Star Citizen Introducing a $48,000 Ship Bundle, but Only for Players Who Have Already Spent $10,000::Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is releasing a ship bundle for its controversial space simulator that costs an eye-watering $48,000.
Because there are lots of people in this thread who paint whales as “rich schmucks” who can afford to spend $48k without thinking twic. This is a myth that lots of the gaming industry itself loves to perpetuate, because it absolves them of taking responsibility for ruining lives.
Research has shown repeatedly that whales are much more likely to be people with mental health problems and/or gambling addicts. That Star Citizen isn’t a freemium game with loot boxes makes it marginally better than - let’s say - Genshin Impact, but offers like the bundle in the article is still predatory.
And yet? Nothing will be done. This is a target market that is more than acceptable to disdain, abuse, and otherwise fuck over.
It might be “cool” to be a nerd now, my fellows, but only on the surface. Don’t get suckered into believing they accept you. They’re just commodifying our interests for their gains. They are not us and they don’t want to be. They just want us to like them enough to pay them more than we otherwise would.
Fuck the poseurs.
What is one supposed to do about this? Genuine question.
Stop acting like they’re doing us all a favor by paying attention to our collective interests? It’s all marketing.
Only for Players Who Have Already Spent $10,000
This is so predatory in itself.
Just being eligible for it is a sign that you need to make some life changes.
If you can blow 50000+ on a video game they are doing something I’m not.
A good portion of them are just making bad decisions and ruining their finances.
Like: shower, touch grass, rekindle an interest in humanity as a whole.
Meh my sympathy only runs so far.
You don’t have sympathy for people with addictive personality disorders?
On the one hand, my gut says “if they have 50k to blow and do so on a game, fuck em”
On the other hand, my experience with addictive personalities knows they almost certainly don’t have that money to blow, but they will do so anyway, fucking their life (and possibly their families lives) over even more in the process, and no amount of lecturing them will change, because they need therapy.
My gut isn’t as sympathetic as my brain is.
There was a guy that posted on reddit about how he spent thousands of dollars on loot boxes. The way he totally wrecked his finances and his relationship with his wife was harrowing. Everytime he would get the latest and greatest item, character, whatever, they would come out with something new and he would start all over again.
I have to wonder if this is a video game problem, or if it’s a sort of financial self-destructiveness expressed through a video game rather than through some other means.
Like, for every person who spends money they don’t have on video games, how many people spend money they don’t have on fancy cars, or clothing, or expensive pets, other luxury possessions? How many people spend the rent money on sneakers, or the kids’ college fund on fancy vacations, or the utility bill money on anime figurines, or their whole paycheck on partying, or their retirement fund on too much house?
Financial self-destructiveness seems to be a problem that some people have. It gets reported heavily when it’s expressed through video games, in part because much of the reporter’s audience thinks all video games are fundamentally pointless and evil to begin with.
The difference with in-game spending is that they use all the same shady techniques as casinos to exploit those people.
You don’t see sneakers shops offering time limited loot boxes for a chance to obtain limited edition sneakers, they also don’t show you a big grid of their catalog with holes for the sneakers you don’t own. “Just buy those 2 pairs to complete the collection of running sneakers!”
You clearly have no idea what “sneakerheads” are, as these tactics and more DO exist and have for decades. Hell, little kids were getting murdered for their Air Jordans not 30 years ago, walking home from fucking school, son.
Empathetic, to be fair. Sympathetic is to mirror their emotional state, etc. Empathy is to understand it without inhabiting that space/experiencing it yourself.
Nah, if you’re going to hide your bad choices behind clinical language, then you need therapy. If you’re not getting therapy and you have 50k to spend, then that’s a you problem.
Some people don’t realize they have a problem. I feel bad for those people.
The problem isn’t that they “have 50k to spend”, it’s literally the exact opposite AND that they don’t know it’s a problem that they spend out on stupid shit like this grift.
If they spend 50k on a videogame, then they have 50k to spend by definition, whether or not it’s actually their money. If it’s not actually their money, then I have even less sympathy.
