you know ive been following star citizen since its beginning and even recently ive been thinking about pledging 200 dollars for the constellation aquila, but im not willing to pay so much money for a game im on not sure will succeed. i mean really what if it fails, what if they dont have enough money to finish the game, what about the cost of running those servers. 66 million is a lot, but not for a triple a game where youre gonna have hundreds of thousands of people playing at any given time. that to seems like it would cost a lot on the server end, just how exactly will they be able to pay for that if not with a monthly subscription. if it fails then this would just devastate start ups and pre release games, i even think it might lead to a second game market crash on the pc.
I haven't kept up with Star Citizen as much as I should have, but the logical answer to the server question would be community servers. Let the players host the games. Allow mods. Etc. That way, they only need to have a large number of servers at launch. After that, they can reduce the number as the community takes over.
And if it fails, it will suck. Yes. But this game, as big as it is in some circles, isn't big enough to bring down the entire PC gaming market. At worst it might dissuade some people from kickstarting similarly ambitious projects going forward.
I just more have a feeling it won't live up to the hype and, because it is spread across so many different gameplay styles, it won't have the hold in any one area to keep people coming back.
If it fails then yeah it would suck. But with the way PC gaming is going lately I don't think you'll have to worry about a crash.
I, personally, would never spend that much on a game. Especially one that isn't even out yet.
I think that Chris will be able to pull it off. But if he really needs money he could just attract investors, I mean with the community he has it won't be impossible (or even difficult I guess) to get funding.
Other than that. I also have some doubts about the long term viability of his business model. He hopes to be able to pay the running costs by the influx of new players and by people buying in game credits etc.
Not so sure if he will be able to do that, but I see no problems till at least a year after launch. But what I know about Chris suggests that he has already thought about this and has come up with some clever plan.
on that note, i would gladly pony server power to help drive the massive array that will probably be needed to make this game handle all of the online aspects.