Eight-month investigation reveals the troubled development of Star Citizen
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
SPS
Moderator
Very lightly.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
The problem was it was announced so far back with so many goals and features from day one on Kickstarter, that it was destined to be a delayed for a long time. Imagine if the hype never literally skyrocketed. They would have had little money, and been forced to go the Elite release type route. I'm sure the money was a curse like you said. The hype doesn't help either, but what imo has hurt them the most was for every new goal reached, they kept piling on more and more things that they've now made so many promises, it's just ridiculous. This game won't be releasing anytime soon. If they do, a lot will be left out.
Honestly the Kickstarter should have described what they wanted to make, and they needed money to build a custom engine. That's how it should have started imo. Would have had a slower start, but in the long run probably easier and faster to use than CE.
Jbo1234
New member
Hm, why do you assume they can't deliver? Are you saying that their goals are not possible?
Greenback
Active member
Hm, why do you assume they can't deliver? Are you saying that their goals are not possible?
I'm saying what ever they release it will not be enough for the hype and money they have been funded with, to keep people happy
Jbo1234
New member
Normally I would agree, but if you look at a lot of the forums for SC its a bit different. Sure, you have some fanboys and a lot of armchair CEOs all jumping on the hype train, but a large amount of the community are a bit older and more grounded. This is probably because that is the generation that remembers when Chris Roberts made games and they have disposable income.
Also as a company, CIG are quite good at managing expectations. Originally he said that it was not going to be possible to land anywhere on a planet as it would take too long to build. 2 years later their research came to fruition and you can land anywhere
SuB
The Webmaster
Sorry
why you gots ta be sh!tposting bro?
Jbo1234
New member
Not really
Thing is, there is nothing surprising here or, more importantly, out of the ordinary. What would have been shocking is if everything went perfectly well!
Also where was the 5 part article about NMS - the game that was a scam? I suspect they are just getting hits due to peoples concern after NMS. But 5 parts? It's very excessive to basically say "Gaming vet sets out to make most ambitious crowd funded game, hits generic business roadblocks, gets an online stalker, and some folks throw mountains of money at him".
mazty
Member
Nah, everyone I've spoken to about this with industry experience in IT, from devs to other project managers, all agree that the articles are pretty hollow when you actually consider what is "normal" for something of this scope and ambition.
There have been super backers for practically most Kickstarter campaigns that offer such a tier. I've seen people throw $5k for what was a CD project which required only $30 for the actual CD.
And as for Derek Smart. The guy clearly has a psychological issue as he tweets about SC every day. And he's been doing that for well over a year. That's not normal...
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Well good thing none of there opinions matter on it. They don't work there and have no knowledge of what's going on. The only things we can take from anything, is that they constantly make delays, never deliver anything on time, adding more and more promised content when they are already extremely behind, have huge amounts of funding which is constantly rising, and using an engine that is not suited for this project. These are facts. That's all we can take from it. there's no debating this. All of these facts don't mean they are not a great company or making a terrible game. It just simply means it's heavily disorganized and has no clear consistent guidance on there project timeline. As a result, consumers are getting fed up with it. They can turn this around, but it's going to take some strong leadership from the top with good project managers guiding them onto the right path to makeup for lost time.
mazty
Member
....And anyone who has worked on similar projects will tell you that a lot of that e.g. slipping deadlines/delays and scope creep is entirely normal, therefore it's ridiculous for the customer to become "fed up" with it.
Due to a lot of people having a complete lack of experience with such things, they try to either vilainaise or to a lesser extent fain worry at the progress CIG are making, which just isn't a fair conclusion. I think however SC has the advantage that it's audience tends to be older and more mature from what I can gather looking at the various SC forums and aren't worried about the progress, something which tends to be the reaction from either the younger backers, or people not actually invested in the game.
SuB
The Webmaster
Just out of curiosity, what have you 'project managed' before?
SuB
The Webmaster
So nothing in the games industry per-se?
mazty
Member
No, but there is literally no good reason why project management practices, which are very specifically designed to be transferable across industries, aren't applicable to the games industry. In fact it's my personal belief that a lot of games are very poor quality nowadays because the developers (as in the company) are stuck in the dark ages when it comes to both project management and modern IT practices.
