Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

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GuardianX

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kahilm said:
Also parents need to take charge of what their kids play on their phones and consoles, not my problem if they give little Kaeden their Amex and he charges a bunch of shitty Fortnite skins.
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Follow-up -- Parents should NEVER be off the hook if their kids pays a ton for e-goods unless it is assessed by an independent audit that the amount was achieved through a bait and switch or other fraudulent means.

In the case of fraud...it's fraud...

in the case of "My kid is a good kid!" ... Guess he's a good kid with thousands in debt now...
 
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a_skeleton_05

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kahilm said:
Asking for governments to regulate what can and can't be in video games is asking for trouble. Pic related. Also parents need to take charge of what their kids play on their phones and consoles, not my problem if they give little Kaeden their Amex and he charges a bunch of shitty Fortnite skins.
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I don't disagree that kids need to be reined in by their parents and raised properly, but when an industry peddles what is literally gambling (you can argue the semantics all you want. It's the same) to them without pause or attempts at restraint, then it's natural that governmental oversight comes into play as it would with any other area that is already regulated by said governments. The industry had its chance to get a good system in place in the many years that lootboxes have been around, but failed to self-regulate as they have with other issues such as age ratings. They got greedy, and people got pissed off and dragged the governments into looking into the issue to begin with. The Belgian government didn't all of a sudden decide to look into lootboxes: The community outcry after EA's shenanigans with Battlefield 2 started a chain of events that led to it.
 
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kahilm

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Dom said:
I don't disagree that kids need to be reined in by their parents and raised properly, but when an industry peddles what is literally gambling (you can argue the semantics all you want. It's the same) to them without pause or attempts at restraint, then it's natural that governmental oversight comes into play as it would with any other area that is already regulated by said governments. The industry had its chance to get a good system in place in the many years that lootboxes have been around, but failed to self-regulate as they have with other issues such as age ratings. They got greedy, and people got pissed off and dragged the governments into looking into the issue to begin with. The Belgian government didn't all of a sudden decide to look into lootboxes: The community outcry after EA's shenanigans with Battlefield 2 started a chain of events that led to it.
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Why the fuck should the government regulate the industry based on what the consumer wants only? Next we should limit the price of all games to $29.99 so everyone can enjoy them! Plus loot boxes aren't gambling, that's like saying a claw machine in an arcade is gambling, not to mention there's no allure of winning tons of money.

Back to SC - what would the government even regulate here? People knew they were signing up for a crowdfunding project that may or may not ever come to fruition. So, should the government arrest the entire studio if the game never comes out? Or if some features are missing? Or fine them a bunch of money that won't be there because it was all spent on fancy studios and people's salaries and Mark Hamill? And even if governments did start to regulate crowdfunding for games - great, now we won't see crowdfunded games anymore. Back to only big AAA studios and shitty little indie games. At least there's a chance something special could come from all of this.
 
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Tuco

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kahilm said:
Why the fuck should the government regulate the industry based on what the consumer wants only? Next we should limit the price of all games to $29.99 so everyone can enjoy them! Plus loot boxes aren't gambling, that's like saying a claw machine in an arcade is gambling, not to mention there's no allure of winning tons of money.

Back to SC - what would the government even regulate here? People knew they were signing up for a crowdfunding project that may or may not ever come to fruition. So, should the government arrest the entire studio if the game never comes out? Or if some features are missing? Or fine them a bunch of money that won't be there because it was all spent on fancy studios and people's salaries and Mark Hamill? And even if governments did start to regulate crowdfunding for games - great, now we won't see crowdfunded games anymore. Back to only big AAA studios and shitty little indie games. At least there's a chance something special could come from all of this.
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If ten years ago there were laws like:
"Kickstarted games have three years to have a functional release or they get btfo"
"Kickstarted games can't increase their scope with major features until they have a functional release or they get btfo"

I think we would've seen a Star Citizen release sometime in 2015.

Of course, I think once people started playing the no-bullshit beta, and especially once it was feature complete they would've lost all interest in dumping $100+ dollars for a ship, because instead of being a second life of exploration they would've realized it's, well, just another game they'll experience the content in and probably get bored after ~100 hours of gameplay in.

I don't really support laws like the two I mentioned, and I don't know whether what we have now (go no where project that scammed people out of all their free $$$) is even worse than another mediocre space sim game that nobody would probably be talking about in 2018.
 
Pyros

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Claw machines aren't gambling, you put money in then you play a game of skill to get a prize you selected. You can see what you get, and there's no randomness involved(well not more than anything else). That's quite a big difference from paying money to get a random reward with hidden odds. There's a reason a bunch of countries are forcing the lootboxes and shit to have their odds be available to everyone to check, so at least people know that they in fact have a .035% chance of winning the thing they want everytime they hit the 1dollar button. Even then it's still borderline.

I don't really see an actual issue with SC though. At least not more than the assholes peddling snake oil(or as they call it nowadays, essential oils) and having retards buy it. Can't even slam them for false publicity or whatever because they're not even promising a finished game at a specific date anymore or whatever, you're just buying a ship for when the game releases. It's like buying into getting your body cryogenisated when you die so you can be resurected later, does sound fucking retarded but it's not like anyone's forcing you and you're not signing into any guarantee that it'll happen.
 
