# 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:** 9
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 5:10pm 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/734528/161 "2016-10-31T17:10:48Z")
It’s been just over five years since the first public reveal and, compared to the stated goals, there’s still virtually nothing for the public to actually take home to play. Seems the notion that this game has a strong possibility of not meeting its such lofty expectations, if even ever released in any meaningful way, is quite troubling for some people. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 5:23pm 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/734528/162 "2016-10-31T17:23:42Z")
[Latest fact-check update.](https://www.dereksmart.org/2016/10/star-citizen-shattered-dreams/) Read it and weep. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 5:37pm 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/734528/163 "2016-10-31T17:37:53Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Out of curiosity, I did some research into the full history of Star Citizen. > > The game is doomed. I guess “Vaporware” is the wrong term, because “vaporware” doesn’t really fit the business moderl Star Citizen is being built under. “Ponzi scheme” is also not exactly right, because I think Chris Roberts really is trying to produce a game. But it’s become a fundraising effort, not a game design. > > This is going to end very, very badly. This is sort of like posting “I did some research on the Hillary campaign guys. I’m not going to get into any details, but she’s going to lose big. The whole thing is a sham” If you’re going to post that, you might as well share your reasoning. I don’t know why anyone keeps up with the day to day development of any game, anyway. It just makes people miserable. They get so invested in it and then impatient and any delay or flaw or change in planned feature upsets them. That said: ambitious game development takes time. CoD and Assassin’s Creed crank out similar games every two years - that’s two years for a basic iteration of the same formula for the same engine. (They release every year, because they’re alternating two development studios). Something like GTA 5, which is more ambitious than those games, but not nearly as ambitious as Star Citizen, took 5 years. It’s just that they normally don’t announce the game until 6 months to a year before it’s ready for release, so you aren’t sitting there for 5 years impatiently growing angry that this game you’ve hyped yourself up for isn’t being delivered. So when you’re used to games being released 6-12 months after they’re announced, this seems like it’s taking way abnormally long and there must be something horrible wrong. Star Citizen is basically the most ambitious game of all time, by a large margin - way bigger than something like GTA 5 which took 5 years. From what I’ve heard, while they did start working on the project 5 years ago, they didn’t know the scope of the money they’d raise for the first year or year and a half, and they basically scrapped what they’d done at that point to re-scope the game to be bigger. So full time development of what the game is now has only been going on for about 3 years. It’s also unsurprising that there’s not a lot out there that’s playable by players. That doesn’t mean it’s nowhere near completion. Some games, basically early access type games, are designed to have a playable version of it available through all stages of development where they iteratively add to a basically complete gameplay loop. Others aren’t - having a user-playable version throughout development isn’t important and they create all the different components independently in a way that only cohesively comes together towards the end. The latter is actually probably the typical way it goes when building a new project. The development path of a game where you can essentially play it as early access is unusual and generally slows down development since you have to worry about the player experience at every stage of partial development, not just for the final product. It may be a failure, I don’t know. I personally haven’t invested a cent into it. But if someone were to make a huge, ambitious game where they announced the development from the start, this is exactly what it would look like. It would take a long ass time, many times longer than the typical announcement to release cycle of conventionally funded games. So it makes no sense to say “look how long it’s taken! the user-playable portion are only small components of the overall game! this game is going to be a failure!” when so far it looks exactly like you’d expect the development to look like. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 6:05pm 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/734528/164 "2016-10-31T18:05:16Z")
> [@](#): > > [The Building Controversy of Star Citizen - Gameranx](http://gameranx.com/updates/id/73286/article/the-building-controversy-of-star-citizen) > > The Star Citizen project got a new California office by November 2015 ([at least it was under construction by that point](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSYLH8bhVck&feature=youtu.be&t=1479)). For reasons unknown, Roberts decided to move his operation to a place with spaceship decorations and adornments from top to bottom. As it was stated way back in the Holiday Livestream of 2014, they moved to this new location because it had more conference space, room for a motion capture studio, and room for a normal filming set-up. But on top of all that, they went all out with decor in this studio. The most obvious of these examples is the fact that they decided to make a door\* that’s designed to look like something from one of Roberts’ ships. > > :snip: > > When it comes to video game development, Star Citizen‘s team is not only comprised of people. They need a building to make it all happen. This is the place where the staff spends their work week (and then some) trying to make the vision of Chris Roberts come to life. But what has been overlooked are the road bumps that happened to the Los Angeles studio itself. One of the obstacles is a legal battle over the construction work that’s been done to it. > > :snip: > > [T]he question of “Are backer funds used to cover legal expenses?” is now on the table. \*Estimated cost of said door + installation? $21,000. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 6:12pm 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/734528/165 "2016-10-31T18:12:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [Latest fact-check update.](https://www.dereksmart.org/2016/10/star-citizen-shattered-dreams/) Read it and weep. Star Citizen is the future of PC gaming, and always will be! ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 6:30pm 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/734528/166 "2016-10-31T18:30:48Z")
