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Ah, the annual whale fracking operation is in full effect.
The what now? 😆
I'm not a native speaker so some jokes / analogies just totally fly over my head
Star Citizen is a game that's been in development forever, all while attracting money in forms of donations and sales of in-game ships. A single-player game by the same devs, Squadron 42, is a somewhat similar story, except that people can't even play it yet (as far as I remember).
A whale is a tern that often means someone/something that brings you the substantial part of your revenue, so in case of the games above, whales would be the players that spend most money on the in-game ships or donations to support development.
The "whale fracking operation" in this context probably means that the entire trailer is a yet another bait for the community to go crazy and bring in the money so that the devs don't starve and finally deliver finished products.
The punchline is, however, that it's likely not gonna happen anyway lmao
Ahh doi, I understood the terms separately but for some reason "whale fracking" just made my brain go "whaaaaa". Thanks for the patience 😅
Always remember: SQ42 is only 2 Years away (since 2016)
Original release date was actually announced as 2014 originally (during the 2012 Kickstarter), iirc.
Always. Two. Years. :)
Early Access when?
I admit, they fooled me into contributing to the Kickstarter. But at this point, anyone who has anything positive to say about this project is a paid shill (paid for by us!) or heavily in denial thanks to sunk cost fallacy. They say you can "play" it now, but it's still not a game, it's a tech demo and sandbox.
I'm perfectly happy to write this off as a failed Kickstarter, it happens from time to time. But when they keep trying to con money out of new suckers, it really pisses me off. Enough is enough. Assholes.
It’s still the best spaceship sim I’ve ever played. It does a ton of things no other space game does. Just because you don’t enjoy it or you completely clueless of the current state of the game doesn’t change the fact a lot of people enjoy the game.
I didn't pay for a spaceship sim. I paid for the next Wing Commander and Freelancer game. Whether I enjoy it or not, the product they're making isn't the product they sold me. Perhaps ~~wasting your money~~ buying the "game" now gives you a better chance of receiving the product you think you're paying for, but I wouldn't bet on it. They've already proven themselves to anyone paying the slightest attention.
If you bought an idea of a game through kickstarter and it missed your expectations that’s totally on you. I waited till there was an actual game, reviewed it, bought it and enjoyed it since it was what I expected. Just sounds like you had a normal kickstarter experience.
Wouldn't it just be perfect irony if they run completely out of money before managing to release something/anything? Though with how many people put in money over and over even though progress over the years has been slow to say the least I guess the more likely outcome is nuclear holocaust putting a damper on the release schedule.
I still remember being in college and hearing people in the lab next to me excitedly proclaim that they were able to pay $100 for a rare ship that has X Y Z features including handling, top speed, and fashionable interiors.
They weren't able to use the ship yet, but oh man was it a great investment for when they'd one day be able to ride them.
So fucking bizarre. But, if you have people out there thinking like my then peers, you're guaranteed to have a long term stream of income based on loose promises alone.
They lost me like exactly after I put in money and started the insurance idea. I regret heavily putting money directly to the main site instead of kickstarter, at least I might have chance to get a refund or something since the pitch content changed.
Haven't they made close to a billion dollars when counting the Kickstarter, starter packs sold via the website, and the "microtransactions" for things like ships (which are more macro than micro with the prices often being way over 100€)? I doubt they'll run out of money any time soon, although hookers and blow definitely aren't free
I was expecting 25 minutes of gameplay. I skimmed the video, but it looks like around 5-8 minutes of cut-up gameplay, maybe another 8-10 minutes of cutscenes, and the rest looks like the "making of". I did not see any evidence of a product that is anywhere near completion.
It's more gameplay than they've shown in the past decade, they've been very tight lipped with anything to date
10 years of development for this part of SC, correct? If so, that's very little to show for it.
No, 10 years since the announcement of their intent to build the game. Then they had to build the company, the engine, and they are building 2 games at once (SQ42 and StarCitizen).
Developing a AAA single player game + an MMO at the same time, with the components working across the 2, and now being at the point where they are feature complete on SQ42, is pretty impressive.
It’s going to get ugly when the chickens come home to roost on this one. They are slowly marching towards $1 billion. They are over $600mill already. And people still donate. It’s baffling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop
Currently Star Citizen is at the #1 spot for the most money spent on a video game's development on this list. And that's including adjustment for inflation.