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GuardianX

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kahilm said:
Plus loot boxes aren't gambling, that's like saying a claw machine in an arcade is gambling, not to mention there's no allure of winning tons of money.
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Ehhh, it depends on how you define gambling.

Some of these loot boxes DO correlate to real world cash due to market desirability of the items in the box.

Others are more loosely tied to cash in a way more representing time spent to attain the same item you received in the box via "normal" means, if available.

So, you are right in the idea that most loot boxes are not tied to direct monetary winnings, but there is an indirect connection.
 
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etchazz

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Are you people fucking retarded? Loot boxes are as much gambling as a slot machine is gambling. The fact that this practice is being peddled to young kids is absolutely criminal. There's a reason why the gambling age in this country is 21; the government doesn't want a bunch of young kids getting hooked on gambling and spending money they don't have to lose in the first place. The government should therefore absolutely jump in and put an end to loot boxes, where gullible kids who have their accounts tied to their parent's credit cards, can just keep hitting the $1 (or however much it is) button without truly understanding how much money they're really blowing. The government sometimes needs to protect people from themselves. Same reason why there's an age limit on drinking and smoking. This whole "parents need to be aware of what their children are doing" argument is total bullshit. Most of these games require you to attach a credit card to your account in order to play. You think a kid using their parent's CC is aware of how much money they're spending on the game?
 
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a_skeleton_05

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It doesn't even need to be a child using their parent's credit card. You can earn currency through playtime and buy boxes with that effort in some games, so you have kids spending a shitload of hours just to earn those lootboxes instead of actually playing the game for fun & relaxation.

Yeah, we've all grinded/camped for pointless useless shit before as kids and it wasn't a big deal, but it also wasn't tied behind a display screen that looks no different than the flashing lights of a slot machine with bells and whistles, and rarely ever gave out random bullshit from a loot table that had hidden drop percentages, along with serverwide messages bragging about how someone else got that rare lootbox item you wanted. Better go grind another weekend Timmy so you can have another .05% chance at that special mount that you feel like a loser for not having.

(I want my youth back goddammit. Eh... I'd just waste it again with excessive masturbation)
 
Soygen

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I haven't really followed this game the last couple years. What is Squadron 42? Is that an entirely different game than Star Citizen?
 
Tuco

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Pyros said:
Claw machines aren't gambling, you put money in then you play a game of skill to get a prize you selected. You can see what you get, and there's no randomness involved(well not more than anything else).
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Not trying to start a claw machine derail but claw machines are gambling since the claw is programmed to only grab stuff randomly. If you're good at them you're just rolling the dice to see if it'll actually grab the item.

Claw machines are rigged — here's why it's so hard to grab that stuffed animal
 
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Pyros

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Tuco said:
Not trying to start a claw machine derail but claw machines are gambling since the claw is programmed to only grab stuff randomly. If you're good at them you're just rolling the dice to see if it'll actually grab the item.

Claw machines are rigged — here's why it's so hard to grab that stuffed animal
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The trick to claw machines is to no try to actually grab stuff and instead pull/push stuff around or get any sort of part stuck into the claw(like the labels or knots or whatever). But yeah I guess otherwise you're right, I didn't know they adjusted the strength of the claws based on payout rates and such, I just thought they made them loose as fuck all the time so winning was mostly luck based when used normally. Interestingly many countries don't consider them gambling though.
 
Punko

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I'd like a claw machine with remote control and a camera, the troll potential seems pretty high.
 
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[H]ardOCP: Six Years Later, Star Citizen Is Still Raking It In

Star Citizen has raised nearly $200m thus far, and recent events suggest that number is destined to increase indefinitely: Cloud Imperium Games managed to earn $379,254 in just one day this past week, following the release of a new trailer and some spaceships in time for CitizenCon 2948. CIG also received $320,000 on 10/11 and $200,000 on 10/12, which suggests Star Citizen likely earned a cool million this week.
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First you didn't need to sell a finished game
Then you didn't need to sell a complete game
Then you didn't need to sell a good game, just good microtransactions
Now you don't need to sell a game at all
 
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Valderen

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I don’t know what will happen with this, on one hand it’s a clusterfuck, and possibly a scam. On the other hand, it still manages to make me hope that they succeed because I find so much stuff exciting still.
 
Borzak

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I haven't followed it all. I keep seeing pics and videos ocassionally. But do they have at least a base for an actual besides the you have to go to do the bathroom and other such stuff I see from time to time?

I mean most "games" I've followed before release have a base for the game. FPS, PVP, base building and such. Hey I'm going to play SC when it comes out it looks like a badass "XX" type game. And space game is not a base for a game.
 
Aaron

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I couldn't be bothered to watch the whole 1 hour 40 minutes, so could somebody who did please tell me at what time they show off the toilet physics?
 
Soygen

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Brahma said:
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So I'm watching them demo the game. He gets up out of bed and you can click 'make coffee' and the coffee machine brews coffee. The crowd starts clapping. These dorks are easily impressed, aren't they?
 
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