Eon Lilu, on 02 November 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:
There starting goal to make the game was 2 million. Now it's just a case how much they can put into the game and how quickly they can create it.
Elan, on 02 November 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:
2 Mil cuts it for a 1990's game. It won't cut it now. That's the disconnect. The fact that he wants it to have MMo characteristics is immediately going to jack up his production costs. Sure he might only need enough money to attract a proper investor, but 2 mil is dreadfully low for a game of this scale in this day and age. To put things into perspective, Lineage 3, before it was stolen/salvaged for TERA, had used up $14 million, and that was just in securing the the graphics engine, making necessary modifications, and producing the limited art assets. $14 million for an unfinished game. Then you look at 38 studios, who - even putting aside an absolutely abysmal use of money and organization - used, what, $80 million before it was finally put down? And SWTOR which used anywhere between $150-$300 mil depending on who you ask? (To the point even I'm not sure!)
2 mil is chump change. For a fully fleshed out single player and freelancer-esque MMO? Way too low a goal. The numbers do not make sense. Again, I would love it to work, but that is just too low a goal to be reasonable.
It was to get $2m so they can convince investors to give them X amount of money on top, the more they can get from crowdfunding, the more the investors will add.
The game isn't going to cost $2m to make. More like $10m minimum.
Games aren't cheap as Elan rightly pointed out, which is why the game is not being funded exclusively via crowdfunding.
Also note than ToR was a failure in every way financially, no game should cost that much. GW2 will have ran into the $50-80m bracket, and GW2 is vastly superior in many, many aspects compared to ToR (even in voice acting, GW2 has some really talented voice actors - except the norn story - whereas ToR's was only ever as good as GW2's average voice acting).
I would also note that the layout for star citizen is more a GW1/GW2 hybrid than a big open world (instances are generated as required when players will be in the same area when away from the major systems). After all, space is pretty big, it'd be a waste of processing power to handle all of it all the time. It should have the net effect of seeming like an open world though.
If you're concerned, take some time to read through all the information. It's solid. Put it this way: this is the first game i've 'kickstarted' because it's the first game i've seen enough to be convinced it's something that will 1) be made and 2) achieve what is outlined. What they're doing only sounds 'too much' if you've not read how they've done it, or plan on doing it
It's kind of like in the pre-gw2 launch hype where some people didn't know how anet would manage X, some people (like me) knew how they were handling X by reading and (when required) sensible logical extrapolations grounded in software development experience, and others who went completely OTT and made up their own fantasies about what it'd be like.
Edited by The Comfy Chair, 03 November 2012 - 02:33 PM.
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