Star Citizen

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Star Citizen
Studio Cloud Imperium Games
Publisher Cloud Imperium Games
Senior Developer Chris Roberts
composer Pedro Camacho
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 No release date yet ( Alpha already playable)
platform Microsoft Windows , Proton
Game engine Amazon Lumberyard
genre Space flight simulation , first-person shooter , business simulation
Subject Science fiction
Game mode Single player , multiplayer , co-op mode
control Mouse , keyboard , gamepad , joystick , virtual EFIS , TrackIR , touchscreen
system advantages
preconditions		 Windows 7 (64bit) service pack 1, Windows 8 (64bit), Windows 10 (Anniversary Update; 64bit),

DirectX 11 graphics card with 2GB Ram (4GB highly recommended) Quad Core CPU and 16GB + Ram

SSD is strongly recommended
medium digital distribution
language English (planned: including German, French, Spanish)
Current version Alpha 3.10 (since August 05, 2020)
information Holds the record for the highest amount ever crowdfunded for a project ($ 265 million as of January 30, 2020)

Star Citizen (English for “star citizens”) is an online space flight simulation with combat and trading elements for Windows (and possibly Linux ), which has been in development since 2010 and has been in production since 2011. Since 2013, parts of the game have been playable in the alpha stage for test purposes. The company no longer provides an official release date after announced dates have passed several times.

Game content

In the course of crowdfunding financing and development, the game was broken down into individual 'modules'.

Arena Commander

Up to 4 players compete against each other in space combat, alone or in a group against computer-controlled opponents.

Star Marine

A multiplayer - first person shooter , up to 24 players to compete in the up to today.

Squadron 42

The planned single-player campaign with portrayals of actors such as Gary Oldman , Mark Hamill , Gillian Anderson , Mark Strong , John Rhys-Davies , Jack Huston , Ben Mendelsohn , Andy Serkis , Harry Treadaway , Liam Cunningham , Rhona Mitra , Ian Duncan , Sophie Wu , Gemma Whelan , Henry Cavill and Craig Fairbrass .

Persistent Universe (Star Citizen)

A planned MMOG , which is supposed to combine space combat, role play , first person shooter, mining simulation, trading simulation and many other game mechanics. A persistent game universe of up to 100 star systems is planned as the action location, in which players can move freely and interact on space stations, accessible planets, spaceships and other content.

Development and funding

Origin and beginning of development

The main designer and inventor of the Star Citizen universe is the game developer Chris Roberts , known for the Wing Commander series , who founded the company Cloud Imperium Games in April 2012 . Star Citizen's game structure is based on Roberts' original vision of the game Freelancer , for which, after several delays, significant cuts were made to the content after Roberts had left his position as production manager.

The start of development ( pre-production ) of Star Citizen began in 2010. In 2011, production of the game based on the CryEngine 3 began. Several external development companies such as CGBot, Rmory, VoidAlpha and Behavior Interactive were initially involved in development work for the game and with the Creation of advertising material commissioned.

financing

In October 2012, Cloud Imperium Games started a crowdfunding campaign for a new space flight simulation with combat and trading elements. For the overall financing of the space game to be developed Roberts aimed for a mixture of investor money, equity and fan financing. Since the end of the Kickstarter campaign, income for the project has been generated through the sale of virtual spaceships and other virtual items, which can cost several hundred or thousands of dollars and which are a prerequisite for use in the published development versions.

Since October 2015, supporters have been able to take part in the so-called referral program . This is intended to create incentives for existing supporters to recruit new players by means of increasingly valuable rewards.

In December 2018, Cloud Imperium Games also sold a 10% stake in the company to South African entrepreneur Clive Calder for an investment of US $ 46 million. The total value of the company at the time was estimated at approximately $ 500 million.

The total pre-sale revenue in 2020 was more than $ 300 million, which is a record at the time. This has been achieved with an unknown number of buyers as the Star Citizens published counter doesn't match it.

