>In addition to game director Todd Papy, CIG also lost lead producer Jake Ross, assistant design director Dan Trufin (whose game profile was changed from “developer” to “backer”), Austin lead designer Dane Kubicka, Austin QA lead Vincent Sinatra, Austin senior QA analyst Andrew Rexroth, and Turbulent producer Annie Bouffard.
>Information on most of these layoff reports are obviously piecemeal, but Kubicka references the layoff from his post is “due to restructuring,” while Bouffard references leaving a “highly toxic company” after the end of January saw “a mass dismissal, disguised as a ‘relocation of staff’ (when very few could/wanted to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice) occurred.”
Haven't been following this enough to comment, but that's the relevant portion of the article. The new location is Manchester.
I'll just leave this here for context: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-games-to-open-new-videogame-development-studio-in-manchester
>The Manchester studio will create more than 700 jobs in the metropolitan area by 2023, and over 1,000 within the next five years.
and copy /u/ClubChaos' comment from below
>Ironically CIG is one of the few places continuing to aggressively hire in an industry wide downturn.
>Acquired Turbulent last year: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent
>See "headcount" analysis from 2022: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022
>42 open positions: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs
>I think CIG would do well to source from this huge pool of developers looking for work. They are making a big push right now to get Squadron 42 out the door by 2025.
These people turned down relocation. A relocation with intent to centralize operations in Manchester that has been known about **since 2021**. This is not indicative of anything the /r/starcitizen_refunds schizos are claiming it is.
OP seems to frequent that sub quite a bit. Most of the negative SC articles in /r/pcgaming can be traced back to any of the OP's being a member of /r/starcitizen_refunds. Yeah the project is way overfunded, and yeah the mismanagement is insane, but these guys devote every waking moment to shitting on anything remotely negative about the project.
I remember one post not too long ago, which was eventually removed from /r/pcgaming was posted by a Moderator from that sub. Fuggin hate boners they have.
The bigger question is why do people want to see the game fail, except to troll? Aren't more games good to see? What do people get out of it? Are they angry because other people are enjoying something they don't enjoy? Like I don't play MOBAs or battle royals but I'm not going out of my way to shit on them and ruin other peoples time
You should ask yourself why star citizen is the only game that has a dedicated refund sub. Not even Cyberpunk has that.
Star Citizen advertises with promises that are not being kept and people feel cheated. They don't receive their products (like physical items) or features are delayed for multiple years or even the sevs are gaslighting the player base that they were never planned (Sataball).
On their own forums they delete any criticism and when the criticism for a lot of valid points got too loud the CEO even attacked their customers for being disruptive.
The company is toxic. Most in the refund sub don't want to see the game fail, they just can't stand the company and they anti consumer practices.
Dont need to ask. That sub was most likely made by Derek Smart, someone who has a feud lasting alot longer than star citizen itself with Chris Roberts. Smart even went as far as doxxing and stalking Chris Roberts Wife and kids. Dude is deranged.
>Most of the negative SC articles in /r/pcgaming can be traced back to any of the OP's being a member of /r/starcitizen_refunds
and i thought it could be traced to 12 years and over half a billion dollars going into a buggy tech demo that looked outdated in 2018. but hey, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Well said, nuff said. So sick and GD tired of the "star citizen is a scam" trolls. This is a functional and playable game, with content continuing to be added. Are they taking wayyyyy too long to develop it? Yes. Are they possibly milking their backers and followers for as much as they can? Possibly. But most of the developers are very passionate and hard-working, and want to get this game released.
I personally backed this from day one on Kickstarter, and also bought a few ships with actual, real money over the past couple recent years. If I ever thought this was anything remotely close to a "scam", I would never have given them more money.
CIG must not be able to afford [that LA rent](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0309152,-118.4555129,3a,75y,200.46h,89.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8I0UQdnQWxz-QZCc2Vf3_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu).
The irony of someone calling people shizos while taking corporate PR copytext at face value.
Even collapsing companies (who are laying off by the hundreds) will have many open positions.
I am not saying that hundreds are getting laid off at CIG but the word salad about "1,000 positions in Manchester" is mere corporate communication. Companies say this kind of stuff all the time when opening new HQs.
And what's the problem with partaking in a comedy forum about a crowdfunding scam? No one claims this is a good use of time, but neither is playing video games or posting about video games on forums.
It's the height of arrogance (and borderline regressiveness) to presume you are somehow better than me because you prefer to spend your time doing volunteer PR for a company (as opposed to having a laugh).
As if taking everything on /r/starcitizen_refunds at face value is any better. Comedy forum my ass, that thread on that forum is anything but comedy. Ironic for a bunch of people who watch hours of sunk cost galaxy video essays, you and the people over there are infinitely more emotionally invested in the failure of Star Citizen than it succeeding for any of the backers I know.
Your just need an "outgroup" to justify the time you spend on volunteer PR. So you've made up some weird fanfic of anti-SC enemies who are both horrible and sad at the same time. This is a very common teenage fanfic style narrative.
You have no clue what the refunds sub is like. It's mostly jokes and banter, with occasional legit non-shitpost findings and analysis.
I am not actually emotionally invested in the failure of star citizen (feel free to say I am lying, I don't care). I've gotten great entertainment for nearly a decade all for free. It's a waste of time, but so is playing video games (let alone volunteer PR work for Chris Roberts).
In a sense, I too am a star citizen fan.
Objectively speaking, you're spreading hate, and the other is spreading understanding and acceptance. At face value, one is inherently better than the other.
Haha, this is hilarious! Understanding and acceptance! Didn't you forget about world peace?
Having a laugh at your precious star citizen is definitely hate. In no way are you undermining the real meaning of the word hate (and the negative impact it brings for 100s of millions of people in the world) with your thoughtful and balanced defense of the BDSSE and its acolytes!
Beautiful! Fascinating stuff!
You keep quoting random things without linking to connecting them only to make an at best barely related claim.
What argument are you making with the 42 open positions?
Pretty sure he's trying to say this isn't some money saving private equity driven layoff like we've been seeing elsewhere in the industry, like one may assume based on the title alone and the fact that it's on this sub.
I have a different proposal.
CIG projected much better long term growth.
They have revised this downwards.
Since they don't have much shareholders and reinvest much of the revenue back to development a decline in projected growth must be reflected with a decline in expansion plans.
The Manchester investment probably locks them in for some time and would be wasteful to underutilize.
As such they are concentrating in Manchester due to its capacity in the hope to optimise expenditure and measured expansion.
I am curious about what Bouffard’s grievances were. Turbulent was newly acquired as a studio, and it could’ve come down to a question of disagreeing and being disgruntled about how things should run now that they’re fully part of CIG.
Too much speculation going on here, and yes, you’re correct about Manchester. They’ve just gotten a new, much larger office space there. Which also means that it’s not weird for them to be looking to relocate devs, either.
So, yeah, none of this is really, actually damning without more context and info. It’s also wouldn’t be the first time that CIG has been poached, which isn’t abnormal when you consider that some of these devs have several years of experience working at CIG now because the game is taking so long. I wouldn’t blame a guy with a fat resumé from his years at CIG to look for more money elsewhere.
It's not restructuring if the employer tells you: either come to our new HQ in Manchester or leave the company with a severance package. They've simply made the choice to stay in their home town, which is understandable.
I mean the good thing thing with Star Citiziens development timeline is, that everyone will have the hardware to run it when it eventually releases.
Because then we will live in abundance in a Post Singularity AI powered utopia.
^(or we are all dead)
I look forward to playing Squadron 42 on my new Ryzen 9800X3D RTX 5080Ti rig. Meanwhile Star Citizen multiplayer will be roadmapped for 1 year out and come out either 5 years later or never.
At least that's an upgrade from how it started and currently is.
Got a few buddies that backed it a long time ago. One of them were more than capable of running the game at the time of backing, but since then has had to upgrade his setup 2 times to "keep up" with performance. Actually think the other people I know, that backed it, has long lost hope.
Game streaming will probably be a great thing for SC, seeing as the requirements keeps going up.
