SaltEMike Reacts to Store Citizen is full of Red Flags | Pirate Software
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- The Video - • Store Citizen is full ...
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Classical P2W: You buy power
Modern P2W: You gamble on a chance to get more power
so modern p2w was classical p2w with extra step, got it
@@riosasin3086 Monetized extra steps! :D
You better be worried to get a timeout lmao
Star Citizen p2w: You buy jpg and wait 12 years and a new guy earns it within a month of you getting it
@@derjadebaum9159 yeah going to be honest, that felt very petty from mike and got me super angry, and i agree with mike on almost everything, but the pettiness i cant handle
"Here is my $40. One Pokemans please." "Red or blue?"
I agree, the difference is most Devs need publishers to keep the door open as publishers, usually fund and request a large chunk of equity in return. Publishers traded in sadly today even staying flat for one quarter is considered unacceptable by shareholders.
So they tell the developers to find ways to make money and when they see other people make money through a new revenue stream then they tell them to add it, and if they do not, they will replace the president of the developer with someone who will .
Just how the world works.
he has a outside perspective which is good for the star citizen community which became a literal cult even for those who "hate" the game.
any game is a 'cult' if you enjoy it enough. I probably spent over $2000 on free-to-play Heroes of the Storm, just buying new characters and skins. and yes, the new characters were always super-buffed and better than the previous characters, so I was suddenly winning a lot more than before.
Its not a cult, if your getting what you pay for. Its a cult when the cult is telling you what to do, reguardless of if it benefits you or not.
Its a product, plain and simple.
yeah I hate this pirate guy. Hes so arrogant and acts like he knows what he's talking about because he watched one video of another streamer complaining about the game.
Outside perspectives are only good if they're actually informed. Thor is not.
I hate the whole idea that SC's community is a "cult". Have you fuckin' SEEN the community? Everyone you ask wants something different from the game. They constantly bicker. Spectrum is FULL of arguments. They're the least cohesive community on the planet. The whole idea that we're just a bunch of people fawning over CIG is idiotic. It's just another thing said to alienate and belittle people who like something you dont. That's it.
LTI MATTERS! when I go to sell on Ebay after realizing I went in too deep.
I've always cared about LTI because insurance is a stupid mechanic that I don't want to worry about, however insignificant paying it may be....That along with hunger/ thirst etc.
store citizen was a great name for it ^^ If only the store was as buggy as the game is we would be happier :P
😂😂🤣🤣
I do prefer Star Hangar ;)
@@derjadebaum9159 what about pay to be a citizen :P
When it comes to eve, it used to be a titan pilot had to be YEARS AND YEARS old. But now, a day 1 account with the financial backing can fly the single largest and most expensive ship in the game.
Well it also used to be people would just build up an account and sell it to the person with a wallet. All EVE did was make sure the money went to them and saved the rich people a few bucks.
Yeah, but in EVE you can control a titan alone.
@VolondM give it time. CIG will 100% provide some way to pilot the large ships yourself. Either by hiring some NPC crew or another method. Hell being able to hire a crew opens of another funding avenue for them with different types of crews people could buy with different skills
@@rjlolatte1 they have already stated there will be some version of npc crew
@@liljay300000 oh they have? Weird so many people are using "you can't fly the big ships yourself" as defense for it not being p2w if you will be able to fly the big ships yourself.
my thing is i have fun playing star citizen. nothing else matters to me at the end of the day. im enjoying myself.
Ok cool, but as long as you don’t negate the way other people feel because you are having fun…I’ll always respect that feeling. People use their feelings to negate others, or even facts. P2W games CAN be fun too, but they are still P2W.
I dont care if people buy Javelins. CIG will have to make anyways that those ships wont be able to just gop to a station full of traders and blow everything up with no consequenses. Like this XT when the captured Idrises start railgunning cargoships for the next mission. You cant prevent it. There will always be a bigger ship a bigger fleet a bigger org. Its never goign to be level field. But i buy ships to skip the grind. I am grinding enough in real life. Why would i do it in a game afterwards. I just want to fly around and have some fun doing activitys.
@@saltemikereactsSC isn’t pay2win. Unless you make a weapon gated by money
The point is 6 only get an advantage when u see getting rich or getting the ships is the goal.
But when getting rich is the game we are done at the beginning.
The gameloops are the target, and yes, we dont have them now.
There will be no endgame in SC.
CIG has 12 years of data that selling ships pays their bills. They have 0 years of data that shipping a game pays their bills. They will always spend more money on selling ships than making a game.
People believe this is a Project funding a Game.
In reality it is a "game" funding a Project.
it was a funding tho, just for another game: sq42
edit: ho thats probably what you implied in the last sentence, read too fast
The ship team is pretty small though...
I think people are hung up on warframe because it may not be p2w but it us definitely pay to skip content, and one of his earlier points about buying ships is you are paying to win by skipping the grind to getting a ship.
Implying SC has depth to its content though is a bit of a reach.
"Communication is fine."
Mike: Urghhhhhhhhh
😆 I expected this response hahahaha
I haven't thought of ships as purely cosmetic, but my understanding was always that acquiring ships was supposed to be relatively trivial. As in, you and 2-3 friends could spend a day doing ERT's or whatever, and be able to buy just about any ship you want, and the challenge of the game is supposed to be skillfully operating the ship and what you do with it.
So, if a lone person spends $1000 on a ship, they haven't really "won" anything because they won't be able to run that ship worth a damn unless they have an organized crew of knowledgeable people, for whom it would be trivial to acquire the ship in-game anyway.
Yep, this is my understamding too, that and the real cost is componets that do not come back in insurance.
Store Citizen. I'm going to start using that.
In my opinion the best way to fix the monetization problem is to change it to cosmetics-only after release, and that way all the ships people bought early on will just be legacy items for early backers for funding the development.
Pay2win and macro-transactions aside, what would be a more "ethical" funding model that still hits all the features and tech that were promised?
The trouble with Star Citizen is that it straddles the line that makes it so easy to hate and so easy to love. It takes a more than superficial glance to understand everything at play. And CIG aren't doing themselves any favors with poorly defined goals and aggressive marketing. At the same time they have to be heavy-handed to get the project over the finish line with such an ambitious level of scope, detail, and tech.
Would the game be as expansive had it never gone open-alpha? Would it have taken as long? Would it even have maintained interest to stay alive this long?
Frankly, all of that is irrelevant. We are where we are and all that's left is to see where we land.
Simple...take out loans, get investors, and a publisher, that's how Thor and Mike see it as "ethical". Having to be forced on ROI for a quarter of the game that we are promised is good because at least there's a game out.
Look at the "ethnical gaming" landscape of Modern Game's industry. People spend far more money on Call of Duty than they will on Star Citizen, people steal money to play gotcha. Oh your game package was changed and now you have to pay an extra 100 dollars, that's ethical even though the dude said the idea is to make the player enraged they pay...no demand for advantages.
