the dunces will have to listen eventually.

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That will be true, one way or another.

Darth Tagnan said:

It is, however, amusing to watch people proclaim knowledge based on nearly zero insight into this game and its development.

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Yup, youve got all that inside knowledge that everyone who disagrees with you is lacking.

SirJames said:

He's a fund-raiser. We haven't seen a single Star Citizen game come out. They tell us 2020 for beta. The whole Dark Souls series has come and gone. That's what a game developer can do. Can you really call them a game studio without a single released game? It's all theory at this point. It's a scam until proven otherwise by the launch of an actual PC game.

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It is already released. Crowdfunded project with the usual early access to it.

Cant be a scam. It is just a crowdfunded project as there are now thousands of them. Pointless to pick on one when ignoring others that feature the same practice and same approach.

This product is nothing unusual for a crowdfunded product.

Yup, youve got all that inside knowledge that everyone who disagrees with you is lacking.

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It's not inside knowledge. This game has the most thoroughly open development I've ever experienced.

I just happen to have actually followed development, which is why I'm so confident in what I'm saying.

That's what makes it so amusing. People are talking about something they don't understand - and they don't bother to do any kind of research, beyond clickbait headlines that they twist into ignorant agenda-material.

I truly think these dunces actually believe what they're reading in these cases - and generating a staggeringly implausible theory that literally millions of people are part of some kind of "cult" worshipping Chris Roberts.

It's fascinating.

Of course, it's not just about Star Citizen. One might argue the entire Trump era has taken this kind of human stupidity to the next level.

It's something I would have refused to believe about human beings a few years back - and this is from someone who's not exactly a great fan of human capacity.

I hope they release a game eventually and that it is good.

In the mean time we've got "Chris Robert's Fund-raising - Forum Wars Edition" to keep us entertained. It has however been getting less interesting over time, but now and then they release an expansion pack, like the last one: "The Crytek Saga".

@Darth Tagnan;

Nice passive agressive way of calling everyone who disagrees with you stupid. I'll leave it at that.

ChienAboyeur said:

It is already released.

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It's not. I'm it's Kickstarter backer and I didn't receive full release key. Whatever is released is not the game itself.

Cacheperl said:

I'll leave it at that.

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It's not you can't be bothered, but it's lack of eloquence.
Sadly miles prevent me to take you for a beer.

Cacheperl said:

@Darth Tagnan;

Nice passive agressive way of calling everyone who disagrees with you stupid. I'll leave it at that.

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Even if that was what I actually did, I find it no worse than your assumption that other people are as stupid as you seem to be

Obviously, there are informed people who disagree with me about Star Citizen - but I don't see many of them around here when it comes to genuine information about this game.

Which is hardly surprising, seeing as how we mostly talk about CRPGs and old-school game design.

I can probably count on one hand the people who're actually interested in Star Citizen - even if it was already released and made for 12 million dollars as some people seem to prefer.

However, I'm not saying you're stupid. You're ignorant about the topic at hand, which is neither uncommon nor an insult.

If you consider it an insult, then I can only recommend becoming informed - in which case I will no longer consider you ignorant.