Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

SelenicMartian: Sep 14, 2013; Sometimes it's not the bomb that's retarded.

scrubs season six posted:

I think Crobbits has a storage garage full of retarded old wing commander poo poo and whenever he needs some extra money he just puts it on eBay under a pseudonym so that Ben can buy it.

More likely he bribes Ben with it directly.

Cax

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:41

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# ? May 31, 2024 03:18

Lladre: Jun 28, 2011; Soiled Meat

tuo posted:

Found the tweet (wasn't the captain guy, but the other one):

https://twitter.com/thebadnewsbaron/status/766216958408785920

Apparently it was a reaction to something WTFOSaurus said in a stream. Problem is, WTFOSaurus deleted some of the pre-gamescon streams where he constantly quit the streams due to the game running like poo poo. Will have to dig more if I find the actuall connection between both.

I think you are putting way more effort into this than is healthy.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:42

tuo: Jun 17, 2016

Lladre posted:

I think you are putting way more effort into this than is healthy.

I think you are totally right

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:44

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Lazrin posted:

am i being uncivil?

i'm just pointing out some basic financial assumptions based on industry data that show how simple it will be for star citizen to survive and thrive given the numbers they have, and have proven ability to sustain. especially given the nature of the core player base and the lack of publisher revenue split.

mmos have a widely-agreed 30% retention rate, so even if star citizen gets no more backers but successfully engages 20% of their 500,000 supposed customers, that's, again, pretty close to their current burn rate.

yes, cig needs cash more than ever... because they have more staff than ever, and the project is taking far, far longer than they had hoped. so if roberts is looking at perhaps a 10 year development cycle *which is insane but accurate* then isn't it prudent for them to plan and have sales and marketing to support those needs, so they can complete development?

again i ask - what are you suggesting they do?

500,000 * 0.20 = 100,000

Assuming CIG's burn rate close to Frontier's then you're looking at around $3M per month based on a staff of 300 employees and a $10K/employee monthly cost.

$3M/100,000 = $30 per customer per month. For a game that's explicitly described as not having a subscription.

You haven't proven a thing.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:45

Daztek: Jun 2, 2006

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/55r8d9/regrets/

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:46

TheLightPurges: Sep 24, 2016; by exmarx

Lladre posted:

Everything will be fine as long as you stocked up on ketchup.

Publix has a BOGO on it (Heinz) once a month so I stocked up. Good thing too I'm gonna cook all the meat in my freezer over the next few days.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:46

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Where is this from? Because if it's real then it seems like CIG's latest ~~scam~~ twist is to offer LTI on personal items like armor.

Source

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:52

Xaerael: Aug 25, 2010; Marching Powder is objectively the worst poster known. He also needs to learn how a keyboard works.

Daztek posted:

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/55r8d9/regrets/

Star Citizen - I want to put a shock collar on you and swat you with a riding crop whenever you try to buy ships, for your own good.

You know what to do, Derek.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:54

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

tuo posted:

Found the tweet (wasn't the captain guy, but the other one):

https://twitter.com/thebadnewsbaron/status/766216958408785920

Apparently it was a reaction to something WTFOSaurus said in a stream. Problem is, WTFOSaurus deleted some of the pre-gamescon streams where he constantly quit the streams due to the game running like poo poo. Will have to dig more if I find the actuall connection between both.

Sounds like this Baron guy has a bit of an ego. I don't even know who he is or his connection to SC, other than he played it at GamesCom once? Is he big in the CIG world of streaming?

The community manager should be fired, too.

I think this guy should try to play Star Citizen for 3 months straight and see what kind of mood he's in afterwards.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:57

Lazrin: Apr 13, 2016; THEN HE SAID..NO WAIT, LISTEN. THEN HE SAID 3.0 IS COMING OUT BY DEC 19TH 2016

Somebody fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Oct 4, 2016

# ? Oct 4, 2016 14:58

TheLightPurges: Sep 24, 2016; by exmarx

Xaerael posted:

Star Citizen - I want to put a shock collar on you and swat you with a riding crop whenever you try to buy ships, for your own good.

You know what to do, Derek.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:00

EightAce: May 10, 2015; Watch it all come crashing down on his head and wonder why any of us gave him money in the first place.

