With investors, you have time tables, and the threat of being sued into oblivion. With crowd sourcing no such constraints mean anything, you simply beg for more money and extend the time line. The other pathway is people build a game, and finance the game themselves.
The real approach needed is to build a franchise which can sustain itself, not narrowly look at games, or movies, but form a group with the same project, able to promote each others project. Without the fear of lawyers coming after you on fan projects.
If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.
@Launcher111 Talking about Star Citizen, there is a reason why new backers are joining by ten thousands every quarter: because results are tangible. It is incredible how an handful of guys pretend there is no results while a million plus backers do support the game more every year. Despite 10's of click-bait articles, prophecies of doom (proven false every single year) and crowdfunding model that many never touch, whatever the project.
Current Alpha (with bugs, server crash and not all gameplay implemented) do have more packed features than triple-A made by publishers. The robbery since decades is from publishers and their copy/paste sequel.
Weird twist and astonishing turnabout again yesterday in this saga that keeps on giving; a real storm!
After stating on March 26th via his official Twitter that the studio was closing:
… and a few days after Xsolla, their payment-processing solution, while getting swamped in refund requests, told us:
Jeromy had the nerve to send an email to all backers and Kickstarter page saying, in essence, that they were still forging ahead on the path of making the game, many developers now working voluntarily on the game:
Today, the Washington State's Attorney General in person, along with Rep. Derek Kilmer, hosting a Facebook Live event, confirmed that suspicious crowdfunding campaigns have been prosecuted by the State in the past, and will be investigated and appropriate actions will be taken in the future:
As of today, the AG office has received over 240 consumer complaints in the last 2 weeks, the most ever in such a short period of time, and currently the #1 consumer matter opened with their office:
During the Facebook Live, the AG reminded us that any and all consumer, even if they weren't personally impacted by a given suspected scam or case, can file a consumer complaint against the offending party to further the case. If you would like to assist us in mnaking us this is getting investigated, please file a complaint:
Soulbound Studios 11811 NE 1st St Ste B202 Bellevue, WA 98005-3033 (425) 295-2530 contact@SoulboundStudios.com
The AGO has also confirmed to us that any non-US citizen can still file a complaint as Soulbound Studios is a Washington-state based business; to do so, you can use your country's consulate in the USA or WA state as your address.
For more info, help, or a place to vent visit the official CoE Class Action Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PaVjjmM
Star citizen is a con job with all due respect. They set a timetable of 2 years, has it been 5 or 6 years? Money isn't the problem, they keep talking about building a game that should have been completed 3 years ago. To put things in perspective they could have paid over 560 developers half a million dollars each over 5 years to complete the game. That budget is roughly the same amount as a star wars movie.
I will ask you this question… how much more development time do they need? 2 or 3 years. 4 or 5 more years? How much more money do they need to finish the game?
If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.
Star citizen is a con job with all due respect. They set a timetable of 2 years, has it been 5 or 6 years? Money isn't the problem, they keep talking about building a game that should have been completed 3 years ago.
I will ask you this question… how much more development time do they need? 2 or 3 years. 4 or 5 more years? How much more money do they need to finish the game?
I'll say this. Large scale games have a lot of overhead and even at that need a lot of people in general. To have a team of really good engineers you are talking about 100K+ in salary, not including benefits, employee tax, etc. So 20 engineers for 1 year is already about 2 Million bucks. Likely need more than 20 artists as well, but 20 artists about 2 Million as well. You can't make a huge AAA hit in 2 years, so that was just a lie. So it is really only a con-job in the sense that they said 2 years. Money isn't magically going to build a game either. Likely star citizen expanded past their core? No familiar with their updates, but people reach too far instead of getting an alpha build, they likely try to build 100 features at once.
@Launcher111 Why talking about respect when clearly you have no clue about what you are talking about. Gamedev means something. It imply that somehow you are familiar with basics understanding of game development and finance.
The proven con are those multi-billions $ per year publishers releasing copy-paste of same games over decades.
Meanwhile CIG do deliver an Alpha MMO and build a triple-A solo (SQ42) with beta in sight.
2014 was an estimated date for a product that was basically a refresh version of Wing Commander. Then it switched to two triple-A mid-20014, validated and supported since then by more new backers…. but some individual, right here in a gamedev dedicated site ask why it can't be done in 2 or 3 years starting from scratch.
Clearly those leaving such comments are not the ones I would hire to drive a project, unless they are highly talented as artist or code writers! With all my respect as well
Meanwhile, if you WON'T STAND for that kind of shenanighans, how it hurts the indie gamedev market and crowdfunding, there are means to get our voices heard through the Washington State Attorney General, whom has already successfully prosecuted one such crowdfunding scam.
Here is my problem with the star citizen defense, they started it with a polished video of the ships and all the rest. They had the 3d models, the core concept was nailed down in the first presentation 6 years ago. It was a well thought out presentation explaining the MMO, they sold insurance on ships already designed, given stats, they even had the ships named.
If the goal is to make an advanced version of eve… they failed, my understanding is the game continues to crash, you wont be keeping progress from playing. No one can answer when will the game finally launch? They can add patches and extras into the game, but at some point the game needs to begin.
Of course the major game companies make junk and merely switch the names and avatars. I have my own thread on how they are hacks destroying franchises.
This will likely be in the top 3 most expensive video game ever built. With the time and money spent it better be flawless…
If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.
No one can answer when will the game finally launch?
Well, a quick google shows that Star Citizen is owned by a game designer and a film/game executive. Any companies not owned by software engineers seem to have issues. Remember Curt Shilling (baseball player) and his company 38 studios. You need disciplined people that understand software. Games are software.
