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.
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.
Star Citizen effectively managed to turn crowd sourcing into a business model. I’m guilty of playing, but I also strongly believe that we will still be having this conversation 12 years from now. I truly don’t believe that a final game will ever be released and the community is hanging on to the “alpha” state for far too long. I think the contributors of the $700,000,000 deserve to have a realistic timeline and a clear direction from the developers.
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.
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.
Agreed the incentive structure here is look like they are making a game and its a endless money printing glitch. If they actually released a game the community wasn't happy with they would severely tank that revenue stream and possibly go bankrupt it's now completely up to the morals and ethics of the leadership team if they actually try their best to release the product they promised or just drag out this passive income as long as possible the risk reward isn't on the side of releasing a game unless they are 100% sure people would keep paying them like they are now for this potential dream space sim.
Those are the people most "lost"... The ones that will STILL tell you the ship sales will stop once the game is finished and that it won't be long now... 😀 UTTERLY clueless about everything from life, over game development, motivations of people to financing/economics... Not only will they NEVER stop selling ships for real money, it leads to them being actually better off NOT shipping the game and just keep on selling dreams, rather than an actual game. (as long as we fans keep paying for garbage, they will give us garbage! No incentive to change for them at all, on the contrary... The magical "it's an Alpha" will continue to be the single magic bullet that defeats all arguments!)
@@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
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.
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..
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.
@@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.
"I don't think he sees enough because he thinks too classical about Pay to win.." You know it's time to re-evaluate your life when you think there is an acceptable version of Pay-to-Win.
The Overton window effect in the gaming industry is horrible, what people consider now acceptable with dlcs, paid open betas, vaporware, triple A titles, etc. is just abominable.
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.
What that will do, is tell new players "don't play this game." Because everybody online who has good shit, already bought all the good shit years ago and you can't even buy it now, and you the new player won't stand a chance in hell. Imagine you start out on rust, and there are already people with space ships, orbit space stations and planetary mining lasers, and you got a rock.
@@joemama114 but pretty much all the "good shit" is pretty much available in-game for in-game currency. what he's saying is the legacy players keep their pledges and the new online store becomes a cosmetic store. legacy players in Star Citizen having better ships than others doesnt really affect the gameplay of others in 95% of situations. thats like walking out onto the streets of beverly hills to go to work and being upset someone else is going to work in a ferrari. most high end ships require multiple crew members anyways, so " P2W" players cant even really fully utilize them without additional help. unlike CoD, Valorant, etc, there isnt really a skill gap gate keeping new players from getting in. the starting jobs in the game are easily done solo and with the size of the planets and systems, you likely wont run into other players especially outside of armistice zones (non combat zones)
@@joemama114 Fun fact, there are tons on rust servers with exactly that problem. Go join any community ran server and I'd bet you at least half of them have kits full of thousands of materials and tier 3 gear that you can buy for like $300. This has been a problem with the game for years but thousands of people will still play these servers, you wanna know why? Because the whale who spends 100s of $ to get the best stuff early is still going to get steamrolled by the skilled players who take the time to actually grind in game. Tbh this is more of a problem in rust than it is in sc because when the game fully releases there will be no more wipes, which means that the person who took the time to grind out their javelin or whatever will be on the exact same level as the whale who bought 1 and there's no way for the whale to get an advantage again. I'd also say there's a pretty good chance that the guy who grinded for it has a better understanding of the game and not to mention is a couple thousand $ richer than the whale.
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.
@@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.
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.
@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
@@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.
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
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.
The difference is, in the terminology Thor uses, Warframe isn't "Pay to Win", so much as "Pay to Lose", insofar as there is a limited amount of content, and everything you can buy that affects you during gameplay can be acquired outside of the store with effort. There are items you can buy that affect your in missions, but they can also be made through effort. There are purely cosmetic items available that you can't farm out, but they offer not statistical benefit. And then there are convenience items that add quality of life, but that don't have any benefit inside of gameplay other than your own convenience, like warframe and weapon slots. You aren't paying to get a tangible benefit only available to somebody who pays real money. "Pay to Win" would be like "You can buy this upgrade that is exclusively available to somebody who buys it with real money, and it's 10% better than anything you can get for free." "Pay to Lose" would be "Hey, don't like having to farm that part of the game? Pay us to skip it and get the reward immediately," akin to level boosts and story skips in MMOs like WoW or FFXIV. At least in Thor's terminology, that's the difference between "Pay to Win" and "Pay to Lose"
Thor is wrong about the term Investment, and honestly it's at the core of my only gripe with his POV. An investment doesn't denote a "return" on the investment; that's not a prerequisite for what constitutes as an investment. "An investment involves using capital in the present to increase an asset's value over time". Backers call it an investment because they donate their money in hopes of the project/game[s] getting better over time, and they do so because unlike other games that have publisher funding, SC needs the donations to make the game[s]. Backers aren't hoping for or expecting a monetary return on their money invested. I agree with a lot of what he says, but I wish Thor would just acknowledge that SC and it's practices have to be viewed through a *slightly* different lens than other game projects due to it being crowd-funded.
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.
@@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.
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 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.
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.
Bro, I have played Warframe for 6000 hours, you can buy 95% of all the things worth having in that game with Platinum. Thor's argument is 100% vibes based. You can buy Endo, mods, every Warframe except Umbra, and all the weapons except Incarnons. You can "win" Warframe with your wallet. If Thor's argument is that you shouldn't be ABLE to buy things with mechanical value in game, he should also dislike Warframe.
I have watch some of his streams he says any thing that give you advantages at all over other players by just buying it , it shouldn't be there or he hate the game. he has blinder on for warframe as it can be pay to win, i have played warframe from release it has all the stuff he takes, when it comes to mircotransactions, xp booster , money booster ect ect , warframe has it all.
Exactly my point I made in another comment here about 'whataboutism'. My argument was that it exists because people are hypocrites when it comes to things they love and will defend it blindly while tearing apart something else that does exactly the same thing.
@@btr003 My big brain take, when Thor was let go due to being part of the Blizzard Investigation (he was part of THAT investigation), he probably tried to get into CIG as a developer at some level. Its possible hate boner that someone like Roberts who probably was friends with the founders of Blizzard is well liked while he just some low rung developer cannot get his game to go higher.
Finally, a Star Citizeneer who says all the same shit i've been trying to tell my buddies (who ferverently white knight the game and have told me repeatedly how much money i need to spend to make the game playable, even download pacman deletion software and runtime DLLS), I feel a lot less alone ontop of this hill. Personally what kills the game for me is how unplayable this game is. i've been in 3 years, Concierge (god help me). I've seen update after update change UI, In game locations (A18 changed so much). From where i sit, they've promised more concept ships than they've released updates to make the game functionally better. Sure they added salvaging, but i can't do it. Between 30ks, CTDs and nowadays even BSODs prevent me from making much if any progress beyond jumping in and doing arena commander. Look at the F7A Hornet event. it took a solid 2 weeks for me and my group to beat it and we had to fight blood sweat and rage through countless crashes, game breaking bugs, and countless 30ks after being told "theyre fixed now" (which is always what im told until i join and suddenly we get endless 30ks, maybe its me lol). Did they not extend the deadline of completion for Overdrive Initiative because of the huge amount of users joining to do it causing wide spread problems 100 fold? Then you get the token and you gotta pay 185 dollars to use it. Garbage. Don't tell me to CCU for it i have nothing to CCU for it. Golden ticket events that give us the right to buy ships, pirate/vanduul swarm awarding the right to buy ships. I want to love star citizen, it has so much in it that'd make the game so good. I so badly hope that with SQ42 being "Done" and their resources shifting away from it that we'll start to see good updates that aren't just full reworks of everything in game with maybe one new content drop that isnt a ship to buy. Like maybe some stuff for the Ground vehicles. didn't they say they had 60 people on vehicle content and sang a song about it?"
