# Star Citizen is the Future of PC Gaming, and it \[was\] Free to Play this week (Edit: No Longer Free) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [October 13, 2015, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528 "2015-10-13T06:29:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/441 "2019-05-03T15:01:54Z")
> [@Teuton](#): > > I’d suggest that Star Citizen would be a long way past Elite on that scale of user-friendliness, even if it worked. Certainly at some point past with [the noob-friendly content added to Elite on 23 April](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/april-update-coming-23-april-2019.508239/). ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/442 "2019-05-03T20:44:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I am 90% convinced that had Roberts been given a budget with an absolute hard cap of $150 million ,a hard schedule of four years to make a great game, and a boss willing to give him the this-fucking-sucks feedback, there would be a great game for everyone to play by now. He’s made awesome stuff in the past so I’d agree with you. He’s like a thoroughbred without a rider; with nobody holding the reins he’s running really fast but going nowhere. I once watched a documentary on the making of _Star Wars: The Phantom Menace_. A lot of footage of them working on the film and interviews with people who worked on it. George Lucas had 100% control over the film and everyone was afraid to tell him no or otherwise offer criticism. The end result was not a failure but has been considered by many to be the worst of the Star Wars films. And the worst parts were the things that went straight from Lucas’s mind to the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/443 "2019-06-11T00:08:38Z")
[Will Gamers Ever Get to Play Star Citizen?](https://www.tvovermind.com/will-gamers-ever-get-to-play-star-citizen/) > [@](#): > > [P]eople make a lot of jokes about poor project management at video game companies, but Star Citizen seems destined to go down as the single worst example of this in video game history, as shown by the multiple examples of useless micromanagement as well as runaway feature creep. There are stories of the lead character artist getting a total of five characters done over the course of 17 months because the man in charge reversed character approvals again and again. Likewise, there are stories of the project having completed a total of two planets, nine moons, and an asteroid out of a total of the 100 star systems that have been promised. The whole thing sounds like a complete and utter project management nightmare that manages to keep on running because its horrendous development is married to a remarkably successful marketing system that has drained millions and millions of dollars from people who are committed to the completion of Star Citizen. > > :snip: > > As for the question of whether Star Citizen will ever be completed, well, that remains to be seen. If [the Forbes report](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2019/05/01/exclusive-the-saga-of-star-citizen-a-video-game-that-raised-300-millionbut-may-never-be-ready-to-play/#1f0de8be5ac9) is right, the story of its development isn’t one of fraud but rather massive incompetence on an almost unbelievable scale. Unfortunately, incompetence can kill a project dead just as easily as fraud if not more so, particularly when said incompetence is apparently sucking up huge amounts of resources to keep it going. Theoretically, there might come a time when the people behind Star Citizen will have used up so much goodwill that they won’t be able to bring in any more funding, but for the time being, it seems likely that they will be able to keep the whole thing going for a few more years at the very least. As for whether that will be enough to see the game to completion, well, it is best not to be optimistic on the matter. In other news, [there are new microtransactions in the form of motorcycles, which reportedly cease to be available today](https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/star-citizen-sells-concept-motorcycles-at-36-and-48.html). ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/444 "2019-06-11T08:44:34Z")
I guess people are still paying for the same reason people might attend a game of Brockian Ultra Cricket: "Rule Three: Put your team and the opposing team in a large field and build a high wall round them. The reason for this is that, though the game is a major spectator sport, the frustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what’s going on leads them to imagine that it’s a lot more exciting than it really is. A crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum game experiences far less life-affirmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic event in sporting history." ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/445 "2019-06-28T14:50:51Z")
> **[Est-ce que Star Citizen est une impasse frauduleuse ? - Houssenia Writing](https://housseniawriting.com/jeux-video/star-citizen/)** > > Star Citizen est en développement depuis 7 ans avec plus de 250 millions de dollars investis. Et pourtant, le jeu est à peine jouable. > [@](#): > > (Google Translated from French) > The predictable fate of Star Citizen > > But let’s stop dramatizing and moping. Star Citizen will be released someday. There will be a final version, but it will not be surprising that it contains only 50% of the promised content. When you have investors who have put in hundreds of millions of dollars, then obviously you have to pay the bill one day or the other. Chris Roberts will have to give up the rights of the game to one of these investors. > > The latter will contact another studio to pull it out and finally close the chapter of this mess. The white whale will be harpooned, but there will be only skin and skeletons at the end of a saga that shows mostly colossal excesses in video games rather than excessive ambitions of a genius misunderstood by the masses. ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/446 "2019-06-30T14:38:37Z")