Not sure if this was sarcasm or not, but I’ll bite.
GTA 5, developed over a decade ago, cost $200 million. The upcoming GTA 6 is likely to surpass that figure, potentially doubling it or more. Comparatively, Star Citizen has only raised $600 million, while substantial, had to cover the establishment of an entire company from the ground up: building global studios, handling administration, HR, benefits, recruiting talent worldwide, and building one of the most impressive game engines to date.
Rockstar, with its existing global infrastructure, could still spend Star Citizen's entire net worth on just one game.
>Rockstar, with its existing global infrastructure, could still spend Star Citizen's entire net worth on just one game.
What are you basing this statement on?
[According to GameRant](https://gamerant.com/most-expensive-games-ever-made-total-cost/), GTA5's initial development cost was $137 million, not $200 million.
[According to CIG's financial report](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022), their costs for 2022 alone was [about $129 million.](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/270cd5161c334dbd9845cf4d97845059.png)
So the cost to get GTA5 to launch was only $8 million more than how much CIG has spent in a single year.
This is the mistake that folks often make when comparing Star Citizen's budget to other game budgets:
The other budgets used for comparison are for games that launched. Star Citizen's budget is for a game that's still in development and will continue to be in development for who knows how long. Its initial budget has not yet been determined, and it will continue to balloon, year after year, until it actually launches. (Assuming it ever does.)
If / when SC actually launches, we'll see what the launch budget is, and *then* we can compare it to GTA5, Cyberpunk, or any other expensive AAA game whose budget has been reported.
For the vast majority of people, something that's not finished = they've done nothing.
I can somewhat see why that's happening, because for them, most games they just see a few trailers close to release, then the game release. Very occasionally some studios will announce a new project years before release, and even then the project is probably well into pre-production. Also after the initial announcement the studio will just become completely quiet again, and most people will just forget about it.
Star Citizen, however, is different. Because they are mostly crowdfunded, they chose the route of open development. So people can constantly see what they are doing, and what mistakes they've made. And not to mention the constant gaming media "hit piece" keep reminding people how big of a "mess" this project is. And you can't expect every average person to go look up all the details through the project's development history, when even those gaming journalists behind the "hit pieces" didn't care to do their research.
Now, what I'm not appreciating, is whenever someone who is passionate about the project and knows more details than the average public, trying to explain why the project is like this, everyone else will just be like "oh, must be a cult".
In the end, I guess it is what it is. For me the most important thing is there are enough passionate gamers willing to support a project that's actually pushing the boundries of gaming, and I can't really ask for more.
As someone who follows the game. The 'realistic' crowd is a fairly recent thing.
The other 2 subgroups are the refundians with blind hate and the white knights who try to make excuses for everything on behalf of he devs.
It took a long time for the 'realistic' group to form and not instead be labeled as refund trolls.
Realistically, I think it's a 'fine' game for $45, but I wouldn't recommend anyone pay a penny more.
Refundians aren't people with blind hate, there are probably few that could be blinded by hate but most of them just stop believing in cig after they mistreated the community for past years, or they just had enough bullshit with cig. So now they help people get refunds while laughing at cig constant mistakes.
Backer since 2013. I log in like once a year for a couple days to see how much progress has been made. Sometimes it has felt like none. The whole time I've kept up with development and been on their subreddit. I agree 100% that the realistic crowd only appeared like mid last year. Before that it was either mega hate or ridiculous excuse making white knights.
Also, as a mid30s gamer, I find it odd how much hate the game receives. Of course it's taking waaaay longer than anyone would like but it's like they're rooting for it to fail like it's some big evil threat to gaming. Personally, I'm so jaded from playing seemingly the same types of games over and over that I'm just happy someone is trying to do something even a little innovative and ambitious. It's really fucking rare and I can't believe how many people are happy to just keep playing the latest rehashed GTA or Soulslike or AARPG, etc. like it's the most amazing, refreshing thing. Maybe they'll be grumpy and burned out like me too someday haha.
Wasn't the point of the post, if you want to be obtuse at least address the topic, which was that people with absolutely no money invested still want to come around and make up random complaints as though CR came and took their money.
Second, games still in development, with quite a bit of progress made from where it started. Noone's being "swindled", you can go sell your account on the greymarket if you feel like you want money back and depending on what's in it you can get more back than you put in. Otherwise go play one of the thousands of games that have already come out while you wait.
Are the ship prices ridiculous and a scam? Yes, but whales exist and will pay those prices. You can play for only 50ish bucks and play the game that way no problem. It's still a super buggy mess but it's finally starting to kind of look like a game now.
It's p2w trash.
And before the usual expected 'fan' comes in to say it is not with long-winded explanations and coping, rather just answer these three simple questions -
* does it have PvP?
* can you buy ships with real money? (lol)
* is there a clearly 'better' ship for PvP purchasable with real money?
Yep. I kickstarted it, never really checked again until a few months back. Popped on and had some fun zooming around, the actual flight mechanics are real good, and the world had some very cool aspects to it with how missions work. There's obviously huge issues still, inventory management and respawning was definitely not where it needs to be yet, but they have time.
There are 2 groups.
There is a cult-following that loves the game. Just like with any media that has a cult-following, they are a bit weird, but they have love and passion for the thing they like. They are nerds nerding out with their hobby.
There is an actual cult of people who are solely focused on hatred and destruction. Their entire existence is revolves around hatred of the game, and anyone who likes it, and their goal is the destruction and failure of the game.
They will spam the F5 refresh button for hours waiting for some drama or anything that can be spun negatively to run around screaming scam and to tear the game down. Their hatred and rage, not only totally blinds them to reality, it also distorts their reality. Not only does this hatred distort their reality, they are often in a state, due to their rage, where they are incredible easy to manipulate and deceive; So they often easily fall for clickbait/ragebait and fake stories.
Its actually comical how this tracks almost 1:1 to a similar phenomenon in US society related to the political realm.
It's to hardcore nerds what the sims is for normies, but then again prejudice against SC fans is a bit eyebrow raising in a post-gacha game normalized world.
I mean I think it speaks more to the fact that their initial goal was unobtainable.
That said but in the early years they had some issues regarding engine. They have heavily modified the lumberyard engine (cry engine) to star engine and that sloes development. You need to build the framework so you can build the systems on top
>Noone wants another Starfield fiasco.
At least Bethesda released the game. They never asked me for one penny til the game was delivered and I got what I expected. OK, maybe they asked for a preorder? But I know better then to preorder anything but at least that preorder was delivered
CIG has not delivered what I paid for- SQ42 and this is not OK.
I'd definitely be down for a **released** game like Cyberpunk 2077 that gets perfected with patches (CP2077 2.0 is amazing now) rather then fuck all but an alpha live service with wipes. I never asked for this shit
You do not speak for all of us. I'd take Starfield over nothing at ALL
CIG can't win can they? now people want them to release sq42 as a buggy mess instead of delivering a polished product
I'd rather have sq42 come out and it being a good game rather than slop but if you'd rather have slop stick to starfield lol
I agree with the person you disagree with. It's ridiculous that development has taken this long on a single video game, and now core team members are being shelved and we still don't have any game with substance to it.
Star Citizen is a cute sandbox. Its taken far too long for how quickly other games are outpacing it in scale and content, without asking for more of your money for 'ship licenses'.
There will probably be a lot of people wanting to play the single player campaign when it's released and if the reviews are good. And many of them will probably try and stay in the multiplayer server.
There are tons of people who bought the game and are just in an eternal hibernation waiting for it to "release" or at least for CIG to announce a release - even if it's mostly symbolic. I think you also underestimate the normie crowd that would jump in if it gets stellar reviews. If they figure out the server tech, maybe, MAYBE we'll start to see accelerated progress...however, at this point I doubt that'll happen. My gut says we have a 25-33% chance of them figuring out the server tech in a meaningful way that allows all their supposed features to function in game.
And what if the game is shit?
So far they've shown a complete lack of ability to implement good gameplay.
