Chris Roberts Back in your wallet - STAR CITIZEN

[Merusk]

This. ~300 employees means that by a very rough rule of thumb, their burn rate is about 3-4M per month (you can estimate by guessing what the average salary is - I've assumed 85k - and then doubling that to account for other overheads like licences, equipment, offices, benefits and so on). Even $900 digital spaceships don't keep the lights on for very long at that rate.

85K average salary seems very generous.  I'm sure they are blowing through millions of dollars a month though.

Yeah, it is but it also includes the Executives.

Executive pay is also why you keep it hush-hush that your wife and brother in law are executives. Suddenly those high 5 and 6-figure salaries look a lot more suspicious.

If a CEO pays himself 250k a year for an undelivered product, you get suspicious. If it's 175 for him and 125 for the "business development" lead it's a lot less eyebrow raising. Even if all that money is going into the same bank account.

[IainC]

This. ~300 employees means that by a very rough rule of thumb, their burn rate is about 3-4M per month (you can estimate by guessing what the average salary is - I've assumed 85k - and then doubling that to account for other overheads like licences, equipment, offices, benefits and so on). Even $900 digital spaceships don't keep the lights on for very long at that rate.

85K average salary seems very generous.  I'm sure they are blowing through millions of dollars a month though.

AAA programmers and artists at a regular/senior level are probably making more than that. Designers who aren't leads, most QA and non-dev staff who aren't senior management are probably on less. The leads in all departments, directors and senior management are going to be on more than that unless Roberts has staffed up exclusively with true believers who will take a paycut to work on the game of their dreams.

Overall I'd say that 85k is realistic. Maybe 70% of the company is making less than that (and probably half those people are making a lot less) but the top end will bring the average up sharply.

[Sir T]

So its very possible that this thing is burning down simply because Roberts is an arrogant prick.

[tazelbain]

Well, if you were in his position wouldn't you rather blame failure on other people for "harassing" you or because you are a prick than admit it was built on bullshit promises.

[Fabricated]

As retarded as the videogame industry is, if their burn rate wasn't so high I wouldn't have been surprised to see them make some deal with a publisher to continue financing development since the first $90M was covered by suckers.

[HaemishM]

Didn't they also spend millions on some fancy rotoscoping set up? Whatever it was, 4 studios in multiple countries is just a stupid waste of money, simply on the administrative costs alone. For an indie that is crowdfunded, you might as well have filmed a Youtube video of you burning hundreds.

Ineptitude mixed with megalomania and arrogance is expensive.

[jakonovski]

Break out the popcorn, Serek made a new blog post!

http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/

[Lucas]

Hmm, nice tidbit of info with that S42 "leak"; apparently, beside Gary Oldman, it will feature virtual spaceships 

[Tannhauser]

First DS says:

"A lot has been written about the hype machine, the media’s culpability in all of this, as well as ignorance of the signs that this project was in trouble and destined to fail. But I’m not going to dwell on that because I will leave that up to the gaming industry and gamers to point the finger and assign blame."

Then the very next sentence,

"Chris Roberts killed this project when he changed from the original “vision 1.0” to the current “vision 2.0” they embarked on."

 

[Sophismata]

storify.com/QHStone/derek-smart-invents-feud-with-randi-harper

This all stems from some GamerGate shit or something semi-related to the Star Citizen crap (don't really follow social media shitstorms and don't care all that much). I just wanted to say, I didn't realise how much of a loser DS is. Now I understand why the "Serek Dmart" filter is in place.

[Lucas]

Typical DS  

Anyway, the only relevant stuff is the $20K cappuccino machine. Must be good.

[koro]

That rate also assumes that they aren't doing anything crazy with their money like fitting out $2M custom buses, paying expensive lawyers to yell at DMart or setting up Hollywood-quality soundstages in the CEO's mansion.

Didn't they set up some massively expensive mocap studio?

[IainC]

That rate also assumes that they aren't doing anything crazy with their money like fitting out $2M custom buses, paying expensive lawyers to yell at DMart or setting up Hollywood-quality soundstages in the CEO's mansion.

Didn't they set up some massively expensive mocap studio?

Yes, and they appear to be doing the second one too (the bus was a thing that Mark Kern spent money on for Firefall).

[tmp]

(the bus was a thing that Mark Kern spent money on for Firefall).

I'm a little surprised Mark Kern isn't part of SC team yet, tbh. If these reports are true he'd fit right in, management style and all

[Trippy]

There can only be one Chief Screamer.

[Teleku]

Maybe he could be VP of Scamming then?

[Cyrrex]

Better to be President of Scamming.

[Fabricated]

storify.com/QHStone/derek-smart-invents-feud-with-randi-harper

This all stems from some GamerGate shit or something semi-related to the Star Citizen crap (don't really follow social media shitstorms and don't care all that much). I just wanted to say, I didn't realise how much of a loser DS is. Now I understand why the "Serek Dmart" filter is in place.

To be fair this is one of those win-win things since Harper is a sack of shit too.