Its a very good thing I make sure to keep my ad blocker up for channels like Mike and Thor. Its not worth paying them for bad takes.
The thing is though, I'd say the LEAST predatory thing is to have a big honking package costing 48,000 dollars. Blizzard and Gacha games are far more predatory, CSGO leans into gambling addiction. Star Citizen 'preys' on those 2nd life spend the dream type people. Noone is 'accidentally' getting 48k in debt because of SC but there are ABSOLUTELY people getting addicted and going broke from Diablo 4 etc..
This is an interesting take. I actually agree with this. Being upfront on how much something costs is the least predatory thing you can do
SC has alot of mistakes, but i think its a depressing case of how honesty can get you fucked. Everyone focuses on every missed deadline, every broken promise, while the game has the best dev to fanbase comunication of any game out there, and its the most upfront game about its funding besides small crowdfunded indie tittles
Having tried the "ccu game" for just one ship with no leftover store credit and never touching that shit again, I can say that it can get very addictive. If you just follow recommended good warbond CCU deals you can quickly end up with many chains. Before I started I did my research and this is a quote from one guy helping me answer questions; "I now have 187 CCU's, which cost me 1695 dollars, but have a "value" of 3865 dollars."
I still partly agree with you though, I think SC is less predatory than your examples, with "trick" currency like gems or gambling. SC has their tricks though, with artificial scarcity, fomo and speculation for future warbond CCU deals, price increases for released ships or other price adjustments.
yea but then they sell u some gear set on the store for 15$ and if u die in game u only get it back after a reset is predatory
@@aguspuig6615 See and that's the problem. The gaming industry is dealing with Battered Wives Syndrome, where its constantly used to Devs and publishers doing incredibly scummy shit for their investors (Blackrock, Vanguard, and Charles Schwab).
Then here comes CIG and Roberts who have been completely open with the fans since inception. They will often play the diplomatic tune but rarely try to obfuscate at the level of EA or Activision.
Any one that looks in on that is goes "that cant be right, they are doing something wrong....there has to be something wrong. Its not natural" all due to the effect of current modern gaming.
When i saw the reclaimer back in 2014 i knew i wanted to play the game and do salvaging, it took almost a decade of hyping me up for CIG to finally convince me to put down money and get into the game. I played the game for three days before i became so frustrated with everything that i got a refund, i never even got to step inside a reclaimer after all that time and after a decade of wanting to my experience with the game was so bad i feel apathetic about that.
It felt to me like CIG was far more interested in selling ship concepts then making a game you can actually fly ships in.
It's true it is indeed a playable test sandbox. As a backer, I get access and I can see what the game could be, but for now, we test the playability as more layers are added into the game. Once players get Bases. I was hoping we could build our in-game ships, with buyable schematics Like in EVE and use the particle collider of the Misc Endeavor and Engineers to make components
Your hope only adds another 20 years to alpha with these low effort devs.
Imagine having life time insurance on your ships in SC...but not actually getting to use said ship LTI in your lifetime.
Hey Mike, good on you for being there for your wife. From personal experience the right meds are a like a 98% solution, as in it's almost like not having Bipolar.
I’ve been trying to tell these people they don’t even know what LTI means and they are wasting money on it
You can buy the big boy ships....YOU CANNOT BUY THE PEOPLE TO MAKE THEM WORK! If I could fire my torps and guns from the pilot seat of my Polaris then I could see it as pay to win.
27:00 chatter is right tho, by Thors definition Warframe is pay to win, sure its 99% not a pvp game, but you can still pay to be faster at the PvE, you can still pay for pretty much anything in the game. I doubt hes being dishonest but idk how hes so wrong
Yeah, like completing one blueprint felt like years to finish. And whatever it was would have the same standard stats, wouldn't that the same then with SC. And here we have Mike, agreeing to a guy, who has skewed if not double standard, shit on the game based on LTI. While we can't even say, 'its an alpha' without getting shit on. What a joke.
Just being blunt, he has an obvious bias and it's clearly influencing his take.
I still think they can pretty easily solve most of the problems created by having sold ship for real money.
My favorite idea is to severely reduce insurance effectiveness outside of safe solar systems. This way, people can play around with their real money ship purchases all they want in safe systems (where earning potential should be low), but if they choose to go to dangerous systems to earn more the insurance timer will take a LOT longer and it will be a LOT more expensive to recover their ship.
This still gives an initial advantage to people who buy ships with real money, but ultimately after the ship is destroyed the first time the cost to recover a ship should be the same whether the ship was purchased with real money or not.
Over time, I think the initial advantage of paying real money for ships will dissipate to almost nothing.
Or, just make it so that the LTI prevents upkeep charges. You still need to buy insurance but the LTI prevents a annual upkeep charge that would be paid out.
If you do it that way, the ship in question would never leave a safe system, the smarter player would just buy a duplicate of that ship and use that as their daily driver. No reason to risk your cash ship in a low sec system where the LTI is ineffective vs a in game purchase ship that will have the same issue.
Best game I was ever a part of was Everquest2 back in the day. You could play solo and gear up alone to be able to take part in any raids or fight any boss mobs. OR you could do the same with groups/guilds. Thing is you were able to do it solo at your own pace. The game took a swing where you HAD to run groups constantly to get anything decent, over and over and over, grind grind grind... That's when I left. I wanted the game where I could raid with the best of them but get to that point alone. When they turned into a daily grind to get anything good I hung around for a while since I was the #3 player in the number 1 guild in the world at the time, but I just got so tired of my life becoming just Everquest2 and walked away.
Fix for Pay to win, in spite of store bought sips/UEC.
2 Servers (on persistence)
Server 1: Users get what they paid for.
Server 2: All payers get the same ship (starter) on character creation, or perhaps not even A ship at all? And no Starting UEC. Perhaps even a harsher death of a spaceman mechanic (2-3 lives?). Nothing can be bought in stores etc. Skins/Decals/Cosmetics come from in game events etc.
Fixed. Every type of player plays the way they want.
I literally had proposed this 1:1 some weeks ago on spectrum. But guess what? I got called a clown by more than 70 people in that same post.
@@CocainasBrokeBrain Of course, because the people who spent thousands don't get an advantage if the people who didn't can just avoid them on another server.
The marketing team will ruin this game. They'd never let it happen but the only way to fix this is for CIG to come out by the end of the year and set a hard date on released ships and UEC being available to purchase with IRL money. One last finale sale going for months. Anyone that backed up to this point gets their shiny stuff and the only future way to buy the game should be alpha package for $70 that lets you pick a starter.
Sadly, I believe they have dug the hole too deep for themselves to do what's right by us. They make too much money from ship sells to be able to come out and stop it. I wholeheartedly think they would make a massive lump sum on people's fomo, but I'm sure nothing beats the sales form a new concept ship that supposedly will be the greatest ship in the game.
@@Turbovolver the sad truth 😔
@@Turbovolver One server would likely boast the majority of the population and the other would shrivel up and die.