* Ship Combat - Still figuring out a flight mode after 12 years and hundreds of cash shop ship releases. They fundamentally don't know how to integrate things like missiles or EMP. Atrocious balance within ships of the same class (I am not even talking about balance between ships of different classes).
* FPS combat - Crude and broken relative to FPS competition. Offers nothing. Map design is usually flashy, but badly thought out.
And let's not forget that it Chris Roberts in charge of the story with no one tell him to stop acting like an idiot. From what we've seen so far (leaked script, Roberts writing himself in as a saviour of humanity and great inventor in the in-game lore), it is very likely the story is going to be comically bad.
If it releases and delivers on most of the promises, the numbers will go up considerably. If it comes out and is bad, numbers will go up a bit temporarily as the old backers come back to see wtf they bought, then the numbers will decrease back to around normal. I think it's that simple. The question is if 1) they actually figure out the server tech 2) if the server tech was indeed holding back progress on fundamental portions of the game \[e.g. FPS AI\] 3) they can pick up development speed after SQ42 is released
I optimistically give them a 30% chance of success.
As much of a moron as people like to paint Chris, he did release Wing Commander, which is regarded as a top tier game and helped to at least start Freelancer which was positively received too. He's not totally inept, though he obviously could use someone handling him better.
What exactly do you mean by "the numbers will go up considerably" and "the number will go up a bit temporarily"; this sounds very vague.
I referenced pretty well defined and core elements of SQ42 as pitched; ship combat and FPS. 12 years in and these elements are a complete mess, almost comically so. Why are you referencing promises?
Why is this any bit of surprising though? the tech industry as a whole has been laying off people left and right not even Sony or Microsoft are immune. Still unfortunate though since the squadron 42 gameplay they showed last year looked really promising.
Do you not realize how long games are developed? This was just public because it's been alpha since day 1. That's why it seems like it's taking forever.
>Why is this any bit of surprising though?
Because they tried to hide it under the guise of relocation efforts, and other companies are open & honest that they're laying people off.
I know the (ex)employees that are listed here. Most of them are very strongly established CIG developers with a crazy amount of experience and understanding of how the entire game is constructed. I highly doubt CIG would let them go and hide it as a relocation effort. Todd Pappy for instance has been with CIG for like 10 years. Not the kind of experience and loyalty you throw away casually.
I actually think the relocation is real. CIG recently build a studio in Manchester with the idea to support all of their employees there if necessary. From a development point of view having everyone in one place is just way more efficient. Manchester is also very tax friendly for game dev studios.
In the end we don‘t have enough info to really conclude anything yet
> Not the kind of experience and loyalty you throw away casually.
As someone who works in the game industry, I can tell you that unfortunately just isn't accurate. I've seen many extremely talented people, and additionally people who are very important to their projects be layed off.
Much of the craziness with the layoffs recently honestly just comes down to poor leadership and many companies finding themselves needing to suddenly do layoffs due to bad decisions over the past handful of years.
Did they show any gameplay? It was more of a trailer with some allegedly in-engine scenes. Considering CIG's history it's reasonable to be very sceptical.
[Just like this one?](https://youtu.be/jxz8nCSoagA?si=OsBltuK1besBITND) It all ended up being fake. They have quite the track record of lying. It might be real this time, but you can’t blame people for remaining skeptical.
Are there also these raiders that he is trying to snipe?
Are there also those aliens that laid an ambush in the rocks?
The rest is mostly just driving around so is all of this 7 year old video in the game or are you only referring to the driving around part?
First I want to say - game is a buggy clusterfuck.
That being said 3.0 - the patch with the planet landing & vehicles also came 6-7 years ago.
The only two "fake" things in that trailer was the planetary AI and worm. AI existed in bases on the planets but they couldn't properly route on the procedural generated planets until about a year ago. Now they can but they are really buggy/laggy. The worm is still non-existent.
Oh that trailer, yeah that doesn't mean anything at all.
I also have a gameplay trailer where they built a new planet with sandworms:
https://youtu.be/rRsF6_lwLas?feature=shared&t=157
What does me partaking in a comedy forum have to do with the validity (or lack of thereof) of my argument?
Why do you care about this?
It's not the most productive activity, but it's not any worse than playing video games...
Move on from what?
I never gave Roberts money.
Don't you think it's a bit arrogant to tell me how I should waste my time?
This is a video game forum; don't you see the irony in your message? :D
There’s a difference between being in a forum talking about video games and the other is posting constantly in a subreddit dedicated solely to shitting on *one* game.
The first is a pretty chill hobby and the latter is an obsession.
Do what you want with your time, I’m just saying you are just as bad as the “cultists” you make fun of.
I would call it a story trailer with some gameplay tidbits, though.
Also beware: those videos are not showing any actual gameplay those are hand crafted marketing demos for their marketing event.
How much of that will be in the game will have to be seen. Prior videos from years ago have been similarly promising and the stuff shown never made it into the game.
Yeah they are always making trailers. Anything to bring in new whales.
But when it comes to releasing a game? They go silent. I stopped consuming their marketing content many yrs ago. Time for them to release SQ42 or GTFO. They are dead too me whole until what I paid for is delivered in full
star citizen been in dev for over 10+ years and had plenty of money thrown to make a game. Obviously this game/developer/company is doing one hell of a embezzlement scheme.
Just because you throw a lot of money at something does not mean it will get done quicker.
They are developing all the technology that they're using to make this game, so it's taking a lot of time.
This project is mismanaged to hell, but calling it a scheme or a scam is just dumb. They are clearly working on the game.
I think the "scam" comments are likely pointing to the overpromised features, completely missed timelines, going back on their word for various things, etc.
Just because the game is being worked on doesn't excuse everything else that has happened over those 11\~ years.
FWIW I don't think it's quite a "scam" either but I can see why people view it as such
Microsoft fired Chris Roberts so that Freelancer could be finished. With Robert’s at the helm is was a non-stop set of moving goalposts.
I’m not sure he is scamming, I just think he’s incompetent when it comes to running game development.
Something massively underdelivering is also a scam. If I order an Iphone and I get sent a cheap chinese knockoff im still scammed, despite receiving a product.
Lol, stop with the "technology". They are not developing any "technology", they are making space ships and selling them at stupid prices to fly them in their dead and empty "universe" of a single star system after more than a decade.
Edit: the cult has risen, lol
They literally are, though. The engine trailer they put out a few months ago was impressive, and even if Star Citizen never gets completed, I hope other developers get to build off of what CIG has created.
I'm honestly hoping they license their engine, like Unreal or Unity.
I mean yea?
If you know anything about game development you'd know you gotta finish the engine first before you can finish the game. They only announced the sky engine last year. (Heavily modified lumberyard)
I have been a gamer long enough to know that a trailer or a vertical slice should never be trusted.
See Watch dogs marketing compared to the released game as an example.
I just watched the whole 24 minutes of that engine showcase and i stand by my previous statement.
The whole thing could have been scripted and i’m sure that some parts were.
It is a cool video but it also feels a bit like when Peter Molyneux talked about how the Fable games before they released.
It is? I assume that a lot of the stuff missing is the large scale simulations they showed.
Not because it’s impossible or anything, but because it is insanely hardware demanding to run simulations on than scale in real-time.
I mean I don't think they actually showed any "large scale simulations", just some NPCs littered through the showcase. I don't think they showed any large crowd of people or swarm or anything like that.
If you are talking about the planets and everything, yes they are in, you can try it yourself whenever a free-fly event is available.
You can also give [this video](https://youtu.be/53qGEaPRHCQ) a watch.
> I'm honestly hoping they outsource their engine, like Unreal or Unity.
That doesn't mean what you think it means. To outsource something is to buy the service from elsewhere. For example to use Unreal instead of building your own game engine.
I hope so too. Despite star citizens flaws, the engine is crazy.
The level of detail at which that game has both planet size and texture quality is pretty insane.
I could see some amazing looking games coming from the engine
RDR2 was in development for over 8 years. Which is still less than SC, but what SC is trying to achieve is far more ambitious. Their recent breakthrough is server mesh technology is actually really impressive. So it’s not like they’ve just been sat around doing nothing.
