Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

Supposedly all of the work is being done on the Squadron 42 side. CIG claims that the game is finished and is just in the polish / optimization phase of development, so its almost finished. But I find this claim to be extremely dubious.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 22:33

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:34

CubicalSucrose: Jan 1, 2013; Phantom my Opera and call me South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

Pipelines.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 22:45

TURTLE SLUT: Dec 12, 2005

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

Sadly having worked as a consultant with a lot of different multinational corporations, I am not impressed or even surprised. Most people working office jobs in multinational corporations produce nothing for most of the year. It certainly feels like work, having meetings about meetings about planning to make a presentation about a meeting, but the end result is air.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 22:59

abelwingnut: Dec 23, 2002

https://x.com/Kotaku/status/1743027315863671214?s=20

# ? Jan 4, 2024 23:01

Ursine Catastrophe: Nov 9, 2009; It's a lovely morning in the void and you are a horrible lady-in-waiting.

don't ask how i know; Dinosaur Gum

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

Having more people just means the responsibility haze has diffused to the point that nobody is individually "responsible for" the lack of progress, so no progress continues to be made

# ? Jan 4, 2024 23:02

Blue On Blue: Nov 14, 2012

abelwingnut posted:

https://x.com/Kotaku/status/1743027315863671214?s=20

ok so how many 'items' in this $48k pack are 'usable' - i use the term usable loosely and we all know why that is

since i see from the funny picture that the rifle is not available yet, but in Q1 2024 (sure ... why not have 48 thousand of my american fun bucks but give me a IOU please)

# ? Jan 4, 2024 23:04

Tippis: Mar 21, 2008; It's yet another day in the wasteland.

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

# ? Jan 4, 2024 23:16

Cutedge: Mar 13, 2006; How can we lose so much more than we had before

Saros posted:

I'm more impressed that they manage to do so little with the headcount they apparently have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of staff churning away and achieving.... What exactly?

quote:

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cloud-Imperium-Games-RVW82946134.htm]
Abandon All Hope - Listen to the Negative Reviews Here! - Senior 3D Artist Cloud Imperium Games Employee Review
December 31, 2023

Senior 3D Artist
Current Employee, more than 8 years

Pros

Amazing people work here, but not the most driven/ talented people, so the shine of that wears off quick.
Great work / life balance because �work� here is not what would be considered working anywhere else
Solid health and dental benefits
A great benefit of CIG USED TO BE the hope of working on a cool emerging IP, while learning skills/ tools to strongly develop your future career, but that has been far from the case for years.

Cons

BEFORE YOU READ: Some of this review may seem like it written by someone with an axe to grind. I can assure you, it is not. What it is, however, is very honest and truthful. And it is written with a lot of knowledge of how things are working at CIG at many levels. It is written so that young people who may receive a job offer from CIG can make an educated choice on whether or not this REALLY sounds like the right place for them, and to spread awareness of the practices that rein at CIG today.

Senior Leadership

Completely incompetent and rudderless leadership from the top down. Chris Roberts is a nice man, who has no business running a studio anywhere, yet he fancies himself as the next coming of Walt Disney or George Lucas. His �visionary� leadership seems to mean not having any self-awareness of what he is good at or bad at, and surrounding himself with fail-sons and old cronies who act as Yes-Men to his extremely unpragmatic and sometimes wild leadership. He meddles in / wants control over every little part of marketing, art direction, asset creation, game design, etc. etc. The term �Failing Upwards� has been perfected at CIG from the Director level, all the way down to Middle Management; most of them would likely never even merit a mere interview at another studio, at any level. Obvious financial waste is everywhere, from spending on space doors, to massively inflating the budget of every component of the Disneyland-esque studio in Manchester, to having artists redo every asset in the game for the 10th time or more, all while paying less than industry standard and completely cutting bonuses. SOOOOOO MUCH time and money is annually wasted by pulling people from their actual work to create BS material to edit together a YouTube video to sell the public on the idea that we are more complete that we really are in every way. Keeping the money rolling in at any cost is clearly more important than finishing SC or SQ42.

Team Level / Day to Day

Morale is very very low across every team. Most every department from Operations, to Development, to Marketing are all prisoner to the ever-changing whims of CR and his need to micro-manage everything. Production cannot even make a schedule that lasts a single quarter because CR/ directors will blow it up by changing their minds about everything they just asked a team to complete 5 minutes after it is done and approved. Most people in various departments are either people who have not worked at another studio and were plucked off of message boards (not joking) or schools so CIG could save money vs hiring qualified/ competent people. These people have no other experience as to what a functioning studio is meant to operate like and are just glad to be there. Other people there that usually do have some experience are jaded and passionless and stay at CIG because they can get by with doing little to no work while making a decent living, and know that they could not get a job at an actual AAA studio. Talented/ skilled people that are / were there are micromanaged, overridden, and not allowed to perform the way they would be at another AAA game studio, so they leave as soon as they are able to. Have never met any Lead or person in Lower Management who is not constantly talking about how poorly things are run, how bad production functions, how terrible upper management is, and how they have no faith in the project. Employee turnover is high there, but someone being fired is extremely rare, which means people are continuously leaving as soon as they find better opportunity but CIG does not let go of bad employees, unless it is an extreme case.