“Chris Roberts will have to give up the rights of the game to one of these investors.” I don’t see how that’s inevitable, to be honest. He’s chugged this gravy train along for years with no particular sign of it stopping, selling ships that show no sign of being entered into the game to fund it. The funds will presumably stop sooner or later, but there’s no guarantee that any further work would be done on the game beyond that. There will be a final version, but there’s no reason at this point to believe it’ll be remotely playable. Does anyone know of any ships that people have bought that have since been entered into the game, after purchase? And what percentage of ship types that have been for sale are currently available to fly? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/447 "2019-06-30T20:44:17Z")
> [@Teuton](#): > > “Chris Roberts will have to give up the rights of the game to one of these investors.” > I don’t see how that’s inevitable, to be honest. M. Moshinaly presumably means corporate investors. We know at least one’s involved. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/448 "2019-07-08T21:27:04Z")
[Star Citizen is getting more competition, this time in the form of a Warframe expansion.](https://www.thegamer.com/warframe-empyrean-expansion-space-combat/) [sub]No, the article is by a [different](https://www.thegamer.com/author/sean_murray/) [Sean Murray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Games).[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/449 "2019-07-08T21:40:11Z")
And Elite: Dangerous is [getting fleet carriers.](https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/7/20685200/elite-dangerous-fleet-carriers-arx-in-ship-updates-release-dates-pc-ps4-xbox-one) Another year or two of development and Star Citizen will be able to pack it in, proclaiming that they’ve successfully delivered on all their promises - they just happen to be in other games is all. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/450 "2019-07-08T22:04:57Z")
I was reading back through the thread and thought I’d update a post from a year ago. Me in 2015: > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Me, I’m happy spending 60 bucks on _No Man’s Sky_, which will likely also be a letdown in comparison to its hype. Me in 2016: > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Well I was right about the letdown bit, but wrong about being happy to spend the money. I haven’t bought the game yet and probably won’t until I can get it for cheaper (or the devs put out some major content updates). Me in 2017: > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > But, unlike how some folks (here and elsewhere) were gleefully cheering on the crash’n’burn of _No Man’s Sky_, I’m not actively hoping for failure. More like I’m expecting it based on what I read. Too bad. It could be great. Me in 2018: > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Funnily enough, NMS just announced that fully functional multiplayer is incoming next month. Two years after its staggeringly disastrous launch, they’re still pushing free gameplay/content updates. I never did end up buying it (its core gameplay isn’t my style), but credit to the devs where it’s due. I\*\* did \*\*end up buying No Man’s Sky not too long after that last quote, and I put over a hundred hours into it before setting it aside. Last month, fans of the game [set up a billboard](https://twitter.com/NoMansSky/status/1139255142744829952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) outside the dev’s office to say thank you. How’d they pay for it? Crowdfunding. They raised more than they needed and donated the excess to a children’s hospital. NMS - a game which has experienced a complete arc of ambition, betrayal, and redemption, all in the lifespan of a single thread about a game which has yet to be released. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/451 "2019-07-14T03:47:21Z")
Sadly, I think Star Citizen IS becoming the “future” of gaming. That is to say, grandiose, crowd-sourced, early alpha release, open world games that promise unprecedented levels of interactivity and content and ultimately either fall short or wallow in development indefinitely. I’ve seen this in both the “sci fi universe simulator” genre with games like Spore, Space Engineers, No Mans Sky, Elite Dangerous and others as well as the survival genre with games like DayZ, H1Z1, Rust, SCUM, etc. I don’t think it has anything to do with “creatives” vs “beancounters”. It has more to do with a) being able to turn an abstract concept into an actual playable game and b) the difficulty in creating a real working universe with enough content to actually be interesting. What seems to happen is these games linger on for years in a sort of development hell with a user community divided between “fuck these scam artists” and “this game will be awesome when it’s finally released”. At some point, the development house declares “Mission Accomplished” and some buggy, crappy version of the game gets “released”. Maybe a version is also ported over to XBox or Playstation. Of course, by then no one cares because no one plays it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/452 "2019-07-14T19:19:46Z")