Lazrin posted:

am i being uncivil?

i'm just pointing out some basic financial assumptions based on industry data that show how simple it will be for star citizen to survive and thrive given the numbers they have, and have proven ability to sustain. especially given the nature of the core player base and the lack of publisher revenue split.

mmos have a widely-agreed 30% retention rate, so even if star citizen gets no more backers but successfully engages 20% of their 500,000 supposed customers, that's, again, pretty close to their current burn rate.

yes, cig needs cash more than ever... because they have more staff than ever, and the project is taking far, far longer than they had hoped. so if roberts is looking at perhaps a 10 year development cycle *which is insane but accurate* then isn't it prudent for them to plan and have sales and marketing to support those needs, so they can complete development?

again i ask - what are you suggesting they do?

At this point it would be best course of action for CIG to temper expectations for one and maybe even be completely honest and explain whats happend to the money . Then they are moving out of scam country and into honesty no matter how harsh that will be for them. The practises that are now prevelent are scammy in that they know the truth but are painting a pciture to backers that is not accurate to get more money.
Yes Crobber is looking at a ten year dev cycle at least. Tbh if you gave that man 100 years and the federal reserve we would still be where we are.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:03

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

Lazrin posted:

c'mon man, i know you're not naive. monetization planning, even to this day, revolves around a number (typically averaging 10-15 dollars per user per month). meaning they have revenue targets in that range, and if it's not subscriptions then it comes from other parts of their monetization model.

are you saying you really don't think there will be enough star citizen players to garner even just 20% of known current customers to spend that much per month on the game? when you've got people paying $30 for a single costume in black desert?

make no mistake - we haven't seen their business plan. they may say they aren't going to be heavy into micro transactions or pay to win, but both of those definitions are in the eye of the beholder.

i have no doubt they will have a revenue model that will easily support their monthly burn rate. no publisher == big win.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:03

Quavers: Feb 26, 2016; You clearly don't understand game development

tuo posted:

Found the tweet (wasn't the captain guy, but the other one):

https://twitter.com/thebadnewsbaron/status/766216958408785920

Apparently it was a reaction to something WTFOSaurus said in a stream. Problem is, WTFOSaurus deleted some of the pre-gamescon streams where he constantly quit the streams due to the game running like poo poo. Will have to dig more if I find the actuall connection between both.

Cheers for finding that, have a follow/like/upvote/whatever

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:04

SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

Lazrin posted:

am i being uncivil?

i'm just pointing out some basic financial assumptions based on industry data that show how simple it will be for star citizen to survive and thrive given the numbers they have, and have proven ability to sustain. especially given the nature of the core player base and the lack of publisher revenue split.

mmos have a widely-agreed 30% retention rate, so even if star citizen gets no more backers but successfully engages 20% of their 500,000 supposed customers, that's, again, pretty close to their current burn rate.

yes, cig needs cash more than ever... because they have more staff than ever, and the project is taking far, far longer than they had hoped. so if roberts is looking at perhaps a 10 year development cycle *which is insane but accurate* then isn't it prudent for them to plan and have sales and marketing to support those needs, so they can complete development?

again i ask - what are you suggesting they do?

First of all:
Where did CIG tell everyone this is going to take 10 years?

Your MMO retention rate statistic is bollocks, and here is why:

- 30% retention after how long? One month? One year? One day? You just made that up lol.

- MMO retention rates are measured as percentage vs time

- The only 30% retention statistic I can find is from the well known Wu-Chang Feng/Portland University study of Eve Online, which measured a 30% retention rate over 24 months from launch. Importantly it shows retention rates continuing to drop as the game continued development.

- Retention rates drop over time. Assuming that Star Citizen manages a 30% retention for the two years after launch (equaling one of the most successful MMOs of all time), and using YOUR timescale of a 10 year cycle and YOUR 20% of 500,000 players, that puts Star Citizen launching in November 2021 with 100,000 players;

30% retention of those 100,000 over 24 months (equaling the success of EVE Online) puts SC with 30,000 players in November 2023 and every single study that exists in MMO retention will show you a logarithmic decay after that.

Now, let's add money and funding into the equation - CIG's burn rate (by "widely agreed" industry estimations, notice I'm playing the same game as you) are ~$3m /month.

