Derek Smart is an industry veteran whose work and legacy goes back two decades, with the Universal Combat and Battlecruiser line of games, and he has bad news for those eagerly awaiting Star Citizen: It’s probably going to be a total disaster. Once you get past Smart reiterating his curriculum vitae, he gets to the meat of the article:
Without disrespect to anyone, I’m just going to say it: it is my opinion that, this game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever.
Smart does not believe that any company capable of building the game that Roberts has pitched, especially not for less than $150 million. When the game eventually does go belly up, as the blog post states, the same media that have been reporting on the game’s funding stretch goals will be the first to vilify the developer.
The hype surrounding this project since its 2012 inception is going to guarantee that every media outlet is going to want a piece of the action, and most of that is going to be based on sheer speculation, wanton conjecture, bullshit anonymous “sources” etc., because the focus would be on vilifying Chris and crew, rather than focusing on what mistakes were made.
Star Citizen first popped up on Kickstarter back in 2012 when other industry veteran Chris Roberts asked for a mere half a million to get his game off the ground and to make it look enticing to private investors. The space sim community responded by throwing a sack load of money in Roberts’ direction, $2.1 million in the Kickstarter campaign alone. Even so, with the Kickstarter campaign over and done with, the momentum of the cash flow didn’t stop. It sped up, to the tune of $84 million.
Since then, the game has become synonymous with big money, and you can say what you want about the morality of selling $2,500 singular digital ships for a game that doesn’t exist, people are still lining up to give Roberts money hand over fist. As the cash pile increased, so did the scope of the game, to the point where the the original pitch is just a blip on the current design plan.
And the more that Star Citizen has seen its vision broadened, the further behind the game gets, and the more money it seems to bring in, and the more agitated that early backers seem to be getting. After three years of development, backers have been graced with a hanger and an incomplete Arena Commander mode where players can battle with some of their ships.
You can read the entire thing at the link below, but be warned: It is a long read.
(Source: Dereksmart.org)
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