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Businesses The Almighty Buck Games

Star Citizen Video Game Launches $27,000 Players' Pack (bbc.com) 193

An anonymous reader shares a report: Crowdfunded space simulation game Star Citizen has launched its $27,000 Legatus Pack, which includes nearly all its spacecraft plus extras. Only players who have already spent $1,000 in the game can access the pack. Cloud Imperium, the creators of Star Citizen, has received more than $200m in crowdfunding since launching a Kickstarter campaign for it in 2012. According to its website it has more than two million players, although the game itself is still in development. Star Citizen aims to create a vast science fiction universe that can be explored in dozens of spaceships, with first-person space combat, all online and multi-player.
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Star Citizen Video Game Launches $27,000 Players' Pack

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  • Or that money (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can fund a deposit of an apartment outside of your mom's basement instead.
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Looking at commentary on its forums, big paying folks like this seem to be more of a "engineer at a tech company, earning six figures", massive nostalgia and desire for this kind of a game - types.

      This is basically their Porsche/Harley Davidson/[insert middle age crisis marker here]. And they have money to burn.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        What point playing the game if you pay to win. What have you won, you have won nothing, you just paid to pretend you did win because you can afford to pay to pretend you did win, even though you are not actually winning anything, just pretending you did and pretending to yourself because you can afford to.

        So spending as a goal unto itself, much like greed has become a goal unto itself, actual achievements, nobody gives a shit about them any more.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          They have in fact promised that it won't be pay to win and that all ships will be available to everyone. How they will implement it with those sums being spent on ships remains to be seen.

  • And I though that Far Cry 5 was pricey.

    • Re:$1000? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AlanBDee ( 2261976 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @02:59PM (#56695140)

      Some games are worth it. Most people would consider me cheap and I wouldn't disagree. But I've spent well over that on Rocksmith DLC, much more if you count equipment. But that's more a hobby then a game so it's a little different. I would have a hard time justifying it for most games.

      • I've got a heck of a lot more out of Rocksmith and its DLC than I did out of Far Cry 1-4. As always, I'll wait for the price to drop on steam before getting 5.

  • OK, for that kind of money, you come to my house and custom program a game for me.
    • Nope.

      For that kind of money, I can come to your house and custom program 1/8th of a game for you

      • Re:woah (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @01:33PM (#56694480)
        And that would be still more than what the developers of Star Citizen have delivered in 6 years.
        • LOL
    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Buy a server and pay a programmer to code game server software, at least.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Really, the ideas and concepts they have are pretty spectacular and with $200m in funding they can probably see it to the end. I mean, I won't spend $27,000 on a video game as that's rather absurd, but I paid $45 knowing full well I was getting something that's still in its very early stages of development but at least there is progress.

    • by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @01:46PM (#56694564)

      I'm sure Chris appreciates you helping the propaganda cause as they go whale hunting. I'm not sure the whales will be as sanguine in the end though, they're in it for slightly more than 45$.

    • You know, there are some things I really like about early access, crowdfunding, and other forms of "funding before game development is done". It's given us game concepts that never would have seen the light of day before and some real gems have actually seen things through to the end (Subnautica comes to mind). But it's also given us a huge list of abandonware, "this says early access, but it's been early access for years, so don't be surprised if it never gets finished", and games that completely dropped

  • $27,000 in real-world dollars? What exactly does it buy someone?

    ...purchases like this can bestow special status on buyers within Star Citizen's community, as well as offering extreme shortcuts to a more advanced role within the game itself.

    So it's just like American politics. Hell. America in general.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    200m poured in, still in development. Of the games that actually make it to release after crowdfunding a good chunk come out looking nothing like what was advertised or even what was shown in testing.

    If this game comes out worth playing it will be the exception not the rule

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Off the top of my head, things like Divinity Original Sin games, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, etc all delivered on what was promised.

      Some projects get things done, some don't. Welcome to world of entrepreneur.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by halivar ( 535827 )

        To be fair, they had a vote before the Kickstarter even ended, to vastly increase the scope of the game. It's wasn't even close. This is what the backers wanted. I, myself, didn't hop on the wagon until after the project scope increased, because that's the game I wanted. I've since gotten married and had a baby, so it will be a couple more years until I can play any video games at all, so the pace of development is sitting pretty with me. I think lot of backers are in my spot; we're older, a bit more money

  • for 28K you can buy a REAL CAR!

  • He can't move to the point where the game has any depth. He keeps chasing the duke nukem rainbow.

    • by sinij ( 911942 )
      Why wouldn't he if people keep dropping all kinds of cash on this without it getting released?
      • by Revek ( 133289 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @01:52PM (#56694602)

        It has been many years since this project was started. The current game play is terrible and he keeps changing things to keep up with current hardware. In short he can't finish since he can achieve his perfection. In the interim, several games with similar game play have been conceived and released. Some people are good at concepts and other are good at implementation. He is the former and what this project needs is the latter. He has the money. He needs to hire someone to take over and let them get a product out there. He has a history of this kind of thing. Check Freelancer [wikipedia.org]

        • Check Freelancer [wikipedia.org]

          Oh man, I loved Freelancer. Probably my favorite space combat game. I'd love to find a game like it that runs on Linux.