On the LTI, you are both right: Yes, LTI is only that tiny side thing, but the elephant in the room is the plan of non-sub model. They are burning the money they get rn for development - and that's fine BUT: There needs to be a constant income stream to make the servers run.
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.
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.
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.
Not really, you can buy Warframes but all of them can be obtained in game within like 2 hours of gameplay except for 1 prime (which is statistically and gameplay wise the worse Frame you can get)
@@higunner00 which is the exact same thing that he is criticizing about other games. It doesn't seem that way because he is incorrectly representing the game he is criticizing. I'll point out it's a matter of ignorance, not dishonesty.
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.
LTI only exists, and I mean ONLY exists because they cannot take something you paid for away from you. It's only purpose is to ensure you can't lose a ship you bought with real money. After the most recent citcon, they explained that LTI just gives you "Level 1 warranty" which means you can claim the ship and get it back without any additional components, items, or weapons.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
My thing about Whataboutism, it is exists for a reason. When my friends don't play Scam Citizen with me but they tell me all the amazing things about Starfield, they can go fuck themselves. When people are unwilling to talk about x-game costing $2 billion to fund and being in development for 10 years, then that's being a hypocrite. They tear down this game, but won't tear down other games that do the exact same thing, and that's what irks me the most.
yep, Thor himself brough up warframe as a good example when its just as pay to win while being a released game (idk if its still in beta technically but its been complete for like a decade now) Ido nt get it, because Thor always seems so honest, but also smart, and that mistake is either dumb or dishonest
Other games bet investor money, not customer "funding". You can bet your ass people are fired for bad decisions, but we do NOT have that power. Also, and VERY important - Warframe has no PvP. Starfield is a game you can purchase and dont try to FOMO you into spending hundreds of dollars with promotions, removing ships from sales, price changes and crazy CCU chains. It's is NOT the same at all.
I was thinking the same thing. Saying "what about X" is a challenge to your stance, and you have to at least consider it's validity before dismissing it outright, or else you can end up looking hypocritical or foolish. It's the very core of what debate is for crying out loud. The Warframe comparison is a good one, since you can actually just buy weapons, warframes, and mods. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, but it's fair to point out the microtransactions that explicitly do the thing you're talking about and it's weird that he ignored that completely. All he had to do was refine his stance. Like, "I hate it in Warframe too but it's actually a game and it's really good" or "it's less of an issue in a PvE game." I love Warframe, and I've spent a fair bit in microtransactions in the past, but I absolutely cannot understand how it wouldn't be considered pay to win. I don't mean this as a defense of Star Citizen, because there isn't one to even be made, but more as an argument that pay to win sucks and should be recognized for what it is even in games we love.
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.
Its interesting. I guess its maybe just my personal experience but in over 4 years of playing and what ive done in Star Citizen but i have NEVER felt a negative effect of other players with a "mechanical or statistical advantage" the bugs and server issues have been the only roadblock and when it doesnt play well i simply go play something else.
@@saltemikereacts hence once again this dude knows so little about what he talks about. Nobody cares he is a out of work developer because that really doesn't mean shit lol
Just my 2 cents here, own opinion. But SC to me is not exactly P2W, it`s a more akin to Pay-2-Skip, where you skip the grind of buying a ship and/or ship upgrades as is TODAY, people seem to forget that SC is not going to be like this forever, next update if they start introducing more store stuff, that could 100% be P2W. Same with the aUeC, people tend to say, ah it`s only 2 mil for a good ship, it`s like a few days of grinding, yes, today, will it be like this next patch? what if they nerf the payout for missions and increase the prices of ships? Oh wait this just happened, what prevents them from doing it again? Also I keep in mind the F8C, when it got released you could only buy with real money and it was by far the best fighter in the game during that patch-cycle, we still can`t purchase the F8C in-game, it would be P2W but right now is not great ship, so while you can only buy with real money, other ships that you can buy in-game are better, so you kinda pay2lose in this scenario. Additional to that we have the Vulture, which locked an entire gameplay loop for 2 full patches with real money, before it was able to be purchased in-game, this was clearly CIG using FOMO tactics trying to push people to the store, and hey, it worked, although the gameplay loop was broken, if you bought the vulture thinking it would be "good" it was actually really bad until they finally fixed in 3.20-21, when you already could buy the Vulture in-game, so still, not P2W. Big ships also requires bigger crew, so, not P2W, obviously more players = more power, regardless of the ship or ships in this case, so even if we are talking about 2 Big Crew ships fighting each other, skills and in-game knowledge will be much more relevant, also if you are in a worse position, like you have a weaker ship, you are not required to fight, just fly away. Piracy is also different, usually requiring multiple ships to be successful, still not P2W, wouldn`t say its fair, but it`s nothing ridiculous like a black custom cosmetic skin for a character that make it so said character becomes totally invisible while in the shade. So while I don`t agree with saying it is P2W, its not exactly a fair, comprehensive and rewarding monetization model, it is very shady and very similar to real scam scenarios that we seen before, from FOMO to Hype Inducing marketing, SC has it all. But be conscious that SC might introduce real tangible P2W stuff in the near future, when we start having more gameplay loops.
Well said with great examples. When I was playing WoW I didn't really mind the pay to skip people buying their level boosts, or even some pieces of gear. The things that really made a negative impact for me were gatekeeping and optimizing the fun out of activities, bots, gold sellers and some big guilds having too much gold impacting the economy. Gatekeeping happens when you have progression locked behind punishing content where one persons mistake can severely impact others in a negative way. Hopefully something we won't see in SC. And a healthy economy might be achievable with enough money sinks and other valuable resources than money. Star Citizen will never be a truly fair game, but I do hope they will adjust their monetization to be more fitting for a commersial release with no more wipes.
Anyone who thinks it's p2w hasn't had a proper pvp encounter. Any ship you can buy can get clapped by a decent pilot in a hornet or an eclipse. Both of those ships are dirt cheap in game.
The thing with bigger ships is that CIG already said they will add NPC crew you can hire so a solo player can run the ship properly. Which really isn't "more players = more power". The arguments about combat is being if you have enough skill you can overcome better ships, while true, that's not worry if new players with money playing SC and buying the strongest fighter to go after seasoned players. The problem is when the SC has the official 1.0 release with an influx of new players, the new players with money buy the current best fight day one and start harassing new players in the starter ships.
@@rjlolatte1 You'll still likely have to grind rep before any npc org just hands you a crew. Plus they've mentioned not wanting npc crews to be better than players. ALSO they've mentioned now a few times that they want to disable the ability to buy flyable ships once game goes to live.
@@rjlolatte1 I have to say, the "NPC Crew" doesn`t exist today, and it might not exist for a good while, like, SC 1.0 might release without NPC crews, we can`t keep dreaming about the future, because we don`t know what this game will be like, we know what we want it to be, but right now that's not it, today you can`t hop on a Hammerhead by yourself and demolish everyone in PvP, so it doesn`t matter if you own one or not, it doesn`t function with just a single player. If you have friends to jump on the HH with you that's great, but whats the power difference of 8 Players on a single ship VS 8 individual ships? this changes the scale, and players don`t want to be turret gunners, it`s actually boring, players don`t want to be "engineers" it`s boring, players don`t want to "fix the ship" its boring.
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.
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.
How much fun are you having though? Are you just evaluating your fun in the moment or are you adding the prospect of the game being better in the future? How much did you pay? If you paid $40 and had some fun, maybe that's okay. If you spent $40k, you are likely making that purchase with an assumption of a future outcome where the game gets more complete and gets more fun. That's where the predatory nature comes in where the thing in your mind might not be what comes out. Also the communications from the devs not being extremely clear. Usually the closer an MMO gets to launch, the less people like the game. Whats in your mind is always better than reality. Happens every single time without exception. Some people spent thousands and will probably get disappointed. If you spent $40, you might be fine but I bet some people will be miff'd. I bet lots of people will be sad if the game never comes out.