That puts CIG in an ideal world 24 months after launch (in 2023 by YOUR estimation and which I agree with assuming they get there) with 30,000 players (decaying) each needing to fork out $100 a month to keep the game running.

In the real world - those 500,000 players need to be retained from the point of sale, and their interest has been decaying since the day they paid money.

There are only two data points worth a toss to gauge interest in Star Citizen;
1 - The monthly average users (MAU) of the Alpha PU
2 - The viewing figures of CIG's marketing channels (Youtube)

MAU we don't know.
Viewing figures - I can work out an average of the last 12 months, a quick glance looks like about 15,000 a month. This seems to fit with viewing figures of many of individual backer YouTube channels. (note - I wouldn't include INN as an official marketing channel as their low viewership would drag the average down and skew it)

So if you want to talk retention statistics, you better make drat sure you are using real world data because science. You're likely looking at 15,000 interested players right now, decaying. Makes the Goon statistic of 2,000 whales funding it every month sound about right.

The important bit
See, the guys who are shilling this project don't want to acknowledge on ANY of these forums that this is a crowdfunded project, and it is the retention of the funding that is the priority for CIG. Hence the smoke and mirrors demos and showing of R&D stuff in marketing videos. hence the numerous reports of ex-employees working non-stop on marketing fluff, hence the endless ship sales - CIG have to do this because they haven't shipped anything that works and can go on sale.

The retention of backers putting money in every month will be decaying no different to any other kind of project, crowdfunded, pay-to-play, whatever.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:12

EightAce: May 10, 2015; Watch it all come crashing down on his head and wonder why any of us gave him money in the first place.

SomethingJones posted:

First of all:
Where did CIG tell everyone this is going to take 10 years?

Your MMO retention rate statistic is bollocks, and here is why:

- 30% retention after how long? One month? One year? One day? You just made that up lol.

- MMO retention rates are measured as percentage vs time

- The only 30% retention statistic I can find is from the well known Wu-Chang Feng/Portland University study of Eve Online, which measured a 30% retention rate over 24 months from launch. Importantly it shows retention rates continuing to drop as the game continued development.

- Retention rates drop over time. Assuming that Star Citizen manages a 30% retention for the two years after launch (equaling one of the most successful MMOs of all time), and using YOUR timescale of a 10 year cycle and YOUR 20% of 500,000 players, that puts Star Citizen launching in November 2021 with 100,000 players;

30% retention of those 100,000 over 24 months (equaling the success of EVE Online) puts SC with 30,000 players in November 2023 and every single study that exists in MMO retention will show you a logarithmic decay after that.

Now, let's add money and funding into the equation - CIG's burn rate (by "widely agreed" industry estimations, notice I'm playing the same game as you) are ~$3m /month.

That puts CIG in an ideal world 24 months after launch (in 2023 by YOUR estimation and which I agree with assuming they get there) with 30,000 players (decaying) each needing to fork out $100 a month to keep the game running.

In the real world - those 500,000 players need to be retained from the point of sale, and their interest has been decaying since the day they paid money.

There are only two data points worth a toss to gauge interest in Star Citizen;
1 - The monthly average users (MAU) of the Alpha PU
2 - The viewing figures of CIG's marketing channels (Youtube)

MAU we don't know.
Viewing figures - I can work out an average of the last 12 months, a quick glance looks like about 15,000 a month. This seems to fit with viewing figures of many of individual backer YouTube channels. (note - I wouldn't include INN as an official marketing channel as their low viewership would drag the average down and skew it)

So if you want to talk retention statistics, you better make drat sure you are using real world data because science. You're likely looking at 15,000 interested players right now, decaying. Makes the Goon statistic of 2,000 whales funding it every month sound about right.

The important bit
See, the guys who are shilling this project don't want to acknowledge on ANY of these forums that this is a crowdfunded project, and it is the retention of the funding that is the priority for CIG. Hence the smoke and mirrors demos and showing of R&D stuff in marketing videos. hence the numerous reports of ex-employees working non-stop on marketing fluff, hence the endless ship sales - CIG have to do this because they haven't shipped anything that works and can go on sale.

The retention of backers putting money in every month will be decaying no different to any other kind of project, crowdfunded, pay-to-play, whatever.

This ^^

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:14

Xaerael: Aug 25, 2010; Marching Powder is objectively the worst poster known. He also needs to learn how a keyboard works.