I’ll give another example. I have a lot of sympathy for opiate addicts. I have zero sympathy for opiate addicts who steal from their friends and family.
It’s like the scammers who include spelling mistakes, to make sure they only attract the real dipshits.
Probably a way to avoid costly charge backs for when regular users purchase that by mistake
It is the Ferrari model. You want a new Ferrari? Well you have to prove you have already owned several other Ferraris. Make people feel special while they hand over stupid money to you
Some poor fuckers are getting fleeced.
Kinda hard to consider them poor if they can afford the $10k it costs to whale out $48k more :-\
Apparently they only pay the difference to 48k for the missing items.
Meaning they’re getting fleeced continually.
They might not be poor, but they could be middle class sinking all their savings and getting credit to fuel their addiction.
Kinda hard to even feel sorry for them
If you can afford to spend $48,000 on a video game, how is that getting fleeced?
Like, OK, maybe some idiot mortgages their house for this. Bad spending decision. More likely, anyone who looks at that ticket price and thinks “fair deal” is already a millionaire, and quite welcome to do whatever the fuck they want with their money.
Virtual ships certainly cost a lot less to operate than a Lambo or a boat.
It’s like any amount, there’s people that can properly afford it, and others that will beg, borrow and steal to buy it for the prestige and hurt themselves and others to do it. It’s the latter where the harm lies.
Just like leasing a fancy Mercedes to keep up with the Joneses when you’re already approaching six figures of credit card debt.
They’re being scammed. They are getting next to nothing for inordinate amounts of money. They might not be financially poor, but they’re being taken advantage of. Like NFTs, just because the fraud is mainly being bought by millionaires you don’t stop calling it a fraud. And just like NFTs and gambling there will be a percentage of people who can’t afford it who will hurt themselves and their innocent loved ones because con men are willing to abuse their addictive personalities to make them fall into debt and have them pay for nothing.
I wonder if games that require such farfetched amounts of money should be included in the Luxury tax?
A lot of those “whales” have cognitive difficulties and/or gambling addictions issues. Since many if these game developers/publishers have no qualm blindly milking and profiteering. It should be no surprise if some sort of tax is levied to help societies (à-la-tobacco or sugar tax) attenuate the ravages of gambling addictions.
Moreover, Star Citizen has been released over 10 years ago while been continually updated.
At what point is it just senseless greed that has taken over the game?
Released is a strong word, lol. Agreed though, it is completely unprecedented
It’s one thing to drop a few bucks here and there into a game you enjoy but when you start spending 10k on a fuckin game you have a serious issue. Even if you’re ultra wealthy, do you really have nothing else you could waste that money on? I think it’s time for a serious crackdown on predatory gaming.
Luxury tax doesn’t apply to dealers/retailers. It would just get piled on the final user. Which would be fine for the “richer than god” types, but not so great for some poor bastard with an addiction who can’t help themselves.
You’re right, in that the customer would pay the tax. But also its not like they could be charging an extra 20% and be getting more money. They will have put significant effort and research into finding out what the optimal level of pricing is to get the most grift, which means the fall in “sales” from putting things at a higher price would outweigh the increased profit. I’d rather them scam less and let the government get at least a slice of it. Though really, more regulation to stop this kind of exploitation would be better.
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Oh look you’re now stalking me though comments and decided I’m a libertarian. In some places more regulation is good, in others poor regulation is bad. For example placing regulations on when unions are allowed to strike is an example of bad regulation, is that ok with you? Or would you rather I just played into your fantasy of techno-bro and just say “government bad, ubermen smash!” more?
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It’s been a demo for over 10 years, not a game.
Games have story, star citizen is a glorified tech demo as far as I am concerned.
Games don’t necessarily have stories… But your point still stands. This feels unfinished, empty and unpolished. Not remotely worth 50k
I boufh a ship beginning of 2014 just to test it out, worst $200 (supposed to get a usb ship, bunch of squadron 42 stuff)
And most games have a point, the only point to star citizen is for YOU to spend money
That level of buy-in is not required. You can get a game package with a single starter pack for US$40. The one in the article includes every variant of every vehicle currently in the game or in development or announced as planned. IMO it’s for people who just want to support development because it literally removes a bunch of reasons to even play.
