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I said come in! posted:Elite dangerous is still the exact game that Star Citizen promised. Evochron Legacy SE is made by one person and meets Star Citizen’s kickstarter goals.
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Mar 15, 2024 12:41
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The problem they have with 1.0 is that while they can retcon whatever they want in the list of features, claiming that all that is there right is enough gameplay to qualify as "1.0", that's still not going to solve their spaghetti networking. If they dare a release in the current state, the PR fallout from average players trying it out and refunding due to crashes/desync or lost progress would absolutely kill them. So unless they have magically fixed everything in the background but are keeping it secret for some reason, my take would be that this is all PR aimed at buttering up the commandos (so they keep paying) and the investors (so they don't exercise their options when the window opens up post commandocon).
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Mar 15, 2024 13:00
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MrTargetPractice posted:Feature complete generally means all the final systems etc are in place. Content complete means that everything is done and ready for polish/testing. That being the case it does seem like another minor misrepresentation...What he said at citcon was that they were now in the polish phase, not that they were now approaching the stage just before it. But at this point who cares
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Mar 15, 2024 13:08
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Dark Off posted:content pipes are finally unclogged. But seriously i wonder how director change suddenly brought in progress unless stuff is getting cut out. I think this whole thing is actually the biggest news in the letter. Rich Tyrer is now in charge of overall direction for both titles, basically at the level of Chris Roberts. It's hard to believe but I can't see Chris doing something like this unless he actually intends to take a backseat for the remainder of development as far as overall direction goes. I feel like the bits about directing "alongside" him etc. are bogus to quell the citizenry losing their saviour since there would be quite the uproar if he actually announced taking on more of a "design consultant" role. If it truly is Rich taking control then development could accelerate significantly with Chris not reviewing every pixel. For extra fun, we could speculate that there has been pressure from the investors to get this thing out the door for once, hence that option to extract their money. The investors don't have direct power but they do hold the money power, and that could be enough leverage to make Chris get out of the way. Who knows! Happy Sisyphus posted:Is the distinction between 'Feature Complete' and 'Content Complete' common in the wider games industry, or is this another development innovation peculiar to CIG? They don't necessarily use those words but those map directly to Alpha and Beta phases so I wouldn't say it's unusual to use those terms. That said, going by their promised features they are not anywhere close to Feature Complete which is why I interpret this shakeup in hierarchy as an announcement that they are going to be cutting every non-critical feature they can so they can get a 1.0 release out. They'll then potentially be re-added to the roadmap as very long-term things that will be patched in as they arrive. I suspect that they will now only be holding back an official release for as long as it takes them to get the remainder of their core tech finished. Whenever this meshing crap is done they'll announce the release and no more features will be added until after that except maybe for whatever is already far along. Yes, I'm reading a lot into this letter.
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Mar 15, 2024 14:23
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Fidelitious posted:It's hard to believe but I can't see Chris doing something like this unless he actually intends to take a backseat for the remainder of development as far as overall direction goes. I am going with him knowing the people with big money aren't going to like not seeing a 1.0 and will like it flopping The Day Before style even less. He gets an out in saying that people just couldn't realize his incredible vision. It's bullshit, but IGN isn't going to investigate and his pre-1.0 exit from control lets him paint the narrative of an ambitious auteur tragically let down by technology and the people making the game. Anyone from the cult some website interviews for a piece is going to sing his praises and condemn everyone else. Surely he'll be hired as a bigtime Hollywood director now.
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Mar 15, 2024 15:16
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When I read “Feature Complete” all I can think of is a banner that actually reads “A Feature Complete.”
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Mar 15, 2024 15:27
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It's citcon, wait 5 months, hype up the next citcon, repeat.
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Mar 15, 2024 15:41
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https://i.imgur.com/lTFOg8H.mp4
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Mar 15, 2024 16:01
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phosdex posted:It's citcon, wait 5 months, hype up the next citcon, repeat. It's the citcon preparation half of the year, you can't expect them to get any work done
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Mar 15, 2024 16:20
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I will always say that the fundamental difference between SC and [insert other underwhelming space trucker game] is that AFAIK, SC stands alone with its disgustingly whale-fishing finance programs. Like, asking for jpg.s to the tune of hundreds of dollars a piece is not something NMS and ED has done, for all their faults. If SC was exactly the same but financed wholly by, say, a core purchase to the tune of 60USD or so, it’d just be a bad video game. As it currently stands, it’s a monstrously unethical grift that constantly tries to claw more bucks from your pockets.