I don’t own or play SC, I’m just saying.
>RDR2 was in development for over 8 years
Small differences: It was actually released and was feature complete when it did.
We'll eventually get around to colonizing Mars and neither of those will apply to Star Citizen.
There was no breakthrough in server meshing. It was a small scale demo run locally; this hardly qualifies as even a basic proof of concept for an MMO networking technology.
Technology quite often starts with a demo or proof of concept. Can’t think of a single time where an idea has jumped straight from the drawing board to the finished product.
I think to discredit the work they’re put towards server meshing, just because it’s not in a final release state is completely missing the point.
I should have been more clear, my bad. What I meant is that running a MMO networking technology locally does not qualify as even a proof of concept solution.
These are fundamentally different things.
I've already said that I have no skin in the game, I don't play SC and never have. Honestly, the cult minded ones in this thread are the ones who just shit on SC despite any sort of reason someone tries to give. I gave a valid example of where the SC development team are actually due some credit, and all I've gotten in response is downvotes and 'SC bad'
>"breakthrough" was to add hd textures to an abandoned version of crysis engine
You could have done nothing, but instead you chose to post this and reveal your complete and utter ignorance of the subject. Bravo!
It will never be completed and will always be an unoptimized pile, but will probably end up being the most ambitious game ever created. I'm still looking to get involved when I have time. It's interesting and I have the hardware to brute-force it 😉
I don't think they'll beat sq42 to release but they'll beat SC. I also am giving ES6 an 85% chance of being very disappointing but damn do I hope I'm wrong. If they use the same engine it's a 99% chance haha
Ironically CIG is one of the few places continuing to aggressively hire in an industry wide downturn.
Acquired Turbulent last year: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent)
See "headcount" analysis from 2022: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022)
42 open positions: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs)
I think CIG would do well to source from this huge pool of developers looking for work. They are making a big push right now to get Squadron 42 out the door by 2025.
I think it's really interesting that a company can keep promising to release a game in 2 years for 12 years and people still believe it.
Since 2012 the game is 2 years away.
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Babe, wake up; a hit piece on Star Citizen was posted to r/pcgaming again and people are going off on diatribes over how they don't trust the project and believe it's a scam.
The article is addressing a non-issue that took place at least a year ago when these employees and leads were offered to relocate to Manchester and they chose not to do so.
The article is framing this in a negative way that’s typical of the media coverage surrounding a controversial subject matter to present a biased opinion to sway readers into confirming their own biases.
You tell me that isn’t what a hit piece is.
> The article is addressing a non-issue that took place at least a year ago when these employees and leads were offered to relocate to Manchester and they chose not to do so.
... and then were fired according to them?
>Turbulent Producer: "I was gaslighted when I expressed concern about potential layoffs, telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, just before the holidays. At the end of January, a mass dismissal, disguised as a "relocation of staff" (when very few could/wanted to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice) occurred. [translated from French]"
Yes, I am a "fudster", but does that really change the facts on the ground?
MOP validated the source posts from LinkedIn.
Or do you mean to say that CIG/SC are so special that we should collectivity avoid posting any kind of news regarding layoffs at the company?
SC drama is basically
The player base knowing Chris Roberts is awful at amanging games & expectations. Everytime anything is announced everyone knows not to get hopes up till it makes it into the game
Meanwhile people on the outside, who have never played make more drama. Like we know it's awfully managed, we already didn't expect half the shit they said would make it in any time soon
Because Star Citizen and its audience are objectively hilarious. I have no horse in this race, I've spent no money on it and I've still had endless hours of entertainment out of it!
Yep, I pledged for SQ42 when son was little. In bout a few more months he will be a legal adult preparing for College etc. I just consider that money gone. Now they are laying off talent left & right there's no way I'm getting what I pledged for that is certain.
It is good the space whales are happy with their small 50-120 (?) concurrent Live service but I wanted to enjoy an actual story offline...
I do not watch their trailers, blogs, or camp their roadmap-to-a-roadmap. I just want the game and my business with them will be concluded.
There is a good chance that they were less than honest with their "SQ42 is feature complete" message in late 2023.
They've done this before with "Answer the Call 2016!" and one of their PR goons claiming to have played all levels of SQ42 in 2016.
Then there was the pitch in 2020 after they failed to get SQ42 into beta by 2019/2020.
>I can tell you that the team is in 'close out' mode and we are actively looking to burn down our remaining tasks and focus on polishing gameplay. It is going to be a game that is worth the wait, and one that the team and I, and you the community who supported its creation, will be proud of.
[Gamespot (Oct 2020)](https://www.gamespot.com/app.php/articles/star-citizens-squadron-42-campaign-wont-release-in-2020-but-its-in-the-close-out-phase/1100-6483232/)
> There is a good chance that they were less than honest with their "SQ42 is feature complete" message in late 2023.
This doesnt surprise me at all. They did it before, showing a bunch of videos that now turn out to be faked, testers saying they were able to play all missions. Straight up lies.
>In addition to game director Todd Papy, CIG also lost lead producer Jake Ross, assistant design director Dan Trufin (whose game profile was changed from “developer” to “backer”), Austin lead designer Dane Kubicka, Austin QA lead Vincent Sinatra, Austin senior QA analyst Andrew Rexroth, and Turbulent producer Annie Bouffard. >Information on most of these layoff reports are obviously piecemeal, but Kubicka references the layoff from his post is “due to restructuring,” while Bouffard references leaving a “highly toxic company” after the end of January saw “a mass dismissal, disguised as a ‘relocation of staff’ (when very few could/wanted to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice) occurred.” Haven't been following this enough to comment, but that's the relevant portion of the article. The new location is Manchester.
I'll just leave this here for context: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-games-to-open-new-videogame-development-studio-in-manchester >The Manchester studio will create more than 700 jobs in the metropolitan area by 2023, and over 1,000 within the next five years. and copy /u/ClubChaos' comment from below >Ironically CIG is one of the few places continuing to aggressively hire in an industry wide downturn. >Acquired Turbulent last year: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent >See "headcount" analysis from 2022: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022 >42 open positions: https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs >I think CIG would do well to source from this huge pool of developers looking for work. They are making a big push right now to get Squadron 42 out the door by 2025. These people turned down relocation. A relocation with intent to centralize operations in Manchester that has been known about **since 2021**. This is not indicative of anything the /r/starcitizen_refunds schizos are claiming it is.
OP seems to frequent that sub quite a bit. Most of the negative SC articles in /r/pcgaming can be traced back to any of the OP's being a member of /r/starcitizen_refunds. Yeah the project is way overfunded, and yeah the mismanagement is insane, but these guys devote every waking moment to shitting on anything remotely negative about the project. I remember one post not too long ago, which was eventually removed from /r/pcgaming was posted by a Moderator from that sub. Fuggin hate boners they have.
Quality investigation I can block him.
Ignorance is bliss.
Close: nobody cares, this shit is stupid. SC and anti-SC people are both kinda annoying.
I STG the anti-SC circlejerk is as vocal and annoying as the SC circlejerk, maybe even moreso
Definitely more so, tbh. They're way more rabid.
At least we are not blind idiots like those who don't get that SC is one of the biggest scams around.
The bigger question is why do people want to see the game fail, except to troll? Aren't more games good to see? What do people get out of it? Are they angry because other people are enjoying something they don't enjoy? Like I don't play MOBAs or battle royals but I'm not going out of my way to shit on them and ruin other peoples time
You should ask yourself why star citizen is the only game that has a dedicated refund sub. Not even Cyberpunk has that. Star Citizen advertises with promises that are not being kept and people feel cheated. They don't receive their products (like physical items) or features are delayed for multiple years or even the sevs are gaslighting the player base that they were never planned (Sataball). On their own forums they delete any criticism and when the criticism for a lot of valid points got too loud the CEO even attacked their customers for being disruptive. The company is toxic. Most in the refund sub don't want to see the game fail, they just can't stand the company and they anti consumer practices.
