Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen

After five years, more than $124 million in fan funding and nothing close to a finished game, Star Citizen has become a lightning-rod for controversy. What’s really been going on?

[ShadowKnight]

I just hope it gets release someday. My most anticipated PC game!

[Rivitur]

queue the scam comments

[sampson3121]

it's a scam!

[masterfox]

master scam race :P

[Lon3wolf]

Roberts Scam Industries?

[sampson3121]

2013 I'm making a game, give me your money.
2016 no refunds as long as the game is in development.
2027 still in development, but do you like the toilet we made for 1.5 million of your $?

[Koopdogg]

Thank the stars i didn't buy the Orion Mining Platform!

[iwin86]

I would say if scammed people don't consider it a scam, than it's not really a scam.

[poppinslops]

Looks to me like they're using the money to build the most complex game since GTAV, and they're doing it with a smaller team and less than half the budget - obviously, that's going to take some time... as far as I'm concerned, the recent video (the one that showed two players flying from a space station to a planet's surface, where one player enters a base and sets up a mission while the other hovers outside in the ship) validates everything that Cloud Empirium are doing with regards to Star Citizen's development.

Based on what I've seen I expect the base game will launch later next year, so here's hoping the Scorpio ends up getting a port... either way, it's going to be the first real 'system-seller' PC gaming has seen in a while.

[kaizokuspy]

It's already been stated to never ever be on consoles.

[TheColbertinator]

Doesn't seem like consoles can handle Star Citizen either.

[poppinslops]

@kaizo: When did they say that? I'm betting it was well before the Scorpio/PS4P announcements... wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft tried to get a No Man's Sky kind of deal - marketing (or straight-up funding) in exchange for a port.

Lest we forget, the Witcher and the Crysis series' were once PC exclusives... Never say never - if anyone has learned the value of that phrase, it's Microsoft.

@Colbert: Obviously the vanilla PS4/XO wouldn't be capable of running SC - I'm talking about a Scorpio 'exclusive' port... that said, I wouldn't expect it to launch alongside the PC version.

[slate91]

Scorpio could most likely handle this...
Announce it at e3 with m&kb support with it? Woukd be glorious

[kaizokuspy]

He said it about a yr or so ago. Also, if the game is in its current state on PC development only, what makes you think they'd even be able to handle development for a xbox scorpio or ps4 pro port? That's just asinine thinking. He's already said he's making a PC only game, it's part of the reason his kickstarter was so succussful. Those with beefy rigs don't want consoles to hold them back. Microsoft hasn't learned anything. The last 2-3 years of a gen they stop developing and theRe are practically no major releases. Hence right now they don't have much offering. Whats the point of having scorpio at this point if the games aren't there yet?

[poppinslops]

He (Roberts) said that roughly 3 years ago - well before the Scorpio... he's since stated that he would consider a port if consoles became more like PCs - which they have - not to mention a PS4 dev-kit was spotted on his desk.

I understand the dev team has a mandate to their kickstarter backers, but I seriously doubt they pledged to keep the finished game exclusive to PC... I don't expect a Scorpio version at launch, but I do expect a port will happen eventually.

[rainslacker]

Realistically, a game of this scale could easily take 3-5 years to make from a well established dev, and perhaps longer when starting from scratch like they did here.

I don't think they're wasting their time, I just think people expected them to finish faster. For the 4 or so years since it started(I don't count the early demos), they've shown about as much progress as any well established dev would. If no one knew about this game, and they had publisher funding, I could easily see that publisher giving 4-5 years of development time...assuming they'd fund it.

Some people have extremely unrealistic expectations of game development, but most people aren't used to having to wait more than a couple years for most games, so it's somewhat understandable.

Chris Roberts isn't a hack developer by any means. I've also felt he was one of the more honest developers out there. He has a vision, and people funded him based on his pedigree and ability to deliver quality games. If people currently aren't happy, then they'd need to show what promises were broken.

Only thing that would change my entire comment is if it was promised to release this year, in which case I think Roberts probably dropped the ball.

@coming to console

I don't think Roberts has ever been a big fan of consoles. However, if consoles become powerful enough, I could see a publisher taking on SC to port it over...much like what happened with Wing Commander back in the day.

[Nathan_Hale53]

I agree with the first half of your comment, but it will never come to console for several reasons. The main one being that the controls are too complex with too many buttons. You need either a K&M, or a joystick combination.

[poppinslops]

Microsoft and Sony's consoles will both support K&M configurations by the time Star Citizen releases (assuming it doesn't launch this year)... The PS4 lets the player use them in tandem with a conttroller and I'd expect the same of the xbox.

You said 'several' reasons... care to elaborate?

[Nathan_Hale53]

The majority of players will not get a K&M since many claim to prefer controllers any day, mods, focus on PC making a port to either console a challenge, I feel the final game will be MASSIVE file wise, the game is very CPU dependent, and that is the biggest weakness of both consoles and the Scorpio won't get a massive CPU upgrade except clockspeed, etc.

[poppinslops]

Microsoft haven't spoken about the Scorpio's CPU, however, the vanilla XO's CPU is already overclocked, so I wouldn't expect a simple copy/paste job... regardless, the task of porting PC titles to consoles has gotten a lot easier since the XO/PS4, both of which use x86 architecture - certain devs have even managed to get XO ports running after just a few days of work.

The rest of your list is speculative - mods aren't a part of the base game and the file-size is anybody's guess... I'm not saying a port is definitely going to happen, but I wouldn't rule it out either - that's the dev's job and the folks at Cloud Empirium have remained tight-lipped with regards to the new consoles.

[Nathan_Hale53]

That very, very, very slight OC on the One CPU is negligible in most cases. The PS4 Pro with its OC'd CPU is still weak. Most people with AMD CPU's get ass for frames in the game currently, for its old architecture. That is, unless they OC the hell out of it.

[Master of Unlocking]

I don't wanna rain on your parade dude, but you're in serious denial if you think Star Citizen can be an actual game found at retailers by the end of next year.

[poppinslops]

Sounds like you do want to rain on my parade... won't work though - I recognize your name from your other, equally ridiculous posts and suffice to say, your word doesn't mean much to me.

Sho Shorry!

[jmc8888]

Troubled development? 5 years? Not really.

The game has really been under actual development for 4 years since the kickstarter, and it took a year to ramp up the hiring, so really it's only been three years in full production.

That said, this game has a massive scope, is actually more like two games (a FPS and a MMO), has incredibly detailed nuances, and is overall just a huge game.

When you realize that each Call of Duty gets THREE years to reproduce the same derivative experience, recycling so much of it's content, utilizing a known formula, it should really put things into perspective.

[ONESHOTV2]

it's too early for this project to be called a failure or a scam becuase what they have in mind is some thing big and unique that has never been done in the gaming industry and i really hope they succeed

[Nathan_Hale53]

5 years with constant updates doesn't really give off the vibe of "troubled". Many games have been in development longer. Much longer. Along with many more members on the team.