This is no longer even a game. It’s a never ending vanity project. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 7:28pm 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/734528/167 "2016-10-31T19:28:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [Latest fact-check update.](https://www.dereksmart.org/2016/10/star-citizen-shattered-dreams/) Read it and weep. Most of what I got out of that is that Derek Smart is a F-ing jerk. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 7:43pm 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/734528/168 "2016-10-31T19:43:04Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Most of what I got out of that is that Derek Smart is a F-ing jerk. Try this instead: [You don’t even need to understand game development to know what a god damn mess looks like.](http://gameranx.com/features/id/67537/article/the-star-citizen-stretch-goals/) Assuming there’s ever a complete release of any sort, how many backers will find themselves with a computer that is no longer capable of running the game? ---
**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:** [October 31, 2016, 7:44pm 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/734528/169 "2016-10-31T19:44:30Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Most of what I got out of that is that Derek Smart is a F-ing jerk. 1. Did he get any of the facts wrong in that article? 2. have you changed your mind about the game since [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18792380&postcount=53)? ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 8:32pm 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/734528/170 "2016-10-31T20:32:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. Did he get any of the facts wrong in that article? Nope, but several of his comments gave me creepy GamerGate-esque heebie jeebies. > [@](#): > > 1. have you changed your mind about the game since [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18792380&postcount=53)? Nope. I remain, as ever, glad I had the measure of foresight to see that Mr. Roberts was promising well beyond his ability to deliver. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 9:37pm 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/734528/171 "2016-10-31T21:37:09Z")
I managed to get my pre-order refunded a few months back after a few emails back and forth and me giving links to the relevant Australian consumer law to them. After it was refunded they deleted my account completely (which I didn’t ask for - I would have been happy to purchase the game once it was released and working) and they appear to have blocked my email from being used to sign up for another one. A little too much ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’ attitude for my liking. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 12:30pm 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/734528/172 "2016-11-01T12:30:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [Latest fact-check update.](https://www.dereksmart.org/2016/10/star-citizen-shattered-dreams/) Read it and weep. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. Did he get any of the facts wrong in that article? > 2. have you changed your mind about the game since [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18792380&postcount=53)? It was a great article right until this sentence: > [@](#): > > My involvement is no different from any number of causes that people pick up and champion. Be it immigration reform, banking reform, save the whales, **anti-vac** etc. Anyone who compares his own cause to the anti-vaxxers has shot himself in the foot, or more accurately blown his leg off somewhere around mid-thigh. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 12:45pm 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/734528/173 "2016-11-01T12:45:08Z")
Speaking as an IT professional - you can’t finish a project that is constantly changing and growing. It’s impossible. That’s a fundamental truth of the industry. Someone sane needs to be in a position of authority over this to say “No, we’re not adding more features until we’ve built something.” And there’s nobody. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 1:48pm 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/734528/174 "2016-11-01T13:48:17Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > This is sort of like posting “I did some research on the Hillary campaign guys. I’m not going to get into any details, but she’s going to lose big. The whole thing is a sham” > > If you’re going to post that, you might as well share your reasoning. In short, because the business model smells terrible. You’re correct in that very large games take a long time to develop. “BioShock Infinite” took five years to make, to use a big-budget example. Big things take a long time to make. You can’t make a big budget movie in a couple of months, either. Now, Star Citizen is at five years and doesn’t appear to be close to release, but let’s assume a game of this ambition takes seven years, or whatever. It’s not that I find dubious, it’s that it’s being funded _exactly_ the way you would fund a scam. The thing is, BioShock Infinite - or GTA V, or any other big game - were not funded in development by having the prospective customers pay hundreds of dollars for pictures of imaginary ships. They were funded by soberly run companies that expected a return on their investment. Companies that, if they were not given material evidence of progress towards a sellable product, would cheerily kill the program and fire the developers. Yes, I know Kickstarter and the like are a new way of looking at project development, but as you well know this is now way past that sort of thing where you get people to chip in ten bucks to a little project. This is on a different plane. The manner on which Star Citizen earns its money is precisely the manner in which a Nigerian 419 scammer earns their money; it is following the path of a confidence trick. 