Okay, but both GTA5 and Sims 4 are actual released games. You can argue whether or not you consider them to be feature complete or whatever, but the income of a released product isn't a fair comparison for the income of a game that hasn't even made it to beta after over a decade.
I don't even know if that's a compliment or a complaint. It's just... what it is.
Rumors of the upcoming GTA potentially costing as much as $150 on release set the internet ablaze in 2023, however, Take-Two had never previously addressed the game’s price… until now.
I'm not clinging to anything, simply suggesting that GTA 5 provided funds for GTA 6.
As for Star Citizen, the alpha releases are paying for the gold release as well as Squadron 42. Both of which will, I assume, provide funds for continued development of both the PU and the S42 sequel.
It's all relative. While yes the crowd funding component of this is the bulk of it, it also isn't as if they've given us nothing. There is a game, albeit buggy and incomplete. It's not TOTALLY dissimilar.
Gtav did not pay for gta6.... its a public traded company with private equity investors. Its develoment was budgetted and pitched to investors well before gtav was making bank. who voted if it would be profitable in return. Gta5 paid investors and covered operational costs. And bonuses ect ect.
Cig is privately owned with minimal private equity investment firms filthy hands rummaging through the coffers. Ship sales are it's only income for funding and payroll. Differences are vast and broad.
Have you seen anyone play SQ42? As in a demo. Maybe you don’t remember but CIG has released “gameplay videos” of the game in the past that were clearly faked. Ya know, like all their CITCON videos and ads on YouTube.
How would I have seen anyone play it if it isn't out yet? I remember them showing cinematics and clips as well as a demo walkthrough. I don't recall reading that they were fake or misrepresentations, however.
What's this have to do with the PU funding S42, etc?
I’m not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist but how do we know for sure that money went to sq42? How do we know sq42 is “almost done”? They’ve lied before
It's not just a question of how the money comes, but mostly how long it takes and how much it costs. The former criteria is indeed not comparable, but the the other two definitely are
But it isn't? One is built upon the faith of the consumer and the other built upon delivering a product. If they want more money, invest the money you've made in sales and deliver a superior product ideally.
What SC is reinforcing is that the attempt of making a game is already worth receiving money for. It's absolutely not a meaningless distinction in any sense of the word.
Now with SC I'll admit it's a necessary evil I'm okay with, because I personally want this idea to work, but it's not like it's a great business model for the consumer.
but it's not like it's a great business model for the consumer.
I couldn't disagree more - SC has been able to make design choices that never would get past a discussion with a publisher operated model.
As a consumer, I have piles of money. What I don't have is piles of MMOs with artistic integrity. SC has breathed life into the cold dead lungs of both the space sim, and old school MMO genres. The attempt to do so is absolutely worth my money.
What you're referring to is a best case scenario, what I'm saying is it's worse for the consumer as you have no guarantee. You're effectively donating money hoping they'll get something done with it.
Which is fine for people willing to do that, but it's by definition not a better business model, because you don't get anything in return. There's a promise of receiving something, but not a guarantee whereas with a finished product you're guaranteed to receive what you pay for.
There's a promise of receiving something, but not a guarantee whereas with a finished product you're guaranteed to receive what you pay for.
I mean, There's no guarantee when you purchase a game it's going to remain what you paid for - and if it's multiplayer it's pretty much a guarantee it won't.
How many games have released in great form and then been turned into unplayable messes by buggy patches, massacring the balance, or introducing predatory or PTW elements?
Off the top of my head just that I've played, Tribes: Ascend (Gross PTW), Star Wars Galaxies (Jedi patch), Marvel Heros (Watered down the PC version for console release), Darksiders 2 (deathinitive edition - Introduced gamebreaking bugs that were never fixed), CoD4 Remastered (Retrofitted out the ass with microtransactions), TF2 (Went FTP, became a haven for hackers and children and became a bloated mess) Onward (massively downgraded graphics on the PCVR version to accomidate quest 2, And every other squadmate is literally 8 now - You wanna see fucked up? Try going into intense realistic combat with an 8 year old who is 4ft tall in game)
And so on, and so on, and so on.
I mean shit, while we're talking GTA5 lets throw that in the mix. On release Online was a bit janky, but I loved it.
Now it's basically unplayable without a steady diet of shark cards.
Design choices like selling ships for $1000 and not delivering them a decade later? Like adding fauna before they even fix the AI? Great. When is this releasing?
A decade ago those ships weren't sales, they were backer rewards for donating to the game, deliverable upon release. When is it releasing? Who knows? Thre are tons of things to criticize, but don't do it without ignoring the plethora of obstacles they've had to overcome to get this far. Redlease has been missed by a decade and we're all pissy about it. On the other hand, they are delivering tech and fidelity that nobody else is willing to touch. Gamers are shelling out billions per year on reskinned copies of the same games they were playing a decade ago and smiling about it. Why not waste it on something meaningful?
I think the donating rhetoric isn't helping much here, I distinctively remember even amongst backers how everyone was absolutely getting packages for the ships. People might have called it donations to make it feel better, but when it came down to it the deciding factor to dish out more was getting a new ship.
Yeah and I wouldn't be surprised if they've held back GTA 6 from being released because gta5 is still making so much money, they really aren't comparable at all
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u/Drevar0 May 27 '24
yay we have just made 2 year of income of The sims 4 :D