There are games like Star Citizen, and games like Subnautica. The future isn’t all doom. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2019, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/453 "2019-07-14T19:47:52Z")
And games that continuously receive new features after release aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Innovate and keep players interested or stagnate and die. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/454 "2019-07-14T20:38:13Z")
Developers of online games also need some leeway when players start behaving in ways not sufficiently anticipated. All the min/maxers in CoH, for example. ISTM, the only really broken part of Elite is the background simulation (BGS). Some of this is caused by bored griefers exploiting loopholes in the BGS, some by deliberate interference from [haxxors](https://www.pcgamer.com/elite-dangerous-hacks-are-becoming-a-problem-and-frontier-is-investigating/). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/455 "2019-07-23T16:52:20Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > And games that continuously receive new features **after release** aren’t necessarily a bad thing. (bolding mine) And on that note, _Star Citizen_ [del]finally announced the release date of their game[/del]announced yet another update-Alpha 3.6, a complete Law and Crime System overhaul, [as described here.](https://wccftech.com/star-citizen-alpha-3-6-live-now-for-all-backers/) Damn thing is more complicated than real life. And you’ll need to download a new launcher, too. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/456 "2019-07-23T17:00:13Z")
The bug fixes in that update show how unpolished that alpha is. It’s truly an alpha. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/457 "2019-07-23T17:28:20Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > And games that continuously receive new features after release aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Innovate and keep players interested or stagnate and die. I think that’s fine, so long as “features and content” aren’t really “shit that should have been in the game from the initial release date”. There’s just too much unfinished games being passed off as “the future of PC gaming” simply based on what people think the pre-release alpha version “might” become. Even looking at one of my favorite city-builder games of all time, Cities: Skylines (which has like a 9/10 rating) is actually kind of crap in its unmodded, no DLC form. And I don’t just mean user-generated visual content that lets you add a Starbucks or the architecture of Paris to your city. I mean mods that fundamentally change the interface or even way the game is played, but have become essential parts of the game. Stuff like managing traffic or just making the graphics not look like oversatured, non-aliased crap. An argument can be made that much of that work should have been completed by the developers. Particularly as the software company doesn’t maintain them and you are SOL if the next version of the game causes those mods to break something and the author has moved on with his life. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/458 "2019-07-23T19:27:20Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think that’s fine, so long as “features and content” aren’t really “shit that should have been in the game from the initial release date”. There’s a difference between “shit that should have been in” and “shit that been promised to be in but wasn’t”. 🙂 The former can usually be bypassed by waiting for a GOTY edition rather than being one of those gamers who feel they absolutely must buy whatever is the next big thing coming to market, especially if the publisher is well known for putting out a bunch of DLC (e.g.: EA and Bethesda). Anyway, I primarily meant online games. At least some publishers are attempting to put in everything that had been promised; ain’t no way in hell Star Citizen is going to have everything that’s been promised without being a quagmire. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/459 "2019-07-23T19:38:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > (bolding mine) And on that note, _Star Citizen_ [del]finally announced the release date of their game[/del]announced yet another update-Alpha 3.6, a complete Law and Crime System overhaul, [as described here.](https://wccftech.com/star-citizen-alpha-3-6-live-now-for-all-backers/) Damn thing is more complicated than real life. > And you’ll need to download a new launcher, too. Seems like every time there’s a new alpha, [someone has written a new article criticizing the game](https://screenrant.com/star-citizen-alpha-release-date-delay/). ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528/460 "2019-08-08T15:24:29Z")
[There evidently was a new trailer last week, focusing on a base defense weapon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUseGGO_vXc) [And here’s a Czech article from a few days ago, criticizing the game.](https://www.gamebro.cz/vesmirny-simulator-star-citizen-laka-specialnim-trailerem/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-citizen-is-the-future-of-pc-gaming-and-it-was-free-to-play-this-week-edit-no-longer-free/734528.md?page=24)