I still kind of doubt it’s going anywhere fast. Because a game with this scope has already signed up for some pretty massive post-launch support. Let’s be generous and say it takes them another 2-3 years to develop this single player and another 5-6 to finish star citizen. That’s very generous.
They started pre-production in 2010. So it’s already been 13 years of development with near unlimited money on SC. So again, add 5 years till a mainstream launch and another 3-5 years of active support and you’ll be well over two decades deep in a single games development. That’s half of someone’s career to develop one game. Now we add another game on top of this.
The other game is admittedly much easier to develop but still it will take massive amounts of support. If Bethesda can’t do it well, why does anyone think this dev can and in such good time? I have my doubts.
They didn't start pre-production in 2010, that's when they started building the Kickstarter video, unless you're counting the broad story strokes in CR's head as "pre-production", in which case Starfield was in pre-production for 25+ years. :P
Development on SQ42 started in 2013, and 10 years to not only build a game, but the engine tech and the studios as well, is not at all crazy given the game. Major games like RDR2 and GTAV take 8+ years, and they are working with already-established teams, and not doing anything crazy tech-wise.
And yes, MMOs have extremely long lives, both pre- and post-release. Eve is over 20 now. WoW is who knows how old. Maple Story devs have literally had kids and watched them go off to college.
I won’t tell people what to do with their money, but it’s clear people have bought in to both of these games existing. And if it were my money, I’d want to believe in these devs. But for the rest of us, these games need to materialize as functional and fully featured releases for us to care.
And I don’t think the timeline is crazy so far with their development. What’s wild to me is thinking that a newly founded studio, even a well funded one, can knock out a competent single player and MMO with these scopes. It’s slim chances from an outsiders perspective.
Take a look at what mature and well funded studios are putting out in 2023. The likes of Starfield are actually some of the better cases. I know the incentives are different, but still. So I’m expecting a lot of tooling to need to be done for both these games to exist and exist at an enjoyable playability by the end of the 20s.
Anyways, im not trying to kill enthusiasm for people who enjoy interest in the project but to everyone outside of that, this isn’t reassuring. All large scope games should be considered to be nonexistent until they hit reviewers hands at this point.
You are basically throwing out the existence of bad AAA games to discredit the idea that people can pull off AAA games. Here's a secret; in software development, money and experience cannot overcome bad management. Lots of publisher-driven games release as crap because the publishers have them pegged to a certain financial quarter they want to show a revenue pull in, irregardless of where the game is at.
But for the rest of us, these games need to materialize as functional and fully featured releases for us to care.
I think it's fair to hold early access games with skepticism, but plenty of people do play early access games (and SC).
But also, CitCon is first and foremost an event for current players, not a marketing one for new players. It's a bunch of dev panels on nitty-gritty details of things like UI design, flight model physics changes, npc AI design, backend economy simulations, sound and lighting, etc. The SQ42 video was them throwing current players a live-view bone about the state of SQ42 development, rather than just the usual Jira-derived sprint status reports and development milestone updates that we get every 2 weeks.
All large scope games should be considered to be nonexistent until they hit reviewers hands at this point.
This is just cynicism about publisher-driven game-dev. It may be justified for those, but SC is not one of those, it's quite literally an "indie" (publisher-independent) game. Plenty of independent game developers create "large-scope" games (Grim Dawn, Kenshi, Rimworld, Project Zomboid, etc) that have scope and depth (e.g. in number and complexity of mechanics) comparable to what AAA games do.
If people had not been actually playing SC (since what, 2016 for PU release iirc?) then I'd understand the idea of its potential "non-existence", but it's hard for me to take that stance seriously when it's sitting on my harddrive right now.
Last night I did 2 'bunker missions' (infiltrate facility, kill bad guys, loot), and salvaged 3 derelict ships. Night before that I was doing bounties on NPCs and running bomber support for some guys who had gotten pinned down by another group of players at a planet-side wreck site (Ghost Hollow). I don't do mining, or cargo hauling, or drug running, or ship or ground pvp, or player-rescue medical missions, or racing, or investigations, but those are also in there.
