The one reply to that article is someone defending the game. The cognitive dissonance for backers is strong. I wonder if they lie to themselves to make themselves feel better.
Early backer here since 2013. For as low as 35$, I had already hundreds hours of entertainment. For sure alpha is not for everyone as games in development are not stable… and never was supposed to be.
So it’s okay that the game is in eternal development, because it has already provided so much entertainment! So, it’s just as good as a released game, then? Well, no, because it’s not stable, but any problems can be explained away as it being just an “alpha”.
In other words, it’s fine that it has been developed far longer than even the longest development on a game should be expected to go, and has no end date in sight, because it’s a great game already. And anything about it that’s crappy is fine because it’s still only in development.
I remember them reaching $300,000,000 and wondering who was still pouring money into this thing. Now that’s doubled and Starfield is about to release, which presumably will steal Star Citizen’s audience.
That’s a bit much. For the right person, there’s definitely $35 of enjoyment in there, even if it doesn’t quite qualify as a “game.” I’ve paid more for games with less. It has nice graphics and there’s stuff to do.
The whales are a different story. They’ve paid thousands for ships that will seemingly never do anything and no one will ever see. There’s undoubtedly some mental issues going on with them.
Players contributed a mean amount of $120. I have little doubt that the median is far less and that whales make up the rest. But I wonder exactly how bad it is.
I believe the most expensive ship is the 600i Executive-Edition at $25,000…but sadly, I would not be terribly surprised if there was a more expensive sip out there.
No, $35 isn’t a lot of money. It seems a bit excessive to play an unfinished product that will likely never get finished, but it’s not egregious.
It’s not the dollar amount I object to, it’s the defense itself. I pointed out cognitive dissonance. The defense is two completely separate and contradictory things in trying to defend the game. First, it’s a complete game that’s fun and worth the money, but it’s also a buggy unstable mess that can be excused because it’s not done. Those can’t both be true.
Either the game is complete enough that you can judge it for its quality, or it’s not done yet and shouldn’t be treated as if someone is being given a proper gaming experience.
To give some perspective, I funded a game in development. (Well, a couple of them really, but I’ll use just one example.) I am a Kickstarter backer of the game Ashes of Creation. I put quite a bit of money into it, but that allowed me to get a lifetime subscription (which was only made available during the brief Kickstarter campaign) and a ton of other perks. I have a lot invested in the game financially and emotionally, as I’ve also provided a lot of testing feedback and spent a lot of time in the forums. I’ve also interacted to a limited degree with some people involved in development as well.
The game has been in development for a long time, not nearly as long as Star Citizen obviously, but it’s an MMORPG not backed by a major studio. So it takes a while. The pandemic also caused a setback, and they also ran into a platform instability early on that caused major delays as they fixed it. But there has been a ton of progress.
The testing I’ve done for the game was legitimately fun. I enjoyed it. Nothing I’ve played was close to what they plan, it was like maybe 10% of the features that are expected to be at release, but what little they had was really good, and testing wasn’t just a chore, I enjoyed myself. But despite that, in no way would I argue that the game should be treated as if I already received what I paid for. I’m still waiting for that. If the game was still in development 5 years from now, and was still in the alpha stage, there is no way that I’d be defending it. That’s far too long and I’d feel cheated.
And as much as I enjoy the alpha testing I’ve done, it’s still an alpha, and I would not consider it a worthwhile investment if there was no hint that it would be released any time soon, if ever. (As it is, AoC probably has a couple of years left, which is a pretty long development time, but definitely not SC long.)
Yes and no. The Javelin, which costs between $2,500-$3,000 (depending on if it was bought stand-alone in the pledge store, or bought as warbond) is the single most expensive ship to buy.
The 600i Executive-Edition ship can’t be bought at all, but you earn it when you reach the $25,000 pledge level, which is why that is the price people often put the ship at. It’s true that if you want the ship, that’s what you’d pay for it, but I assume you’d be buying other things to get to that level. I guess it’s fair to call it the most expensive ship.
It’s not the ships themselves that people cite as being excessive, though. It’s the ship packages that they offer that come with multiple ships. Those can cost many thousands of dollars, as in, you can buy a really nice new car in real life for the price of some virtual spacecraft.
Where does it say it’s a complete game? It only says that it’s an unstable alpha and a “unique experience”.