Lazrin posted:

c'mon man, i know you're not naive. monetization planning, even to this day, revolves around a number (typically averaging 10-15 dollars per user per month). meaning they have revenue targets in that range, and if it's not subscriptions then it comes from other parts of their monetization model.

are you saying you really don't think there will be enough star citizen players to garner even just 20% of known current customers to spend that much per month on the game? when you've got people paying $30 for a single costume in black desert?

make no mistake - we haven't seen their business plan. they may say they aren't going to be heavy into micro transactions or pay to win, but both of those definitions are in the eye of the beholder.

i have no doubt they will have a revenue model that will easily support their monthly burn rate. no publisher == big win.

You do realize that the reality is "no publisher == no other products to prop the project up for a few months while deluded fucks like Lesnick slowly succumb to the harsh reality that they've been spuffing themselves over nothing if it's a total turd", right?

Also, answer my challenge.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:16

Eldragon: Feb 22, 2003

EightAce posted:

At this point it would be best course of action for CIG to temper expectations for one and maybe even be completely honest and explain whats happend to the money . Then they are moving out of scam country and into honesty no matter how harsh that will be for them. The practises that are now prevelent are scammy in that they know the truth but are painting a pciture to backers that is not accurate to get more money.
Yes Crobber is looking at a ten year dev cycle at least. Tbh if you gave that man 100 years and the federal reserve we would still be where we are.

So long as the fans continue to let CIG sell jpegs for $750 with a promise of that being an ship in game 3 years later they have no reason to ever come clean.

What I find really funny is how the fans angrily react to the idea that you should be able to buy ships in game by now.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:20

ManofManyAliases: Mar 21, 2016; ToastOfManySmarts

Can't post for 3 hours!

Milky Moor posted:

I'd like you to prove how you knew that this new ship would be $750. Oddly accurate.

My sources are better than Smart's sources.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:20

Daztek: Jun 2, 2006

SomethingJones posted:

First of all:
Where did CIG tell everyone this is going to take 10 years?

Your MMO retention rate statistic is bollocks, and here is why:

- 30% retention after how long? One month? One year? One day? You just made that up lol.

- MMO retention rates are measured as percentage vs time

- The only 30% retention statistic I can find is from the well known Wu-Chang Feng/Portland University study of Eve Online, which measured a 30% retention rate over 24 months from launch. Importantly it shows retention rates continuing to drop as the game continued development.

- Retention rates drop over time. Assuming that Star Citizen manages a 30% retention for the two years after launch (equaling one of the most successful MMOs of all time), and using YOUR timescale of a 10 year cycle and YOUR 20% of 500,000 players, that puts Star Citizen launching in November 2021 with 100,000 players;

30% retention of those 100,000 over 24 months (equaling the success of EVE Online) puts SC with 30,000 players in November 2023 and every single study that exists in MMO retention will show you a logarithmic decay after that.

Now, let's add money and funding into the equation - CIG's burn rate (by "widely agreed" industry estimations, notice I'm playing the same game as you) are ~$3m /month.

That puts CIG in an ideal world 24 months after launch (in 2023 by YOUR estimation and which I agree with assuming they get there) with 30,000 players (decaying) each needing to fork out $100 a month to keep the game running.

In the real world - those 500,000 players need to be retained from the point of sale, and their interest has been decaying since the day they paid money.

There are only two data points worth a toss to gauge interest in Star Citizen;
1 - The monthly average users (MAU) of the Alpha PU
2 - The viewing figures of CIG's marketing channels (Youtube)

MAU we don't know.
Viewing figures - I can work out an average of the last 12 months, a quick glance looks like about 15,000 a month. This seems to fit with viewing figures of many of individual backer YouTube channels. (note - I wouldn't include INN as an official marketing channel as their low viewership would drag the average down and skew it)

So if you want to talk retention statistics, you better make drat sure you are using real world data because science. You're likely looking at 15,000 interested players right now, decaying. Makes the Goon statistic of 2,000 whales funding it every month sound about right.

The important bit
See, the guys who are shilling this project don't want to acknowledge on ANY of these forums that this is a crowdfunded project, and it is the retention of the funding that is the priority for CIG. Hence the smoke and mirrors demos and showing of R&D stuff in marketing videos. hence the numerous reports of ex-employees working non-stop on marketing fluff, hence the endless ship sales - CIG have to do this because they haven't shipped anything that works and can go on sale.