Current state of development

A release of the Squadron 42 single-player campaign was originally announced for November 2014. This date was postponed several times, initially to mid-2015 and later to 2016. At the end of 2016, a release date for 2017 was announced, which could not be met either. A beta version was last announced for July 1, 2020, but this was again not adhered to without an official date correction.

An alpha version of the multiplayer game Star Citizen is available to all buyers for test purposes. Due to the current state of development, however, the testing of this test version is still associated with considerable technical errors, limited to 50 players per game instance and the scope of the content is significantly lower than previously aimed for.

The Star Marine and Arena Commander modules are available to Squadron 42 and / or Star Citizen buyers.

reception

praise

In addition to a lot of criticism, there are always positive opinions about Star Citizen. The ambitious scope of the project is primarily rated positively. Critics are also (cautiously) optimistic, especially since a regular patch rhythm has been adhered to since 2017. Marina Hänsel noted on GIGA in November 2019 :

“The game is heading towards the“ most realistic space simulation ever! ”And if it ever gets there, I'll be on board without question. Should."

Peter Bathge adds for Gamestar :

“After a lot of skepticism and malice on the part of critics, the future prospects for Star Citizen after this Citizencon look extremely good. The journey to the stars that the space MMO has promised us seems to be within reach - and with a quality and technical stability that even a die-hard fan would not have thought possible for a long time. "

Negative review

Mismanagement, waste and long development time

Although the game had raised around US $ 200 million in donations by the end of 2017 and all capital but US $ 14 million had been used up, according to the ratings of relevant game magazines, the game is far from being completed in the near future. According to former employees, the resulting inefficiency of the development process is due, among other things, to excessive micromanagement on the part of Roberts, which intervenes deeply in the development processes and makes productive work more difficult. Work that has been started or even finished is often rejected by Roberts or major changes are required, which throws the level of development back a long way. In addition, numerous core functions of the software that were announced in the original Kickstarter are no longer part of the current plans. So far no executable version for the Linux system has been released, the local setup of multiplayer servers is not possible and spaceships cannot be created by users themselves and used in the game, but can only be purchased. In addition, contrary to previous announcements, paid subscriptions have been introduced.

Concerns and criticism were also raised with regard to the lack of transparency in the use of crowdfunding funds and the potentially wasteful use of capital. The company's financial reports show that large sums of money went into the visual design of the offices. Aside from elaborately produced miniature models, symbols and specially designed furniture, there is a life-size replica of an airlock in one of the offices. In addition, CIG does not grant any transparency about the salaries of employees and executives or about the costs of annual events that serve to market the game.

The lack of monetary pressure to deliver a finished game is often criticized, and accusations have been raised that the never-ending development of the software itself has become a business model. The scope of the game is also increasing enormously, which has increased the development time, including the concept phase, to 8 years (as of 2019). This includes numerous postponements and missed deadlines by Cloud Imperium Games. Cases also emerged in 2017 and 2018 where fans who were misled by the considerable delays in the game's development and the manufacturer's abandonment of a release date were denied refunds of funds.

nepotism

The employment of people in high positions who are in the close environment of the lead game developer and company co-founder Chris Roberts, brought the project the accusation of nepotism . So Roberts' brother Erin was put in charge of the development studio in England.

Roberts' wife Sandy Gardiner was seen with their children in early commercials for the project, later became Vice President of Marketing and also worked as an actress for motion capture recordings. At the same time Roberts denied being married to Gardiner for years of game development. In fact, however, Roberts has been in a second marriage to Gardiner since 2009 after separating in 2005. Publicly raised doubts about the suitability of Gardiner, who had previously worked mainly as an actress, in the position of marketing director answered these with reference to two degrees in economics . Evidence for these degrees was never published. The associated video in which Gardiner claims to have obtained this has been deleted. Roberts himself emphasizes the great success of the crowdfunding campaign in relation to the accusation of lack of competence, for which Gardiner, as head of the marketing department, would have been largely responsible.