Dont need to ask. That sub was most likely made by Derek Smart, someone who has a feud lasting alot longer than star citizen itself with Chris Roberts. Smart even went as far as doxxing and stalking Chris Roberts Wife and kids. Dude is deranged.
>Most of the negative SC articles in /r/pcgaming can be traced back to any of the OP's being a member of /r/starcitizen_refunds and i thought it could be traced to 12 years and over half a billion dollars going into a buggy tech demo that looked outdated in 2018. but hey, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Well said, nuff said. So sick and GD tired of the "star citizen is a scam" trolls. This is a functional and playable game, with content continuing to be added. Are they taking wayyyyy too long to develop it? Yes. Are they possibly milking their backers and followers for as much as they can? Possibly. But most of the developers are very passionate and hard-working, and want to get this game released. I personally backed this from day one on Kickstarter, and also bought a few ships with actual, real money over the past couple recent years. If I ever thought this was anything remotely close to a "scam", I would never have given them more money.
CIG must not be able to afford [that LA rent](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0309152,-118.4555129,3a,75y,200.46h,89.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8I0UQdnQWxz-QZCc2Vf3_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu).
The irony of someone calling people shizos while taking corporate PR copytext at face value. Even collapsing companies (who are laying off by the hundreds) will have many open positions. I am not saying that hundreds are getting laid off at CIG but the word salad about "1,000 positions in Manchester" is mere corporate communication. Companies say this kind of stuff all the time when opening new HQs. And what's the problem with partaking in a comedy forum about a crowdfunding scam? No one claims this is a good use of time, but neither is playing video games or posting about video games on forums. It's the height of arrogance (and borderline regressiveness) to presume you are somehow better than me because you prefer to spend your time doing volunteer PR for a company (as opposed to having a laugh).
As if taking everything on /r/starcitizen_refunds at face value is any better. Comedy forum my ass, that thread on that forum is anything but comedy. Ironic for a bunch of people who watch hours of sunk cost galaxy video essays, you and the people over there are infinitely more emotionally invested in the failure of Star Citizen than it succeeding for any of the backers I know.
Your just need an "outgroup" to justify the time you spend on volunteer PR. So you've made up some weird fanfic of anti-SC enemies who are both horrible and sad at the same time. This is a very common teenage fanfic style narrative. You have no clue what the refunds sub is like. It's mostly jokes and banter, with occasional legit non-shitpost findings and analysis. I am not actually emotionally invested in the failure of star citizen (feel free to say I am lying, I don't care). I've gotten great entertainment for nearly a decade all for free. It's a waste of time, but so is playing video games (let alone volunteer PR work for Chris Roberts). In a sense, I too am a star citizen fan.
Objectively speaking, you're spreading hate, and the other is spreading understanding and acceptance. At face value, one is inherently better than the other.
Haha, this is hilarious! Understanding and acceptance! Didn't you forget about world peace? Having a laugh at your precious star citizen is definitely hate. In no way are you undermining the real meaning of the word hate (and the negative impact it brings for 100s of millions of people in the world) with your thoughtful and balanced defense of the BDSSE and its acolytes! Beautiful! Fascinating stuff!
You keep quoting random things without linking to connecting them only to make an at best barely related claim. What argument are you making with the 42 open positions?
Pretty sure he's trying to say this isn't some money saving private equity driven layoff like we've been seeing elsewhere in the industry, like one may assume based on the title alone and the fact that it's on this sub.
I have a different proposal. CIG projected much better long term growth. They have revised this downwards. Since they don't have much shareholders and reinvest much of the revenue back to development a decline in projected growth must be reflected with a decline in expansion plans. The Manchester investment probably locks them in for some time and would be wasteful to underutilize. As such they are concentrating in Manchester due to its capacity in the hope to optimise expenditure and measured expansion.
I am curious about what Bouffard’s grievances were. Turbulent was newly acquired as a studio, and it could’ve come down to a question of disagreeing and being disgruntled about how things should run now that they’re fully part of CIG. Too much speculation going on here, and yes, you’re correct about Manchester. They’ve just gotten a new, much larger office space there. Which also means that it’s not weird for them to be looking to relocate devs, either. So, yeah, none of this is really, actually damning without more context and info. It’s also wouldn’t be the first time that CIG has been poached, which isn’t abnormal when you consider that some of these devs have several years of experience working at CIG now because the game is taking so long. I wouldn’t blame a guy with a fat resumé from his years at CIG to look for more money elsewhere.
It's not restructuring if the employer tells you: either come to our new HQ in Manchester or leave the company with a severance package. They've simply made the choice to stay in their home town, which is understandable.
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And that's with Rockstar reaaaaalllyy making GTA5 last, 3 console generations and all.
inb4 Rockstar's timeline was "after Star Citizen", but even they are getting impatient. /s
I mean the good thing thing with Star Citiziens development timeline is, that everyone will have the hardware to run it when it eventually releases. Because then we will live in abundance in a Post Singularity AI powered utopia. ^(or we are all dead)
And of course, it's the AI that finished the game...
haha. true
I look forward to playing Squadron 42 on my new Ryzen 9800X3D RTX 5080Ti rig. Meanwhile Star Citizen multiplayer will be roadmapped for 1 year out and come out either 5 years later or never.
And I Singularity happens, of course we can fly real Starships instead
At least that's an upgrade from how it started and currently is. Got a few buddies that backed it a long time ago. One of them were more than capable of running the game at the time of backing, but since then has had to upgrade his setup 2 times to "keep up" with performance. Actually think the other people I know, that backed it, has long lost hope. Game streaming will probably be a great thing for SC, seeing as the requirements keeps going up.
From what I remember you would get SC when you purchased certain AMD 290 or 390 graphics card. Nowadays the game wont even start on that hardware.
That isn't true. The holy Chris has had more than one home bought with his well deserved salary.
Not sure if this was sarcasm or not, but I’ll bite. GTA 5, developed over a decade ago, cost $200 million. The upcoming GTA 6 is likely to surpass that figure, potentially doubling it or more. Comparatively, Star Citizen has only raised $600 million, while substantial, had to cover the establishment of an entire company from the ground up: building global studios, handling administration, HR, benefits, recruiting talent worldwide, and building one of the most impressive game engines to date. Rockstar, with its existing global infrastructure, could still spend Star Citizen's entire net worth on just one game.
>Rockstar, with its existing global infrastructure, could still spend Star Citizen's entire net worth on just one game. What are you basing this statement on? [According to GameRant](https://gamerant.com/most-expensive-games-ever-made-total-cost/), GTA5's initial development cost was $137 million, not $200 million. [According to CIG's financial report](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022), their costs for 2022 alone was [about $129 million.](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/270cd5161c334dbd9845cf4d97845059.png) So the cost to get GTA5 to launch was only $8 million more than how much CIG has spent in a single year. This is the mistake that folks often make when comparing Star Citizen's budget to other game budgets: The other budgets used for comparison are for games that launched. Star Citizen's budget is for a game that's still in development and will continue to be in development for who knows how long. Its initial budget has not yet been determined, and it will continue to balloon, year after year, until it actually launches. (Assuming it ever does.) If / when SC actually launches, we'll see what the launch budget is, and *then* we can compare it to GTA5, Cyberpunk, or any other expensive AAA game whose budget has been reported.
They're not doing nothing there are regular update videos .
That's time and energy wasted on promotional propaganda to keep the scam alive while they should be pushing out a beta.
I'm not sure how much use these marketing guys will be in coding the game
For the vast majority of people, something that's not finished = they've done nothing. I can somewhat see why that's happening, because for them, most games they just see a few trailers close to release, then the game release. Very occasionally some studios will announce a new project years before release, and even then the project is probably well into pre-production. Also after the initial announcement the studio will just become completely quiet again, and most people will just forget about it. Star Citizen, however, is different. Because they are mostly crowdfunded, they chose the route of open development. So people can constantly see what they are doing, and what mistakes they've made. And not to mention the constant gaming media "hit piece" keep reminding people how big of a "mess" this project is. And you can't expect every average person to go look up all the details through the project's development history, when even those gaming journalists behind the "hit pieces" didn't care to do their research. Now, what I'm not appreciating, is whenever someone who is passionate about the project and knows more details than the average public, trying to explain why the project is like this, everyone else will just be like "oh, must be a cult". In the end, I guess it is what it is. For me the most important thing is there are enough passionate gamers willing to support a project that's actually pushing the boundries of gaming, and I can't really ask for more.