          • by Sumus Semper Una ( 4203225 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @05:03PM (#56695880)

            Oh man, I loved Freelancer. Probably my favorite space combat game. I'd love to find a game like it that runs on Linux.

            No idea if all of these work on Linux (some, like X2 and X3 definitely do), but other games similar to the Freelancer genre:

            X2 (I know it's old, but it was still quite good if you could get over the terrible voice acting)
            X3 (in its many forms. Just stay away from X: Reunion)
            Rebel Galaxy (simplified combat and trading, but pretty fun)
            Independence War 1 and 2 (these are really old, but classic - you can find them on Good Old Games [slashdot.org])
            Endless Sky (top-down only and somewhat simple, but it's free!)

            It's a pretty stale genre unfortunately. There are some games in the genre in early access right now that could end up being good, but I'd pass on them all at the moment.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @01:37PM (#56694500)

    I think it's been seven years since I first sent them money, and there still isn't a release date.

    • by dave562 ( 969951 )

      I think that's the point of this $27,000 option. They are testing the waters to see how many extremely stupid people are still out there and interested in throwing money down the SC hole.

      I think it is a great strategy. It takes some real intelligence and drive to accumulate $27,000 in play money that you can spend frivolously on a "product" that does not have any real world value and does not even exist in finished form yet.

      If they can scam someone like that out of that much money, I would say that is a p

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by fazig ( 2909523 )
        I don't know if it is a scam, but I also don't know if that line about perfection stands up to scrutiny.
        Yes, I've heard this very often. "They want it to be perfect." "Would you rather test an unfinished version or a perfect one?" "Everything comes together with the next patch."
        But the sad fact is that everything they release is very far from being perfect. It's riddled with bugs and has performance so far. I can accept that, because that's how software development works. Maybe this idea of perfection exi
    • by Megane ( 129182 )

      All I have of SC is a cross-promo game code that I ended up with as a promo prize during a livestream for a different game. One which has finally declared "release" after four and a half years of monthly, playable, releases, and almost two years since persistence, Shroud of the Avatar. [shroudoftheavatar.com] Yes, it can actually happen. And they will continue with monthly development as long as they can.

      Meanwhile, is there even a properly playable version of SC yet, or is it still just a bunch of tech demo puzzle pieces?

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Shit I know it's always been about money but for fuck's sake it's like it's not even a legitimate game anymore it's just an arms race fuelled by whoever has the most disposable income to blow on so-called 'in game purchases'. Why stop there? Why not just sell a God Mode upgrade for $1,000,000 that makes you omniscent, omnipotent, immortal, and gives you everything there is to get in the so-called 'game'?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • For those of you concerned about the class implications of Star Citizen's extreme pay to win PVP model there is but one retort, "Silence Pleebs!"
  • The Kickstarter campaign raised about $2M.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, but they have been collecting donations from devoted cult members ever since, and it's on the order of $200M total that's been raised through all funding channels. 7 years on, the insanity continues with no end in sight.

  • by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @05:25PM (#56695998) Homepage

    Star Citizen has been 'in the works' for what, 5 years now? Longer? VAPORWARE. And those of you forking over money for this never-will-be-completed game... a fool and their dollars are easily separated.

    Gotta hand it to Cloud Imperium, they're duping everyone out of money and already litigating in courts (VERY EXPENSIVE.) Fools. This has to be the greatest thing ever for Cloud Imperium, they're making tons of money and have NEVER delivered a product. Amazing.

  • WHO are these people with $27000 to spend on a single video game... ?

    Seriously... $27k?!?.... If someone can literally pony up that much money for a video game's digital content. They should literally have their money straight up taken from them and used to house homeless people. Not even joking!

    • WHO are these people with $27000 to spend on a single video game... ?

      Whales

  • I cannot wait for this to to fail and be a pale underwhelming joke like No Man's Sky only on a grander scale; if it even gets that far. The schadenfreude will be epic. This is the new Duke Nukem Forever.

  • I backed it for $1250. Why? Because I grew up on Wing Commander and you never forget your first love. Is it really a surprise that someone who tried to remake Wing Commander: Privateer as an MMO would back a game that basically promises to be Wing Commander 2/3 mixed with Privateer in an MMO setting? The only person I've met through work that backed it for a similar $5000 or more amount was a 6 figure salaried Network Security engineer. Similar in age, people that still appreciate space games and had to wai
  • by Nocturrne ( 912399 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @11:41PM (#56697180)
    How many thousands of dollars do people spend on golf gear and green fees every year? How about fishing boats? Gaming is not the most expensive or retarded hobby, by a long shot.
  • By announcing this product, they have at no cost to themselves gained advertising of Star Citizen all over the Internet. Who knows, they might even sell one or two, but it doesnâ(TM)t matter. They have brought the world to their web site, which was the real point all along.

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