Forcing CIG to either move their paying customers to the "Free/Equalized" Server.
What do they do in such a case? Take away the Ships they bought? Not likely.
It's just not a very good idea. Multiplayer games that divide their player base only accelerate their deaths or alternatively put themselves in a situation where they have to merge servers to sustain population.
Unless it changed you can still buy Warframes in Warframe, which is a statistical and mechanical advantage, and if it did change you can still buy in game currency (platinum I think?) which lets you buy those Warframes, so it’s the same thing with extra steps. You can also buy weapons using platinum, which would be the direct analogy to buy ships in SC. It seems like his acceptance buying advantage is tied proportionally to if he likes the game or not.
His points about SC are mostly not wrong, but the application of his logic in why is not applied evenly.
The overall point you are both making is absolutely correct.
his points would be less wrong if he were factually correct.
It would be great if CIG offered a starter package (regardless of whether that's $45 or $70) that allows salvage or mining as a profession from the very get-go. It's a hole in Star Citizen that while a starter can be acquired to pursue combat as a path or cargo as a profession from the start, the only ships allowing salvage and mining are way above the starter level.
I have a feeling ship sales will tank when/if the game actually releases. Right now most people buy more than a starter ship so they always have it after a wipe. When the game does not wipe why would people spend hundreds on a ship they could grind a few hours for?
Sure there will be some, but most of us bought ships to support the development and to have them after a wipe. An advantage? Sure, but short lived once release. Besides what good is a expensive ship like say the Polaris? Sure its an "advantage" getting it without the grind, but without any friends to help crew it you're paying to lose.
The real question is and Thor touched on this.. how will SC pay for the servers when the game releases if no one buys ships after?
A prime example of why people who dont know anything about the project shouldn't be saying shit.
Thor asks; ".. how will SC pay for the servers when the game releases if no one buys ships after? "
It's an extremely simple answer if people actually bothered doing any investigative efforts in to the thing they're talking about (Thor). Why do you think CIG has focused so hard on the development of the engine? Why do you think the biggest draw, the largest marketed aspect of CitizenCon last year was.. StarEngine? Not Squadron 42. Not Star Citizen. The Engine. Why do you think they went through all that effort to display in precise sequencing all the features the engine can provide that was clearly aimed at other game studios, and not the players?
It's simple. They intend to license the engine to other companies. It's a money printer. Just look at Unreal Engine. They won't need to lean so heavily in to ship sales when their revenue is coming from the industry itself. On top of that, CIG also said they'd go the ESO route where they're going to do everything in their power to entice the player in to an optional sub. ESO is one of the most profitable MMOs on the market that has a buy-to-play model, *because* of the optional sub, and how all that ties in to their cosmetic store. I feel like people just.. dont understand how this industry works when they look at CIG selling ships and ask "Where do they go now?". Trust me, fam. There are a LOT of revenues for money.
We can argue that is LTI, or insurance is for, right? After all, that was why it became such a hot commodity. I still stick to my suggestion of them selling in-game, in-world billboard as ad spaces to real-life companies. Like, we will buy Fanta instead of Fizz, Wendy's instead of Whammer. We already have artificial ads anyway, might as well.
@@fajarn7052 If there is anything people hate as much, or almost as much as social issue pandering in movies, it's ad-placement in literally anything.
didn't they say they would stop selling ships and make them only earnable in game after release?
@@GrimGatsby They said they'd stop selling flyable ships, but would continue to sell new CONCEPT ships, in the rare occurrence that they make a new ship.
If it doesn't make sense, why would they offer it as a product LOL? Like come ON dude.
They played dumb to test the waters on LTI, saw how much money they made, and decided fuck em dude.
They have ZERO respect for their supports man, ZERO.
Instead of TELLING THE PLAYERS what LTI will look like BEFORE making it available for purchase they decided to scam you ALL on it instead.
I love how you put all the blame on the community for that lol. Not the absolutely disrespectful practices that CIG is employing.
they actually did say what they intended it to look like. People either don't pay attention or have joined so far along they don't know what's happened over the past decade. LTI is just hull insurance. You will pay for insurance in game. So, essentially, you just pay less (in game currency) over time to replace your ship if it gets destroyed. Insurance is just an in game money sink to keep people active in the economy.
@@anfiach Pretty much, every game has to have a money sink or the overall economy becomes inflated to the point the new player will never be able to purchase anything.
WoW and XIV have gone through inflation-deflation cycles in their longevity, WoW more now because of the Token in trying to maintain a stable market economy. XIV has housing that serves as a giant sink for players to invest in.
There's no difference with LTI/Insurance within SC, it serves as a UEC sink because the expectation is the player earning excessive amounts of credits during their gameplay loops.
I don't believe this wall of text fixes the issue by any metric, but it does soften it somewhat. First, let me say that in EVE, an Alpha account should be seen as a trial account, and not the intended way to play the game. Much like LTI, this is a change that was made based on player behavior and feedback after 13 years. Second, I'm happy the "Pay to lose" statement was made, even if it wasn't explained. If you buy skill points, you won't lose them (anymore), but most skills are setup such that 80% of a fully trained skill only provides 20% of the total advantage that skill offers. For instance, if a skill requires 1 million SP to get to level 5, levels 1-4 will collectively require 200k SP and level 5 by itself requires 800k. Each level is usually only a 2-5% bonus by itself. The pay to lose aspect comes into play much more when a player uses cash to buy a ship. In most cases, the ships purchased this way are very expensive and very vulnerable to some of the least expensive ships in the game flown by players who understand the game better than the one swiping their credit card. Once that ship is lost, it's gone forever, along with the real-life cash spent on it. In many ways, this is discouraged for new players (by the community) and is rather like the $48k SC pack. Is it possible? Sure. Is it recommended? No... CCP is not going to tell you that, but if you have any connection to the player base, this will come up very quickly.
As I understand insurance: as soon as the game get's released you gotta get your ship insured else it will just disapear in thin air when it get's destroyed.
So in my understanding you can either buy the insurance ingame or have the insurance from the pledge.
ive been here since the start as well and LTI was always never a big deal, ship insurance was always supposed to be a tiny miniscule credit sink which meant if you didn't have LTI, you had to go do one mission to pay for your insurance for the year or whatever.
I don't get it either, and I don't give a damn about LTI
My goal is to get my fleet set up so that i can enjoy every facit of the game when it is Mostly complete. As a solo player with a life, job, responsibilities. I don't have time to dedicate to grinding. I want to experience Fun when im in Any game, not a grind i already get a grind at work in real life. Utility is my primary priority in Starcitizen.
I agree entirely the only people that complain about paying to skip ahead are people who have a lot of time to play. I'm an adult and as an adult I can spend my money freely. However I do like the ship tier idea I own a Polaris and it would be cool if it was basically a base model and I could spend time and effort upgrading it instead of time and effort getting to the polaris.
I feel like CIG are way too far down the rabbit hole with the current monetization that any other system would just outright fail
By the way, did we all forget about GTA where you can buy in-game money and get everything?