Pay-to-win, over-monetization and network marketing

Space ships, a basic element of the game for locomotion and interaction within the virtual world, can (and at times could only) be purchased for real money. The business magazine Forbes counted 135 different models of ships for sale with a purchase price of up to 3,000 US dollars (as of May 2019). At times, players were able to purchase a complete virtual package of all ship models for $ 27,000. The company also organized events at which fans were given the exclusive opportunity to purchase digital goods for a fee. Due to the company's artificially limited availability of acquirable spaceships and the possibility of transferring them to other players, a market has also emerged in which virtual goods of the game can be traded for real monetary values ​​without the direct influence of the manufacturer.

In contrast, the purchase of items and spaceships via in-game currency, which is acquired by performing basic game mechanics, sometimes costs a player hundreds of hours of game time. This acquisition of such a significant game element, perceived as unfair, for exorbitantly high real money sums instead of as a result of classic game progress, was criticized by observers as a pay-to-win or pay-to-win-like concept. The removal of an initially existing limit on the in-game currency that can be purchased with real money in 2018 drew further criticism. Roberts countered critics that Star Citizen as a video game without a clearly defined goal ("win") evades such categorization.

The report of the sale of virtual properties for real money also aroused increased criticism. Areas of 64 square kilometers on planets and moons of the game could be purchased for the price of 100 US dollars. More precisely, it was the acquisition of a preferential license to purchase property, which must be realized in the later, finished game against credit currency. Although, according to the developer, the real money should also be understood as a "donation" for the benefit of game development, critics criticized the lack of value of the investment for players and an over-monetization of the game.

The referral program for soliciting purchases is criticized for being systematically used for the purpose of generating monetary profit, which is made possible with the help of a lively gray market .

Feature creep

A fundamental criticism of the development of the game is aimed at the constant announcement of new features that are not necessary for the basic game mechanics and that massively increase the scope and complexity of the development process. At the same time, elementary functions and content are not yet available and are therefore being postponed even further. Cloud Imperium Games points out that the large number of features would make up the character of the game and partly denies that certain functionalities such as face tracking would tie up a large number of resources.