@@SourDonut99 I spent 5k but I don’t care if I spent 40 or 50k. The direction they pitched at the start of the crowdfunding, that I did in 2013, is not the direction it’s going now. On top of that, they didn’t ask the community if we wanted this shitty master modes or not. They just did it.
I agree on what you are saying, I feel Star Citizen is trying to be more than a typical MMO, for me I see it being a Simulation game that has mmo features. Not Sure if that's the End goal for Chris Roberts, But I enjoy the ability to buy a Ship that might be a bit buff in a profession isn't such a bad thing. It's like picking out a car in real life. that's why I feel SC is more of a I live in space, Life simulator.
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.
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.
You're spittin facts! This is the core problem with SC. The thing is, it has a solution, just not a desirable one... "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." The answer is to cut back on all that grandiose scope, detail, and tech that's keeping this game in perpetually infinite development. The thing is, CIG is too busy making a crap-ton of money to really consider cutting back, and they make all that money because most of their backers/enablers/whales are too deep in the sunk-cost fallacy to ask for them to cut back now; it's full steam ahead no matter what.
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.
@@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 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.
On Pay to Win: There are 2 types: The one where you get an advantage you only get through your wallet - for example, World of Tanks: You can buy tanks that are more powerful than the ones you can earn in game. Then there is what CIG is doing or EVE online for that matter: It is more a pay to skip. You can earn everything without paying extra. Less scummy, but still giving an advantage. Thing is: This is part of the monetization model. So, there is still this issue and without an alternative income stream, that's how this just works.
I don't know why people get stuck on the insurance, you can not buy insurance, it's just included in the ships if you buy them, it will probably be an in game cost waay later and if you don't have it and lose your ship you loose your ship, but if you bought the ship with real money you can't loose it, hence life time insurance
What people forget is that you can try the game for free several times a year and if you buy the game for 40$ ther is nothing you can't do that the ones paying thousands of $ can do. I mean it's optional to pay and the only reason for it is to skip the time it takes to get the in game money to buy it...
And the wipes, how is that different from once human for example that is a released game that wipes each 6 weeks, also like star citizen you get to keep some of the things.
So again, you don't get any advantage, you still need skill, without skill you can have the most expensive ship and not do anything. Also you get a basic ship so you still need to buy and upgrade modules in game. PvP a good pilot where you have a "better" ship and you will see what I mean, you will die every time. Also you say end game ship, there is no such thing, it all depends on what you want to do, some just like space trucking and trading...
@@SpaceDad42 there’s no insurance system in the game and nothing has really been said about it in the past 12 years. Stop romanticizing the game and filling in the blanks with your dumb imagination. No one knows how insurance is going to play out in the game.
Star Citizen should start with solely planet side gameplay like this: Start of game: walking missions meeting npc's and learning the "lay of the land" Next: ground vehicle gameplay from one place to another Next: NPC mission lets you borrow a ship to go to and from a moon to do some work for them so you can save up money to get your own ship Next: Your starting planet and moons are now your full-time job until you get your "big break" Next: You stay in local system running missions until you save money to buy land and build your first outpost while being introduced to the "economy" Finally: you join a faction or the navy or start your own guild or whatever and finally get access to all of your purchased ships to start recruiting members and driving the economy for the rest of the universe (excluding starting location areas) and now the game actually starts and all of your ships start to matter and crewing them matters. job boards etc... Make people work up to their purchased ships and don't allow them to have that starting advantage. Now their ships are their livelyhood.
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.
I can't keep up with the rate at which SaltEMike flip flops on this overpriced, over bloated tech demo from hell. Literally within several days of playing/completing the scat show that is SF, he went on record on Spectrum thanking CRobbers for the "Amazing game" that he was going to make for the SC culties. LMFAO 🤣🤣🤣
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.
Like many others have stated LTI is supposedly a negligible convenience. it has no comparison to a 'Lifetime Subscription' as in other MMOs, as it doesn't bypass a monthly fee. RSI is not hurting a future income source with LTI for a 'temporary cash infusion' as it will not involve real world money as far as we know. What I am more confused about is the concern over buying ships. They are the same ships that can be earned in game not better / stronger versions. This was a game-breaking problem in games like APB that had superior weapons in the cash shop and only could be acquired there. For Star Citizen whether it's good or not at the start; several months after release when such things will be earned in game by the rest of the player base I don't see how it will have 'destroyed the game' that some people started with some better ships. In the end; player skill, their network of friends, Organizations and time available to play will be the source of the most opportunities and potential money in the game. What good is an Idris with no friends to crew it or no time to fly it? It would just be a glorified space brick. Perhaps this could be resolved with two types of servers, one that you only get to start with one starter ship and no other advantages and the other where your purchases are available. A zero to hero style server would be interesting in its own right but, after a few months I doubt it would look much different than the "pay to win" version.
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.
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
16:25 "I am loving that I'm grinding" - then imagine there are players (like me) who dislike any kind of grinding. Any time I hear "progression" or "gain experience" I see a cheap way for developers to create additional gameplay through looping same content over and over. I don't play these games. I consider grind as a complete waste of time. I want to see new ingame events, experience new gameplay, I don't want to repeat anything. So I just get my credit card and pay through that grind to have what I want - new impressions.
Well, no, you do play those games. You just also reward the game companies for using those 'cheap ways' by giving them money to skip it which of course makes them more inclined to backload all of the content, make the game's progression less interesting and sometimes even make the progression slower in order to convince more people to pay to skip 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>
People defending pay to win strategies in games are on serious copium. You start out a game and get dunked on by someone with a credit card... Does it make the game good? Obviously not.
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.
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'.
Im hoping so long as the crafting system they talked about to upgrade ships and parts to higher tiers is in game only it should solve some of the problem of SC being P2W, example could be say a store bought ships is only tier 1 and sure u can fly it around and do some stuff, but higher level content that ship wont have a chance to survive unless its been upgraded in game to be able to do higher level content, in any case ships have been sold to fund the game and there is no going back from that, but maybe with this tier system it can be somewhat saved to be a fair game for all, i remeber in the orginal kick starter one of the bullet points said No pay to win, so they need to fix it and find a solution for sure for 1.0 full release whenever that is
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 🙂
As someone who hates the idea of selling anything other than cosmetics in a game. There could be an argument that the whales populating the game with larger ships from the start (1.0) may allow for co-op, jump start the economy through larger trades and enable piracy gameplay from the get go.
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.
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.
"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." Yeah well, that's only partly true. It's so funny how people fail to realize/accept this, but they didn't tell us exactly what LTI is because they don't know themselves. It was a liquid idea, a FOMO concept. And it worked.
@@grygaming5519 You're talking about the *concept* of LTI. The reality of LTI is that it's not in the game and therefore not a money sink at all. Also, why would any self-respecting game sell their in-game money sink for IRL money?
@@CouchCit They always said what it is, they just never nailed down the how. It's a lot like never watching the weather and being mad nobody told you it was gonna rain.
@SaltEMike, I fell like they listened to you on this one. I hear that the stock components are so weak now. If I have a Polaris, I will still have a long grind to upgrade it to be combat ready, if they stick with the idea that is. That would be a good way to reduce the pay to win value on start, but it would still be an advantage to own the hull with weak, easy to destroy components.