Videos like this make me want to be a UA-camr for a day just to correct bullshit thats said from bad takes. But i have more important things to do like working on buying a house.
Now maybe they have changed their minds, but they have previously stated ships are not supposed to be sold anymore except for new concepts once the game releases.
Yea, lets be honest. SC has every incentive to draw things out as long as they can and over power almost every new ship to sell as hype while they shed others that have not sold well and moving on all the while selling all this is funding for the true goal Squadron 42.
I don't know how anyone could possibly argue that warframe isn't pay to win and is cosmetic only.
Warframe is identical to star citizen or eve.
Anything you can buy you can earn. Likewise, anything you can earn you can buy.
It's identical across three games.
Warframe is 99% pve though. Also their premium currency is tradeable between players.
@@philipm5043 so fucking what? Star citizen will also be overwhelmingly pve. That's the whole point to them planning to add hundreds of thousands of npcs running around doing shit.
Also, you can literally send (trade) SC ships between players. Eve "premium currency" is also tradeable between players.
You're just making excuses.
@@philipm5043 you must play warframe, to any new player, the force you to pay for shit $$$ is strong, its predatory. The only reason it "works" is the community mostly supports each other and is a great community. And once you get far enough in you realise you don't need to pay.
@@monarchco You said "warframe is identical to star citizen and eve."
The difference is there's no such thing as non-consensual pvp in warframe. pvp in warframe is something that players can choose to participate in or avoid, kinda like the old jumptown in SC.
Also even if you pay for a meta loadout with irl money, you'll just be helping your squad get through a mission faster.
To be fair, I don't care about SC being slightly pay to win, as long as the game turns out great and nothing is locked behind a paywall unlike other games.
@@lolsalad52 completely agreed.
Cant believe you are playing Eve I have not played since skill injectors, I worked so hard to fly capital ships years of training..
Also Ive lost so many Ships in WH Space good lord.
I get this whole dynamic completely, but all I'm gonna drop is something that should be obvious in the "win" portion of pay to win.
Hammerhead $750 gets nuked by Eclipse $300 which in turn gets chased and hunted down by random fighter X or Y that's clearly under $300... well maybe with the F8. But then F8 gets countered by the Hammerhead as a fighter screen.
Idk to me, it's turning into a rock/paper/scissors but more complicated than R/P/S.
*ARGO Mole comes in like John Cena and shits on everything*
I'm commenting to the guy who is reacting to the guy who is also reacting to learning about said game, while his chat chats along. Helping you out of the algorithm. BTW i have been subbed to EVE since 2009, i log in 1-2 a year to set skill Que.. just in case.
I played a free weekend years ago when the game was just a space station, then bought a starter ship in 3.15 after seeing the progress that had been made. i went in knowing it was alpha, that it's a bunch of tech demos and placeholder systems loosely glued together and could see the potential for me to enjoy what was there. I wanted to purchase an MSR, so I worked hard and earned the in game money to buy it. Then there was a wipe and i lost it. By this point i had a much better idea of what my money and the testing was going to create - not a game, but the engine and tech. I upgraded my starter pack to the MSR because i wanted to put more money into what CIG is creating and i had already earned it in game.
Even if Star Citizen flops on 1.0+, I've enjoyed my time playing it and feel my money hasn't been wasted. The Star Engine will be licensed out to create other amazing games (would be nice if CIG could use that income to fund SC 1.0+ long term rather than the ship sales), the server meshing tech will go on to support truly massive multiplayer games, and I'm glad to have been a very small part of helping it come to pass.
The thing that hooked me on SC was the fact that your character doesn’t have stats. The skills you learn at how to play the game not a stat sheet. The ships are 90% of the financing of the game. I have sank a lot of money in the game because I like where it was going and how it was developing. As long as ships are available as in game purchases and don’t take an egregious amount of time to grind then the game is ok for me.
Second comment: SC was not the goal of CR or CIG in the beginning, it is a byproduct of SQ42. The "pay to win" aspect doesn't apply to SQ42 so it has the potential to be the game that CR envisioned and maybe it'll be great. Time will tell.
There is a lot I agree with you about. but, when I decided to “invest” in Star Citizen, it wasn’t will I get my money back or see a return. It was, if CIG can pull off what they promised it would redefine gaming, VR and programing expectations that everyone wanted in 2015. This is why I am still a “whale” in hopes they will deliver the new tech they promised. It is starting to look that way (fingers crossed) and I still intermittently play in hopes to back this up. The reality is, if they deliver half of what was promised in SC and 1/3 of star engine with a path forward including continual improvement it will have been worth it in my eyes. Imagine what the next company can do when they pick it up and run with it.
Star Citizen stuff is weird in a sense, that they give people option to "buy the legendary endgame gear straight up" and then people buy them, and say there's no content. Like imagine a survival MMO, where you could buy straight up your castle, have NPC players working for you, have unlimited food and resources... What would you do in the game then? Probably just grief other players and fuck around like an idiot without any purpose in life. I mean, zero to hero is always the thing in games like this, pretty much the only thing to measure progress and give you good feedback on your actions (being able to gradually get bigger and better ship, better items, weapons, gear for your ship, expand your range of gameplay etc). Now, there is no such "restriction" of progress - in the end people need some linearity always, sometimes it might be cloaked well, but "I do this, I get towards that" is still linearity, even if there's 100 different things to do and different ways to go.
My starting package was a $75.00 upgrade package that includes the 325 with SQ42 and the Aeroview hanger upgrade that’ll hold any ship available. Hopefully that holds true.
It's not even pay to win, the gladius and arrow have been the meta for most of the development, and they are definitely on the cheaper end of purchase price, both in the store and in game
"I'm more of a classical pay-to-win enjoyer, their modern stuff feels more like the Microtransactions album"
I don’t care that people can pay more to have more power in the game, it creates natural “bosses” of various skill levels you can choose to engage or avoid, and means there could be beatable whales. This creates natural “skill” progression, not “item” progression…. Which is great. In a game where only the skilled get the best tools, you know you’ll never have a chance against them, and thus will never engage. This game allows the unskilled to have good tools, and allows skilled players with worse tools to take it from them…. That’s fun
If they make components of all types, for example, regular components, hidden alien modded components, aftermarket components, crafted components that proc stats up to legendary. Allowing your base ship to be as powerful as the installed components. I mean all components, weapons, shields, quantum drives, etc. Everything should be earnable, discoverable, basic shop buyable, and player craftable to get the best based on materials you have to work hard to find in diverse areas of space.
Classical pay to win would be paying for in game advantage when playing against other players. The modern version would be something like what escape from tarkov has done where you can pay for stash space and items that hold no advantage. It's still a wallet win but you can't use it to your advantage over others in a raid.
9:00 - I was there too. It was during the way way back of circa... 2013-14? timeframe. Mike is 100% correct in that the blind LTI hype was real and CIG definitely took advantage of it. Now, it's just ambiguous "thing" that CIG refuses to elaborate on since they know it'll hurt their "exclusivity" marketing if they do.
