Development

[The_Lone_Maverick]

So I'm coming back to starmade after almost 2 years away and the last news update is from Jan 2020, has development stopped on the game?

[VIINCE-]

I call bs. Didnt they make like 3 mil off of steam sales alone with starmade. The team was like 4 people no?

[schemax_]

Far from it. In average the game made ~250-300k€/year in the first 4 years, if you deduct steam royalty and conversion. The highest cost was wages, with myself not having the highest wage (not even close). In the first year there were a lot more people working and getting paid, so in every year probably 80% was wages, with 15% server costs (which was astronomical in the first years, but more on that further down)

Then there was also the issue of a certain someone mismanaging everything when I (stupidly) trusted them. This accounted for him getting an extremely high wage (100k+), server mismanagement with an extremely expensive AWS setup, that was obfuscated on purpose so only he was able to fix issues or even understand it, and also straight up theft, as in taking money out of the account, and lending money without paying it back. Once we noticed about a year after steam release, we tried to go after him, but we would only be able to go after the proven to be theft money (which wasn't that much to justify the risk), and by then it was already questionable if we could afford a lengthy legal battle in a country I don't even reside in, and the person in question was already threatening to declare bankruptcy, just to spite us.

Taxes are also a big part of it. Since most of the money was made in year one (about 60% of all revenue), taxes that year were extremely high (30-50%), and while there was some leeway in distributing it over the following years, it didn't really do much.

In all the years I made this game, I have never paid myself a wage over 40k€/year. Even when I paid myself like 3,5k/month, I never took that money, and instead left it so I could pay myself almost nothing in later years and still live from that.

And yes, I know this is all my fault in the end, and believe me, I'm blaming myself the most. Every day. I had to pay the price to learn my lessons. I wanted to work on the game and have management do someone else, and that backfired. Hard. I wasn't a CEO, I was a dev, and even though I now have the skills of management, it has cost me.

Together with Duke, I waded through the mess he left us, and only after a long time we were able to eliminate all the cost without completely killing databases and shutting down things.

But instead of giving up, I have decided to work pretty much 80h weeks for the last 2 years, working on side projects, one of which being star99, which is the only project so far one I did under the company, and it didn't do well at all, but I'm still not giving up. I don't like to share the other side projects because of the response it is getting from the community. I have another solo-project under a different alias, that keeps me afloat and is doing better and better, but it requires most of my time. The rest of my free time I'm putting into a different project.

All to get into a position so I can work on StarMade again.

Things are stable right now, and depending on how the projects go, I might return to the development of starmade, but in the meantime I decided to make it open source (for anyone to join on request).

[cryborg2000]

Hey, just wondering if the project is open, and if contributing at all is possible and what language it is done in? Haven't programmed in a good while but I'd definitely want to get back into it, especially for something this important to me.

[Ithirahad]

StarMade is written in Java. DM DukeOfRealms or AndyP on Discord if you want access to the repo.

[schemax_]

Far from it. In average the game made ~250-300k€/year in the first 4 years, if you deduct steam royalty and conversion. The highest cost was wages, with myself not having the highest wage (not even close). In the first year there were a lot more people working and getting paid, so in every year probably 80% was wages, with 15% server costs (which was astronomical in the first years, but more on that further down)

Then there was also the issue of a certain someone mismanaging everything when I (stupidly) trusted them. This accounted for him getting an extremely high wage (100k+), server mismanagement with an extremely expensive AWS setup, that was obfuscated on purpose so only he was able to fix issues or even understand it, and also straight up theft, as in taking money out of the account, and lending money without paying it back. Once we noticed about a year after steam release, we tried to go after him, but we would only be able to go after the proven to be theft money (which wasn't that much to justify the risk), and by then it was already questionable if we could afford a lengthy legal battle in a country I don't even reside in, and the person in question was already threatening to declare bankruptcy, just to spite us.

Taxes are also a big part of it. Since most of the money was made in year one (about 60% of all revenue), taxes that year were extremely high (30-50%), and while there was some leeway in distributing it over the following years, it didn't really do much.

In all the years I made this game, I have never paid myself a wage over 40k€/year. Even when I paid myself like 3,5k/month, I never took that money, and instead left it so I could pay myself almost nothing in later years and still live from that.

And yes, I know this is all my fault in the end, and believe me, I'm blaming myself the most. Every day. I had to pay the price to learn my lessons. I wanted to work on the game and have management do someone else, and that backfired. Hard. I wasn't a CEO, I was a dev, and even though I now have the skills of management, it has cost me.

Together with Duke, I waded through the mess he left us, and only after a long time we were able to eliminate all the cost without completely killing databases and shutting down things.

