# 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:** 49
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 2:35pm 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/734528/961 "2023-07-18T14:35:42Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Although it has been an obscene amount of time, it hasn’t been “decades”. Well, it is in its second decade… The odds of me ever playing this game are somewhere between slim and none. Slim is still in town but he is grabbing his suitcase. Maybe, if by some miracle, the game goes into beta testing this week and goes gold by the holiday season, will I want to play a game where I’d be so far behind the ~~marks~~ early backers that there would never be a chance to catch up? If it doesn’t come out this year, I have the suspicion that I will be too old to play it when it does come out, assuming I am still alive. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 2:51pm 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/734528/962 "2023-07-18T14:51:15Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > The world record is 14 years, set by Duke Nukem Forever. I don’t think DNF was actually in active development in any particular form for more than 2 or 3 years. Star Citizen is probably the record holder aside from maybe some random indie game one person has been working on for 20 years on and off or something. ---
**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 18, 2023, 2:58pm 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/734528/963 "2023-07-18T14:58:53Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > It might eventually take decades if they don’t just stop development at some point, but they’re not there yet. At this point keeping development going _is_ the game. No finalized game would justify the expenditures, so they have to keep this train in motion-at the end there can only be a crash. ---
**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 18, 2023, 3:07pm 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/734528/964 "2023-07-18T15:07:38Z")
Dwarf Fortress was first released in 2006 and has technically been in development ever since. But apples and oranges. They did the opposite of squeeze money from their community. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 3:08pm 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/734528/965 "2023-07-18T15:08:00Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > To be fair, the game started production in 2011. Although it has been an obscene amount of time, it hasn’t been “decades”. > > It might eventually take decades I don’t think anyone here will be surprised if it’s still in alpha development in 2031. > [@Atamasama](#): > > The world record is 14 years, set by Duke Nukem Forever. As I said upthread, I don’t think DNF was actually in development that long. It was announced in the late 90s and finally released in 2011, but people were not actually working on it for that whole period of time, or even most of it. Two minutes spent playing the game will adequately demonstrate that. ---
**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 18, 2023, 4:33pm 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/734528/966 "2023-07-18T16:33:19Z")
I was relying on Wikipedia which said the game held the Guinness World Record for longest game development. As a former admin I should know better, it’s not even cited in the article. In reality, a different game has that record. > **[Japan’s ‘Clockwork Aquario’ receives Guinness World Record for ‘longest...](https://www.arabnews.jp/en/arts-culture/article_63287/)** > > Amin AbbasDUBAI: ‘Clockwork Aquario,’ a Japanese action-platform video game that was in development since 1992・・・ **Over 28 years.** Almost 3 decades. Star Citizen has a ways to go I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 6:38pm 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/734528/967 "2023-07-18T18:38:30Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Heck, I’d love a “Fallout” game based in sixth-century western Europe, trying to rebuild from the collapse of the Empire. I enjoyed fixing up Rome in ~~the original Assassin’s Creed~~ (ETA: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood). It’s not building like in Fallout 4, though. And that’s sixteenth century, not sixth. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 6:42pm 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/734528/968 "2023-07-18T18:42:05Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The majority of people who pay televangelists think they’re getting something in return. Yeah, and they aren’t. They’re promised that god will return their donations ten-fold, and instead they get jack shit. If they complain, they’re told that they didn’t pray hard enough, and that more importantly they _just didn’t donate enough_. They might be pumped up with religious ecstasy, but they are actually getting nothing. The $35 player above is in fact getting a piece of software that runs and allows them to run around space stations, fly their ship around, engage in some combat, and other stuff. That there is a slew of unmet promises above these things does not take that away. Even if the whole operation shut down tomorrow, they’d have still gotten hundreds of hours of enjoyment from an _actual product_ (and not just the promise of some future product). As I said earlier, there is no excuse for the whales. These are the people trapped in some cycle of belief about these future things. It’s possible that a handful are simply rich and see no problem with blowing $10k on a useless digital item as some kind of wealth signaling. But I would guess that most of them are taking on credit card debt on that garbage, and that the lies about development are really having a negative real-world effect on them. I don’t see any problem in distinguishing between these cases. I wouldn’t pay the $35 even if I thought the current product was up to snuff, because I don’t want to support their predatory behavior in other ways. But I’m also not going to say that someone is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome because they think they got $35 worth of fun out of it, particularly when they have a clear understanding that it’s still an unstable alpha. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 12:50pm 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/734528/969 "2023-08-25T12:50:57Z")
I just don’t get it. Why would people keep throwing money at this game? > **[Star Citizen Has Passed 600 Million in Funding](https://blog.playerauctions.com/star-citizen/star-citizen-has-passed-600-million-in-backer-funding/)** > > Star Citizen has passed 600 million in funding, increasing its lead as the most expensive video game in history. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 12:56pm 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/734528/970 "2023-08-25T12:56:23Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I just don’t get it. Why would people keep throwing money at this game? This is how long cons work. People become psychologically invested in believing they didn’t waste their money on a scam. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 1:46pm 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/734528/971 "2023-08-25T13:46:01Z")
