The BBC spoke with Star Citizen founder Chris Roberts in the course of a report. In the conversation, he refers to critics as know-it-alls and comments on the long development time of the MMO.
What was the report about? In the 12-minute video, the question was raised whether Star Citizen is too ambitious of an MMO. Therefore:
- The BBC interviewed former employees of Star Citizen
- visited CitizenCon, a trade fair specifically for the MMO
- the BBC conducted a short interview with Chris Roberts himself, the mastermind behind Star Citizen
Questions arose about whether Star Citizen would ever be finished and where the hatred of some players toward the MMO comes from.
Roberts calls critics “Armchair Developer”
What does Roberts say about the questions? In response to the question about the “great negativity that exists online surrounding Star Citizen,” Roberts explained that it is easy to comment negatively on the game without knowledge of the subject.
He referred to the critics as “Armchair Developers,” meaning people who give tips without having any understanding of game development.
Regarding the long development time, Roberts has a fitting comparison:
Red Dead Redemption 2 was in development for over 7 years and with a much smaller world than ours. And they had thousands of people working on it.
It takes time to create games with such high refinement and detailed simulation, as players expect today.
How deep the details go and how the world of Star Citizen is built is described by Roberts with an anecdote:
I can get into a spaceship with a coffee cup, fly to an alien planet, walk around in a forest, set the cup down, and then fly away.
If I come back a month later and no other player has moved the cup, it will still be there.
What are the criticisms of Star Citizen? Star Citizen has been in development since 2012, yet a release is still not in sight. This is also attributed to Roberts and a supposed tendency toward perfectionism.
It is said that Roberts has many ideas, but not all of them can be implemented. He lacks focus, as at least one former employee claims.
The website Forbes published an exclusive story about this in May. The report accuses Roberts of mismanagement, as he meddles in every detail and thus hinders the progress of the project. His tendency toward public relations and the staging of CGI trailers is also said to not always be beneficial.
Despite Criticism, 2019 was a Success for Star Citizen
Star Citizen reaches milestone: Even though the MMO is still in a testing phase, things went well for Star Citizen in 2019. The game set a new milestone and reached 250 million dollars in support.
The period between the end of November and the end of December represented a new record. In 39 days, Star Citizen took in nearly 20 million dollars and gained almost 63,000 new supporters.
Interesting stories from players and right expensive ships that are artificially limited in availability helped.
How was the gameplay for Star Citizen? In 2019, several new areas, ships, and content were released. With Patch 3.8, performance was significantly improved in December, which MeinMMO reader Todesklinge immediately noted.
However, fans had to forgo the new campaign Squadron 42, of which there was only a teaser in 2019. The first gameplay demo for the campaign could be seen back in 2017. Since then, players have been eagerly awaiting the expansion.