Buggy messes can be fun. A lot of the enjoyment in Kerbal Space Program was from it being a buggy mess while in Early Access. I’m glad they finished the game, but it would have been worth what I paid even if they hadn’t.
If none of the SC backers had paid more than $35, I wouldn’t be very bothered at all by the whole thing. Yeah, it would still be a laugh for taking this long, but given that they’re producing something, even if it’s not a complete game, puts them ahead of most outright scams.
It’s the predatory high-dollar stuff that gets my hackles raised. That genuinely harms people, and gives them nothing remotely equivalent in return. I find that stuff to be completely inexcusable, especially in combination with the virtual economy bullshit.
But no, I’m not going to say someone is wrong for getting $35 worth of fun in the alpha, even if there’s not a real game there, and there probably never will be. The dollar amount does matter.
The argument is that it’s worth $35 to play an alpha, as if that’s what CI is selling people. I don’t even pay $35 for a game unless it’s pretty good, so any argument that a game is worth that price is an invitation to compare it to other games at that price point. Finished games. So yes, it’s essentially calling it a complete game, or equal to one.
If you criticize it, though, it’s just an alpha. It is a complete contradiction.
Considering you can get a lot of great gaming for $35 from something that has been released, I am saying that they are wrong, yes.
Ok, and that’s you. If I pay $35 for a game in EA, and get some legitimate fun out of it during the EA period, I’ll consider it worth it. Even better if they “complete” it some day, but all I care about is some reasonable return on what I paid.
I don’t consider SC as it stands worth $35 (or even $0), from what I experienced in the free days, but there are lots of highly-polished, highly-regarded $70 games that I also consider boring as shit. In fact, I’d rather play SC in its current state than lots of other games in their finished state. If I’m not going to knock players of the $70 game for their opinion, I’m certainly not going to knock the $35 SC backers.
$35 for hundreds of hours of entertainment isn’t a bad deal at all. I say, if it’s fun for them, more power to them.
The comment doesn’t say complete. It says “even in its current status, Star Citizen does provide a unique experience”. Completeness is not implied, I think you misread that into the post.
Early backer here since 2013. For as low as 35$, I had already hundreds hours of entertainment. For sure alpha is not for everyone as games in development are not stable… and never was supposed to be. Even in its current status, Sta Citizen does provide a unique experience. More new backers every year (500.000 just in 2020). Thanks to provide several weeks to test/play to all gamer, every year… for free.
They are currently the latest key tech (Gen 12, PES and server meshing in about 2 quarters). Like every space game lover, I will play as well SF, knowing perfectly this is a fork of Fallout 4 but with space assets. SF is by no means a competitor to SC in terms of gameplay, features and multiplayer.
Fun games can be buggy unstable messes that aren’t done. I bought Minecraft in… 2011, beta 1.7 I think. Very buggy, very fun, and the $25 then would probably be $30 something today.
If someone is getting fun from “Star Citizen,” they are not wrong to say they are getting fun from “Star Citizen.” Your argument doesn’t make any sense at all. The fact YOU don’t think it’s worth $35 isn’t relevant to whether someone else thinks it is.
I liken it to somebody buying a lemon and saying, “well, it gets me from point A to point B.” Sure it does, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get swindled. Two things can be true.
“I spent 35 bucks and have had lots of fun - this game is going to great, you just have to be patient and believe in the vision!”
“I spent 35 bucks and have had lots of fun even though it’s obvious at this point that the game will never launch. If you buy into the game, temper your expectations appropriately.”
One person has fallen for the scam and, worse, is actively shilling it. The other is much more reasonable.
Uh, what? The poster’s English wasn’t the greatest, but they were pretty clear that they’ll play Starfield in addition to Star Citizen. Calling Starfield a “fork” of Fallout 4 is a bit of a hot take, but even Bethesda’s fans (like me) expect it to pretty much be Fallout 4 in space. That’s sorta what we want.
Starfield will also be a buggy mess at launch, like every other Bethesda RPG title ever. But mods will save us.
There is a profound difference between getting, say, 20% of what was promised vs. zero. A televangelist does not in any way answer your prayers or deliver blessings from god. But Star Citizen already delivers something resembling a game, even if for most of us it’s not quite worth it. And it’s not like most games reach 100% of what was promised, even at release time.