I think we can all agree though, I promise you past $500 spent in Star Citizen, youll run out of friends before money lmao
12:17 I googled a bit and I'm pretty sure that InfectedRonin guy who said "WRONG" is an actual child.
I feel like online communities have an inherently difficulty in setting a reasonable consistent tone when literal children can anonymously interject with something absolutely idiotic, and have people take it seriously as if a serious part of the community actually thinks these things, instead of addressing the kid appropriately and disciplining them for interrupting.
They have communicated about what lti and other insurence is, it is the lowest tier of whatever they do. Also all pledged ships will never be lost, but insurance matters.
But while they have talked about it, it is still irrelevant. They change have changed views and scope of the game multiple times, so insurance could be something else
I find the topic odd, because until there is permanency we can't have pay to win. CIG has a brief amount of time to fix their system to prevent pay to win when there is permanence. I'm not confident they will.
Genuine question, based on the way star citizen ‘Pay to win’ works, where you can buy all ships with real money… your stance is it gives you a competitive advantage as you can have any ship right away.
What’s the difference between someone who joins early and earns the ships in game, vs a new player? They too have a competitive advantage against the new player. Or the player that can play 50 hours a week vs a player than can play only 5 hours a week.
Buy a ship with base components, no crew, they’d still need to grind, meet people, but just less. The player that plays more still outpaces that player, but they can have the ship they really want.
absolutely correct. The thing is, you will likely have an org if you want to run missions where "having advantages" at the individual level will be nullified by your choices based on the amount of time you have to play at any given time. If you only have a couple hours, you join your org and get good at running a ship from enigineering, copilot, gunning on bigger ships like and Idris, where getting personally killed will be pretty rare and you can still have super engaging and exiting game play playing your small part keeping the ship systems up and running FAST' you might be "that dude" in engineering who pulled a super Scotty and got our QT working JUST in time!!! Then the sweatier players that do a lot of FPS and single seat combat going for the big money will be the guys playing 50 hours a week lmao. Nothing changes!
In all honesty you can’t have a pay 2 win when there is nothing to win in the Game. Star Citizen contains absolutely no content that gives a player the advantage over anything.
All you are doing, is making it so you don’t have to constantly buy your ships again as most wipes will wipe your ingame bought ships.
Again though, having a “bigger ship” doesn’t bring you an advantage except in a dog fight, which is a choice you make.
@@WigganNuG Not only that, but being a Gunner, Security, Engineer, Medtech, Data Runner, Hacker, and Covert Operative would probably be far more lucrative to any organization vs another Fighter Pilot.
Pilots will be far the cheapest and most disposable if we put it in terms of an MMO, class in the game. You'll have your aces granted but a Engineer, Data Runner, hacker, Covert Operative and Gunner would pay a far hefty chunk of UEC to the right people.
Even Bridge Crew and a Officer may even be worth far more than a pilot. Someone that has excellent interpersonal skills that can crunch information at it develops may turn the Tide.
I'd want a Kirk/Sisco/Ivanova/Sheridan on the bridge relaying tactical information to the crew, other ships and fighter screen vs some no name that can barely put orders out.
I doubt any pricey ship in SC is going to give any stat or mechanical advantage. Soon it will be impossible to even make them survive unless you got enough people to make it work. A whale may have bought and Idris, meta end game ship, he can only use a single gun and can't do repairs while piloting. It's a fancy useless ship without a crew. For this reason some people is so desesperate about AI crews. An even with that isn't going to survive a collective attack from other players piloting cheaper ships.
"Only Cosmetics are okay! - Storage in a Loot Game is fine"
I have to say, as much as I love Star Citizen for what it could be one day, I can't fault Thor for not knowing the nuances of LTI and seeing it as a red flag. The reason he does and the reason some people still think of this as a scam are mostly CIG's (and the community's to a extend) fault.
They've made it way too nuanced and complicated in certain areas, through a bunch of bad decisions and microtransactions and insurance with ship sales that unlock more expensive ships as you spend more money, where they sell landclaims for a system that was and still is nowhere close to being a reality, where they constantly use FOMO and artificial scarcity and sell you jpegs of ships... it makes it look like a scam or a red flag or whatever you like to call it to anyone who hasn't sat down and went through a lengthy deep-dive of how this all functions.
And if you have to go through a lengthy explanation to understand the fine details, something is not right.
The best marketing CIG could've done is selling LTI in such a way, with telling very little, and letting the community convince themselves that they could actually lose forever ships bought with real money without LTI.
All the defenders of those Advantage Purchases are the ones making those purchases.
And now think about why they implemented mastermodes? Because that is supposed to close the skill gap. So that the player with the better ship is more likely to win. That's what all the make choice matter more was about the choice which ship to buy.
Question: How do you propose they achieve income to pay devs etc if there isnt ship sales?
Yeah but it seems they care more about ships sales than anything else that's the problem with constant constant delays, and promises they can't deliver when they say they are gonna deliver
@@FerbDahMan you should be a game dev and help them to bring those features faster
@danielcojocariu8438 you see and that's always the "arguement" everyone responds with well that the critics should do it then no they chose to make this game and say these are the features we want no one forced them to create star citizen when they launched that kickstarter all those years ago they chose this path so they need to deliver end of story
@@danielcojocariu8438 Have you read their financials or done the math? Their devs HAVE to be underpaid as all hell at this point, because with the number they claim to have, at current AAA studio salaries, their money would be in the negative. 700mil sounds like a lot until you split it over 12 years, multiple properties, payroll, licensing, bills, advertising, washed up actors, and CR's new mansion.
@@FerbDahMan You remember that the backers chossed to expand the scope? end of story
I go on and say I joined to join a project, not a finished game. If the game happens to launch it's icing on the cake and history making. Not all of us are here for a game. So the fact is game or not, isn't the point, my entertainment is the development, watching the changes, enjoying what we have in front of us . So all the "game" arguments P2W are secondary for me.
I was thinking about this. People keep bringing up Warframe as an example of buying power and it survived. at least that is what I took from the bits heard in these videos. The problem with this comparison is each new warframe brings completely new powers. none of them quite overlap. Look at tanks: You got Rhino who is pure armor. Inaros who is pure hit points and canabilizes others for their hp. Hildryn who is all about the shields. Chroma who can swap immunities to particular kinds of energy. Star Citizen doesn't have this. every fighter is in the same class: playing with armor or shields and picking a gun to use. So each fighter that comes out just has more guns or bigger guns and there's subtle differences such as acceleration and profile but in the end they all compete directly with each other. In the end it looks like fight control and firepower win. you can have all the shields and armor you want if I can just keep ducking out of the fight until I have the advantage.