RE: since this game is fully funded by the community and most whales have limited time to game as adults, it is acceptable to be able to buy ships with real money If the only thing you could get by putting real world money into the Star Citizen project are cosmetics, you won't get the amount of funding they have accumulated. Indeed, it would be better to have people who play the game be rewarded with being the only ones who obtain the eng-game ships. This is something that can be implemented by having the biggest, most epic equipment be only obtainable in-game; like how the Bengal is supposed to be. Owning the ships by paying real money is not that big a problem in this game, in my opinion, because the ship itself is only a small part of the content. I truly hope the main content of the game comes from the gameplay-loops, exploring the vast and varied worlds with lots of NPC creatures and stuff and the interactions between players and orgs. Buying the ships only gives access to the content faster. If I have limited time to play, I want to spend it having fun with my org. Not having to grind up for at most medium tier ships and being unable to also fund the FPS equipment needs as an org soldier. At most my biggest grinding will be for ship components and that FPS gear. It's being like the Joker: everything I'll need is relatively cheap; which is only possible because I own the ships. Given that the game relies for its development on money from the community and most of the whales are people with jobs who don't have kid-levels of time to play and grind anymore ... buying the ships give the option to join in on the fun as a working adult with lots of real world responsibilities. If I loose my in-game ships that I've grinded after most reset, I as a working man would not be able to always get them back ... I simply don't have the time. Now however, I know I can focus on every other aspect of the game except grinding for ships. When I come online, I can play with my friends who are in a similar situation as me. If we all had to grind for just the ships, we would not get to the PvP content together.
I can agree with this take actually; it makes sense to a large degree, and I share your views on time being an equivalent commodity to IRL money: both are spent on these games to provide entertainment, and all people have more or less of both to spend. Here're my problems though: 1. Most players who feel this way still argue against the label of P2W (or Pay-2-Advance as I like to call it), as to avoid the negative connotations that typically come with that moniker. Don't deny it; OWN IT! I get sick and tired of these players getting so defensive about it! Just accept that fact that it's P2W and stop trying to convince the world that it's not. 2. I'm fine with this concept as long as PVP isn't forced, because the minute you force PVP into the equation then it becomes the worst type of P2W. This is why I lobby for some form of optional PVP in SC. If it's optional, then everybody is on equal ground in a way because we all get to choose to engage in the P2W or not.
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 :(
I call my purchases an investment. The thing I get in return is the game existing at all. That a game like this is being made at all is worth me spending multiple times what a modern "AAA" game demands.
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.
Its literally an alpha though, if you went in expecting a finished game or a bug free experience, that's on you ESPECIALLY if you've been following the development for years
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.
Here's my two beefs with this @saltemike - 1. You are basically saying SC won't be a great game, and has only a thin chance of being a good game. That you don't really have much hope it will - just a very slim hope. So, why are you all in on it then? If you feel 95% sure it's going to be a bad game, and fail, and monetize things in a way that only hurts the game - why are you proselytizing it so heavy? In this Stream, someone made the point you make a living on covering this game - and your response was, "Only in the last year". But that doesn't change the point. So the catch-22 here is that you are NOW making a living supporting a game that you don't believe in? Don't you see the conflict there? 2. You seem to be against the idea of being able to buy ships in the game because that is buying end-game content, and you agreed that immediately makes any game terrible. Yet, just a week or two ago you were over the moon about the Ironclad. Don't you think your response and videos about the Ironclad contributed to some people buying the Ironclad? I didn't buy one, but your videos really had me thinking about it. And I know your response is, "Well, I didn't use new money". So what? You can't on one hand say, "Being able to buy end-game ships is bad and CIG shouldn't do it", and then on the other hand be all, "OH WOW! CIG JUST RELEASED AN AWESOME NEW SHIP AND I SOLD SOME OF MY OTHER SHIPS TO BUY IT IMMEDIATELY!!!!" So, I think you have to figure out your messaging a bit more. It doesn't work to criticize something, while being supported by that thing, and also supporting all the things they do that you are criticizing them for.
@@yous2244 - I'm not saying don't talk about it, and you don't have to resort to personal insults because you disagree with someone. You can do better than that. I'm not saying anything crazy. Read the message again. I'm not saying don't complain - I'm saying it is a contradiction to complain about something, while also embracing the thing you are complaining about. I.E. "CIG shouldn't sell ships" - "OMG! Look at this new ship CIG is selling, I LOVE IT and bought it immediately!!!" I mean, yes, you can do that - but it sort of makes either of your points moot. And, on top of that, if you are saying, "This is a shit game, and CIG is bad for doing this" - but then you are making a living off that game, that sort of makes you complicit. This is just my take. It's not a crazy take. You might agree with my take, or disagree with it. If you disagree, that doesn't make you crazy.
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.
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.
The problem that nobody ever talks about when they criticize the monetization of Star Citizen and CIG is, how else are they going to pay for the game? Please enlighten us with a new business model that can successfully pay for all of the development of this game any other way. From my perspective CIG has done what is necessary in order to keep the lights on and get this game developed. When you write them a check for 700 million or come up with a better plan then you can criticize them. For now they exist because a lot of people agree with the strategy that they're using and a lot of people are willing to make that sacrifice to get the game developed.
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
@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
@@morganlefay-k4c 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.
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.
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.
3:25 He said "fine"... I would agree with that... Communication is not GREAT, but fine... The problems are more how SC is worked on internally, work culture, corporate guidlines for development (or lack thereof) and so on... 6:28 agreed... I've been telling corp-mates FOR YEARS they put too much emphasis on "LTI over 10 year insurance". And STILL even I myself made a point of putting my most important/biggest ships on LTI, BMM for example. So even though I KNOW it's a scam/marginal difference, I'm STILL falling for it. - But on the upside I managed to not spend a single cent on SC in over 2 years now and I'm a little proud of that! ;-)
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.
Logically P2W is: (S ∧ E) or (S ∧ M) = P2W S = "spend real money on an item" E = "item can be earned by playing the game" M = "item has a mechanical or statistical function in the game" So, If you spend real money on an item that you could earn by playing the game, that = S ∧ E Or, If you spend real money on an item that has a mechanical or statistical function in the game (regardless of whether it can be earned in the game or not) = S ∧ M There are no other qualifiers to this, the winning part is irrelevant to the logic of the statement. The term "winning" here means gaining any advantage through spending money, not necessarily achieving victory or "winning" in the literal sense.
I am so fascinated as an outsider looking into Star Citizen discourse. I will see someone make an argument against the game, then someone will say the most stupid argument to defend the game. Every time someone defends the game they say the wackiest things. It’s hard looking in to not see it as a pay to win cult.
Hey Mike, got a few serious questions. I agree with your points, but since SC is backer funded, how should they be funding the project without a publisher or major investor? If SC started with a publisher, would they have started forcing a return on investment at this point? I cant see cosmetics only being a viable funding model for CIG in its development phase. Release phase maybe? Ive only been a backer for about 4 years, but I haven't once felt like this was P2W but more like a fleet collection game. P2C? Limits being placed on sales now would make FOMO and Spectrum absolutely bonkers than it already is. The door was opened and shutting it would be armageddon in my opinion.
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.
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.
Star Citizen effectively managed to turn crowd sourcing into a business model.
I’m guilty of playing, but I also strongly believe that we will still be having this conversation 12 years from now. I truly don’t believe that a final game will ever be released and the community is hanging on to the “alpha” state for far too long.
I think the contributors of the $700,000,000 deserve to have a realistic timeline and a clear direction from the developers.
"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.
"... ok, here's $160, give me two of each!"
- Star Citizen Whale, probably...
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
@@Aluzardis pay 2 citizen better?
@@Koranthus It's almost a "pay2paymore" type of deal... ^^
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...
Agreed the incentive structure here is look like they are making a game and its a endless money printing glitch. If they actually released a game the community wasn't happy with they would severely tank that revenue stream and possibly go bankrupt it's now completely up to the morals and ethics of the leadership team if they actually try their best to release the product they promised or just drag out this passive income as long as possible the risk reward isn't on the side of releasing a game unless they are 100% sure people would keep paying them like they are now for this potential dream space sim.
Those are the people most "lost"... The ones that will STILL tell you the ship sales will stop once the game is finished and that it won't be long now... 😀
UTTERLY clueless about everything from life, over game development, motivations of people to financing/economics...
Not only will they NEVER stop selling ships for real money, it leads to them being actually better off NOT shipping the game and just keep on selling dreams, rather than an actual game. (as long as we fans keep paying for garbage, they will give us garbage! No incentive to change for them at all, on the contrary... The magical "it's an Alpha" will continue to be the single magic bullet that defeats all arguments!)