It’s hard to definitively say if greed has taken over or if they’re just trying to fund development as legitimately as possible without a publisher. They have done some groundbreaking things (64 bit coordinate system, object container streaming, etc) and are working in more (replication layer, server meshing, etc). That is why it has been so long and expensive, why the game is still alpha.
According to a friend of mine that plays, the whales were asking for this feature so they didn’t have to go through the purchase process for each ship
Fucking billionaries… :)
Remembering when it was not yet released, thinking “This looks kinda cool, but the business model looks terrible”. Seems it got much worse.
Seems it got much worse.
Seems like it’s going great for the developer.
Not real life money right?
Padme_meme.jpg
I can only assume you’ve no idea what Star Citizen is. 🤦🏽♂️
Bless his heart.
Is it that one bad game where you explore random planets?
That’s Star Field from Bethesda and you can say a lot about it but at least it exists.
Too many things with “star” in their names. Star wars, star trek, star field, star citizen
I’d be willing to pay with real life money if they were real life spaceships.
Wrong
Galaxy dollars /s
Cap’n i see the whale thar she blows
To quote Thor. Star citizen is a storefront pretending to be a game.
The god Thor?
He’s talking about Jason Thor Hall @ https://www.youtube.com/@PirateSoftware
Who’s behind https://store.steampowered.com/app/567380/Heartbound/
His middle name is Thor and that’s what he goes by (who wouldn’t)
He’s recently gotten a lot of attention because his YT Shorts have just exploded.
His shorts are great. Thanks for sharing them.
Oh wow, I’ve seen this guys shorts start popping up constantly. He seems like he understands the algorithm enough to explode
I banish you all for watching YouTube Shorts
Whaaat? C’mon, it keeps us from making TikTok accounts. …and this Thor guy is really cool. Lol
He’s a really good streamer and a great programmer and game developer to boot. He also has ferrets for pets and live streams them. Dude is the whole nerd entertainment package.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/@PirateSoftware
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You can get some pretty good gaming info during thunderstorms.
Lol might as well be. Thor. The former Blizzard security dude who turned game Dev and live streams now.
WTF!
At the time of this article’s publication, Star Citizen had raised $658,161,596 from more than five million accounts.
The game has not even officially been released!!
Yeah, Star Citizen is world renowned master of squeezing immense amounts of cash from its userbase.
First, they have many ship tiers, and as the most basic ones cost $40+, they feel comfortable charging more for bigger ships, with some ships costing well over $1000.
Second, they commonly introduce wipes in updates, and those wipes only affect everything players accrued in-game, not purchases made with real cash. So you either accept having your entire progress wiped again and again, or you give up and buy your fleet for cash (and any meaningfully gamechanging ship costs hundreds of dollars). The developers claim that this is due to bugs and exploits being found, and that eventually everything will stay forever, no matter how you bought it, but they are obviously aware of the situation and will probably make sure this never happens.
Third, the game does a good job at immersing you into the universe, so some players really go for a second life there. For them, it is the successful counterpart of the Metaverse.
And just like that we end up with people spending insane amounts of money on in-game ships. Half of the players I know spent over $300 on the game, and I personally know people who spent upwards to $8000.
Scary part is that many of them aren’t rich, and one of the people I know literally saved for years and hid $8000 from their family to buy a ship pack. He is living in Ukraine, a country with GDP per capita of $4350.
That $48K can get you a real plane though, or boat. But maybe someone paying that for ships in Star Citizen has both already 😅
48k for a plane or boat? Good luck with that.
Something like this, there are more selections within that range on that site,
https://www.yachtworld.com/yacht/1991-hunter-35.5-legend-9163237/
Or these
https://hangar.flights/airplanes/affordable-personal-aircraft/
https://www.aerotrader.com/aircraft-for-sale?sort=price%3Aasc
Neat you can get a shitty plane in need of a major overhaul.