[Tebonas]

Are you hoping the - prevents his automatic scripts that scour the internet from finding us or are we hoping for the additional fun when he does?   

[Teleku]

I thought further back up the thread, Schild posted a screenshot showing he already found us and this thread....

[UnSub]

As retarded as the videogame industry is, if their burn rate wasn't so high I wouldn't have been surprised to see them make some deal with a publisher to continue financing development since the first $90M was covered by suckers.

Alternatively, Roberts is so convinced in his outcomes that going to a publisher doesn't look like an option. Or refuses to hand over the level of control a publisher would want.

And if they do go down that path... the absolute screaming they'll need to deal with from the fans who backed them as 'independent' will be immense. Lots of requests for refunds that they'll have to deny.

[IainC]

As retarded as the videogame industry is, if their burn rate wasn't so high I wouldn't have been surprised to see them make some deal with a publisher to continue financing development since the first $90M was covered by suckers.

Alternatively, Roberts is so convinced in his outcomes that going to a publisher doesn't look like an option. Or refuses to hand over the level of control a publisher would want.

And if they do go down that path... the absolute screaming they'll need to deal with from the fans who backed them as 'independent' will be immense. Lots of requests for refunds that they'll have to deny.

Yes, once a publisher is involved they are going to do all kinds of terrible stuff like insist on a scope document, nail down what the MVP features are, set milestones and release dates etc. All of which gets in the way of the core business of selling $900 spaceships that only exist as concept art.

[jakonovski]

Also as Dmart said in a moment of lucidity, SC includes the baggage of 90 million worth of pre-paid content. Unless it's through a bankruptcy fire sale, I don't think a publisher can extract the game without getting those obligations along for the ride.

[Trippy]

I thought further back up the thread, Schild posted a screenshot showing he already found us and this thread....

Yes he has. Doesn't mean we need to keep triggering his Google Alerts, though.

[Samprimary]

it probably doesn't matter and he'll be checking this thread compulsively off and on for months

[Falconeer]

I don't think so. He would be posting if he were. Unless he's banned, in that case Schild should expect to be sued anytime soon.

[Teleku]

So its very possible that this thing is burning down simply because Roberts is an arrogant prick.

In all honesty, there is no reason they cannot make a game that does 90% of the core features they advertised, as well as some of the more crazy nitty gritty systems, for $90 Million.  I mean, as Falconeer posted above, you can make an engine that does all that core shit for almost no money.  Hell, battlefield 1942 did it forever ago.  Your basically just taking those mechanics and expanding them out to a huge, semi-persistent world.  That last part is the biggest challenge, but totally doable with modern tech.

This whole thing is falling apart specifically because of incompetence and mismanagement.  Nothing they originally promised is really that hard to do, especially with an AAA budget.

[patience]

But when was the last time a AAA project came out within 3 years without being buggy nonsense like Assassin's Creed IV. CiG need another 1-2 years to polish everything according to the market's normal expectations of not too buggy quality.


If this project does fail I hope Nintendo picks it up. They could salvage a project like this and the drama would be beyond insane.

[Teleku]

.........what?

Barring the fact Nintendo has sort of fucked up everything video game related for many years now...... this type of game is so far outside of the type of thing Nintendo does, that very statement seems crazy town to me.  May as well say Zynga could possibly pick this up and salvage the game.

Like, honestly not trying to be a dick at all, but if this game was an ink blot, and you asked me to tell you the opposite thing that came to mind when I saw it, Nintendo would probably be the first thing I said.

[Sir T]

Well advantages of picking this up would be you would have a dev studio in place with (presumably) no debt to absorb. The disadvantage would be that the projected profit margins would be small. You have have a bunch of rabid idiots who have already bought the game and would scream blue murder if forced to "pay for it again." That means the expected cashflow from the full product would be lower. They would also have to collate the various art assets that Roberts tossed away because he was acting like a Genius and see if there is anything usable in there to cut costs.

Plus they would have to shove Roberts in a playpen away from a computer as he would be declaring everything released as totally awful, which would have the rabid fanbois up in arms and again depress the future profit margin.

Bottom line is that Star citizen is a bad buy. The progected cash return from such an investment would have to be concidered very carefully. Plus Roberts probably would not let his claws get off of it unless the money situation is so bad that the thing would be loaded in debt.

[Gimfain]

I would buy it just for the book and documentary rights. Then I would make a kickstarter for both of those things.

[lamaros]

No debt? What? I expect they have lots of debt.

[tmp]

CiG need another 1-2 years to polish everything according to the market's normal expectations of not too buggy quality.

"1-2 years" relies on there being a turd to polish in the first place. When there's none.

I have strong impression lot of their problems actually stem from trying to polish every little piece they squeeze out too early and too hard, then having to flush it weeks down the road when Roberts wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides the piece doesn't shine quite right.

[rk47]

[tmp]

Should've said yes; with any luck you'd be called as witness to give testimony on harmful effect DS had on their project