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Mar 15, 2024 17:25
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It would be less ethical to let those idiots keep their money imo Anybody spending thousands on ship jpegs has at least guaranteed the money is going to somebody less stupid and wasteful
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Mar 15, 2024 19:00
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Popete posted:Chris has written a new Letter from the Chairman, finally something's happened. Rarely have so many words been used to say so little to so few readers.
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Mar 15, 2024 19:11
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The way that letter is formatted in general is just obscene. All this before facing its true crime, burying the lede that player MrTrash was the first to pass through the space colon
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Mar 15, 2024 19:22
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salartarium posted:Evochron Legacy SE is made by one person and meets Star Citizen’s kickstarter goals. But I get to fly from place to place and watch a number go up, which is all I ever wanted from Star Citizen and they still haven't loving managed it. Fidelitious posted:If it truly is Rich taking control then development could accelerate significantly with Chris not reviewing every pixel. For extra fun, we could speculate that there has been pressure from the investors to get this thing out the door for once, hence that option to extract their money. The investors don't have direct power but they do hold the money power, and that could be enough leverage to make Chris get out of the way. Who knows! 
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Mar 15, 2024 19:34
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LividLiquid posted:Why the gently caress are there investors at all?! To pay for advertising! Also, to make sure they don't have to rely on some money-grubbing evil “publisher” that doesn't understand game development and only want to make a profit. Which is wholly different from what investors are like! Duh!
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Mar 15, 2024 19:41
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this letter from the chairman is indigestible "Our development journey" lmao quote:The second key executive to join our ranks is Marc Beaudet, who was the CEO of Turbulent and becomes our Senior Vice President, Studio Operations, in charge of the operations and welfare of the thousand plus people working on Star Citizen and Squadron 42, spread between our five offices in Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, California, Manchester, England, Frankfurt, Germany, and now Montreal, Canada.
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Mar 15, 2024 20:16
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That letter is a lot less entertaining than I'd hoped it be, it really doesn't say anything new except patting themselves on the back for being able to implement an animated load screen.
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Mar 15, 2024 20:19
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12 years and we finally dropped a load
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Mar 15, 2024 21:59
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LividLiquid posted:Why the gently caress are there investors at all?! Because you don't make real money by running a business. You make it by acting as a ~concierge*~ to a billionaire oligarch, which is probably what Chris thinks he's getting his foot in the door to do for the Calders *money launderer
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Mar 15, 2024 22:29
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Them having investors amuses me to no end after all that big talk about not being beholden to publishers.
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Mar 15, 2024 22:34
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Cutedge fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 23:18
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lol
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Mar 15, 2024 23:33
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Mar 16, 2024 00:05
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lol
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Mar 16, 2024 00:05
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Thanks this was what I wanted and saw but couldn’t make my memes not be dreams.
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Mar 16, 2024 00:56
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Mar 16, 2024 05:07
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Bofast posted:Rarely have so many words been used to say so little to so few readers. CIG owes around $120m to the Calders. This letter is one more desperate attempt at hyping and pushing sales as far as they can. See the lates F7C MkII thing where players have to grind first in order to get a token that allows them then to pay more money for a new better upgraded ship. By now they are at a rate of around 1 sale event per week. And on and on. They are are doing everything they can to push those sales. Everything except the only thing that would actually make them really serious money: A good game. MedicineHut fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 12:38
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MedicineHut posted:CIG owes around $120m to the Calders. This letter is one more desperate attempt at hyping and pushing sales as far as they can. See the lates F7C MkII thing where players have to grind first in order to get a token that allows them then to pay more money for a new better upgraded ship. By now they are at a rate of around 1 sale event per week. And on and on. Do you think the Calder's are going to cut off Chris's Thumbs?