So it is closer to pay to win instead of pay to be unique. An example would be that you have these giant alien fighters that are terrible because there is only one meta. what if a sylen had special composite slabs that converted all that incoming fire into heat and it had extra heat sinks to deal with it instead of just the standard shield and armor that all the others had. what about hacking ships that mess up targeting, like the MSR. at least with cargo you have 2 ways of dealing with cargo. internal and external. but does one have an advantage? stuff like that. stuff beyond the standard set of components. hell then the special feature could be a component that people could steal and put in other ships or something.
So I dont think they are a good comparison. The bulk of the money that WF makes is in cosmetics. Hell I said as much for years. CIG could sell palettes of colors and skins that are just patterns and finish so we can pick colors to apply to the skins then orgs could stand out. they make money we get customization and everyone is happy. or at least meet at a compromise that everyone isn't cross.
But one thing to keep in mind with WF is that in the end it is a PvE game. The PvP side they nerf a lot of the more interesting powers like the crowd control ones that would absolutely dominate the field. but there is some interesting ideas to take from it non the less
I can't stand him, dude has a "know it all" kinda attitude that pisses me off. I guess we can't like everyone. And no, he doesn't "know it all" he worked on Cyber Security, the only game dev experience he has were a couple of very small indie projects. I'm a software dev and studied computer science but I never assume I know how gamedev works, but he talks like he invented it.
P.S. I do agree that SC monetization sucks, we should never have started selling space ships but they can still fix it, I hope.
Dude worked for Blizzard, that's not a couple indy projects lol
I think hes a genuenly good dude, and hes smart too, but hes too used to being right all the time, and is currnetly overconfident in topics he doesnt know enough about
Until an alternative presents itself to the team on funding that doesn't need an external force that harm current production, we are stuck with the ship sales as the primary motivation to keep funding going.
Now if Dynamic Server Meshing works to its entirety....i'd license that shit out as soon as the ink dries on the patent office and slash ship prices by 60% for one last big BANG before closing the shop up and selling dumb cosmetics that cost 2-3 dollars.
You cant even pay the people to make the ships for the skins to go on in a crowdfunded game if you only sell cosmetics.
I think it’s okay for them to sell what they want to fund the project. In the end when the game releases backers will likely be such a small minority of players in the verse. IMO.
lol, damn Mike, you are LESS miserable at your previous job?? I am very happy this worked out for you then and hope you find another game that makes you happier. It’s awesome it allowed you to be able to be there for the wife as making enough to be profitable doing this is hard AF.
If they set the price of an idris in game at lets say 500 million - and lets say the average joe can make (with a larger ship and crew) about 2 mil an hour. That's 250 hours of my time saved.
If someone for example spent $2500 on ships with LTI - and those ships have an upfront cost of lets say 500 game hours played to acquire + residual savings on basic insurance.
That is $5 an hour.... up front... plus residual benefits with the free basic insurance.
Many people who back Star Citizen are not on the lower end of the economic spectrum, yet people who don't have a lot of real life money can still enjoy the game.
Hell they may even get more enjoyment out of it, sometimes life isn't about the luxury or leisure, but the hustle and struggle....
Star Trek online has a lifetime sub. It's low pop but its still around. There are about 6+ online games with lifetime subs that all still exist and have been around for years and years.
Another fantastic video Mike.
Every game have this, you can use money to unlock characters or grind & use ingame points/money to buy/unlock it
woah it's great seeing mike hold his ground, I'm reminded of metropolis "if you destroy the factory we will all die," the foreman shouts as the mob overtakes the ancient doorway. I usually point out how the money changes the directions of game development, corrupts the design document. But playing in competition with people who only do pvp to attack the backside of other players, now you know why they be spending the money. this of course is only a small loud group, like 10 percent of the players the other 80% are quite lovely in general. (and in the last three years every year there is a new crop of people, going through the seasons of star citizen. Love anxiety anger and acceptance. edit for "instant cook" >_< >O>
I quit Eve when they introduced Microtransaction. The grinding of Eve was fun, even with macro farming accounts. But the microtransaction killed the magic.
Here is an example there are two players both play for the same amount of time one bought a top of the line fighter the other player go it ingame who would win in a fight when the player started with a low ship had to work harder and learn tactics.
The same could be said with any game loop.
Plus they are bringing in buffs through activities in the game to so by making your character even more important to the advantage and makes you more caring what happens to him or her with death of a space man.
But that only applies if the one that bought the fighter out of game did not put the play time in.
I am on the fence regarding ship purchasing as long as Star Citizen follows a path small ships can be flown effectively alone but the larger you get thee more disadvantages there will be. Some ships should just have a crew, while it might be possible to fly a ship alone that will be about all you can do with it. Star Citizen should NEVER allow a player to hire a NPC crew. And any ship that can rake in lots of money should require a crew. You see that a bit now with the reclaimer with pilots advertising for crews, perhaps that should be taken a bit farther to force a crew so to speak but I will admit I am not sure how that could be implemented.
hey mike, thats not at all how the LTI was brought back at the end of 2013. CIG removed LTI after using FOMO to make backers rush to purchase ships before the cutoff day-- then after the sales dropped off with no LTI, CIG panicked and put LTI back into the store. The whole CCU with LTI tokens came in years after.
I don't think I've ever been a fan of your content. Maybe because of personal bias, but after this.. maybe because I like Pirate but your stance on StarCitizen is actually making since to me now. I still love the game but there maybe a day I'll have to walk away from it like every other MMO I've played. The best I can hope for is to enjoy the ride. Thanks for the new perspective 🙂
The way they're making money to make the game is definitely something I hate, however how else would they able to do it? It's a lesser evil we are forced to allow come in terms with. Just hope they lessen it when the game is released, sell more cosmetics or only 1 in 3 new ships are sold based on lottery so they don't sell the best ships only.
the problem stems from the actual developement and chris constantly moving the goal posts. if we got back to what was originally promised (ships included) a lot if not all of that could be in the game, yet christ continiously pushed features/concepts out the door to "keep funding going" but to push those bigger feature goals and concepts the price of ships also had to go up to match the cost of developement.
Genuinely had christ stuck to the original end goal of SC and not had to push for more funding to fund further feature creeping and concept ships, i dont think ships in general would be half the price and any future features could easily have been seasonal content in the live service aspect of SC PU release. im dumbing it down best I can but that is the crux of the issue.
@@123TheCloop When have the goal posts moved? The reason there was so many bloated features is because the kickstarter hit EVERY single goal they had and they kept adding stuff before the kickstarter ended. Since then, it hasn't shifted.
Q2p0😊@@123TheCloop
Subscription with different tiers would be a far better option. It 1 would give them a steady stream of constant monthly income to plan development around 2 it wouldnt create a massive pay-to-win problem SC is gonna have with it fully releases with the current ship selling model. People who think there wont be pay-to-win issues delusional
They need to cycle the real money store every day with random ships so orgs can’t just buy ships when a war starts and have to actually earn the majority of them
I want to start by saying that I agree with the sentiment that SC would be better if no ships were sold, and my following statement is not necessarily a defense of that decision, but a way to explain why I think it will get better over time.
