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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.
People who can afford to and want to support the game.
No, it’s people who can afford it and want to show off to others. Buying a soundtrack is supporting the game, spending more than most cars cost is flexing.
Nobody will know ingame if you are flying a ship bought with real money or earned ingame. Why is buying a soundtrack supporting the game but buying this pack is suddenly flexing? Is buying a $300 pack also flexing?
The fact is that this is a stupid amount of money for me or most of us to spend on a game but for many it’s not, so CIG offers this pack for people who want to support the game.
The person who buys this pack could, and probably would, show or tell others about all the ships they own. You don’t spend tens of thousands because you just want to support a game, you spend that much because you want to show off. They wouldn’t likely say, “I bought the $48k pack,” but they’d fly the most expensive ships around just because. That’s who this is for.
Idiots that will die on a hill defending the game, calling everyone who doubts it a “hater”.
Useful idiots to the Star Citizen devs, that’s for sure.
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Mandaloregaming did a video on Star Citozen a few years ago that had a lot of discussion on the (bacterial) culture of the community of star citizen at the time. I don’t know if it is relevant to the current community, though.
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About 5 million investors/crowdfunders
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.
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.
lol it very obviously is not a crime. It’s not even a civil action.
I don’t support the whale business model for video games, but the idea that it’s somehow a crime is a laughable lack of understanding of the law.
Not coercion in regards to shady business practices. But in 2015 in the uk coercian was made a criminal offence. Since im from the uk you can understand where im coming from when i say its a crime.
It does not even loosely resemble the broad, non-legal definition of coercion in any way. There are zero similarities. Let alone the statutory definition, which is not near as broad.
It also is not and does not resemble FOMO, which is also not illegal anywhere and is practiced by every business on the planet.
No, fomo isn’t illegal. Coercion is. And although the legal definition of coercion doesnt include the mental distress one feels when feeling like they might miss out it doesnt mean that it cant be argued from a philosophical angle that fomo is a form of coercion.
Your view that it bares zero resemblance is very static.
Only a sith deals in absolutes 😜
No valid definition of coercion has any resemblance in any context to what is happening here.
Some things are absolute, and the fact that you don’t even sort of have any idea what you’re talking about is one of them. You’re not making a “philosophical argument”. You’re spouting completely incoherent gibberish.
No, fomo is not a form of coercion whatsoever. Here’s the legal definition in the federal legal code:
coercion
(2) The term “coercion” means— (A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or © the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process.
So it requires the threat or implied threat of serious harm or abuse of the law against a person.
And no, not looking cool or being at the top of a game isn’t “serious harm,” you’d be laughed out of the courtroom and perhaps fined for wasting everyone’s time if you tried to make that legal argument.
Im not making a legal argument… im making a philosophical one.
The original context of this chain is a legal one:
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.
Yes, you didn’t say that, but you responded in that context. I asked “what is illegal about it?” and you directly replied with the note about coercion. To me, that clearly implies you think this is a form of legal coercion, and now you’re backpedaling because I showed that’s explicitly not true. You’re moving the goalposts.
That completely fair. You can definitely interpret that implication from what i said. I need to be more careful with my choice of words in future.
However, i assure you my intent was not to make a legal argument.
I was saying that coercion is illegal, which is true. And that i believe that fomo is a form of coercion, which would be my opinion. But it doesn’t read that way.
Sorry.
No worries, it just gets confusing when terms are used loosely and differently in a conversation.
For the record, I disagree that both that FOMO is a form of coercion (even the regular dictionary definition implies force is involved) and believe it shouldn’t be illegal to entice adults with it, but there should be limits on marketing to children. That said, any form of advertising can be considered a form of fomo, so I’m not exactly sure where the line should be. That said, we do have limits on fraud, which covers things like making unrealistic claims (e.g. this cosmetic will make you win). It’s disgusting, but shouldn’t be illegal.
What the everloving fuck?
What?
Isn’t it what regulations are for?
Plus a lot of micro transactions and all kinds of bullshit like this are targeting the adolescents so at least they should be bound by law that whoever purchases those virtual goods is above 18 at least.
I agree, that part might be illegal because adolescents cannot legally consent (in most cases). So there’s a chance there, but my guess is that an adolescent isn’t going to be making a $48k MTX purchase (they aren’t old enough to legally have debt, and probably not old enough to earn that much).
In general though, I can’t think of any law this violates.
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What’s fraudulent about it? Here’s the definition of fraud:
A deception practiced in order to induce another to give up possession of property or surrender a right.
The legal definition is either an intentional or (usually reckless) negligent misrepresentation of fact. From what I’ve seen, every manipulative MTX game never misrepresented any facts (you will get X if you pay Y), they just create an environment where you want the thing more than you normally would (e.g. the thing won’t be available tomorrow). That’s not fraud, it’s just FOMO, the crux of advertising.
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There’s a difference between being “a fraud” and being unsuccessful. Development continues, and people seem to like the direction it’s going, so it’s not like they abandoned the project and ran off with the money.
I think it’s part scam, part poorly managed game, but I don’t think it fits the legal definition of “fraud” since they’ve largely delivered on their promises, just incredibly slowly and inefficiently.
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Plus making people pay for essentials by gatekeeping everything behind the owner class
The government is not your parents and they do not exist to protect you from your own bad decisions.
Why am I paying them to allow consumers (which I am a group member) to get fucked over?
If you’re paying almost $50k for video game items the only person fucking you over is you. Grow up and learn a little bit about personal responsibility.
Did you buy the pack but it sucked?
I just couldn’t resist, the devs showed up at my house with guns, it was a whole thing. If only the state would step in and regulate stupidity!
That’s exactly what they exist for
They exist to protect you from other people. You can waste your money on whatever dumbass shit you want.
But what if you don’t actually want it, but you are addicted because other people exploit the psychology of humans?
One could argue that it’s “their fault”, but then everything is ones own fault. Furthermore this wouldn’t change the fact IMHO, that we shouldn’t prevent people from exploiting or harming other people, yk what I mean?
Anyways, as this doesn’t seem to be a loot box or such, I think I agree with you here mostly.
Addicted to what? This isn’t a loot box, there’s no gambling seratonin rush. This package unlocks stuff you could earn by simply playing the game. It’s an expensive cheat code. How many people are addicted to that? Does your crime have a victim?
I don’t think they expect anyone to buy this. I think this is a marketing move. “Our game is so big that if you were to buy all these items individually they’d cost as much as a new Lexus. What a value!”. Pure PR stuntery. And here we are, discussing it, so it worked.
Microtransactions are entering the endgame.
They invented megatransactions.
Macrotransactions
I didn’t even know people still cared about this shit show
Just play Elite Dangerous and be done with this scam already.
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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
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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.