So, you’re not accounting for the required training and licensing to operate those, I take it? FYI, even if you “fast track” the training and go straight for the written exam that precedes logged flight hours (sim and real, both), you’re still looking at ~$30k just to be allowed to fly. Then, there’s the routine (& frequent) maintenance, storage, fuel, etc.
Sure, you can buy a cute li’l death trap for <$50k, but it’s a lawn ornament without licensing.
Don’t get me wrong: fuck Star Citizen sideways with an alien chode tumor. Just, don’t point to garage-tier aviation “solutions” as a fair comparison. 🤗
The parent poster was correct: you can buy a plane for that kind of money. Respectfully, your point about training and maintenance is irrelevant. The truth is the parent poster was right, and the comparison is an eloquent one that furthers the point that the offer from SC’s developer is ludicrous.
Nobody actually wants to buy a plane or a boat, don’t worry! 😜
To be fair, I’m uncertain whether you can actually complete that purchase legally without being licensed yourself or a licensed pilot under current contract. 🤓
You can, you just need to hire a pilot if you want to fly in it. How do you think rich people fly around in their jets? Do you really think the pilots own the planes?
Did you even read my comment? 🤦🏽♂️
To be fair…
If you can afford to spend 60k on a video game, you can afford to get a license and a plane, I’m pretty sure…
Inb4 Star Citizen tries to feel more exclusive by instituting spaceship pilot training and licensing that requires logged hours and such…
…you know, so people don’t ruin their “investments”! D:
Don’t forget, you gotta pay for those licenses and classes
Wait, in real money? Or like video game money?
If this is a genuine question you have some epic story to treat yourself to about how the bestest game of all times was
madepromisedGenuine question my friend lmao
You’re up for a ride if you have a read.
Game is 11 years in alpha development, still a buggy mess that requires a supercomputer to work smoothly, only recently got a second star system (dozens more are pinky promised, and hundreds promised since beginning of development), is constantly exploited in all ways possible, barely has any actual content…
…which absolutely didn’t stop it from earning over half a billion dollars (yes, billion) by selling in-game ships for hundreds and sometimes thousands of very absolutely real dollars, as well as such monstrous packs.
It’s weird, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone actually playing this game. Hell, I don’t even know what gameplay looks like, and honestly I’m happy keeping it that way
It’s an ethically shitty and exploitative funding model, but if you look at the gameplay, you’ll see the appeal of buying the $45 game package. Very few people stop at though. No matter how much you hear that spending more is unnecessary, they’ve built a system of incremental spending and incentives that draw people ever deeper.
The insane thing is that the supposed final vision sounds incredibly tedious in a way that I doubt most people would ever actually play it. For the sake of immersion, you will have to physically move every item from spare sets of armour to bulk cargo for transport jobs. There is a light survival mechanic of hydration and nutrition, but personal hygiene is also planned. Upgrading ships will mean physically pulling components and replacing them, but the real gains will be in the subcomponents!
Maybe that sounds fun as a vision statement, but I assure you, after losing that hand loaded, hand upgraded ship to bugs or exploits for the third time, the joy will all be gone.
I suppose it’s lucky that none of their vision or promises ever come to pass. Anyway. You want my referral code?
real money
Real cash.
If you are rich enough to afford to pay for this, you’re too rich.
A few of the most broke-assed people I know in my gaming circles are all in on this game. The rest of us tried to gently prod them away but it’s like a cult.
It is 100% a multi-level-marketing feeling I get from the active players that keep trying to reach out and get us in on it. I’m talkin late 90s Quixtar MLM pyramid scam feels.
The most scary part is, it’s not only the rich. I knew people who have put their life savings into the game.
Landowner class spends that kind of money on larks its nuts but like those people should be seperated from their money imo
Either you’re too rich or bad at investing.
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This kind of news really allows me to know which games not to play.
At this point you don’t need to do a lot of research to know to stay away from Star Citizen
