I guess a better question would be, “How fucked are the backers who think they’ll be able to actually play the game without any hardware upgrades, assuming there’s ever a full release?”
I mean… Who is ordering the most technically ambitious game of all time in the hopes that their old hardware holds up forever? That’s definitely not the target audience for the game.
Keep em coming.
“Forever”? You agreeing that the game will never leave development hell? 
The target market for this game is pretty hardcore gamers. The kind who already tend to upgrade systems every time a new generation of components come out. Any of the KS backers with 3 firing brain cells would never expect to be running the same hardware today that they had when they initially backed. Most of them have probably been through 2 major upgrades since then.
“Hardcore gamers” would be those springing several grand for ships that don’t even exist. I’m asking about those who contributed a few bucks in hopes of playing a full version eventually and have not asked for a refund.
I was originally a KS backer from long ago. Ordered a basic package. I have since upgraded a few times for $25 here and there to get the next ship up. My current ship is a Constellation Taurus.
I like space sims, I don’t mind the wait, and the cost is around the same price as a decent restaurant meal to bump up to the next ship. I know people who drop $300 on a fri night buying drinks trying to get women to pay attention to them or $80K on a corvette when a $25K camry will get them the same places .
Nobody is forcing anyone to buy in for $2000, the base packages are like $35. The base ships will be the same base ships as when the game eventually gets going.
Many of the people pledging are the same people who have no problem dropping $500-700 on a video card or new CPU every year.
“When”! LOL
If the game ever gets going, how many of those are going to find an unplayable mess no matter what hardware they have?
Remind me, when was the promised delivery date from the Kickstarter again?
But those people actually get the drinks. A person who buys an expensive car is actually in possession of a car.
A much better analogy to what you’re doing would be paying $80,000 to a guy who SAYS he’s going to starting building cars someday, and gives you a drawing of what your car will look like if, in fact, it ever gets built.
Like the ELIO, which we last discussed here?
Except that the Kickstarter gave a definitive release window that was blown past years ago.
In 2012, somebody backing the game could reasonably expect that he would be able to run it on a good 2014 rig, since that was when the game was supposed to be released.
Look, is Chris Roberts a development veteran-slash-genius who understands that ambitious games have 5-6 year development cycles? If so, then he lied to his backers when the Kickstarter was created because he knew the game wouldn’t be done in 2014.
Or did he honestly believe he could deliver the game in 2014? If so, then he knows less than every SC fanboy on the internet who waves a hand and says “it’s totally normal for game development to take this long, literally everybody knows that and should have known that from the moment they backed the game.” And if that’s the case, if he misunderstood such a fundamental concept, then he can’t be much of a veteran-slash-genius.
We’re into CS Lewis territory here. Either Chris Roberts is a fraud, delusional, or the messiah of gaming.
There’s your perfect analogy.
Anyone who buys an Elio before it’s a proven, tested, road-certified vehicle is an idiot.
I mean, the amount you kick in here matters. Buying an alpha game or donating to a Kickstarter for $15 for something cool is one thing. Paying hundred for pictures of ships is just imbecilic, I’m sorry. It’s exactly as smart as falling for a Nigerian 409 scam. If someone wants to play a space game, they can send me a hundred bucks and I’ll dig up my copy of “Freelancer” and mail the CD to them.
Exactly. ISTR at least one other release window which, of course, was also blown past. Now they’re not even bothering to speculate on when any full release will be. Fanboys, OTOH…
It seems weird to be so obsessed with a game where you assert that anyone who is interested is an idiot.
I’m a backer, and you follow the game a lot closer than I do. I think the last time I tried it was maybe 6 months ago. I don’t plan on trying it again unless there’s a release, and I knew my $35 could go up in smoke when I backed. I was ok with the possibility. Still am.
They are not buying those things for the thing itself, they are doing it because they feel it will make them more likely to aquire female attention. They are still paying for those things in hopes of a desired result later which is far from assured.
Just as an fyi, the current state of the game
There are a bunch of flyable ships in game including my constellation.
The main game area has a few planets and stations to visit
There are working missions.
The main things missing right now are the economy and more mission/contract structure. Alot of the missions will be more “requests for service” from other players. Much of the planned structure is not typical MMO/quest stuff. If you have played Eve
You are familiar with that kind of environment.
Generation of content and places to go is the big push now.
You seem to have me confused with someone else, and possibly even a different game. 
I think it’s become an interesting phenomenon. They’ve taken in all this money, said that the game would have been ready two years ago, still have tons of work to do if they’re going to include everything mentioned in stretch goals, are not speculating on a release date, yet some people still think there will be a full release in less than four months.
As I alluded to way back on the first page, this would make for one hell of a movie.
I strongly suspect that Chris Roberts won’t authorize a full release until the core game has at least caught up with everything that Elite: Dangerous already offers. Which won’t be any time soon because Frontier tries to add content to their game every quarter.
And you could even call it: “Star Citizen is the Future of PC Gaming” 