• space@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      I can’t answer the first question, but developers and artists are expensive. Here is a quote I found online

      As of 2020-12, CIG has a total of 695 staff. 512 of whom are developers. As of July 2023, 1100 CIG staff are working on Star Citizen, not counting third party …

      At an $100000/yr salary, a team of 1100 people will cost $110mil/year. That excludes other business costs or any third party company they may contract for various assets, for example music.

      • regalia@literature.cafe
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        1 year ago

        They’re easily triple-A size without a single launched game lol. Yet despite the budget and expense of a AAA studio, they’ve put out less content then an indie studio. So what are these developers actually even doing

        • space@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          As a developer, it’s easy to get lost implementing things that “you might need”, and waste time on countless refactorings. This is why project management is very important, and to have capable people in the leadership that can give a direction.

          I’ve seen some interviews with developers, and they definitely are building cool tech, for example procedural generators that can do very detailed models of buildings and interiors, but it takes time away from actually making the game.

          • PostMalort@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            A thousand percent this is bad project management. You can have amazing staff but if there’s poor project management there’s going to be huge costs and delays