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
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.
@@cptmcquacken Same, all my standalone ships have LTI.
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.
"I don't think he sees enough because he thinks too classical about Pay to win.."
You know it's time to re-evaluate your life when you think there is an acceptable version of Pay-to-Win.
The Overton window effect in the gaming industry is horrible, what people consider now acceptable with dlcs, paid open betas, vaporware, triple A titles, etc. is just abominable.
@@MalakianM2S It's one of the reasons I treasure indie titles regardless of graphics. Just oozes passion and that's all that matters to me anymore..
Imagine having life time insurance on your ships in SC...but not actually getting to use said ship LTI in your lifetime.
That was great. Very true though
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.
What that will do, is tell new players "don't play this game."
Because everybody online who has good shit, already bought all the good shit years ago and you can't even buy it now, and you the new player won't stand a chance in hell.
Imagine you start out on rust, and there are already people with space ships, orbit space stations and planetary mining lasers, and you got a rock.
@@joemama114 but pretty much all the "good shit" is pretty much available in-game for in-game currency. what he's saying is the legacy players keep their pledges and the new online store becomes a cosmetic store. legacy players in Star Citizen having better ships than others doesnt really affect the gameplay of others in 95% of situations. thats like walking out onto the streets of beverly hills to go to work and being upset someone else is going to work in a ferrari. most high end ships require multiple crew members anyways, so " P2W" players cant even really fully utilize them without additional help. unlike CoD, Valorant, etc, there isnt really a skill gap gate keeping new players from getting in. the starting jobs in the game are easily done solo and with the size of the planets and systems, you likely wont run into other players especially outside of armistice zones (non combat zones)
@@joemama114 Fun fact, there are tons on rust servers with exactly that problem. Go join any community ran server and I'd bet you at least half of them have kits full of thousands of materials and tier 3 gear that you can buy for like $300. This has been a problem with the game for years but thousands of people will still play these servers, you wanna know why? Because the whale who spends 100s of $ to get the best stuff early is still going to get steamrolled by the skilled players who take the time to actually grind in game. Tbh this is more of a problem in rust than it is in sc because when the game fully releases there will be no more wipes, which means that the person who took the time to grind out their javelin or whatever will be on the exact same level as the whale who bought 1 and there's no way for the whale to get an advantage again. I'd also say there's a pretty good chance that the guy who grinded for it has a better understanding of the game and not to mention is a couple thousand $ richer than the whale.
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.
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.
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.
The chat is the embodiment of delusion.
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.
The difference is, in the terminology Thor uses, Warframe isn't "Pay to Win", so much as "Pay to Lose", insofar as there is a limited amount of content, and everything you can buy that affects you during gameplay can be acquired outside of the store with effort. There are items you can buy that affect your in missions, but they can also be made through effort. There are purely cosmetic items available that you can't farm out, but they offer not statistical benefit. And then there are convenience items that add quality of life, but that don't have any benefit inside of gameplay other than your own convenience, like warframe and weapon slots. You aren't paying to get a tangible benefit only available to somebody who pays real money.
"Pay to Win" would be like "You can buy this upgrade that is exclusively available to somebody who buys it with real money, and it's 10% better than anything you can get for free."
"Pay to Lose" would be "Hey, don't like having to farm that part of the game? Pay us to skip it and get the reward immediately," akin to level boosts and story skips in MMOs like WoW or FFXIV.
At least in Thor's terminology, that's the difference between "Pay to Win" and "Pay to Lose"
Thor is wrong about the term Investment, and honestly it's at the core of my only gripe with his POV. An investment doesn't denote a "return" on the investment; that's not a prerequisite for what constitutes as an investment. "An investment involves using capital in the present to increase an asset's value over time". Backers call it an investment because they donate their money in hopes of the project/game[s] getting better over time, and they do so because unlike other games that have publisher funding, SC needs the donations to make the game[s]. Backers aren't hoping for or expecting a monetary return on their money invested.
I agree with a lot of what he says, but I wish Thor would just acknowledge that SC and it's practices have to be viewed through a *slightly* different lens than other game projects due to it being crowd-funded.
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.
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 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.
...bro, he worked in StarCraft 2
Bro, I have played Warframe for 6000 hours, you can buy 95% of all the things worth having in that game with Platinum.
Thor's argument is 100% vibes based.
You can buy Endo, mods, every Warframe except Umbra, and all the weapons except Incarnons. You can "win" Warframe with your wallet.
If Thor's argument is that you shouldn't be ABLE to buy things with mechanical value in game, he should also dislike Warframe.
I have watch some of his streams he says any thing that give you advantages at all over other players by just buying it , it shouldn't be there or he hate the game.
he has blinder on for warframe as it can be pay to win, i have played warframe from release it has all the stuff he takes, when it comes to mircotransactions, xp booster , money booster ect ect , warframe has it all.
Exactly my point I made in another comment here about 'whataboutism'. My argument was that it exists because people are hypocrites when it comes to things they love and will defend it blindly while tearing apart something else that does exactly the same thing.
@@btr003 My big brain take, when Thor was let go due to being part of the Blizzard Investigation (he was part of THAT investigation), he probably tried to get into CIG as a developer at some level.
Its possible hate boner that someone like Roberts who probably was friends with the founders of Blizzard is well liked while he just some low rung developer cannot get his game to go higher.
Finally, a Star Citizeneer who says all the same shit i've been trying to tell my buddies (who ferverently white knight the game and have told me repeatedly how much money i need to spend to make the game playable, even download pacman deletion software and runtime DLLS), I feel a lot less alone ontop of this hill.
Personally what kills the game for me is how unplayable this game is. i've been in 3 years, Concierge (god help me). I've seen update after update change UI, In game locations (A18 changed so much). From where i sit, they've promised more concept ships than they've released updates to make the game functionally better. Sure they added salvaging, but i can't do it. Between 30ks, CTDs and nowadays even BSODs prevent me from making much if any progress beyond jumping in and doing arena commander.
Look at the F7A Hornet event. it took a solid 2 weeks for me and my group to beat it and we had to fight blood sweat and rage through countless crashes, game breaking bugs, and countless 30ks after being told "theyre fixed now" (which is always what im told until i join and suddenly we get endless 30ks, maybe its me lol). Did they not extend the deadline of completion for Overdrive Initiative because of the huge amount of users joining to do it causing wide spread problems 100 fold? Then you get the token and you gotta pay 185 dollars to use it. Garbage.
Don't tell me to CCU for it i have nothing to CCU for it. Golden ticket events that give us the right to buy ships, pirate/vanduul swarm awarding the right to buy ships. I want to love star citizen, it has so much in it that'd make the game so good. I so badly hope that with SQ42 being "Done" and their resources shifting away from it that we'll start to see good updates that aren't just full reworks of everything in game with maybe one new content drop that isnt a ship to buy. Like maybe some stuff for the Ground vehicles. didn't they say they had 60 people on vehicle content and sang a song about it?"
On the LTI, you are both right: Yes, LTI is only that tiny side thing, but the elephant in the room is the plan of non-sub model. They are burning the money they get rn for development - and that's fine BUT: There needs to be a constant income stream to make the servers run.
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.
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
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.
Not really, you can buy Warframes but all of them can be obtained in game within like 2 hours of gameplay except for 1 prime (which is statistically and gameplay wise the worse Frame you can get)
@@higunner00 which is the exact same thing that he is criticizing about other games. It doesn't seem that way because he is incorrectly representing the game he is criticizing. I'll point out it's a matter of ignorance, not dishonesty.
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.
LTI only exists, and I mean ONLY exists because they cannot take something you paid for away from you. It's only purpose is to ensure you can't lose a ship you bought with real money.
After the most recent citcon, they explained that LTI just gives you "Level 1 warranty" which means you can claim the ship and get it back without any additional components, items, or weapons.
