Star Citizen's 'Everything Pack' Costs $48,000
Star Citizen's 'Everything Pack' Costs $48,000
How much money are you willing to spend on a bunch of digital ships usable only in an unfinished space game?
Every time I read about this game I wonder who the hell is giving them all this money.
When I was in sales, I was always told "you can't sell it unless you offer it". There exists people who blow $48,000 on stupid stuff daily. What's the harm in offering a product to that very small demographic? Maybe you get lucky and make a $48,000 sale doing literally nothing.
They're not selling a product, they're selling promises. The "product" is only worth something because it is supposed to materialize into in-game assets in the most ambitious, technologically advanced video game ever made.
Future will tell if those are empty promises. I personally believe that they are, and if the publisher knows for a fact that they are building vaporware, then it's called a scam (though it's essentially unprovable until the publisher "finishes" their game or goes out of business).
I know that salespeople aren't usually big on ethics, but I believe that what RSI is doing is both unethical and (probably) illegal. They've gotten half a billion from their lies though so what the fuck do I know.
I used to work with a guy who spent several thousand dollars on ships, most of which were scheduled for release 3+ years away from when he gave up the money. I think he still hasn't received some of them yet, but for some reason he keeps preordering even more ships. I would not be surprised if he spent $10k on this game already.
Sounds kind of like gambling to me. Put a lot of money in and maybe get something cool out of it. Thinking of it that way at least makes some sort of sense.
They have a very dedicated flock of whales (the industry term for microtransaction addicts). They know they have them hooked, and they are obviously intent on bleeding those whales dry for everything they own.
I don't care how much I liked a game, if any publisher acted in this way I would never consider touching any of their games. This is absolutely criminal behaviour.
About 5 million investors/crowdfunders
Idiots. Thats who.
Isn't it time to get some regulations on m(i/a)cro transactions? This seems very illegal to me and it is exploiting people's addictions.
What really is probably illegal at this point is officially calling it all "pledges", i.e. "donations", and calling ships and stuff a "reward for the generous donation".
Dudes, this is literally what a purchase is. If I don't donate, I don't get a ship (or even a base game).
This seems to be a ground to sue the hell out of them.
You can purchase the base games (Star Citizen and Squadron 42) for around $40.
Or you can wait until they're released.
The larger packages are 100% unnecessary to play the games once they're released, or the alpha versions now, and practically every ship they're selling is also obtainable in-game, without paying for anything else than the base game (there might be a few limited edition exclusives, but those shouldn't provide any significant gameplay advantages).
Hell, you can even play for free every once in a while (granted, whenever that happens it's to stress test the servers and engine to the breaking point, so it'll probably be a suboptimal experience, but still, it is an option.)
Any money you give CIG after that base game price is 100% out of your own volition, and won't get you anything you can't get in-game (and last time I checked CIG were pretty clear about that).
It's basically giving them money in exchange for nothing of any real value (again, with the arguable exception of any exclusive or limited edition ships). Sounds an awful lot like a donation to me.
What's illegal about it? Are they committing some kind of fraud? Is there some threat of harm if people don't buy it (i.e. extortion)? Where exactly is the potential crime?
Yeah, it would be pretty stupid to buy this in general, especially if you can't actually afford it, but being stupid isn't illegal.
Fomo is a form of coercion, and im pretty sure that's a crime in this case. The industry uses underhanded and shady practices to get people to spend money on things that have no intrinsic value.
I can see from your comment that its possible you haven't looked into this very much because you sound like me a few yesrs ago when i didnt see the harm as im not particularly susceptible to the ways they pedal microtransactions/in game purchases.
Exploiting peoples addictions is what literally drives capitalism.
Plus making people pay for essentials by gatekeeping everything behind the owner class
Microtransactions are entering the endgame.
They invented megatransactions.
Macrotransactions
I think the craziest thing for me, if I'm reading this right, is that the pack includes all ships released and concepted. So you're paying for ships that aren't even in the game yet? You just have concept art and the promise that they might be in the game?
Pinky swear bro, we’ll make em
Star Citizen has long history of ship pre-purchases long before release
I don't get why someone would do that to themselves.
Congratulations you have all the content of an exploration and building game right away. You cannot seek any enjoyment anymore from working towards and achieving anything in the game. You paid for not playing the game.
Guarantee there will be tons of dipshits willing to pay it thinking that game will be released.