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Guru3D.com » News » Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ?

Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ?

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 10/02/2015 08:46 AM | source: | 80 comment(s)
Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ?

The Escapist has posted an article with insider information from nine former employees of Star Citizen, alleging a hostile work environment, the company has burned through $82 Million of their $90 Million in crowdfunded revenue.

According to several former employees and industry veterans, the reason Star Citizen is so popular is because it's never been done. And, they continue, the reason it has never been done is because it can't be done - at least, not with $90 million. 

"$90 million for what he's pitching, even with a competent leadership, you couldn't do," CS1 wrote. "The thing you have to remember about Chris Roberts is that, before this, he hadn't made a game in 12 years. He has no concept of what can and can't be done today with that amount of money, or for a game like this. Chris Roberts hadn't made a game in 12 years, and he was actively ignoring the input of people who have been in and a part of the industry that entire time." 

To this, Roberts says: "How do you or they know this? Which employees said this and what makes them qualified to make that judgement? I know it's what Derek Smart loves to say but he couldn't make a good game with $200m so I don't think his opinion matters. Outside of that, no employee beyond me and a few other key people who are leading Star Citizen would have the appropriate information and overview to make any judgement about the cost of the total project. Secondly, the company uses additional sources of funding such as tax incentives, marketing and product partnerships, but we do not discuss these issues in public for obvious reasons. We always keep a healthy cash reserve and operate our business prudently based on the incoming revenue. It should tell you something that we are actually increasing our global headcount not decreasing it." 

Over concerns that he is not responding to advice from workers, Roberts writes "I have a very strong vision for Star Citizen, which is why I believe we have been backed to the level we have. I have no doubt what we can achieve. Now that most of the base technology is in place we will be able to get with the Large World and MultiCrew milestone a game experience that will allow you to seamlessly go from foot, to boarding a fully realized spaceship with your friends, take off, fly thousands or millions of km in space, exit your ship in EVA and explore derelict space stations or wrecks, engage in FPS combat, return to your ship, engage in space combat and return to your home base to share the tales of your adventures with your other friends. All with no leading screens, all at AAA first person fidelity that you can't even get on a next gen console. This is the core of the Squadron 42 and Star Citizen experience that we will continue to iterate on and add content to, but even the first release will be more "game" than most commercially released space games. In terms of not listening to the advice of people that have worked in the industry that is not true. I have a very strong executive management and design team with huge experience in AAA titles that all contribute to the decision making of the company. I listen to everyone - from our top level all the way through to our QA testers and community giving feedback on gameplay and features. I care and want to build the best game possible. Now that doesn't mean I agree with everyone's opinions and feedback as a project director I owe it to the community to stay true to my vision and pick the things that I think will make the game better which can occasionally lead to people feeling disgruntled, which I suspect is the root of this "concern"." 

The popular consensus among most of the people who reached out is that Chris Roberts is not intentionally a con man. "He doesn't set out in the morning to screw anybody over. He's just incredibly arrogant," CS2 stated.


Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ? Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ? Star Citizen Employees Speak Out on Project Woes - Crash and Burn ?




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RadioActiveLobster
Member



Posts: 74
Joined: 2008-03-11

#5167380 Posted on: 10/02/2015 04:50 PM
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

Read that.

fry178
Senior Member



Posts: 1845
Joined: 2012-04-30

#5167386 Posted on: 10/02/2015 05:18 PM
@CDJay
the capability of raising money (for a project) has nothing to do with the ability of running a company.
i doubt this game will be what it promised. glad i didnt spend any money.

Fox2232
Senior Member



Posts: 11809
Joined: 2012-07-20

#5167400 Posted on: 10/02/2015 06:00 PM
Personally, I felt the whole FPS part of the game (on-foot) completely unnecessary. It's cool, but it's not why people were initially interested in the game. If they never got into that they probably would be in a much more stable condition.

What they are doing is building StarTrek Online with magnitude higher complexity. With Enough Action to rival battles in Conflict Freespace (or today's elite dangerous). To have actual crew on ship.
This thing has potential to put end to EVE.

While I did not gave single skill point towards ground missions in StarTrek (till they forced it), it was good enough addition to story telling.

Here it will be great for social interaction. Yes, that can be module made later on, but having human crew controlling ship, running from console to console or fixing stuff. There it is kind of necessity for given players.

Veteran
Senior Member



Posts: 12103
Joined: 2009-01-16

#5167413 Posted on: 10/02/2015 06:35 PM
LOL glad i got my refund from the Kickstarter couple years ago.
My instinct was telling me something about this game back then as ive voiced many times in the SC thread.
They are charging for torpedo bays now with SC, its desperate measures tbh.
I think the game will be completed but it wont be what people are expecting it tbh.

Ive seen there flight model "Point and fire for 5 seconds, wait for explosion, rinse and repeat"....i prefer to dogfight, paying lots of money for that BS 1991 style of gameplay no thank you SC!

Elite Dangerous is coming along slowly but it is coming along and has been said will be developed on for the next 10 years. David Braben is not Bull****ter either, gamers from the 80s and mid 90s will know what im talking about.

So all the money is gone hey.....


Loobyluggs
Senior Member



Posts: 4767
Joined: 2008-09-07

#5167419 Posted on: 10/02/2015 06:53 PM
Oh, and anyone bleating on about Chris Roberts hiring his unqualified wife clearly needs their head examined. SHE HAS RAISED 90 MILLION DOLLARS IN THE WORLDS LARGEST CROWD FUNDING CAMPAIGN EVER. Hardly dropped the ball, eh? It's ironic that she's getting the negativity she is entirely as a result of wildly overperforming. LoL

CDJay

90 million was not crowd-funded - that was people buying in-game items. Stop me if I'm wrong, but that money doesn't get returned, only the crowd-funded money does - the rest they can do what they want with it. And, if they game had promise - they would not need to crowd fund to begin with, they would just need to go to a bank and ask for a loan...or go to a publisher and get the money from them...or a tonne of other options besides mitigating risk.

The reason this didn't happen is so fracking obvious it stuns me that you cannot see it.

He did go to a bank. They said no. So did all the other banks, and the publishers. They all wanted to have a solid, well-thought out and logical business plan with game development standard project management documentation. They wanted to have something which showed clearly what the return on investment was and when.

He didn't have any of this - but after a conversation with Peter Molyneux down the pub in Guilford....

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