Thanks, very interesting.
With my technical background it hurts a little bit to admit it but proper project management does matter even more than product engineering indeed... :/

Feature creep, pretty much sum's up Star Citizens problems, although it interesting to see that they putting the blame on Roberts for his micromanagement of the games development.

One thing which continues to amaze me is that they are still able to generate millions of dollars. You think most people would have had enough of buying virtual space ships by now.

Feature creep is a big portion of it, but creating assets just to try to get players to buy them to fund further work is soaking up a lot of time. I don't know how many times I have received emails from RSI on new ships or gear that they developed and they have whole fully animated commercials for the stuff that had to take weeks/months of development time.... The mismanagement of time is huge and they have over 500+ people working on SC/S42, that is unsustainable in my opinion they can only sell so many game assets before people just stop buying because the game isn't done...

In addition, workers have had to spend weeks on end making demos so that Cloud Imperium can keep selling spaceships—and raising more money.

They need to scale expectations down, I really only got into the kickstarter because of Squadron 42 to be honest so as long as that completes I will think I go my moneys worth from the purchase.

I haven't loaded up SC in a while and probably should checkout Alpha 3.5, maybe I am old and cranky now 🙂 but I just wanted what was promised in the initial kickstarter, they could have added all this extra stuff afterwards like Elite Dangerous does. Give me the core game that was pitched too me 7 years ago.

I mean purchasing ship insurance for real money, purchasing plots of land on planets that are enormous in size I think is just a money grab. One planet could probably house all of the active players in the game.

They are reaching and are probably going to be in trouble soon by late this year if they don't start showing more progress..... because as you said Pinback, how many ships can they possibly sell before it just slows down or stops? I still have my kickstarter ship, I refuse to give CIG any more money until they show me I am going to get what I paid for 7 yrs ago, its not my fault you mismanaged the project and wasted the funds.

So only time will tell.

Yes 500+ people looks completely unsustainable indeed 🙁
I'd just say that the demos are maybe not so bad since they ensure they have a running prototype. That is if it's not too ripe with "quick and dirty" code.

I just got around reading the article. As I was kind of expecting, sadly.

they could have added all this extra stuff afterwards like Elite Dangerous does.

Also, like No Man's Sky. The game was overhyped, got a massive backlash, but Hello Games has been updating it slowly and now the game has most of the features they promised.

Agreed, and because of what Hello Games has been doing with NMS I will buy that game sometime this year. They had a rocky start but they certainly have earned my respect.

RSI is in trouble, just some quick math.... if each employee made $50k per year... which I doubt, its higher more than likely if they have 500 employees they need to make $25mil a year just to cover wages. RSI is in trouble personally. It will be interesting to see how this year goes and going into 2020.

I am guessing, but I think most of the people that would want to play SC would have already bought it. I doubt highly they are getting thousands of new game purchases every month. So they are relying on the subscriptions and ship and other game purchases to keep the lights on. I think they are in trouble, but only time will tell.

All good and fair points folks! For my sins, I too am a Star Citizen backer from the kickstarter days. I think D1 and me backed at the exact same time for the same ship, the 300i? I have expanded my ship roster since then, nothing compared to how deep some I know have but still, enough. Certainly more than I gave to FD for Elite and FD to be honest was the more deserving of the two, back then and even more so now because their game has been out there for a good few years and getting better all the time because they focussed on the gameplay first and worried about the details later. That was something that concerned me about Star Citizen even back at the beginning in 2013 when Elite was already implementing their first Alpha builds that were shockingly rock solid. I know this because I was there! 😀

2014 came and went, the supposed original launch date of Star Citizen but backers were promised a much bigger game if they waited. Well here in 2019 they are still waiting. 2020-2021 is now thought to be the dates when a Beta of Star Citizen might see the light of day but I still think that is wildly optimistic. There are supposed to be 100 systems in this game with tons of handcrafted detail. Unless they have seriously been hiding stuff they have completed from the backers for some reason, I just can't see them making the 2021 date. To me at least, this game is in trouble but it isn't too late to turn things around if they put in a massive effort in reorganising everything they do. There are some really talented devs at CIG spread throughout the studios they have. I think the senior management need to let these folks fly and do what needs to be done to see this game finished.

As for their marketing department, well,....................I respect D1's forum too much to say what I really think about them. However, let me just say I don't think much of them at all or their policies and leave it at that.

NMS was mentioned and there folks is how you fix a major screw up; by sheer hard work. Sean Murray and Hello Games have earned my respect again for coming out and being honest with their games fans. They listened, they acted on the feedback they got. This is what CIG should look at as an example if they ever want to get back to those heady days they had just after their kickstarter with a fully supportive community backing them all the way. Back then it was all about the vision rather than the money like it is now. I for one hope they do but, for now at least, I see little evidence of it ever happening. In fact, things just seem to get worse. 🙁

Hey Geraldine

Yeah I own the 300i too and last time I attempted to play I couldn't even board the ship so I kinda swore and rage quit hahaha, I will try it again near Xmas time to celebrate another year gone by not playing SC 🙂

Oh and everyone can speak freely here btw on occasion you will see some colorful words in my posts on occasion haha

I listened to a video the other day and he makes a lot of valid points