The retention of backers putting money in every month will be decaying no different to any other kind of project, crowdfunded, pay-to-play, whatever.

Their monthly burn rate will also most likely go up after release :allears:

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:21

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

Lazrin posted:

are you saying you really don't think there will be enough star citizen players to garner even just 20% of known current customers to spend that much per month on the game? when you've got people paying $30 for a single costume in black desert?

I am, I'd say there are 5% tops who will offer any sort of long term financial backing. No one else gives a poo poo, there are better things to do.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:21

Xaerael: Aug 25, 2010; Marching Powder is objectively the worst poster known. He also needs to learn how a keyboard works.

Eldragon posted:

So long as the fans continue to let CIG sell jpegs for $750 with a promise of that being an ship in game 3 years later they have no reason to ever come clean.

What I find really funny is how the fans angrily react to the idea that you should be able to buy ships in game by now.

What I find funnier is that you have to pay real money to test an in game item in an alpha that's unobtainable any other way outside random "free weekends".

If anyone thinks that this is a good "true" way of alpha testing, they're a complete retard.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:24

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

Old people like me have seen many many MMOs that do well in the first month then loving tank after that. And that is with the benefit of the old 'hype, hype, hype, beta, release' model.
Star Citizen doesn't even have that going for it, there is no mysterious game to get hyped for, we've seen it all and it loving blows chunks :lol:

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:24

SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

EightAce posted:

At this point it would be best course of action for CIG to temper expectations for one and maybe even be completely honest and explain whats happend to the money . Then they are moving out of scam country and into honesty no matter how harsh that will be for them. The practises that are now prevelent are scammy in that they know the truth but are painting a pciture to backers that is not accurate to get more money.
Yes Crobber is looking at a ten year dev cycle at least. Tbh if you gave that man 100 years and the federal reserve we would still be where we are.

"Temper expectations" would look like this:

- reduce the scope
- set realistic goals and dates
- communicate all of the above to the backers

Chris Roberts, as recently as last month has been doing the exact opposite of this. And there were whispers 6-7 months ago about a release date of 2022 for Star Citizen having been talked about by Chris internally.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:26

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

AP posted:

Source

I didn't see it. Can you help me out?

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:26

Eldragon: Feb 22, 2003

Xaerael posted:

What I find funnier is that you have to pay real money to test an in game item in an alpha that's unobtainable any other way outside random "free weekends".

If anyone thinks that this is a good "true" way of alpha testing, they're a complete retard.

You're right, that is funnier. Especially because when you point that out, the response is always "It's alpha! you don't understand development!"

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:27

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

HILLARY CURES DEPLORABLES posted:

im not discouraging anyone from posting here, but in your spare time, your shitposting would be greatly appreciated on C-Spam

trump controversies are just as hilarious as the derek smart stuff

I semi-follow the trump thread and can confirm, it's honestly often better than this thread.

peter gabriel posted:

Old people like me have seen many many MMOs that do well in the first month then loving tank after that. And that is with the benefit of the old 'hype, hype, hype, beta, release' model.
Star Citizen doesn't even have that going for it, there is no mysterious game to get hyped for, we've seen it all and it loving blows chunks

I refuse to buy into an mmo on launch unless it's f2p. Been burned enough times. Wait a year or 2 first, see what's up.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:32

SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

ManofManyAliases posted:

My sources are better than Smart's sources.

The 'sources' game is now redundant.

With genuine respect, you need to up your game.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:35

Xaerael: Aug 25, 2010; Marching Powder is objectively the worst poster known. He also needs to learn how a keyboard works.

Eldragon posted:

You're right, that is funnier. Especially because when you point that out, the response is always "It's alpha! you don't understand development!"

It's insane. I mean, I used to alpha/beta test a ton of games, and this is the very VERY first time I've ever seen an ALPHA where you can't access all content at zero cost.

Heck, most of my recent Alphas/Betas were f2p with the reward of a loving discount on the final price of the released game.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:40

Quavers: Feb 26, 2016; You clearly don't understand game development

SomethingJones posted:

First of all:
Where did CIG tell everyone this is going to take 10 years?

