Never mind a cohesive, complete game, the ever-increasing cash black hole that is Star Citizen has announced its latest stretch goal: animals.
If the game hits its $US64 million funding stretch goal (which at this point is simply a matter of setting an egg timer and waiting for the ding) then this is what the latest Letter From The Chairman says is on the way:
Pets
We have repair bots, we have fish… but we haven’t implemented a traditional pet system in Star Citizen yet. At $US64 million, that changes. From Jones the Cat in Alien to the Battlestar Galactica’s Daggit, pets have a place onboard starships… and we want to give you that option in Star Citizen. Expect traditional terrestrial options, plus anything exotic we can dream up in the Star Citizen universe! (Those Torshu Grey crabs that keep escaping are just the start.) This stretch goal is in honour of Paddington, Strike Dog of the UEES Paul Steed. In one of our first videos Paddington helped us get to $US4 million back in the initial campaign, and sadly passed away recently.
Currently, the game consists of a series of modules, of which only two are playable (not finished, but playable). The rest are promised, partially revealed, or possibly scribbled on the back of a receipt in someone’s pocket. The two playable bits are the Hangar, which lets you look at your ships ( some of which cost hundreds, if not thousands, of actual real pounds) and the Arena Commander bit, which is a dog-fighting and flight-sim section. Both of those are listed as ‘still in development’. Other sections, such as the mission adding Squadron 42, are aiming for a late-2015 release, while the idea of the whole thing being complete is targeting 2016.
The problem Star Citizen seems to have at the moment is that it’s reached a critical mass of cash generation. It can’t not make money now, and has to offer up something in return. I wonder how weird and superficial the rewards are going to get in the future, as they run out of things to reasonably add. “How about shoes? Not just any shoes, though. Space shoes.”
This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK, bringing you original reporting, game culture and humour with a U from the British isles.
Comments
17 responses to “$64 Million Buys You Space Pets”
New stretch goal: Actually release the game!
I mean sure, add more stuff but please just hire more people and get it done and done right, then you can sell extra stuff down the track
It was always going to be 2016 for release, so they are doing pretty well to have such polished material already available to play.
get it done and done right but release it now because 2 years is long enough to release a AAA game made by a company who was basically just a start up until one year into development.
sure thats how things work, AAA games get released in 2 years, well more like one year of full on development.
Yeah I know, I’m just impatient for it and a bit concerned that I’ve heard more about information about stuff they’re selling than how development is going
sadly unless you are following the comm links released on the website almost every time its mentioned in the news will be about its funding milestone.
you best bet in terms of how development is going is the monthly reports, which has updates fromm all the teams, we should be getting the november one this week I think
New Stretch goal – Hire additional Devs
One would consider that the more logical step instead of pets… to me, this is the ‘horse armour’ of the game.
When I heard people were paying 600 for ships, then 2500 for ships, for me that was fucking ridiculous and borderline pathetic. I know it’s purely optional, but to even *offer* that in the first place? Jesus. I guess a fool and their money are soon parted indeed. I mean I’m going to play it, I’m going to enjoy it, but spending that kind of money? Damn I could buy a whole top tier gaming rig for that instead of an imaginary ship…
Don’t forget, they put if forth to the community around the $25 mill mark whether they should stop the crowdfunding but the majority response was “no, keep going” so they did…
I agree that it’s ridiculous to pay $2500 for a ship though 😛
Indeed, however at this point if Roberts doesn’t deliver something as ‘amazing’ as he’s promised and as ‘redefining’ as he’s envisioning, he’s done. He won’t get another chance. Not after this. I played the alpha multiplayer, it was nice but nothing revolutionary, just Freelancer Plus basically. I am eager to see the whole thing come to fruition, but I just get the feeling he’s ‘Molyneux’ing himself a bit…
It entirely depends on who it is though. There are a lot of people out there with more money than they know what to do with, or who have weekly leisure budgets of >$1000. The sort of people who own suits that cost that much. $2500 really isn’t a big deal to some people.
I’m on a budget. I have the cheapest alpha access package you could get for Star Citizen. I’m looking forward to working my way up to the ships I really like once the PU comes out – but that’s just me, it’s not the same for everyone.
I’m pretty glad I pre-ordered this
FFS take some features *away* from the game and get it done.
When it comes to 2016 you can bitch about removing features to hit release. It’s almost as if there is a realistic schedule!
None of these features are blocking the game. The game farmed out all the First Person mechanics to Illfonic who have shown that it is coming along nicely and ready for implementation next year – the Single player aspect is being made by Foundry 42 in Manchester who just entered the whiteboxing phase for the mission 10 which will part of the first 10 missions released to alpha players – those areas from the missions will then be used to make up a small alpha Persistent Universe for players to test the mechanics of their ships that are ingame.
Then all that happens is they bring online the new systems and expand out the alpha PU till its ready for Beta – test the Beta and stress test the servers – launch the game – continue to bring out content. Non of these stretch goals other than ship designs are essential for the game and all the Milestone events dictate is a chance for the community to vote on choices CIG need to take.
Kind of tired of jaded criticism, they’ve been more transparent than most developers and after the Guild Wars 2 hype debacle, I’ve personally invested but remain distant to the ongoing development of the game. For me kick starter is more like a personal bet to see if it will pay off with an awesome game, everyone else’s opinions are pretty much drones as they have nothing to lose either way.
The rewards of this bet is ridiculously high, an MMO that can fully embrace the VR headset technology, EVE depth of economic player run autonomy that is the catalyst for meaningful pvp faction warring.
The activities on offer from Squadron 42, organisation based activities around sustaining large spaceships, pirating, trading, exploring, FPS bounty hunting, there’s a lot they can refine in 2 years from where they are now, and the hardware on offer buy then should easily sustain the level of graphical technology they want to achieve from current examples.
It will remain to be seen how we will hold up latency wise, depending on googles release of local data centres. There’s a lot to possibly worry about, and too much time… These 1 million stretch goals should be achievable by then, and just serve to give a taste of something new, of course it wouldn’t take a million for each new idea, but it helps not in stating progress but the variety of features they want the game to posses.
If you’re not buying into it, that’s fine, just shut up, you got nothing to do with it.
I love it. So often gamers are energised for a game, they believe in the team’s vision and really can’t wait to play it. Then it’s released and there are bugs and of course disappointment sets in. Later it’s revealed that the developers vision was spoiled by the publishers, it ends up the bastards kept demanding the game be delivered! Anger sets in, how dare these suits ruin the precious development team with their ridiculous ideas and deadlines, those stingy penny pinchers don’t even understand the game’s vision and here they are giving the hurry up to the glorious devs just to make a buck! Disgrace!
Then first chance the gamers have a chance to front the money in a project and what do they say? JUST GET IT DONE! WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG? GET IT OUT
bahaha it’s delicious