1. An amazing treasure is promised (in this case, what would in theory be the greatest PC game ever made.) 2. The mark is invited into the confidence of the scammer. They are told they can be special and different - a member of the Squadron, possessed of special things the newbs won’t have, and all that sort of thing. 3. Props and razzmatazz are used to convince the mark of the reality of the treasure (demos, the fancy website, pictures of ships, technical requirements and the other traits of a large budget video game.) 4. The mark is asked for a small investment. 5. Once the mark has invested some money, promises of progress towards the treasure are made. As progress is made, the mark is asked for more money, with explanations as to why the money is needed. (In this case, “Stretch goals.”) Obviously this isn’t a perfect analogy, because in a classic confidence scam you would not know the actual identity of the scammer and his shills. I really don’t think Chris Roberts is out to scam anyone, but the way in which his company is draining the same people for money based on the promise of virtual treasures is indicative of a situation where Mr. Roberts is in serious, serious trouble and he knows it. Perhaps not legally - I am sure they’ve got their bases reasonably well covered - but businesswise this has every indication of being a case where a business incapable of completing the job has gotten themselves in over their heads. I have a lot of trouble coming up with any other logical explanation as to why Roberts has reached the point where he’s asking hard core marks for $750 for an imaginary ship. (And I do mean imaginary; the “Polaris” ship is just a picture, not actually a thing they’ve built in the game.) A legitimate business enterprise doesn’t keep asking for donations from customers based on empty promises; a legitimate business enterprise finds money from legitimate revenue streams, investors, or loans. There is nothing about the “please give us a lot of money and I promise one day you might have this awesome, awesome ship that presently is not remotely close to being a thing” pitch that should inspire confidence. Everything about that says “This is a business in desperate, desperate trouble.” ---
**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:** [November 1, 2016, 2:06pm 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/734528/175 "2016-11-01T14:06:43Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > Speaking as an IT professional - you can’t finish a project that is constantly changing and growing. It’s impossible. That’s a fundamental truth of the industry. > > Someone sane needs to be in a position of authority over this to say “No, we’re not adding more features until we’ve built something.” And there’s nobody. Seems to me that [Chris Roberts has been trying to play catch-up with Elite: Dangerous](http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Development_promises) and failing. Hard. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2016, 2:29pm 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/734528/176 "2016-11-01T14:29:38Z")
Now, I’m not into game development, but I’ve never heard of game patches announced for games that have yet to be released before. I recall seeing patches for games after they have been released to the public, but is [55 patches(to date so far)](http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_Notes) a normal thing for an unreleased game? ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 5:10pm 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/734528/177 "2016-11-01T17:10:16Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Now, I’m not into game development, but I’ve never heard of game patches announced for games that have yet to be released before. I recall seeing patches for games after they have been released to the public, but is [55 patches(to date so far)](http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_Notes) a normal thing for an unreleased game? Yes, completely. You don’t think games bring from the minds of their developers in complete, flawless, bug free code, do you? The fact that there are patches is about the only sane thing about this game. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2016, 5:18pm 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/734528/178 "2016-11-01T17:18:59Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Yes, completely. You don’t think games bring from the minds of their developers in complete, flawless, bug free code, do you? > > The fact that there are patches is about the only sane thing about this game. But it’s not a _game_ yet. I’ve heard of games being in development, but I’ve never heard of the creation of a game being called a constant series of “patches”. When I picked up Diablo II I’m sure it went through a lot of changes and development before it was released to the public, but the first _patch_ was released after the game went on the market. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 6:36pm 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/734528/179 "2016-11-01T18:36:50Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But it’s not a _game_ yet. I’ve heard of games being in development, but I’ve never heard of the creation of a game being called a constant series of “patches”. When I picked up Diablo II I’m sure it went through a lot of changes and development before it was released to the public, but the first _patch_ was released after the game went on the market. This makes no sense. You interate on any software product in a series of patches (and “full releases”). What do you call going from version 0.5.2 to 0.5.3 if not a “patch”? The term “patch” has nothing to do with pre vs post release. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2016, 6:47pm 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/734528/180 "2016-11-01T18:47:17Z")
0._._-I can see that as being pre-release, but I can’t find record of other games releasing patches [to this extent](http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_Notes) for a game that doesn’t even have a projected release date. If you could show me an example, so that I could see that it actually _does_ happen on a regular basis? [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=8) [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=10)