I swear sometimes it's like the people who talk about SC 'not releasing' seem to have no clue about what has literally already been released.
A lot of people tend to forget, comparing SC's timeline of development to other AAA games doesn't work when those games are pushed out early, rushed to the finish line by publishers who don't care about polish, only sales numbers, and are fine with compromise at every level.
Chris Roberts doesn't do compromise. Every system in SC is created for hyper realism, down to working hydraulics and gears for the moving parts of ships. He wants everything to be perfect, and he'll call it done when he's happy with it.
And like you said, it's technically playable right now. I've never before been part of an alpha development, able to make posts about bugs that actually get read, commented on, and fixed by the dev team. Most game "betas" are just a 3 day early-access where nothing will actually change.
The game is hyped up so much because we see the potential, enjoy playing what we can, and love having a say in it's development.
That's easy when you consider that there hasn't been basically any sort information about S42 for a long time now. Still doesn't really prove anything about a potentially finished product.
I watched the whole video trying to keep an open mind, but what they showed off just looks so generic. Quick time events, very basic looking fps mechanics, flight looks like War Thunder arcade battles. At least the gfx and animations looked pretty cool, although imo this is the least important factor of a good video game. Will probably be a skip for me, if it ever releases that is.
Is the RPS writer a Star Citizen whale? Only Star Citizen victims fall for this shit.
I mean, most of the article is them clowning on how it will never be released.
Ha ha ha!
I will believe it when I see it....
I mean, if they pull it off it will be great, but until it's in our hands, there are no expectations.
Backed the game, excited to see it when it comes out!
When it comes out.
Until then, zero expectations of quality, or timelieness.
I watched the video and what they showed certainly looks impressive. The level of detail in actions, variety of gameplay, immersive first person perspective, and visual details all look good. I hope the game looks and plays as good as what's shown and actually releases sometime soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Even if you ignore all the baggage the game has, gameplay trailers to games still in development are lies more often than not. I stopped following the development like 8 years ago, now it's off my radar until it actually releases.
I wouldn't put too much stock in pre-release gameplay videos. Remember what the pre-release hype videos for Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky looked like, and what the end results actually looked like?
Backed the kickstarter, still excited. Even in its current state it's one of the more interesting games I've ever played. There's probably a reason no one else has tried to make star citizen before. If SQ42 ever launches, hopefully in a decent state, assets will start getting moved to the multiplayer side of things.
Right after headlines of SC losing the faith of the community. lol
Also, Starfield has already launched. Not that I would even compare the two titles but Squadron 42 has still to prove its actual existence.
It's been 11 long years since the unveiling of Squadron 42, Star Citizen's singleplayer campaign
It’s basically a small portion of Star Citizen
"As we move into the polishing phase...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever
On May 24, 2011, Gearbox announced that Duke Nukem Forever had "gone gold" after 15 years.[16] It holds the Guinness world record for the longest development for a video game, at 14 years and 44 days,[17] though this period was exceeded in 2022 by Beyond Good and Evil 2.[18]
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-protracted-game-development/
I assume that the reason that the Guiness Book of World Records doesn't accept Beyond Good and Evil 2 is that they probably require an actual release.
Duke Nukem Forever was released on June 14, 2011, and received mostly unfavorable reviews, with criticism for its graphics, dated humor and story, simplistic mechanics, and unpolished performance and design. It did not meet sales expectations but was deemed profitable by Take-Two Interactive, the owner of 2K Games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil_2
Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been referred to as vaporware by industry figures such as Jason Schreier due to its lengthy development and lack of a release date.[3] In 2022, Beyond Good and Evil 2 broke the record held by Duke Nukem Forever (2011) for the longest development of a AAA video game, at more than 15 years. In 2023, the creative director, Emile Morel, died suddenly at age 40.
But there is a big difference to all those games: Star Citizen (and therefore Squadron 42) is backed and payed by customers already.
And in SC's case, in their hands.
I've been playing it with my wife for years, so it rankles me when people show up with the "will it ever release!?" takes. Go play it and see for yourself; they have free-fly events every quarter, so you don't even have to buy anything.
"Will Eve Online ever release? They haven't shown us any progress on Walk In Stations in years!" /s
Eve is a feature-rich and (most importantly) complete game they add things to. It’s not the same thing.