Career Development

Years ago, there was a decent opportunity to advance and learn quickly (depending on your field), so you could at least move to another studio/ job with competency. As more and more talented/ experienced people have left CIG and been back-filled with inexperienced / unqualified people, I feel the ability to learn there has been greatly stifled. It is definitely not an environment I would recommend for an entry level employee as you learn bad habits across the board that will severely impact you later in your career.

Culture

Generally your coworkers are very nice people and easy to get along with . . . but it is always easy to get along with people when there is no stress or pressure to perform or release a game, so that is not always a positive to me. As previously mentioned, many people there have been plucked from obscurity and brought into CIG and the game industry so CIG can save money. There are also a lot of intense CIG fans who got jobs there as a result of that fandom, vs being capable in their given job. The idea of giving people random opportunities is great, but the downside of that is that there is a cult-like culture amongst many people there where they support and cheer on the decisions made at CIG, and have no intent of leaving, no matter how terribly CIG treats them or under pays them. I know for a fact many of those types of employees have actually written many of the (fake) positive reviews on here for CIG after certain executives were unhappy with the low rating the company had several years ago, and this continues in recent reviews of the past few months.

Advice to Management

There is no fix for this company as it sits now.

Sell the Company, tech, and IP to a real game developer and I would suggest that company fire most everyone from middle management on up.

# ? Jan 4, 2024 23:49

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

Can't asset strip if there are no assets :thumbsup:

# ? Jan 5, 2024 00:03

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Cutedge posted:

see also:

No surprises, but good to get confirmation.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 00:10

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

Cutedge posted:

see also:

This is good for star citizen

# ? Jan 5, 2024 01:12

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Thoatse posted:

This is good for star citizen

I am waiting for Piss Cat or any of the other cult members to have this very take, but written with 3000 words.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 01:12

JugbandDude: Jul 19, 2016; Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun

Shine on you crazy diamond!

And they are mostly artists and modelers producing high polygon assets.

A small portion is actually making a game

# ? Jan 5, 2024 02:32

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

lol it really well just last as long will the idiots keep shoveling money into it.

I wonder after they stop and company quickly goes bankrupt, well they actually have much assets to sell of to another dev/publisher? Like with out Roberts leading everyone in circles in the desert would anyone still care about the project, as customer base seems the only thing of actual worht?

# ? Jan 5, 2024 04:06

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

https://i.imgur.com/7AJi4eR.mp4

# ? Jan 5, 2024 04:11

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

cirus posted:

I firmly believe there is significant money laundering involved

This

# ? Jan 5, 2024 04:14

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Thoatse posted:

https://i.imgur.com/7AJi4eR.mp4

I like turtles

# ? Jan 5, 2024 06:11

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

Money laundering? Bah, all developers spend $1,000,000 a month at Sal's Legitimate Businessmen Pizza Shop Inc.

IT people really like pizza is all!

# ? Jan 5, 2024 06:20

Virtual Captain: Feb 20, 2017; Archive Priest of the Stimperial Order

Star Citizen Good, in all things forevermore. Amen.

I was watching some 2023 best glitches and Start Citizen wasn't even nominated? :sad:

# ? Jan 5, 2024 07:47

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Virtual Captain posted:

I was watching some 2023 best glitches and Start Citizen wasn't even nominated?

not enough people are actually playing, game has no actual wide spread appeal or content creators really. every creator I come across is really small. This is why I dont think the game has actually made 500 million, for sure not in crowdfunding.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 07:48

Virtual Captain: Feb 20, 2017; Archive Priest of the Stimperial Order

Star Citizen Good, in all things forevermore. Amen.

Almost like its not a real game, huh

# ? Jan 5, 2024 07:48

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

If I had to guess, only a very small number of people are actually playing. Like less than 100.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 07:50

CubicalSucrose: Jan 1, 2013; Phantom my Opera and call me South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut

Have there been any Sunk Cost Galaxies or hello.'s in the past like 2 years or so?

# ? Jan 5, 2024 08:01

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

CubicalSucrose posted:

Have there been any Sunk Cost Galaxies or hello.'s in the past like 2 years or so?