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.
Warframe is pay to lose. Its a looter shooter, paying money to get things is just robbing you of content.
Great show, DailyDoseOfThor is mostly correct, and you are a crack up. 👍👍
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.
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.
"you're not gonna own any ships and you will be happy" - SaltEMike
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.
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.
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.
ITs amazing how Star Citizen players can just twist and bend things until it means what ever they want.
I feel like CIG are way too far down the rabbit hole with the current monetization that any other system would just outright fail
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
My thing about Whataboutism, it is exists for a reason. When my friends don't play Scam Citizen with me but they tell me all the amazing things about Starfield, they can go fuck themselves.
When people are unwilling to talk about x-game costing $2 billion to fund and being in development for 10 years, then that's being a hypocrite.
They tear down this game, but won't tear down other games that do the exact same thing, and that's what irks me the most.
yep, Thor himself brough up warframe as a good example when its just as pay to win while being a released game (idk if its still in beta technically but its been complete for like a decade now)
Ido nt get it, because Thor always seems so honest, but also smart, and that mistake is either dumb or dishonest
Other games bet investor money, not customer "funding". You can bet your ass people are fired for bad decisions, but we do NOT have that power.
Also, and VERY important - Warframe has no PvP. Starfield is a game you can purchase and dont try to FOMO you into spending hundreds of dollars with promotions, removing ships from sales, price changes and crazy CCU chains. It's is NOT the same at all.
I was thinking the same thing. Saying "what about X" is a challenge to your stance, and you have to at least consider it's validity before dismissing it outright, or else you can end up looking hypocritical or foolish. It's the very core of what debate is for crying out loud. The Warframe comparison is a good one, since you can actually just buy weapons, warframes, and mods. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, but it's fair to point out the microtransactions that explicitly do the thing you're talking about and it's weird that he ignored that completely.
All he had to do was refine his stance. Like, "I hate it in Warframe too but it's actually a game and it's really good" or "it's less of an issue in a PvE game." I love Warframe, and I've spent a fair bit in microtransactions in the past, but I absolutely cannot understand how it wouldn't be considered pay to win.
I don't mean this as a defense of Star Citizen, because there isn't one to even be made, but more as an argument that pay to win sucks and should be recognized for what it is even in games we love.
Back to space engineers, it works. 100%
@@Tentacl Yes exactly, original comment just sounds like someone salty that their friends are having fun in a functional (if mediocre) space game
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.
Its interesting. I guess its maybe just my personal experience but in over 4 years of playing and what ive done in Star Citizen but i have NEVER felt a negative effect of other players with a "mechanical or statistical advantage" the bugs and server issues have been the only roadblock and when it doesnt play well i simply go play something else.
Because they have nothing to really have an advantage for yet.
@@saltemikereacts hence once again this dude knows so little about what he talks about. Nobody cares he is a out of work developer because that really doesn't mean shit lol
Just my 2 cents here, own opinion.
But SC to me is not exactly P2W, it`s a more akin to Pay-2-Skip, where you skip the grind of buying a ship and/or ship upgrades as is TODAY, people seem to forget that SC is not going to be like this forever, next update if they start introducing more store stuff, that could 100% be P2W.
Same with the aUeC, people tend to say, ah it`s only 2 mil for a good ship, it`s like a few days of grinding, yes, today, will it be like this next patch? what if they nerf the payout for missions and increase the prices of ships? Oh wait this just happened, what prevents them from doing it again?
Also I keep in mind the F8C, when it got released you could only buy with real money and it was by far the best fighter in the game during that patch-cycle, we still can`t purchase the F8C in-game, it would be P2W but right now is not great ship, so while you can only buy with real money, other ships that you can buy in-game are better, so you kinda pay2lose in this scenario.
Additional to that we have the Vulture, which locked an entire gameplay loop for 2 full patches with real money, before it was able to be purchased in-game, this was clearly CIG using FOMO tactics trying to push people to the store, and hey, it worked, although the gameplay loop was broken, if you bought the vulture thinking it would be "good" it was actually really bad until they finally fixed in 3.20-21, when you already could buy the Vulture in-game, so still, not P2W.
Big ships also requires bigger crew, so, not P2W, obviously more players = more power, regardless of the ship or ships in this case, so even if we are talking about 2 Big Crew ships fighting each other, skills and in-game knowledge will be much more relevant, also if you are in a worse position, like you have a weaker ship, you are not required to fight, just fly away. Piracy is also different, usually requiring multiple ships to be successful, still not P2W, wouldn`t say its fair, but it`s nothing ridiculous like a black custom cosmetic skin for a character that make it so said character becomes totally invisible while in the shade.
So while I don`t agree with saying it is P2W, its not exactly a fair, comprehensive and rewarding monetization model, it is very shady and very similar to real scam scenarios that we seen before, from FOMO to Hype Inducing marketing, SC has it all.
But be conscious that SC might introduce real tangible P2W stuff in the near future, when we start having more gameplay loops.
Well said with great examples.
When I was playing WoW I didn't really mind the pay to skip people buying their level boosts, or even some pieces of gear. The things that really made a negative impact for me were gatekeeping and optimizing the fun out of activities, bots, gold sellers and some big guilds having too much gold impacting the economy. Gatekeeping happens when you have progression locked behind punishing content where one persons mistake can severely impact others in a negative way. Hopefully something we won't see in SC. And a healthy economy might be achievable with enough money sinks and other valuable resources than money.
Star Citizen will never be a truly fair game, but I do hope they will adjust their monetization to be more fitting for a commersial release with no more wipes.
Anyone who thinks it's p2w hasn't had a proper pvp encounter. Any ship you can buy can get clapped by a decent pilot in a hornet or an eclipse. Both of those ships are dirt cheap in game.
The thing with bigger ships is that CIG already said they will add NPC crew you can hire so a solo player can run the ship properly. Which really isn't "more players = more power". The arguments about combat is being if you have enough skill you can overcome better ships, while true, that's not worry if new players with money playing SC and buying the strongest fighter to go after seasoned players. The problem is when the SC has the official 1.0 release with an influx of new players, the new players with money buy the current best fight day one and start harassing new players in the starter ships.
@@rjlolatte1 You'll still likely have to grind rep before any npc org just hands you a crew. Plus they've mentioned not wanting npc crews to be better than players. ALSO they've mentioned now a few times that they want to disable the ability to buy flyable ships once game goes to live.
@@rjlolatte1 I have to say, the "NPC Crew" doesn`t exist today, and it might not exist for a good while, like, SC 1.0 might release without NPC crews, we can`t keep dreaming about the future, because we don`t know what this game will be like, we know what we want it to be, but right now that's not it, today you can`t hop on a Hammerhead by yourself and demolish everyone in PvP, so it doesn`t matter if you own one or not, it doesn`t function with just a single player.
If you have friends to jump on the HH with you that's great, but whats the power difference of 8 Players on a single ship VS 8 individual ships? this changes the scale, and players don`t want to be turret gunners, it`s actually boring, players don`t want to be "engineers" it`s boring, players don`t want to "fix the ship" its boring.
"Communication is fine."
Mike: Urghhhhhhhhh
😆 I expected this response hahahaha
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.
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
How much fun are you having though? Are you just evaluating your fun in the moment or are you adding the prospect of the game being better in the future?
How much did you pay? If you paid $40 and had some fun, maybe that's okay.
If you spent $40k, you are likely making that purchase with an assumption of a future outcome where the game gets more complete and gets more fun.
That's where the predatory nature comes in where the thing in your mind might not be what comes out. Also the communications from the devs not being extremely clear.
Usually the closer an MMO gets to launch, the less people like the game. Whats in your mind is always better than reality. Happens every single time without exception. Some people spent thousands and will probably get disappointed.
If you spent $40, you might be fine but I bet some people will be miff'd. I bet lots of people will be sad if the game never comes out.