Your MMO retention rate statistic is bollocks, and here is why:

- 30% retention after how long? One month? One year? One day? You just made that up lol.

- MMO retention rates are measured as percentage vs time

- The only 30% retention statistic I can find is from the well known Wu-Chang Feng/Portland University study of Eve Online, which measured a 30% retention rate over 24 months from launch. Importantly it shows retention rates continuing to drop as the game continued development.

- Retention rates drop over time. Assuming that Star Citizen manages a 30% retention for the two years after launch (equaling one of the most successful MMOs of all time), and using YOUR timescale of a 10 year cycle and YOUR 20% of 500,000 players, that puts Star Citizen launching in November 2021 with 100,000 players;

30% retention of those 100,000 over 24 months (equaling the success of EVE Online) puts SC with 30,000 players in November 2023 and every single study that exists in MMO retention will show you a logarithmic decay after that.

Now, let's add money and funding into the equation - CIG's burn rate (by "widely agreed" industry estimations, notice I'm playing the same game as you) are ~$3m /month.

That puts CIG in an ideal world 24 months after launch (in 2023 by YOUR estimation and which I agree with assuming they get there) with 30,000 players (decaying) each needing to fork out $100 a month to keep the game running.

In the real world - those 500,000 players need to be retained from the point of sale, and their interest has been decaying since the day they paid money.

There are only two data points worth a toss to gauge interest in Star Citizen;
1 - The monthly average users (MAU) of the Alpha PU
2 - The viewing figures of CIG's marketing channels (Youtube)

MAU we don't know.
Viewing figures - I can work out an average of the last 12 months, a quick glance looks like about 15,000 a month. This seems to fit with viewing figures of many of individual backer YouTube channels. (note - I wouldn't include INN as an official marketing channel as their low viewership would drag the average down and skew it)

So if you want to talk retention statistics, you better make drat sure you are using real world data because science. You're likely looking at 15,000 interested players right now, decaying. Makes the Goon statistic of 2,000 whales funding it every month sound about right.

The important bit
See, the guys who are shilling this project don't want to acknowledge on ANY of these forums that this is a crowdfunded project, and it is the retention of the funding that is the priority for CIG. Hence the smoke and mirrors demos and showing of R&D stuff in marketing videos. hence the numerous reports of ex-employees working non-stop on marketing fluff, hence the endless ship sales - CIG have to do this because they haven't shipped anything that works and can go on sale.

The retention of backers putting money in every month will be decaying no different to any other kind of project, crowdfunded, pay-to-play, whatever.

Excellent post.

MAU can be estimated, based on the known figures from earlier this Summer, courtesy of Streetroller's refund process:

1.5m hours playtime from 300k backers in 6 months
Just for fun: 5 hours playtime per backer in 6 months (average)
0.25m hours playtime per month (average)
There are 720 hours in a 30-day month

0.25m � 720 = 347 backers per hour, on average, playing Star Citizen Alpha. This mean average reduces greatly, when we consider that:

Shill streamers, Evocati free-QA, and hardcore backers will clock up huge numbers of playtime hours
There are large spikes in playtesting each time a new PTU is released to live

Meanwhile, comparing the "347 backers per hour, on average" to games listed on SteamDB.info, hint that SC Alpha will have around 20k players per fortnight on average.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:41

thatguy: Feb 5, 2003

Lazrin posted:

are you saying you really don't think there will be enough star citizen players to garner even just

Yes.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:41

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

Quavers posted:

SC Alpha will have around 20k players per fortnight on average.

This ties into the numbers No Mans Sky has and I think that's pretty reasonable

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:43

thatguy: Feb 5, 2003

There's a reason they don't show the amount of current players.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:43

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Lazrin posted:

c'mon man, i know you're not naive. monetization planning, even to this day, revolves around a number (typically averaging 10-15 dollars per user per month). meaning they have revenue targets in that range, and if it's not subscriptions then it comes from other parts of their monetization model.

are you saying you really don't think there will be enough star citizen players to garner even just 20% of known current customers to spend that much per month on the game? when you've got people paying $30 for a single costume in black desert?

make no mistake - we haven't seen their business plan. they may say they aren't going to be heavy into micro transactions or pay to win, but both of those definitions are in the eye of the beholder.

i have no doubt they will have a revenue model that will easily support their monthly burn rate. no publisher == big win.