A couple hellos, but I think SunCosGa (as we Sunkers call it) is defunct at this point.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 09:03

chadbear: Jan 15, 2020

Re: German Star Citizen whales. I haven't met any insane game dad commandos myself, but every once in a while an article about Star Citizen backers pops up in the non-gaming press.

https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000200320/star-citizen-das-spiel-das-niemals-fertig-wird

DeepL Translation posted:

As I myself have spent little time in "Star Citizen" in the last ten years, as I have written, I ask someone who knows better: Sven. I meet the man in a nerd forum that we both use. The self-confessed nerd is always writing about his latest achievements in the game and about his corporate. "I've just gone through the fleet register of my corp ISFA (Imperial Starfleet of Austria) to update my ships. We currently have around 380 members who have bought a total of around 2,500 vehicles, which gives a total value of around 500,000 dollars."

500,000 dollars? I'm beginning to realize how the developers have been able to raise 600 million dollars over the years if there are such ambitious natures in the game. I ask Sven what he himself has already spent in the game. "Around 13,000 dollars," he admits. I take a deep breath. The now 46-year-old recognizes my reaction and readily explains. The concept of being able to live in a virtual science fiction universe is a "dream". Like me, he was a 'Wing Commander' fan as a teenager, and even though he missed out on the Kickstarter campaign for 'Star Citizen', he kept throwing money at the game shortly after the first crowdfunding ended.

"I like to support projects/games that appeal to me personally, and I'm happy to spend an extra euro or two," he says. The five-figure sum is made up of several expenses. Firstly, there is the monthly payment for the so-called Imperator access, which costs around 20 euros. This is for true fans of the game, as it gives you access to an exclusive newsletter, advance access to ticket sales for various in-game events and early access to various spaceships. The latter can be earned, but of course you can also buy them, which Sven has done time and again.

The gamer explains the regular shopping trips with the intentional support of the project and the so-called "Lifetime Insurance" (LTI). This is a lifetime insurance policy for spaceships and vehicles. Why does it exist? If a player loses a driving or flying vehicle in the game, regardless of the trigger, it is lost forever. Larger ships that you want to buy later in the game are correspondingly more expensive and the insurance is also higher. Other games would probably get a shitstorm from such a model - in the "Star Citizen" community, this form is apparently accepted.

The science fiction fan mentions the game's "Concierge Service" as the last point of his investment in "Star Citizen". If you donate 1,000 dollars or more, you will have a faster connection to support, receive special paintwork for the spaceships and exclusive merchandise.

That's one org from a small German-speaking country, and just in ships they have 500k between them. If you add all other orgs and non-organized whales I can see how they are getting their millions in pledges.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 11:02

FishMcCool: Apr 9, 2021; lolcats are still funny; Fallen Rib

chadbear posted:

quote:
Imperial Starfleet of Austria.

Commandos really are as creative as the Crobear.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 11:13

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only pilot one ship at a time right and I seem to remember that some ship also need a bunch of crew, what the gently caress are all the people thinking they're going to be doing with these small fleets that they're buying up?

Like this really doesn't seem like it should be the type of game that should have far more ships than players, but apparently it does? Are they just expecting a whole bunch more people to start playing they can make into digital peons they can get to fly the other ships for them in some grand armada or is this like those people who buy seventeen fancy cars they never take out?

# ? Jan 5, 2024 11:37

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014

The latter.

At least you can sell cars. The notion that the jpegs are an investment is farcical.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 11:41

Apollodorus: Feb 13, 2010; TEST YOUR MIGHT

FishMcCool posted:

Commandos really are as creative as the Crobear.

Austria used to have a navy, you know. They also used to have a coast. Now that those are things of the past, the only way left is up UP UP!

# ? Jan 5, 2024 12:27

Sandweed: Sep 7, 2006; All your friends are me.

dr_rat posted:

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only pilot one ship at a time right and I seem to remember that some ship also need a bunch of crew, what the gently caress are all the people thinking they're going to be doing with these small fleets that they're buying up?

Like this really doesn't seem like it should be the type of game that should have far more ships than players, but apparently it does? Are they just expecting a whole bunch more people to start playing they can make into digital peons they can get to fly the other ships for them in some grand armada or is this like those people who buy seventeen fancy cars they never take out?

We recently had a citizen that was trying to get a hold of 10 or so accounts for his nieces and nephews, the caveat was that he needed the accounts to have no ships of their own so they would be forced to crew his whaleship.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 14:12

Fidelitious: Apr 17, 2018; MY BIRTH CRY WILL BE THE SOUND OF EVERY WALLET ON THIS PLANET OPENING IN UNISON.

Cutedge posted:

see also:

Funny, but I don't believe for a second that this was written by a real employee. It hits way too many of the points that we theorize about in this thread and uses the same terminology/phrasing also.
Nothing in there that would indicate any knowledge from an insider, it's beat for beat the stuff that we joke about.