@@SourDonut99 I spent 5k but I don’t care if I spent 40 or 50k. The direction they pitched at the start of the crowdfunding, that I did in 2013, is not the direction it’s going now.
On top of that, they didn’t ask the community if we wanted this shitty master modes or not. They just did it.
I agree on what you are saying, I feel Star Citizen is trying to be more than a typical MMO, for me I see it being a Simulation game that has mmo features. Not Sure if that's the End goal for Chris Roberts, But I enjoy the ability to buy a Ship that might be a bit buff in a profession isn't such a bad thing. It's like picking out a car in real life. that's why I feel SC is more of a I live in space, Life simulator.
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.
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.
You're spittin facts! This is the core problem with SC. The thing is, it has a solution, just not a desirable one...
"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."
The answer is to cut back on all that grandiose scope, detail, and tech that's keeping this game in perpetually infinite development. The thing is, CIG is too busy making a crap-ton of money to really consider cutting back, and they make all that money because most of their backers/enablers/whales are too deep in the sunk-cost fallacy to ask for them to cut back now; it's full steam ahead no matter what.
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.
I’ve been trying to tell these people they don’t even know what LTI means and they are wasting money on it
On Pay to Win: There are 2 types: The one where you get an advantage you only get through your wallet - for example, World of Tanks: You can buy tanks that are more powerful than the ones you can earn in game. Then there is what CIG is doing or EVE online for that matter: It is more a pay to skip. You can earn everything without paying extra. Less scummy, but still giving an advantage. Thing is: This is part of the monetization model. So, there is still this issue and without an alternative income stream, that's how this just works.
"Only Cosmetics are okay! - Storage in a Loot Game is fine"
I don't know why people get stuck on the insurance, you can not buy insurance, it's just included in the ships if you buy them, it will probably be an in game cost waay later and if you don't have it and lose your ship you loose your ship, but if you bought the ship with real money you can't loose it, hence life time insurance
What people forget is that you can try the game for free several times a year and if you buy the game for 40$ ther is nothing you can't do that the ones paying thousands of $ can do. I mean it's optional to pay and the only reason for it is to skip the time it takes to get the in game money to buy it...
And the wipes, how is that different from once human for example that is a released game that wipes each 6 weeks, also like star citizen you get to keep some of the things.
So again, you don't get any advantage, you still need skill, without skill you can have the most expensive ship and not do anything. Also you get a basic ship so you still need to buy and upgrade modules in game. PvP a good pilot where you have a "better" ship and you will see what I mean, you will die every time.
Also you say end game ship, there is no such thing, it all depends on what you want to do, some just like space trucking and trading...
It's not a competitive game... In what way is it? You cannot win, the game is a second life game
"As someone who's followed 12 years... I don't know what LTI is" Same here. No clue wtf, it is. People get it because of FOMO.
You must not be paying attention then.
@@SpaceDad42 there’s no insurance system in the game and nothing has really been said about it in the past 12 years. Stop romanticizing the game and filling in the blanks with your dumb imagination. No one knows how insurance is going to play out in the game.
So he reads someones reason for loving the game and he says, YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU LOVE!!! 🤣
Star Citizen should start with solely planet side gameplay like this:
Start of game: walking missions meeting npc's and learning the "lay of the land"
Next: ground vehicle gameplay from one place to another
Next: NPC mission lets you borrow a ship to go to and from a moon to do some work for them so you can save up money to get your own ship
Next: Your starting planet and moons are now your full-time job until you get your "big break"
Next: You stay in local system running missions until you save money to buy land and build your first outpost while being introduced to the "economy"
Finally: you join a faction or the navy or start your own guild or whatever and finally get access to all of your purchased ships to start recruiting members and driving the economy for the rest of the universe (excluding starting location areas) and now the game actually starts and all of your ships start to matter and crewing them matters. job boards etc...
Make people work up to their purchased ships and don't allow them to have that starting advantage. Now their ships are their livelyhood.
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.
I can't keep up with the rate at which SaltEMike flip flops on this overpriced, over bloated tech demo from hell.
Literally within several days of playing/completing the scat show that is SF, he went on record on Spectrum thanking CRobbers for the "Amazing game" that he was going to make for the SC culties. LMFAO 🤣🤣🤣
"I'm more of a classical pay-to-win enjoyer, their modern stuff feels more like the Microtransactions album"
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.
server meshing already has been fully implemented in space game with planets for years, dual universe is an example
Like many others have stated LTI is supposedly a negligible convenience. it has no comparison to a 'Lifetime Subscription' as in other MMOs, as it doesn't bypass a monthly fee. RSI is not hurting a future income source with LTI for a 'temporary cash infusion' as it will not involve real world money as far as we know. What I am more confused about is the concern over buying ships. They are the same ships that can be earned in game not better / stronger versions. This was a game-breaking problem in games like APB that had superior weapons in the cash shop and only could be acquired there.
For Star Citizen whether it's good or not at the start; several months after release when such things will be earned in game by the rest of the player base I don't see how it will have 'destroyed the game' that some people started with some better ships. In the end; player skill, their network of friends, Organizations and time available to play will be the source of the most opportunities and potential money in the game. What good is an Idris with no friends to crew it or no time to fly it? It would just be a glorified space brick.
Perhaps this could be resolved with two types of servers, one that you only get to start with one starter ship and no other advantages and the other where your purchases are available. A zero to hero style server would be interesting in its own right but, after a few months I doubt it would look much different than the "pay to win" version.
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
This guy is awesome. I was a lil sad he came down on SC so hard. Can't really argue his points though.
All the defenders of those Advantage Purchases are the ones making those purchases.
I LOVE that rich folk can buy the best ships! So I CAN STEAL THEM! 🤣
16:25 "I am loving that I'm grinding" - then imagine there are players (like me) who dislike any kind of grinding. Any time I hear "progression" or "gain experience" I see a cheap way for developers to create additional gameplay through looping same content over and over. I don't play these games. I consider grind as a complete waste of time. I want to see new ingame events, experience new gameplay, I don't want to repeat anything. So I just get my credit card and pay through that grind to have what I want - new impressions.
Well, no, you do play those games. You just also reward the game companies for using those 'cheap ways' by giving them money to skip it which of course makes them more inclined to backload all of the content, make the game's progression less interesting and sometimes even make the progression slower in order to convince more people to pay to skip 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>
People defending pay to win strategies in games are on serious copium. You start out a game and get dunked on by someone with a credit card... Does it make the game good? Obviously not.
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.
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'.
Im hoping so long as the crafting system they talked about to upgrade ships and parts to higher tiers is in game only it should solve some of the problem of SC being P2W, example could be say a store bought ships is only tier 1 and sure u can fly it around and do some stuff, but higher level content that ship wont have a chance to survive unless its been upgraded in game to be able to do higher level content, in any case ships have been sold to fund the game and there is no going back from that, but maybe with this tier system it can be somewhat saved to be a fair game for all, i remeber in the orginal kick starter one of the bullet points said No pay to win, so they need to fix it and find a solution for sure for 1.0 full release whenever that is
In retrospective thinking about the term "Stretchgoal"... Today I know what they have streched 😁
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 🙂
As someone who hates the idea of selling anything other than cosmetics in a game. There could be an argument that the whales populating the game with larger ships from the start (1.0) may allow for co-op, jump start the economy through larger trades and enable piracy gameplay from the get go.
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.
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.
"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."
Yeah well, that's only partly true. It's so funny how people fail to realize/accept this, but they didn't tell us exactly what LTI is because they don't know themselves. It was a liquid idea, a FOMO concept. And it worked.
@@grygaming5519 You're talking about the *concept* of LTI. The reality of LTI is that it's not in the game and therefore not a money sink at all. Also, why would any self-respecting game sell their in-game money sink for IRL money?
@@CouchCit They always said what it is, they just never nailed down the how. It's a lot like never watching the weather and being mad nobody told you it was gonna rain.