Let's go over what you've said.

You think that 100,000 people will be sufficient to cover CIG's monthly burn rate of around $3 million. You've stated that the average monetization per user is $10 to $15, which will cover all of their sources of income. So you're saying that Star Citizen will be such a magical, amazing experience that it will be two to three times better at extracting money than the average game. Even though the community has already dumped millions into its development, the game is explicitly marketed as not having subscriptions or being Pay2Win, and the current business model is so exorbitantly out of touch with reality that $30 will barely cover the cost of two glorified golf carts.

So here's what I think:

A) Star Citizen will never be the dream game that everybody spent millions on. Assuming such a feat is even possible Chris Roberts has already demonstrated he's not the guy to do it, and CIG is such a nepotistic clusterfuck of unprofessionalism and mismanagement that anyone else who might be good enough to do it will never be in a position to do so.

B) Whenever CIG does drop a minimum viable product, it will be so far from what was expected that it will immediately become the gold standard for failure. CIG will attempt to save face by explaining how certain features will be implemented after release (including private servers, the remainder of the 100 systems, the rest of Squadron 42, and most of the stretch goal ships), but with there finally being a "game" to review the public will crucify CIG.

C) Any illusions about the viability of CIG's half-assed business model will evaporate within weeks, if not months, and CIG will hemorrhage staff as they downsize and discover that you cannot innovate and sustain your game simultaneously. I wish I could find it but years ago there was an interview with a former developer (or was it community manager) for PGI, who explained how the development team had dramatically underestimated how difficult it was to development while also focusing on sustaining the game.

D) Chris will spend the rest of his life as the target of ridicule, assuming he survives the barrage of lawsuits and legal investigations that will follow.

So yes, I have doubts.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:44

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

I didn't see it. Can you help me out?

Some random guy posting that image and saying "The Polaris-C is $500 and the $750 Polaris-M won't be sold ever again outside the game."

Later he says.

"It's a SKU viewer, if you've worked in online retail you can use the same siteviewer to check the SKUs and their customer facing version too."

I have no idea if it's true or not, it's believable obviously because CIG can sell anything to Citizens, even apparently, the idea they still intend to make a game.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:47

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Quavers posted:

Excellent post.

MAU can be estimated, based on the known figures from earlier this Summer, courtesy of Streetroller's refund process:

1.5m hours playtime from 300k backers in 6 months

Just for fun: 5 hours playtime per backer in 6 months (average)

0.25m hours playtime per month (average)

There are 720 hours in a 30-day month

0.25m � 720 = 347 backers per hour, on average, playing Star Citizen Alpha. This mean average reduces greatly, when we consider that:

Shill streamers, Evocati free-QA, and hardcore backers will clock up huge numbers of playtime hours

There are large spikes in playtesting each time a new PTU is released to live

Meanwhile, comparing the "347 backers per hour, on average" to games listed on SteamDB.info, hint that SC Alpha will have around 20k players per fortnight on average.

That's roughly equal to what EVE averages per day.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:49

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

AP posted:

Some random guy posting that image and saying "The Polaris-C is $500 and the $750 Polaris-M won't be sold ever again outside the game."

Later he says.

"It's a SKU viewer, if you've worked in online retail you can use the same siteviewer to check the SKUs and their customer facing version too."

I have no idea if it's true or not, it's believable obviously because CIG can sell anything to Citizens, even apparently, the idea they still intend to make a game.

Huh. Thanks for navigating 4Chan for me.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:50

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

BTW more sperging for Children of a Dead Earth. Seriously if the idea of super-accurate space combat is even remotely appealing to you I'd give it a shot.

The blog alone is worth a read:

https://childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:50

Runa: Feb 13, 2011

ManofManyAliases posted:

My sources are better than Smart's sources.

Well yeah you can just walk across the office

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:51

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# ? May 31, 2024 03:18

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Huh. Thanks for navigating 4Chan for me.

You're welcome, in return please say something nice to Lazrin, I'm worried about him, it's 5 days until the major CIG event of the year and he's here spilling his concerns to us, I hope he hasn't lost more than he can afford to CIG.

# ? Oct 4, 2016 15:52

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

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