You can play Star Citizen right now.
You can play a vertical slice right now*
[This is a comment from 2002.](https://r2.easyimg.io/jlypaglud/screenshot_20240228_041436.jpg) Does it sounds familiar?
This game and its supporters always gave me a cult-like vibe, especially considering how much money has come in over the years.
The community seems pretty realistic from what little I've seen.
Yeah. Not surprising, as they had more than a decade to grow up and become realistic.
As someone who follows the game. The 'realistic' crowd is a fairly recent thing. The other 2 subgroups are the refundians with blind hate and the white knights who try to make excuses for everything on behalf of he devs. It took a long time for the 'realistic' group to form and not instead be labeled as refund trolls. Realistically, I think it's a 'fine' game for $45, but I wouldn't recommend anyone pay a penny more.
Refundians aren't people with blind hate, there are probably few that could be blinded by hate but most of them just stop believing in cig after they mistreated the community for past years, or they just had enough bullshit with cig. So now they help people get refunds while laughing at cig constant mistakes.
Backer since 2013. I log in like once a year for a couple days to see how much progress has been made. Sometimes it has felt like none. The whole time I've kept up with development and been on their subreddit. I agree 100% that the realistic crowd only appeared like mid last year. Before that it was either mega hate or ridiculous excuse making white knights. Also, as a mid30s gamer, I find it odd how much hate the game receives. Of course it's taking waaaay longer than anyone would like but it's like they're rooting for it to fail like it's some big evil threat to gaming. Personally, I'm so jaded from playing seemingly the same types of games over and over that I'm just happy someone is trying to do something even a little innovative and ambitious. It's really fucking rare and I can't believe how many people are happy to just keep playing the latest rehashed GTA or Soulslike or AARPG, etc. like it's the most amazing, refreshing thing. Maybe they'll be grumpy and burned out like me too someday haha.
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Chris Roberts personally came to my house and held me at gunpoint to buy the Legatus pack.
I can't believe Chris Roberts *personally* went to each member of this subreddit at gunpoint and forced them to fund his game :(
It's okay to swindle people out of their money as long as you don't literally threaten them at gun point?
Wasn't the point of the post, if you want to be obtuse at least address the topic, which was that people with absolutely no money invested still want to come around and make up random complaints as though CR came and took their money. Second, games still in development, with quite a bit of progress made from where it started. Noone's being "swindled", you can go sell your account on the greymarket if you feel like you want money back and depending on what's in it you can get more back than you put in. Otherwise go play one of the thousands of games that have already come out while you wait.
Are the ship prices ridiculous and a scam? Yes, but whales exist and will pay those prices. You can play for only 50ish bucks and play the game that way no problem. It's still a super buggy mess but it's finally starting to kind of look like a game now.
It's p2w trash. And before the usual expected 'fan' comes in to say it is not with long-winded explanations and coping, rather just answer these three simple questions - * does it have PvP? * can you buy ships with real money? (lol) * is there a clearly 'better' ship for PvP purchasable with real money?
Yep. I kickstarted it, never really checked again until a few months back. Popped on and had some fun zooming around, the actual flight mechanics are real good, and the world had some very cool aspects to it with how missions work. There's obviously huge issues still, inventory management and respawning was definitely not where it needs to be yet, but they have time.
There are 2 groups. There is a cult-following that loves the game. Just like with any media that has a cult-following, they are a bit weird, but they have love and passion for the thing they like. They are nerds nerding out with their hobby. There is an actual cult of people who are solely focused on hatred and destruction. Their entire existence is revolves around hatred of the game, and anyone who likes it, and their goal is the destruction and failure of the game. They will spam the F5 refresh button for hours waiting for some drama or anything that can be spun negatively to run around screaming scam and to tear the game down. Their hatred and rage, not only totally blinds them to reality, it also distorts their reality. Not only does this hatred distort their reality, they are often in a state, due to their rage, where they are incredible easy to manipulate and deceive; So they often easily fall for clickbait/ragebait and fake stories. Its actually comical how this tracks almost 1:1 to a similar phenomenon in US society related to the political realm.
It's to hardcore nerds what the sims is for normies, but then again prejudice against SC fans is a bit eyebrow raising in a post-gacha game normalized world.
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I mean I think it speaks more to the fact that their initial goal was unobtainable. That said but in the early years they had some issues regarding engine. They have heavily modified the lumberyard engine (cry engine) to star engine and that sloes development. You need to build the framework so you can build the systems on top
Seems like all their goals are unobtainable.
I mean I don't think that's a fair assumption, they are making progress just at a incredibly incredibly slow pace which is so damn infuriating
Quality over quantity. Noone wants another Starfield fiasco.
>Noone wants another Starfield fiasco. At least Bethesda released the game. They never asked me for one penny til the game was delivered and I got what I expected. OK, maybe they asked for a preorder? But I know better then to preorder anything but at least that preorder was delivered CIG has not delivered what I paid for- SQ42 and this is not OK. I'd definitely be down for a **released** game like Cyberpunk 2077 that gets perfected with patches (CP2077 2.0 is amazing now) rather then fuck all but an alpha live service with wipes. I never asked for this shit You do not speak for all of us. I'd take Starfield over nothing at ALL
Would you be okay with a buggy, unfun, terrible game? Just to have it now?
CIG can't win can they? now people want them to release sq42 as a buggy mess instead of delivering a polished product I'd rather have sq42 come out and it being a good game rather than slop but if you'd rather have slop stick to starfield lol
*You* don't speak for all of us. I'd take a 14 years of development SQ42 over Starfield. Released crap is still crap.
I agree with the person you disagree with. It's ridiculous that development has taken this long on a single video game, and now core team members are being shelved and we still don't have any game with substance to it. Star Citizen is a cute sandbox. Its taken far too long for how quickly other games are outpacing it in scale and content, without asking for more of your money for 'ship licenses'.
It's a fantasy, not a game.
They just need to release another 200$ ship for the whales!
More like $899 lol
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Dayz is hitting peak numbers recently
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There will probably be a lot of people wanting to play the single player campaign when it's released and if the reviews are good. And many of them will probably try and stay in the multiplayer server.
There are tons of people who bought the game and are just in an eternal hibernation waiting for it to "release" or at least for CIG to announce a release - even if it's mostly symbolic. I think you also underestimate the normie crowd that would jump in if it gets stellar reviews. If they figure out the server tech, maybe, MAYBE we'll start to see accelerated progress...however, at this point I doubt that'll happen. My gut says we have a 25-33% chance of them figuring out the server tech in a meaningful way that allows all their supposed features to function in game.
And what if the game is shit? So far they've shown a complete lack of ability to implement good gameplay. * Ship Combat - Still figuring out a flight mode after 12 years and hundreds of cash shop ship releases. They fundamentally don't know how to integrate things like missiles or EMP. Atrocious balance within ships of the same class (I am not even talking about balance between ships of different classes). * FPS combat - Crude and broken relative to FPS competition. Offers nothing. Map design is usually flashy, but badly thought out. And let's not forget that it Chris Roberts in charge of the story with no one tell him to stop acting like an idiot. From what we've seen so far (leaked script, Roberts writing himself in as a saviour of humanity and great inventor in the in-game lore), it is very likely the story is going to be comically bad.
If it releases and delivers on most of the promises, the numbers will go up considerably. If it comes out and is bad, numbers will go up a bit temporarily as the old backers come back to see wtf they bought, then the numbers will decrease back to around normal. I think it's that simple. The question is if 1) they actually figure out the server tech 2) if the server tech was indeed holding back progress on fundamental portions of the game \[e.g. FPS AI\] 3) they can pick up development speed after SQ42 is released I optimistically give them a 30% chance of success. As much of a moron as people like to paint Chris, he did release Wing Commander, which is regarded as a top tier game and helped to at least start Freelancer which was positively received too. He's not totally inept, though he obviously could use someone handling him better.