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Mar 16, 2024 12:49
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It will be hard to revolutionize the gaming industry without thumbs. 
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Mar 16, 2024 12:57
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MedicineHut posted:CIG owes around $120m to the Calders. Is that $120m now? Any decent contract is going to have interest involved, or at least some way that if CIG has the money longer they get more back. TuxedoOrca posted:It will be hard to revolutionize the gaming industry without thumbs. Hey, no worries, just ask musk to neuralink them up to their machines!!!
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Mar 16, 2024 13:00
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What I've gotten from a quick google is the calders invested $46 milion in 2018. So I guess it's $120m now.
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Mar 16, 2024 13:04
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TuxedoOrca posted:What I've gotten from a quick google is the calders invested $46 milion in 2018. So I guess it's $120m now. Well, if they actually get that, not a bad return on their investment.
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Mar 16, 2024 14:24
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You don't really have to guess. The Calders invested $46m in 2018 and $17m in 2019 for a total of $63 million. Half of that went into the UK group $31.5m. The UK group according to PricewaterhouseCoopers had a liability of that investment in 2022 of £48m (based on three years revenue of $277m). Given three year revenue of ~$350m you can assume a 26% increase. So the UK group would owe at present (2024) value have a liability of £60m. Double that to include the US group it's £120m. Convert it to dollars for our American friends and the current value of the puts would be $154m.
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Mar 16, 2024 14:30
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TuxedoOrca posted:What I've gotten from a quick google is the calders invested $46 milion in 2018. So I guess it's $120m now. The Calders invested a total of $63.25 millions for CIG shares in two steps. First the main one of 46m in 2018: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-investment-fact-sheet The second of 17.25m in 2020: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-additional-investment-from-existing-investors Half of that was for shares in the US, the other half for shares in the UK. The investment agreement included an option for the Calders to make CIG buy back their shares at a pre agreed markup mechanism based on the CIG revenue of the last 3 years and with a minimum return of 6% annual. It works in essence like a loan. The financials just posted for 2022 show CIG itself in Note 28 estimating their own debt towards the Calders just for half the shares (the shares in the UK) at £47.8m (or around $60m). The total debt of CIG towards the Calders, including the US shares, would therefore be of around that times 2, £95.6m (or $120m). As @shrach says, given that 2023 revenues were an actual alleged record for CIG the figure is now likely even higher. The Calders can action the buy back (i.e. call back their "loan" with the corresponding interests) either in Q1 of 2025 or wait and do it in 2028. MedicineHut fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 14:30
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Don’t worry $154m is only $1.069mil/month for 12 years
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Mar 16, 2024 15:08
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Can´t see this discussed in Spectrum yet. Are they just playing na, na, na didn´t hear, or something? Sempai Smart would be proud of this ELE.
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Mar 16, 2024 15:28
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Worf posted:Don’t worry $154m is only $1.069mil/month for 12 years Star Citizen: $154m is only $1.069mil/month for 12 years
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Mar 16, 2024 15:34
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I forgot to mention how absolutely insane it was to open that letter with a "quote" from Marcus Aurelius. Pretty pretentious for a crappy videogame. First it's not even quoted correctly, and secondly Marcus Aurelius never wrote that and it is one of the most frequently misattributed quotes. It is in fact "what we do in life echoes in eternity" and it's a line that was written for the Gladiator movie. So many places say it's a quote from 'Meditations' and yet not a single source points to the actual quote. It's also completely at odds with stoicism and would make no sense for Aurelius to write that, particularly in Meditations.
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Mar 16, 2024 15:54
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Fidelitious posted:I forgot to mention how absolutely insane it was to open that letter with a "quote" from Marcus Aurelius. Pretty pretentious for a crappy videogame. IIRC Aurelius didn’t even say that in the movie. It was Crow’s character Maximus.
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Mar 16, 2024 16:02
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Fidelitious posted:I forgot to mention how absolutely insane it was to open that letter with a "quote" from Marcus Aurelius. Pretty pretentious for a crappy videogame. I happen to have Meditation on my bookshelf. I haven’t read all of it, though.
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Mar 16, 2024 16:23
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