Because most of the ships that you can buy in the webstore you can also buy in game, what you are actually buying is time. This gets more complicated when they sell ships that you wont be able to buy in the game (like the large military ships), but in general, you are buying time. I see this as the equivalent of being able to buy XP in traditional MMO RPGs.... will being 25 lvls ahead of all other players give you an advantage? yes! Until the rest of the player base catches up. In that sense, you might be overpowered for however long it takes for many people to grind out the best ship you may have bought... but the longer the game is alive, the less of a problem that is. From a new player's perspective, It won't matter if a player bought, or earned an MK2.... That player is in an advantaged state to you until you catch up to them. I think there is still massive room for skill to play a role in the game, at least as far as the occupations go. All this only works if they stop selling ships in the store once the game actually goes to 1.0, obviously.
Great show, DailyDoseOfThor is mostly correct, and you are a crack up. 👍👍
I think that Eve doomed themselves to eventually having to sell skills because of the way they made progress in the game based on real time. If you were 100% efficient with skill training and grinding and it took 6 to 12 months of real world time before you were not getting wiped by the game's methuselah accounts that have been around since launch the number of new players wouldn't replace the attrition of people aging out or moving on. They would eventually have to find a way to level the playing field somewhat and a total restructure would piss off all the old players so they instead let people buy skills to try to catch up.
well, there is a ship, no a concept ship, no, a PPT called the Banu merchantman, before that PPT, concept ships would come out more or less similar to their concept at somepoint. But Banu merchantman is the turning point: it never comes out. It had so many promises, at one point it was the most expansive thing in CIG store, it had been 'in develop' for so long. But now it is 'on hold', and its leading developer has left the company.
There is no timetable of release of that PPT, there is no refund, there is no apology, there is not even a plan that to pervant this from ever happening again. NO NOTHING and CIG keeps pushing sales on more PPTs.
THAT WAS AT ONE POINT THE MOST EXPANSIVE THING IN GAME STORE
CIG and Robert treats players whom supported them THE MOST, THE WORST.
there is no sophistry can change the fact it is filthily disgusting. The story of the farmer and the snake he once safed is happening right now in between players and CIG.
One thing he was wrong about Starcitizen though is that he called the game: a pay to win game. that was wrong, this is a you pay but you can't win game.
Im a bitter EvE vet, all my online gaming friends met each other there years ago. Over 15 years later we still play games together. I loved and miss EvE but when CCP sold the company and the skill injectors and F2P stuff came in the game died for us. Every few years one of us logs in and checks it but the heart of what that game used to be is gone.
We've never found an MMO to replace it though :(
Very few if any of the captured will hear this video or the video being reacted to, even if they watch it, but its on point
currently heavy into OldSchool RuneScape and that game is pay to win but the amount you have to pay to win in the game is so crazy that it is easier to put in effort to get the same shit. and none of the stuff is exclusively buyable through real world money
Way I see it; I want this game to happen and so I'm ok with giving them some money, especially if I get some novelties for it. When I was younger there was a pizza place trying to open in my town, they opened a kickstarter for people to donate, people did, they opened, great place. My family donated and so our name is one a special wall, other people donated more and so their names are bigger, some people donated more more and so they got discounts. Nothing really wrong with that. Its appreciation for contributing for something to happen. I can't say I'm surprised that this rolls out a bit differently when its in the format of a videogame, especially when its one that needs damn near bottomless pockets to do something a bit crazy that hasn't ever really been attempted before, let alone done.
As for ships being more cosmetic, idk, I feel like that can't really happen with the way they have roles. I feel like it implies that you could fit an apollo into a combat ship, which I suppose would be cool? But doesn't really make sense.
Then theirs the P2W aspect. Pay to win what? You spends thousands on a javelin, I spend 45 on a mustang, who's going to win? Well, I cant really hurt you, but you can hurt me either. Unless you have either players to man that thing or the funds NPC crew it, let along the typical operational costs. At that point I really don't care how you got the ship, its not my problem whether you played or payed to get it; it's actually more of an issue for me if you played that much to get it. Aside from that; in sandbox economy games, player count and funds being a key aspect of a fight is just part of the deal. If you don't like that you need to play an arena type game instead.
Warframe also mentioned? I play that game a lot. No, they don't only sell cosmetics. Almost every single frame and weapon can be purchased, and you can also buy boosters to double your acquisition of just about any loot type in the game. No, its not a problem, I don't care how *you "won", Its my experience that I care about. You want to pay to make it go quicker? Your problem.
So in classic P2W if you have starter gear (ship) and your buddy bought end game gear and you fought there would be zero chance you could win. The gap is too large. You paid for a power gap that skill cannot overcome.
In modern P2W you buy a cool item that would take you time to grind but if you fought your opponent/ friend that had starter gear it may actually come down to skill in who winds. It's not a forgone conclusion on the victor.
I have seen base starter ships meta in the game dominating players who spent 400 on a ship.
For me whether or not I care if something is P2W is if the game is designed to be skill based or power lvl based. If skill can overcome a slight advantage than I don't care. Again though thats just me and I get people that are more inflexible in thier thought process on it. As long as a game has rewards that you cannot pay real money for I'm good. They need a way to fund the game and not be held accountable to a publisher or 3rd party like Sweet Baby. I paid for Chris's vision whether it happens or not lol.
Do i disagree with the funding model? Yes.
You want more? Will you not be happy until i fully denounce the game, chris roberts and everything it stands for? Im not gonna do that, im not gonna abandon this game unless an alternative is made available. Im in this for the gameplay, that it currently has and i believe it could have. Its really simple as that, i want to play a game that lets me do the things star citizen lets me do. The scummy funding practices are unfortunate, fully agree. Impacts gameplay from a progression standpoint. Fully agree. Honestly progression isnt the main reason i want to play star citizen. Its for the level of emersion the game provides. I wont even mind that much if the progression systems suck. I just want the performance to be better. Better AI and stuff.
Progression is important to make mining hauling and all that stuff relevant so ya im not saying its not important. But the focus of the game for me is on the experience. Flying around, landing on planets. Maybe delivering materials for base building. Mining those materials. Deffending an orion. Trading in sketchy places.
Really i want the focus on multiplayer but i also want them to implement good group finding mechanics. Ya self organize with an org but i also wanna be able to like, pick up a contract and meet other operatives there without needing to organize it. Like have a scheduled time to meet at the planet to do the operation. Make it easy. Click a button, get an alert when it recommends you start making your way there. The 2 things i want the game to have is better performance and just smooth intuituve gameplay. As much as possible for a game as complex as it
The problem I have with Mike, Thor and anyone else when they are presented CIG's funding model is the lack of alternatives. The reason they wont put any of these alternatives up is mainly it looks hypocritical.
Lets even put this as a hypothetical, if Roberts was to put everything he owned as collateral to fund Squadron 42 (because that'd be the first game we get). Would it even meet the standards that we the players would even like? My take a possible no, it'd be called Ace Combat in space due to how on the rails the game would be. Given everything and its release state it'd be no better than average a AA title. It may even bankrupt Roberts fully as the return to pay off his creditors would not be there.