Do better work next time whoever wrote this.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 15:12

phosdex: Dec 16, 2005

chadbear posted:

Re: German Star Citizen whales. I haven't met any insane game dad commandos myself, but every once in a while an article about Star Citizen backers pops up in the non-gaming press.

https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000200320/star-citizen-das-spiel-das-niemals-fertig-wird

That's one org from a small German-speaking country, and just in ships they have 500k between them. If you add all other orgs and non-organized whales I can see how they are getting their millions in pledges.

I've gotten into sim racing lately, and there are these aluminum cockpits that you can buy that work for racing or flying. Anyway as you go down this rabbit hole it gets expensive and there are lots of stereotypes about doctors/dentists spending lots of money on this hobby. I often run across comments that are basically, I already spent a lot on this cockpit, I might as well pickup star citizen and spend money on that too.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 15:36

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

abelwingnut posted:

https://x.com/Kotaku/status/1743027315863671214?s=20

quote:

Someone buying that whole pack still only has two hands and one face, and a whole ton of the ships in that pack are multicrew.

I ran across one person who'd bought a gigawhale pack like that and his stated reason was he wanted to run a ship rental service in-game, once things advanced to the point of that being a workable thing to do.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 17:25

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

I guess I can understand splurging a little bit on Star Citizen if it were a finished product in post-launch support after version 1.0 released. But to do so in 12+ year running pre-alpha with no guarantee any of this development continues, especially in light of the damning employee reviews, is a pretty bad idea.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 17:32

LostRook: Jun 7, 2013

Where exactly are they going to hear about those employee reviews? I doubt they'd last a minute on the SC forums, and I've not seen anyone outside this forum mention it, even in the supposedly overly critical gaming press.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 17:59

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

dr_rat posted:

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only pilot one ship at a time right and I seem to remember that some ship also need a bunch of crew, what the gently caress are all the people thinking they're going to be doing with these small fleets that they're buying up?

Like this really doesn't seem like it should be the type of game that should have far more ships than players, but apparently it does? Are they just expecting a whole bunch more people to start playing they can make into digital peons they can get to fly the other ships for them in some grand armada or is this like those people who buy seventeen fancy cars they never take out?

My take, I think the major driving force behind Star Citizen funding is game Dads who are heavily invested in their corporation. It is their community and they push each other to spend money for the good of "the fleet" and future corp fantasy gameplay they envision.

You don't hear/see much about this because it's happening on private forums/discords and a lot of them probably aren't playing many other games or engaging with the wider gaming culture so from the outside it looks like nobody is actually playing this game but there are you just don't really see them.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 18:09

JugbandDude: Jul 19, 2016; Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun

Shine on you crazy diamond!

Remember that CR and the devs promised so much crap at this point, that the game can be anything you want.

Yes, there will be NPCs to hire and crew your space chariot. It will be expensive and totally balanced with the rest of the promises, so buy as many ships as you want.

You can only get more powerful! Buy buy buy!

# ? Jan 5, 2024 18:15

Mailer: Nov 4, 2009; Have you accepted The Void as your lord and savior?

dr_rat posted:

Are they just expecting a whole bunch more people to start playing they can make into digital peons they can get to fly the other ships for them in some grand armada or is this like those people who buy seventeen fancy cars they never take out?

A part of the early grift was explicitly that the non-believers would flock to a released game and, somehow so amazed by a terrible product they couldn't play, serve as space janitors on your ship for a chance to one day own a spaceship of their own.

# ? Jan 5, 2024 18:23

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

e: double post.. ever buy an iPhone X the faulty touch screens they shipped with are a real piece of poo poo

Thoatse fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jan 5, 2024

# ? Jan 5, 2024 23:10

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 15:34

dialhforhero: Apr 3, 2008; Am I 🧑‍🏫 out of touch🤔? No🧐, it's the children👶 who are wrong🤷🏼‍♂️

dr_rat posted:

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only pilot one ship at a time right and I seem to remember that some ship also need a bunch of crew, what the gently caress are all the people thinking they're going to be doing with these small fleets that they're buying up?

Like this really doesn't seem like it should be the type of game that should have far more ships than players, but apparently it does? Are they just expecting a whole bunch more people to start playing they can make into digital peons they can get to fly the other ships for them in some grand armada or is this like those people who buy seventeen fancy cars they never take out?

So what a lot of people actually do when they have these big ships is recruit other players to fly with them. They ask in chat or join squads/clans/guilds and then mine or salvage or run missions and then split any profit from selling materials.

When I posted earlier that I had fun doing this with friends it was actually true and a lot of people play exclusively like this.

Mind: this is not an endorsement of buying a $90 ship or whatever.

dialhforhero fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jan 6, 2024

# ? Jan 6, 2024 00:00

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