The emperor’s clothes are wonderful… but they could be even better if you would just GIVE. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 9:48pm 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/734528/972 "2023-08-25T21:48:39Z")
I think it’s inevitable that it’ll cross $1B at this point. But when? I predict 2028. And that it still won’t be finished in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 10:30pm 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/734528/973 "2023-08-25T22:30:11Z")
It amazes me this is not a crime (literal crime). ---
**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:** [August 25, 2023, 10:48pm 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/734528/974 "2023-08-25T22:48:54Z")
I’m not aware of them being deceptive in their tactics. They’ve failed to meet projected release dates, sure, but if that was a crime you’d have to throw most of the video game industry in prison. Now, it’s absolutely possible that they never intend to release the game, and this is just a grift. If you can prove that, then I think that would constitute fraud. But as long as they are up-front about the fact that the game isn’t ready yet, and provide people in the short term with things they’ve promised to give in the short term, then I think they’re okay legally. I do think that there’s something morally reprehensible about the insane amount of feature creep that this project has undergone, and it does support the idea that this might in fact be a grift. But again, you need actual proof, like a leaked memo or something. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 10:56pm 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/734528/975 "2023-08-25T22:56:02Z")
Every project Chris Roberts has ever worked on has been plagued by feature creep. Upper management has occasionally been able to rein in his worst tendencies and ship a product. It would be hard to argue that this is a specific tactic given his history. I don’t think he’s made any secret of this being the game he always wanted to make, with no limits on scope. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2023, 11:03pm 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/734528/976 "2023-08-25T23:03:09Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > It would be hard to argue that this is a specific tactic given his history. I don’t think he’s made any secret of this being the game he always wanted to make, with no limits on scope. Agreed, I don’t think of Chris Roberts as a scam artist, even though Star Citizen has really hurt his reputation. Also, I learned recently that Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, was (is?) a very close friend of Roberts. Garriott was also hurt by a vaporware game he lent his name to, “Shroud of the Avatar”, which was supposed to be a successor to the Ultima series. Garriott is currently trying to push a blockchain game that utilizes NFTs, so I think he’s jumped the shark. But yes, in the case of Roberts, I can believe that he’s sincere in wanting to actually make a game and not fleece people. But he just can’t stop adding to it, and has sabotaged his own efforts in that regard. It might end up having the same end result as it would if it was intentionally grifting people; folks pouring their money down the drain for unrealized promises. Again, if he’s being sincere, I don’t think there’s a crime. Projects fail all the time, it’s just how the industry is. But I do think it’s foolish to expect this game to ever be anything like what they promised. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 11:16pm 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/734528/977 "2023-08-25T23:16:17Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Garriott is currently trying to push a blockchain game that utilizes NFTs Ugh; that’s disappointing to hear. But even grifting is not illegal. Fraud is, but I think at some point there has to be a lie for it to be fraud. Missed projections don’t count. Theranos would have been fine, even with their useless product, had they just not lied about it constantly (e.g., pretending that their box was working when in fact they were using a third party for the tests). There’s no equivalent here. The product is what it claims to be. As for whether Star Citizen is a grift… I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. I think that Roberts probably wants this game to be eternally under development. Even if they do eventually ship some completed modules, clearly Roberts will just expand the scope further. It’s sorta grifty as compared to a usual game development cycle when it’s expected to be complete at some point. But I can’t say that it’s _inherently_ bad or dishonest. (though I still think it’s predatory against whales) ---
**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:** [August 25, 2023, 11:22pm 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/734528/978 "2023-08-25T23:22:48Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Ugh; that’s disappointing to hear. Yeah, and it might already be dead. > **[Richard Garriott’s NFT-based MMO, Iron & Magic, appears to have vanished...](https://massivelyop.com/2023/05/26/richard-garriotts-nft-based-mmo-iron-magic-appears-to-have-vanished-already/)** Nothing official about it ending, but it doesn’t look good. I was disappointed when the Firefly Online game died. It was very promising, I loved the series, and I actually spent some money. Not a lot though; I think it was like $5. They had a mobile app that had little mini games (mostly based around traveling between planets for deliveries, it was like an astronomy puzzle) and you could unlock some simple cosmetic items for a bit of money that would be available when the game ever released (which never happened). I luckily have never invested a lot of money into any games that fizzled. (Yet.) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 11:51pm 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/734528/979 "2023-08-25T23:51:19Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > But yes, in the case of Roberts, I can believe that he’s sincere in wanting to actually make a game and not fleece people. But he just can’t stop adding to it, and has sabotaged his own efforts in that regard. He has gotten $600 million to make a game. For that money he could hire an army of programmers and see it done and still be rich. He hasn’t. Feature creep can’t even be the thing holding it back now. What else does Roberts expect to add to the game? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 11:55pm 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/734528/980 "2023-08-25T23:55:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > For that money he could hire an army of programmers He has. The studio has at least 500 employees. That’s probably $100M/yr just to keep them employed. [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=48) [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=50)