Banks, private investors, and Publishers, they would all push for a quick flip on the investment dollars put into Robert's game. Looking at the modern landscape of games right now, would anyone want these asshats near a Title right now? Can we even argue that having these people meddle in current gaming is even a good idea?
Yet Thor, Mike or anyone else has yet to give us the silver bullet on ethical funding. Its just a buzzword with no backing or meaning. We are watching the sausage being made on a very large game that may be the true AAAA game on the market. Yet no one likes the production part of it because its called 'scummy'.
NEWS OF CARGO PATCH, NEWS OF CARGO PATCH, NEWS OF CARGO PATCH !!!
great take. i dont know, the more i play star citizen, the more i realise its just a series of get in game. do something for no real purpose, your only goal is to make money, and maybe find armours, but then all thats wiped, so its meaningless. if it had base building, it could potentially have certain moons which offer pvp against bases, which may be cool for piracy etc. but at this stage, im only playing to buy weapons for my ships.
I think he misses the mark on several of his observations, BUT, be aware that this perception is a lot closer to what the general public thinks of star citizen than might be comfortable. In my small gamer group I'm the only one who backed the project, and even though I closed my wallet in 2014 when they decided not to bother with their original delivery date (I don't reward bait and switch) I'm still considered a wild eyed true believer for thinking it might ever come out. Of the group, (which I even dragged in to the game to try it over the last year) none of them can believe that what they saw will release let alone be good. They might be wrong (oh boy do I hope they are), but in our small group of four that's the sentiment of three of us.
It will be releases, the kost ironic thing is, the haters will jump on the band wagon, irregardless. They're in a win win situation. There's no "I told you so" for the fans who enjoy star citizen and those who believed.
About it being a game or a testing ground, about "facts vs feelings", I mean, yeah, facts are facts, but let's not forget that games are made first and foremost to have fun, ie, to induce a specific feeling in the players. The feelings matter at least as much as the facts in this case. It's both a live testing ground for CIG, and a game to some of us. And it's not a nitpick, it's a huge difference for CIG, they have to deliver something at least remotely playable. If this was all done in studio, they would happily leave parts of the game in shambles and would be right to do so, from the "efficient use of dev time" point of view. That they have to at least try to keep it playable 24/7 (not gonna pretend they succeed, eh) is a huge weight to carry.
As for the marketting, they're ruthless for sure. But it's also super easy not to care? I'm sure I'm not the only one, I follow the ship releases and all, and yeah, it does nothing. At most, "cool, something to farm a few months after store release". And let's remind everyone that absolutely no mention of the store or real money transactions is made ingame. They don't have to do that, but they do, and as someone who doesn't care about spending more in that game, I really appreciate it. Store citizen isn't inside Star citizen, only outside.
But yeah, if you're a spender, you're in for a rough ride, they use all the dark patterns (limited stock of digital products, fomo, etc) to squeeze more money out of those. I agree with the ick on that part, but hey, gotta finance this madness somehow. If that's the worst they do, and they end up with a playable mmo, why not. Too bad we only have a half playable not mmo for now 😅
He missed the plot on Lifetime insurance
What I meant, before I had a chance to reply as I was timed out ( and then you asking "WHAT DOES HE MEAAAAN?" XDDD) was that when I said "he looks at P2W too classical" is that PS doesnt really engage enough by going down the rabbithole of research to know what it means to really have these ships. He is very smart but I think he just doesnt bother or knows better (for obvious understandable reasons because he wants to stay away from SC apart from TTS Queue questions) to dig further. From an outside perspective it sounds incredibly bad, ABSOLUTELY, but mainly because we mostly associate this sort of thing with classical P2W where a better ship automatically means a "F*** you" to that player who did not pay. First of all they are just paper weights that you paid money for. Lets not kid ourselves. Then you need to actually crew them, then you actually need to know wtf you are even doing, and for what situation. If they are multicrewships then you need more people and the ability to socialize, cover logistics, strategize etc. , there is this incredible rat tail of actual work you have to put in, forget you paid 45 or 45000. This honestly means nada except you just willingly chose to be a great financial supporter for CIG.
You simply need to get good and any ship does F*** all for you in this game out of the gate. Also, it is pretty darn easy to get millions of aUEC in a short amount of time to get your dream ship ingame, even faster if people send you millions. Again, those of us who spent money on these packs (personally id never get a pack, most unflexible way to manage your fleet) simply have, and I told you this before, money and no time (be it work, family, other stuff etc.). Giving people to still participate apart from grinding as an option is just that, an option. No gun is held at your head that says "GIVE CR YOUR MONEY OR ELSE". That is all there is to it. People need to do their research and just chill the F out. At this point I am honestly just seeing all this talk as a way to make easy content.
A guy rolling up in an ingame grinded Javelin next to my store paid Jav will be proud of achieving said goal without spending a dime. I skipped that part but neither him or I are winning since we both lost something along the way. Just a matter of personal choice and maturity to do with your money as you wish, unless you have psychological or/and financial issues with money in general. But if you have disposable income like myself and it makes you happy (" ah golden F8? Oooooooh FFFUUUUUCk...") to not only have a couple of ships in your fleet and also support development which primarily draws its money from this financing then I personally see zero issues with it. Who am I to judge what people do with their money? There are WAY worse ways to spend it, wouldnt you agree from your life experience having worked in a casino? At least with a pledge you 100% always get something. I could not use half the ships I own if it werent for friends and org members to make them make any shred of sense.
It is assumed too much that these bigger packs are predatory which simply isnt true imo. It is only predatory for weak addicts who have problems with money and who succumb to FOMO too easily. Or they just dont care what they spend their money on because they know that they have enough left at the end of the day. Everyone else has more or less time to grind. What they do with that time is up to them. And like I said earlier, it is incredibly easy atm to work your way up. And while doing that you also gain way more experience in all disciplines than a shlob like myself who keeps getting his credit card stuck in his monitor.
SC will be "GU2W". Group up to win. Money does not win wars, people do. SC will be a numbers game.
Lets put our theorycraft helmet on for a second and let us imagine that first month of SC 1.0 "release". After 1 week I doubt anyone will be able to point into that Stanton 800 player fleet battle and say "SEE THAT GUY? HE SPEND REAL MONEY ON THAT JAVELIN!" . Nobody will have any clue whether it was grinded with real or ingame money. So why are people so damn preoccupied with who spent what and why these big packs?
Even a Legatus Pack guy will start playing the game on launch and will already get stomped by that massive org full of Auroras and Mustangs, GG on getting all ships dude. XD
You read these types of answers a 1000 times by now I bet, but that does not necessarily makes what I say untrue, depends on who you ask I guess. I can just speak for myself and how I perceive it.
Thanks for the timeout and then asking "WHAT DOES HE MEAN?" I never laughed so hard. God damn. GGs!
o7