Others

Ortwin Freyermuth's personality is sometimes viewed critically . Freyermuth has been friends with Roberts for many years, Vice President at Cloud Imperium Games and acts as their legal representative. According to Forbes, Freyermuth and Roberts opened funding for film productions in the past, using a German tax-saving model that has since been discontinued, contrary to its originally intended purpose. Freyermuth also tried to prevent or remove the publication of unwanted criticism of Star Citizen with threatening letters.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b CitizenCon 2014, address by Chris Roberts. Retrieved July 22, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ a b Exclusive Interview: Star Citizen's Chris Roberts | TheMittani.com. February 23, 2017, accessed July 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Chris Roberts Making Re-entry into PC Gaming Stratosphere - Cloud Imperium Games. August 10, 2013, accessed July 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Matt Perez: Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $ 300 Million — But May Never Be Ready To Play. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b Star Citizen - Arena Commander 1.0.2 released. February 7, 2015, accessed July 19, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Star Citizen: Early version of the shooter Star Marine released on the test servers. December 19, 2016, accessed July 19, 2020 .
  7. ↑ GameStar: Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies & Chris Roberts - Interview with the stars of Star Citizen. November 24, 2015, accessed June 7, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Star Citizen: Actors for Squadron 42 (story mode): Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies and more + cutscene with Gary Oldman in the video. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Achim Fehrenbach: Notes in space. In: The time . January 2, 2016, accessed July 19, 2020 .
  10. ↑ GameSpot - /features/game_evol_p1/index.html. May 25, 2011, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Chris Roberts on Multiplayer, Single Player and Instancing - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Retrieved July 22, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Form: Chris Roberts "a bit too ambitious". In: Eurogamer. December 6, 2000, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  13. ^ Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
  14. ^ Shawn Christenson: Crowdfunding a Video Game. Virtuous Giant LLC., Accessed January 8, 2014 .
  15. ↑ Chris Morris: The man who made $ 50 million ditching Kickstarter. CNBC , September 23, 2014, accessed January 8, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Star Citizen Pledge Store
  17. ↑ Star Citizen Referral Program
  18. ↑ Kevin Webb: Fans and investors have thrown over $ 250 million at this gorgeous, expansive video game. But it won't hit store shelves until at least 2020. In: Business Insider Germany. Gawker Media, December 26, 2018, accessed September 8, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Kevin Webb: Fans and investors have thrown over $ 250 million at this gorgeous, expansive video game. But it won't hit store shelves until at least 2020. In: Venturebeat.com. Gawker Media, December 20, 2018, accessed September 8, 2019 .
  20. ↑ More expensive than GTA 5: Star Citizen reaches new budget milestone. June 14, 2020, accessed July 19, 2020 .
  21. ^ Roberts Space Industries: La force d'une communauté de joueurs. July 12, 2016, accessed on July 21, 2020 (French).
  22. ↑ kickstarter.com
  23. ↑ Star Citizen's CitizenCon 2015 Reveals New Details, Squadron 42 Cast . In: DVS Gaming . October 11, 2015 ( dvsgaming.org [accessed July 27, 2017]).
  24. ↑ Charlie Hall: Chris Roberts says Star Citizen will reach $ 100 million in 2015, shares release dates. January 21, 2015, accessed July 27, 2017 .
  25. ↑ Squadron 42 - Roberts Space Industries. Retrieved July 27, 2017 .
  26. ↑ Squadron 42: Chris Roberts confirms release for 2017 . In: PC Games Hardware . ( pcgameshardware.de [accessed on July 27, 2017]).
  27. ↑ Star Citizen Roadmap - RSI. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Squadron 42 Monthly Report: July 2019 - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  29. ↑ Matt Perez: Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $ 300 Million — But May Never Be Ready To Play. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Marina Hansel: Star Citizen sends you to jail - and you can work there. GIGA , November 5, 2019, accessed on December 23, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Peter Bathge: Opinion: Star Citizen is making giant strides towards reality. Gamestar , November 26, 2019, accessed December 23, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Cloud Imperium Financials from 2012 to 2017
  33. ↑ The Chris Roberts Theory of Everything
  34. ^ Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen - Kotaku UK
  35. ↑ Star Citizen Kickstarter
  36. ^ Subscriptions - Robert Space Industries
  37. ^ The Building Controversy of Star Citizen
  38. ↑ a b c d forbes.com Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $ 300 Million — But May Never Be Ready To Play
  39. ↑ a b c space simulation Star Citizen: Dream and Reality
  40. ↑ Star Citizen backer's $ 25,000 refund has taken months, still in dispute (update)
  41. ↑ Court denies Star Citizen backer's $ 4,500 refund lawsuit
  42. ↑ CitizenCon 2013 live show. Erin Roberts announced as head of Manchester Studio
  43. ^ Meet the Devs: Sandi Gardiner
  44. ^ Sandi Gardiner Twitter - Motion Capture
  45. ↑ a b pcgameshardware.de Star Citizen: Ships can be bought with ingame currency on a test basis
  46. ↑ polygon.com Star Citizen's $ 27,000 bundle raises eyebrows
  47. ↑ pcgames.de Star Citizen: Exclusive dinner event for generous supporters in Frankfurt
  48. ↑ eurogamer.net Inside Star Citizen's gray market
  49. ↑ massivelyop.com Star Citizen fans raise pay-to-win objections over removal of in-game currency stockpiling cap
  50. ↑ golem.de Chris Roberts on victory and pay-to-win in the online universe
  51. ↑ computerbase.de Star Citizen - ship purchase with in-game currency now on the test server
  52. ↑ https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/787342856469876736. Retrieved July 21, 2020 .
  53. ↑ Wesley Yin-Poole: Inside Star Citizen's gray market. In: Eurogamer. October 9, 2014, accessed July 21, 2020 .
  54. ↑ eurogamer.net Star Citizen, feature creep and money
  55. ↑ vice.com 'Star Citizen' Says Its Advanced Face Tracking Tech Isn't Feature Creep