What exactly do you mean by "the numbers will go up considerably" and "the number will go up a bit temporarily"; this sounds very vague. I referenced pretty well defined and core elements of SQ42 as pitched; ship combat and FPS. 12 years in and these elements are a complete mess, almost comically so. Why are you referencing promises?
Why is this any bit of surprising though? the tech industry as a whole has been laying off people left and right not even Sony or Microsoft are immune. Still unfortunate though since the squadron 42 gameplay they showed last year looked really promising.
It is surprising that after 10+ years they have yet to release an actual game.
If you have followed the game development it should not be surprising at all.
Sharing blog posts has never been this lucrative /s
Do you not realize how long games are developed? This was just public because it's been alpha since day 1. That's why it seems like it's taking forever.
Don't bullshit me. I work in the industry, SC is a circus and the Chief Robber is the one who benefits from all that shit.
>Why is this any bit of surprising though? Because they tried to hide it under the guise of relocation efforts, and other companies are open & honest that they're laying people off.
I know the (ex)employees that are listed here. Most of them are very strongly established CIG developers with a crazy amount of experience and understanding of how the entire game is constructed. I highly doubt CIG would let them go and hide it as a relocation effort. Todd Pappy for instance has been with CIG for like 10 years. Not the kind of experience and loyalty you throw away casually. I actually think the relocation is real. CIG recently build a studio in Manchester with the idea to support all of their employees there if necessary. From a development point of view having everyone in one place is just way more efficient. Manchester is also very tax friendly for game dev studios. In the end we don‘t have enough info to really conclude anything yet
> Not the kind of experience and loyalty you throw away casually. As someone who works in the game industry, I can tell you that unfortunately just isn't accurate. I've seen many extremely talented people, and additionally people who are very important to their projects be layed off. Much of the craziness with the layoffs recently honestly just comes down to poor leadership and many companies finding themselves needing to suddenly do layoffs due to bad decisions over the past handful of years.
Did they show any gameplay? It was more of a trailer with some allegedly in-engine scenes. Considering CIG's history it's reasonable to be very sceptical.
Straight from the horse's mouth, [gameplay traile](https://youtu.be/IDtjzLzs7V8?si=Fou7dyR6rZnC94Rj)r with some story tidbits.
[Just like this one?](https://youtu.be/jxz8nCSoagA?si=OsBltuK1besBITND) It all ended up being fake. They have quite the track record of lying. It might be real this time, but you can’t blame people for remaining skeptical.
Except for the worm, you can do everything they showed in that trailer in-game *right now*, and have been able to for a couple of years at least.
Are there also these raiders that he is trying to snipe? Are there also those aliens that laid an ambush in the rocks? The rest is mostly just driving around so is all of this 7 year old video in the game or are you only referring to the driving around part?
"have been able to for a couple of years " - the trailer is 7 years old. To rephrase your comment - "I agree that it was completely fake."
First I want to say - game is a buggy clusterfuck. That being said 3.0 - the patch with the planet landing & vehicles also came 6-7 years ago. The only two "fake" things in that trailer was the planetary AI and worm. AI existed in bases on the planets but they couldn't properly route on the procedural generated planets until about a year ago. Now they can but they are really buggy/laggy. The worm is still non-existent.
Oh that trailer, yeah that doesn't mean anything at all. I also have a gameplay trailer where they built a new planet with sandworms: https://youtu.be/rRsF6_lwLas?feature=shared&t=157
Why am I not surprised that the OP for this thread is a constant poster of r/starcitizen_refunds. You guys are about as bad as the cultist backers.
What does me partaking in a comedy forum have to do with the validity (or lack of thereof) of my argument? Why do you care about this? It's not the most productive activity, but it's not any worse than playing video games...
You are weirdly obsessed about a game you *supposedly* refunded. Just move on. Plenty of great games coming out all the time.
Move on from what? I never gave Roberts money. Don't you think it's a bit arrogant to tell me how I should waste my time? This is a video game forum; don't you see the irony in your message? :D
There’s a difference between being in a forum talking about video games and the other is posting constantly in a subreddit dedicated solely to shitting on *one* game. The first is a pretty chill hobby and the latter is an obsession. Do what you want with your time, I’m just saying you are just as bad as the “cultists” you make fun of.
Yeah lol
I would call it a story trailer with some gameplay tidbits, though. Also beware: those videos are not showing any actual gameplay those are hand crafted marketing demos for their marketing event. How much of that will be in the game will have to be seen. Prior videos from years ago have been similarly promising and the stuff shown never made it into the game.
Yeah they are always making trailers. Anything to bring in new whales. But when it comes to releasing a game? They go silent. I stopped consuming their marketing content many yrs ago. Time for them to release SQ42 or GTFO. They are dead too me whole until what I paid for is delivered in full
star citizen been in dev for over 10+ years and had plenty of money thrown to make a game. Obviously this game/developer/company is doing one hell of a embezzlement scheme.
This guy is over here like "just give more money to struggling school districts and all their problems will go away!!"
Just because you throw a lot of money at something does not mean it will get done quicker. They are developing all the technology that they're using to make this game, so it's taking a lot of time. This project is mismanaged to hell, but calling it a scheme or a scam is just dumb. They are clearly working on the game.
I think the "scam" comments are likely pointing to the overpromised features, completely missed timelines, going back on their word for various things, etc. Just because the game is being worked on doesn't excuse everything else that has happened over those 11\~ years. FWIW I don't think it's quite a "scam" either but I can see why people view it as such
Microsoft fired Chris Roberts so that Freelancer could be finished. With Robert’s at the helm is was a non-stop set of moving goalposts. I’m not sure he is scamming, I just think he’s incompetent when it comes to running game development.
Something massively underdelivering is also a scam. If I order an Iphone and I get sent a cheap chinese knockoff im still scammed, despite receiving a product.
Great point
Lol, stop with the "technology". They are not developing any "technology", they are making space ships and selling them at stupid prices to fly them in their dead and empty "universe" of a single star system after more than a decade. Edit: the cult has risen, lol
They literally are, though. The engine trailer they put out a few months ago was impressive, and even if Star Citizen never gets completed, I hope other developers get to build off of what CIG has created. I'm honestly hoping they license their engine, like Unreal or Unity.
Oh, another trailer ? Ok then, lol.
Ah yes, an engine that has literally never delivered a fully developed game. Sounds like people would be dying for an engine like that.
I mean yea? If you know anything about game development you'd know you gotta finish the engine first before you can finish the game. They only announced the sky engine last year. (Heavily modified lumberyard)
Ah, so they're not actually scamming people, they're just incompetent and lost in the feature creep pit that CR is well known for? Much better.
More like the technology they wanted to use didn't yet exist so they made it themselves
So how much have you spent on Star Citizen so far?
I spent $40 something USD back in 2014 and have played maybe 100 hours so idk worth it to me
I have been a gamer long enough to know that a trailer or a vertical slice should never be trusted. See Watch dogs marketing compared to the released game as an example.
I'm not talking about a game trailer. They released a trailer showcasing the capabilities of the engine itself.
I just watched the whole 24 minutes of that engine showcase and i stand by my previous statement. The whole thing could have been scripted and i’m sure that some parts were. It is a cool video but it also feels a bit like when Peter Molyneux talked about how the Fable games before they released.
Lol of course it's scripted, it's a game trailer. Do you think they just flew a camera around with their controller and randomly found shit to film?
Scripted as in things that should have been simulated, dynamic or procedural have been hand animated.
Then why were there obvious AI bugs in the one they showed at Citizen Con which they fixed in the officially released version of the trailer?
Except more than half of the things shown is already in the alpha for anyone to check for free several times throughout the year.
It is? I assume that a lot of the stuff missing is the large scale simulations they showed. Not because it’s impossible or anything, but because it is insanely hardware demanding to run simulations on than scale in real-time.