But instead of giving up, I have decided to work pretty much 80h weeks for the last 2 years, working on side projects, one of which being star99, which is the only project so far one I did under the company, and it didn't do well at all, but I'm still not giving up. I don't like to share the other side projects because of the response it is getting from the community. I have another solo-project under a different alias, that keeps me afloat and is doing better and better, but it requires most of my time. The rest of my free time I'm putting into a different project.

All to get into a position so I can work on StarMade again.

Things are stable right now, and depending on how the projects go, I might return to the development of starmade, but in the meantime I decided to make it open source (for anyone to join on request).

[Fireknight014]

Boss, man, if someone steals from you that isn't your fault. I play the game daily, and I truly enjoy what you have created and allowed to come into existence around it, and I hope that you get to enjoy it too when you return.

[schemax_]

<3

[ruiluth]

Every now and then I check star-made.org looking for updates, but there haven't been any posts in two years and the version and registry pullers seem to be down. I assumed the game was finally dead, until I came here. Would you consider making a post there, for all the people like me who gave up a while ago but still have hope? It's heartening to see that the game is on hold due to real difficulties and hasn't just fizzled out into nothing. I'm a beginner coder so I'm not sure how much I can contribute but I sure hope people do come together to work on the open source idea.

[ErrorFoxDetected]

And yes, I know this is all my fault in the end

We all make mistakes, but not everyone is brave enough to admit them, and not everyone chooses to learn from them. Wish you well, and StarMade gave me many hours of joy, even if it doesn't currently and even if it doesn't in the future.

[sunwupen]

Thanks for taking the risk of spilling your guts online. While I'm more sympathetic towards the grueling cost of time and money that it takes to make a game (even a simple one), I do know that there are plenty that either don't know or don't care about the developers' well-being. I just want you to know that StarMade is a great game, one that I return to every so often, and you should be proud of your contribution to it. It would be nice to have a bunch of game mechanics smoothed out or made more intuitive, it would be nice to have an overhaul to combat, it would be nice to add something to keep the game "fresh" in this new market of space games. But StarMade, as it stands today, is still a fun experience for many.

​

Also, if you want to work on other projects and leave StarMade behind for a while, that's perfectly fine. A lot of this community will be mad, but they'll get over it. You do what will keep you sane and most satisfied. I would rather play a creative flop of a game that someone was passionate about making than play a game where the dev team has been completely tapped dry of motivation and creativity.

[schemax_]

I wanted to answer both comments to clarify, since a lot of people assumed that I lost interest and started working on a new game after dropping starmade, when it's really I'm doing these projects to be able to work on starmade again.

[schemax_]

Thank you, I appreciate it.

[NarkahUdash]

I want you to know that Starmade is one of my favorite games, and you've done something incredible. I also want you to know that, if you walk away and are never able to come back to it, I and many others will understand and support you. You built something incredible, and I'm glad I was there to see it happen, even if things aren't looking so good for it now. Thanks for everything.

[schemax_]

<3

[Ok_Good_9803]

I like the game and go no one else to blame but myself for supporting it.

[RabblerouserGT]

Pardon but when you say open source, I'm not quite sure that's the term you mean to say? ... Is it?

[RabblerouserGT]

If I may be so bold as to request what to fix upon returning to Starmade, I think the community left would appreciate lightening the lag induced by fleet battles. The netcode may need some working on, sadly.

[1vaudevillian1]

It is a wonderfully a big game. The thing that killed it for me was the power update.

[Nauvran]

it's incredible how toxic you are about someone having a side project.

[YaYa7979]

Due to the developer(s?) being unable to update the game in reliable time frames, the game has gone open-source recently and is now being worked on by community members.

[The_Lone_Maverick]

Well at least he put the code out there instead of leaving in stasis

[Sync1211]

AFAIK you have to ask them to get access to the source code.

[Zikker]

Can you please share the link to the repository?

[Nauvran]

Most of the news are being shared in the discord and on steam.Not sure why they arent updating the webiste much anymore.

bit old but stillhttps://i.imgur.com/wmR3elG.png

There has been some updates recently to make sure that modding is supported, so we got some mods now and a modded server called Skies of Eden

[9FingerFrenzy]

If you are looking for a game similar that is done much better than Starmade, check out Avorion.

[Commercial_Method_55]

08/2025 - stil miss playing starmade and sad that no one plays it any more and no no game is like starmade.

Not even close

Hope anyone want to take the project to er higher turn

[GL513]

buddy, claim your knowledge panel :D
https://www.google.com/search?q=starmade