@SaltEMike, I fell like they listened to you on this one. I hear that the stock components are so weak now. If I have a Polaris, I will still have a long grind to upgrade it to be combat ready, if they stick with the idea that is. That would be a good way to reduce the pay to win value on start, but it would still be an advantage to own the hull with weak, easy to destroy components.
RE: since this game is fully funded by the community and most whales have limited time to game as adults, it is acceptable to be able to buy ships with real money
If the only thing you could get by putting real world money into the Star Citizen project are cosmetics, you won't get the amount of funding they have accumulated.
Indeed, it would be better to have people who play the game be rewarded with being the only ones who obtain the eng-game ships.
This is something that can be implemented by having the biggest, most epic equipment be only obtainable in-game; like how the Bengal is supposed to be.
Owning the ships by paying real money is not that big a problem in this game, in my opinion, because the ship itself is only a small part of the content.
I truly hope the main content of the game comes from the gameplay-loops, exploring the vast and varied worlds with lots of NPC creatures and stuff and the interactions between players and orgs.
Buying the ships only gives access to the content faster.
If I have limited time to play, I want to spend it having fun with my org. Not having to grind up for at most medium tier ships and being unable to also fund the FPS equipment needs as an org soldier. At most my biggest grinding will be for ship components and that FPS gear.
It's being like the Joker: everything I'll need is relatively cheap; which is only possible because I own the ships.
Given that the game relies for its development on money from the community and most of the whales are people with jobs who don't have kid-levels of time to play and grind anymore ... buying the ships give the option to join in on the fun as a working adult with lots of real world responsibilities.
If I loose my in-game ships that I've grinded after most reset, I as a working man would not be able to always get them back ... I simply don't have the time.
Now however, I know I can focus on every other aspect of the game except grinding for ships.
When I come online, I can play with my friends who are in a similar situation as me.
If we all had to grind for just the ships, we would not get to the PvP content together.
I can agree with this take actually; it makes sense to a large degree, and I share your views on time being an equivalent commodity to IRL money: both are spent on these games to provide entertainment, and all people have more or less of both to spend.
Here're my problems though:
1. Most players who feel this way still argue against the label of P2W (or Pay-2-Advance as I like to call it), as to avoid the negative connotations that typically come with that moniker. Don't deny it; OWN IT! I get sick and tired of these players getting so defensive about it! Just accept that fact that it's P2W and stop trying to convince the world that it's not.
2. I'm fine with this concept as long as PVP isn't forced, because the minute you force PVP into the equation then it becomes the worst type of P2W. This is why I lobby for some form of optional PVP in SC. If it's optional, then everybody is on equal ground in a way because we all get to choose to engage in the P2W or not.
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 :(
I call my purchases an investment. The thing I get in return is the game existing at all. That a game like this is being made at all is worth me spending multiple times what a modern "AAA" game demands.
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.
Its literally an alpha though, if you went in expecting a finished game or a bug free experience, that's on you ESPECIALLY if you've been following the development for years
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.
Here's my two beefs with this @saltemike -
1. You are basically saying SC won't be a great game, and has only a thin chance of being a good game. That you don't really have much hope it will - just a very slim hope. So, why are you all in on it then? If you feel 95% sure it's going to be a bad game, and fail, and monetize things in a way that only hurts the game - why are you proselytizing it so heavy? In this Stream, someone made the point you make a living on covering this game - and your response was, "Only in the last year". But that doesn't change the point. So the catch-22 here is that you are NOW making a living supporting a game that you don't believe in? Don't you see the conflict there?
2. You seem to be against the idea of being able to buy ships in the game because that is buying end-game content, and you agreed that immediately makes any game terrible. Yet, just a week or two ago you were over the moon about the Ironclad. Don't you think your response and videos about the Ironclad contributed to some people buying the Ironclad? I didn't buy one, but your videos really had me thinking about it. And I know your response is, "Well, I didn't use new money". So what? You can't on one hand say, "Being able to buy end-game ships is bad and CIG shouldn't do it", and then on the other hand be all, "OH WOW! CIG JUST RELEASED AN AWESOME NEW SHIP AND I SOLD SOME OF MY OTHER SHIPS TO BUY IT IMMEDIATELY!!!!"
So, I think you have to figure out your messaging a bit more. It doesn't work to criticize something, while being supported by that thing, and also supporting all the things they do that you are criticizing them for.
That's because he and everyone knows it's impossible for SC to stop. And that doesn't mean you can't talk about it. You people are just crazy
@@yous2244 - I'm not saying don't talk about it, and you don't have to resort to personal insults because you disagree with someone. You can do better than that. I'm not saying anything crazy. Read the message again.
I'm not saying don't complain - I'm saying it is a contradiction to complain about something, while also embracing the thing you are complaining about. I.E. "CIG shouldn't sell ships" - "OMG! Look at this new ship CIG is selling, I LOVE IT and bought it immediately!!!" I mean, yes, you can do that - but it sort of makes either of your points moot.
And, on top of that, if you are saying, "This is a shit game, and CIG is bad for doing this" - but then you are making a living off that game, that sort of makes you complicit.
This is just my take. It's not a crazy take. You might agree with my take, or disagree with it. If you disagree, that doesn't make you crazy.
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.
thing is, this isnt a "armchair dev" that this community throws around, he is quite literally a wellknown dev
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.
The problem that nobody ever talks about when they criticize the monetization of Star Citizen and CIG is, how else are they going to pay for the game?
Please enlighten us with a new business model that can successfully pay for all of the development of this game any other way.
From my perspective CIG has done what is necessary in order to keep the lights on and get this game developed.
When you write them a check for 700 million or come up with a better plan then you can criticize them.
For now they exist because a lot of people agree with the strategy that they're using and a lot of people are willing to make that sacrifice to get the game developed.
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
@@morganlefay-k4c 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
cant wait to see the sand worm in 7 years
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.
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.
3:25 He said "fine"... I would agree with that... Communication is not GREAT, but fine... The problems are more how SC is worked on internally, work culture, corporate guidlines for development (or lack thereof) and so on...
6:28 agreed... I've been telling corp-mates FOR YEARS they put too much emphasis on "LTI over 10 year insurance". And STILL even I myself made a point of putting my most important/biggest ships on LTI, BMM for example.
So even though I KNOW it's a scam/marginal difference, I'm STILL falling for it. - But on the upside I managed to not spend a single cent on SC in over 2 years now and I'm a little proud of that! ;-)
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 like the large and pricey packages as I'll never afford em but just like real life, nothing is fair. This adds an extra line of realism.
Logically P2W is: (S ∧ E) or (S ∧ M) = P2W
S = "spend real money on an item"
E = "item can be earned by playing the game"
M = "item has a mechanical or statistical function in the game"
So, If you spend real money on an item that you could earn by playing the game, that = S ∧ E
Or, If you spend real money on an item that has a mechanical or statistical function in the game (regardless of whether it can be earned in the game or not) = S ∧ M
There are no other qualifiers to this, the winning part is irrelevant to the logic of the statement.
The term "winning" here means gaining any advantage through spending money, not necessarily achieving victory or "winning" in the literal sense.
I am so fascinated as an outsider looking into Star Citizen discourse. I will see someone make an argument against the game, then someone will say the most stupid argument to defend the game.
Every time someone defends the game they say the wackiest things. It’s hard looking in to not see it as a pay to win cult.
Hey Mike, got a few serious questions. I agree with your points, but since SC is backer funded, how should they be funding the project without a publisher or major investor?
If SC started with a publisher, would they have started forcing a return on investment at this point?
I cant see cosmetics only being a viable funding model for CIG in its development phase. Release phase maybe?
Ive only been a backer for about 4 years, but I haven't once felt like this was P2W but more like a fleet collection game. P2C?
Limits being placed on sales now would make FOMO and Spectrum absolutely bonkers than it already is. The door was opened and shutting it would be armageddon in my opinion.
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.