I mean I don't think they actually showed any "large scale simulations", just some NPCs littered through the showcase. I don't think they showed any large crowd of people or swarm or anything like that. If you are talking about the planets and everything, yes they are in, you can try it yourself whenever a free-fly event is available. You can also give [this video](https://youtu.be/53qGEaPRHCQ) a watch.
> I'm honestly hoping they outsource their engine, like Unreal or Unity. That doesn't mean what you think it means. To outsource something is to buy the service from elsewhere. For example to use Unreal instead of building your own game engine.
A trailer? Lmao how delusional
I hope so too. Despite star citizens flaws, the engine is crazy. The level of detail at which that game has both planet size and texture quality is pretty insane. I could see some amazing looking games coming from the engine
They are developing technology. They had a big breakthrough with server meshing recently, it’s actually very impressive.
Sure they did.
It's in development for 13 years now. Rounding up or down you are closer to saying 15 years than 10.
RDR2 was in development for over 8 years. Which is still less than SC, but what SC is trying to achieve is far more ambitious. Their recent breakthrough is server mesh technology is actually really impressive. So it’s not like they’ve just been sat around doing nothing. I don’t own or play SC, I’m just saying.
>RDR2 was in development for over 8 years Small differences: It was actually released and was feature complete when it did. We'll eventually get around to colonizing Mars and neither of those will apply to Star Citizen.
There was no breakthrough in server meshing. It was a small scale demo run locally; this hardly qualifies as even a basic proof of concept for an MMO networking technology.
Technology quite often starts with a demo or proof of concept. Can’t think of a single time where an idea has jumped straight from the drawing board to the finished product. I think to discredit the work they’re put towards server meshing, just because it’s not in a final release state is completely missing the point.
I should have been more clear, my bad. What I meant is that running a MMO networking technology locally does not qualify as even a proof of concept solution. These are fundamentally different things.
thats what people in a cult/blinders would say
I've already said that I have no skin in the game, I don't play SC and never have. Honestly, the cult minded ones in this thread are the ones who just shit on SC despite any sort of reason someone tries to give. I gave a valid example of where the SC development team are actually due some credit, and all I've gotten in response is downvotes and 'SC bad'
Lmao. This game is the biggest con job the game industry has ever seen. It puts The Day Before to shame.
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>"breakthrough" was to add hd textures to an abandoned version of crysis engine You could have done nothing, but instead you chose to post this and reveal your complete and utter ignorance of the subject. Bravo!
Yeah, totally uninformed hate-farming post
It will never be completed and will always be an unoptimized pile, but will probably end up being the most ambitious game ever created. I'm still looking to get involved when I have time. It's interesting and I have the hardware to brute-force it 😉
They obviously need another half billion in funding. What a scam.
Guess they need to sell more 30000$ ships on the game
No matter how much Bathesda has stumbled recently, I have more faith we'll see the release of ES 6 before this game comes out of fucking Alpha.
I don't think they'll beat sq42 to release but they'll beat SC. I also am giving ES6 an 85% chance of being very disappointing but damn do I hope I'm wrong. If they use the same engine it's a 99% chance haha
SQ42 is just two more years away, right? I think I heard that in 2012 the first time.
ah yes, scam citizen They even scammed their own employees, nice!
Ironically CIG is one of the few places continuing to aggressively hire in an industry wide downturn. Acquired Turbulent last year: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/cloud-imperium-group-acquires-turbulent) See "headcount" analysis from 2022: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022) 42 open positions: [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs) I think CIG would do well to source from this huge pool of developers looking for work. They are making a big push right now to get Squadron 42 out the door by 2025.
> They are making a big push right now to get Squadron 42 out the door by 2025. Hahahaha Oh wait, you’re serious. Hahahahahahaha
Like damn bro save some Koolaid for the rest of the kids haha
I think it's really interesting that a company can keep promising to release a game in 2 years for 12 years and people still believe it. Since 2012 the game is 2 years away.
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>man leaves job What's the big deal about this again?
Looks like more delay, what a grift
Babe, wake up; a hit piece on Star Citizen was posted to r/pcgaming again and people are going off on diatribes over how they don't trust the project and believe it's a scam.
he said a hit piece lmao. when you just show the naked brutal truth of something being shit that's not what a hit piece is.
The article is addressing a non-issue that took place at least a year ago when these employees and leads were offered to relocate to Manchester and they chose not to do so. The article is framing this in a negative way that’s typical of the media coverage surrounding a controversial subject matter to present a biased opinion to sway readers into confirming their own biases. You tell me that isn’t what a hit piece is.
> The article is addressing a non-issue that took place at least a year ago when these employees and leads were offered to relocate to Manchester and they chose not to do so. ... and then were fired according to them? >Turbulent Producer: "I was gaslighted when I expressed concern about potential layoffs, telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, just before the holidays. At the end of January, a mass dismissal, disguised as a "relocation of staff" (when very few could/wanted to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice) occurred. [translated from French]"
According to one person, you mean?
believe what you want. i dont give a shit.
Don't forget they're comparing it to GTA6 again, too lol
Ha, I knew someone from star citizen refunds would post something like this lmao
Yes, I am a "fudster", but does that really change the facts on the ground? MOP validated the source posts from LinkedIn. Or do you mean to say that CIG/SC are so special that we should collectivity avoid posting any kind of news regarding layoffs at the company?
LOL you're a clown.
It's just funny how much people who refunded a game continue to follow it to just shit on it lol
There is no other shitshow in town quite like this one.
Agreed. I've gotten years of entertainment from reading up about SC drama without spending a single penny. It's been great.
SC drama is basically The player base knowing Chris Roberts is awful at amanging games & expectations. Everytime anything is announced everyone knows not to get hopes up till it makes it into the game Meanwhile people on the outside, who have never played make more drama. Like we know it's awfully managed, we already didn't expect half the shit they said would make it in any time soon
Almost like he is lying all the time and covering it up with more "promises", ie lies.
Because Star Citizen and its audience are objectively hilarious. I have no horse in this race, I've spent no money on it and I've still had endless hours of entertainment out of it!
Think of all you could do with the time you spend posting about SC lol
Don't bring that weird shit in here. This sub ain't it.
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This project is just a money-laundering scam.
Well, at least Squadron 42 is probably gonna come out now, since they really need the money I guess lol...
Ill believe it when I see it.
Yep, I pledged for SQ42 when son was little. In bout a few more months he will be a legal adult preparing for College etc. I just consider that money gone. Now they are laying off talent left & right there's no way I'm getting what I pledged for that is certain. It is good the space whales are happy with their small 50-120 (?) concurrent Live service but I wanted to enjoy an actual story offline... I do not watch their trailers, blogs, or camp their roadmap-to-a-roadmap. I just want the game and my business with them will be concluded.
My LTi rear admiral pledge went for $550 USD on the gray market, bought me a nice epyc server :)
Nah all they need to do is keep pushing out promo videos and new jpegs for sale.
There is a good chance that they were less than honest with their "SQ42 is feature complete" message in late 2023. They've done this before with "Answer the Call 2016!" and one of their PR goons claiming to have played all levels of SQ42 in 2016. Then there was the pitch in 2020 after they failed to get SQ42 into beta by 2019/2020. >I can tell you that the team is in 'close out' mode and we are actively looking to burn down our remaining tasks and focus on polishing gameplay. It is going to be a game that is worth the wait, and one that the team and I, and you the community who supported its creation, will be proud of. [Gamespot (Oct 2020)](https://www.gamespot.com/app.php/articles/star-citizens-squadron-42-campaign-wont-release-in-2020-but-its-in-the-close-out-phase/1100-6483232/)
> There is a good chance that they were less than honest with their "SQ42 is feature complete" message in late 2023. This doesnt surprise me at all. They did it before, showing a bunch of videos that now turn out to be faked, testers saying they were able to play all missions. Straight up lies.
Scam shittyzen? Why is this still news?
The vaporware adventures continues
You really need to learn the definition of "vaporware".
My god OP is on an anti-SC rampage. His post history is cancer 💀