Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Mist_sl said:

I think once they start selling Squadron 42 copies as a finished product, they'll have more than enough money. The benefits of not having investors to pay off with your profits.

You do have to wonder what the burn rate is on those crowdfunding dollars, with that many employees.

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I doubt their daily take from the community is enough to fund the amount of money they are spending right now. If I had to guess I would say at least half of what we put in is spent and the other half will be gone by this time next year. If they can get the first ep of SQ42 out and into public hands by next year they might have enough money to keep going. Outside of that the concept sales should be enough to slow the cash bleed and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight for ships for at least another 12 months. Within the next month we should see the Hull series which is what? 3-4 ships? And they plan to release them all in one go. I hope they leave that concept sale up for at least four weeks this time as that is a lot of ships to put up for concept all at once.

Didn't they say that if you can leave out the publisher your money for development goes like 2-3x further? They also get a steady stream of income through the subs. I keep wondering why they keep pulling in 3 million a month steady even in months that they are not selling ships and part of that must be from those subs? And new folk discovering this game and buying a starter package, I guess.

Do you think they are also earning some through interest? Or would that be like 0.1 % ? I have no idea what you can pull from a capital that you need close at hand(cant put it in bonds or deposits obviously).

Anyway, this must be the best money to develop a game with. Right there, right now, in your pocket with no publisher keeping his hand out and threatening to turn off the money faucet. Much better then loans from the government that eat themselves up through the interest that you pay for it, with vague promises of more. I keep getting impressed by the HUGE PR machine they have going: nobody can ever say that they are not cranking out information and keeping everyone up to speed. I am sure most of the devteams are already sick of having to fork over a "monthly" report every month, but it goes a long way to ensure customer trust. Works for me.

Still keeping my wallet in my pocket though: I am totally going to do this game "from Rags to Riches".

The glass door reviews for the company are scary.

Draegan_sl said:

The glass door reviews for the company are scary.

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Yeah to be honest that's the only thing that truly has me worried. That is never a good thing and it further convinced me to disinvest from the game. I'm no longer 10k in. I have under 4k in ships now. Made a tidy profit on the most part and paid for my new computer so I'm glad I did it. I still have at least a year to decide to get more drastic but right now I'm happy with what I have left.

It's also pretty hard to tell the motive behind the complaints/compliments. I would intuitively suspect more shitbag employees get canned and go QQ on glassdoor than solid employees spontaneously deciding to go write a nice review of the company.

Glass Door is even more worthless than Yelp. Remember, anyone who gets canned was spectacular but they were harassed, abused, not recognized for their brilliance and had to fight severe prejudice against whatever thing they are that is different from some managers.

Eidal_sl said:

It's also pretty hard to tell the motive behind the complaints/compliments. I would intuitively suspect more shitbag employees get canned and go QQ on glassdoor than solid employees spontaneously deciding to go write a nice review of the company.

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This has been my experience too. There are 2-3 companies I worked for that i thought were pretty awesome, and had solid negative reviews. I recognized one of the most vitriol-packed ones was from a guy who was the biggest waste of space on the planet and got fired because of his own incompetence. Unsurprisingly, his post was a totally inaccurate depiction of the events that led to his firing. Meanwhile I never bother leaving positive reviews because I don't give enough of a shit and unless they're going to pay me to sit down and do it, I'm unlikely to spend more of my time doing work related shit once I get home.

Tol_sl said:

This has been my experience too. There are 2-3 companies I worked for that i thought were pretty awesome, and had solid negative reviews. I recognized one of the most vitriol-packed ones was from a guy who was the biggest waste of space on the planet and got fired because of his own incompetence. Unsurprisingly, his post was a totally inaccurate depiction of the events that led to his firing. Meanwhile I never bother leaving positive reviews because I don't give enough of a shit and unless they're going to pay me to sit down and do it, I'm unlikely to spend more of my time doing work related shit once I get home.

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This is why I'm cautious but not panicky. It's a good sanity check even if it's false information. It's also why I don't troll the General forums anymore... it's choke full of bullshit but it's like that in most general forums for most games. The fans are rabid for sure.

Those glassdoor reviews definately increased my hope that Star Citizen will make it out of the door, and that the money is being well spent.

Employees being worked hard without overpaying them in an energetic environment with a clear focus, with some disgruntled dropouts who apparently are better off in less high-profile and smaller studio/project where they can have more input. Not saying that each of the managers are top-notch, but seriously, smell the bias.

The sportscar quote sounds like BS. I am sure someone bought a sportscar during the time he was there though.

Treesong_sl said:

Employees being worked hard without overpaying them in an energetic environment

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This is like a republican's wet dream sentence.

AladainAF_sl said:

No that's fine, I get that. If you're apprehensive about that I understand, it just sounded like some people were making a decision to play a game based on glassdoor reviews, which just sounds.. weird.

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Mist only buys designer clothes because she can't handle the thought of those oppressive Chinese factories. That's also why she refuses to buy any Foxconn manufactured products.

Tuco_sl said:

I'd feel nervous about making a glass door review at my current job even though I'm super happy and would write positive things.

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I think anyone should honestly. Reviews are just a snapshot in time.

A person can start out the first couple of years and things are fantastic, then the last go for shit. Or they start out not sure about the company overall because of one or two bad managers that later get the boot and now it's Dreamland.

Generally I stay away from any of that because when you change your mind, you look like an idiot half the time.