How come other ambitious early access type projects don’t have this problem.
Beam.ng comes to mind, it’s not complete, but the pricing is reasonable, the progress is consistent and plentiful, and the product has been in a very fun engaging state for years and years.
And beam.ng is an incredibly ambitious project aiming for very high performing and accurate solid body physics simulation.
I don’t think Star citizen would get nearly the level of hate if they had a more sensical pricing scheme. $45 +$15 for the base game, ok makes sense, but then there are multiple subscription tiers, additional 1 time lifetime versions of the subscription, different shops for different subscription levels, individual ships, insurance, a mobile game like freemium/premium model (earn credits to buy real money stuff), as well as branching the single player and multiplayer experience into standalone products.
A big ambitious game is great, but no amount of tech CEO promises will make the segmented and confusing monetization scheme seem legit. The game has raised half a billion dollars. It has already made more money than 99% of games will ever make.
That’s enough money to pay 300 people 120k for the 13/14 years the game has been in development. They have the ability to have a large studio that rivals (or beats) large AAA studios in talent, and they have used more time than even the most notorious studios use to develop games.
ComradeWeebelo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Ah yes. Promotional ships that sell for $1000s of dollars irl that are only available in limited runs that you get to keep when the game launches into stable release.
Oops, forgot to mention that some of these ships might not ever be available outside of alpha besides for those that already own them. That means new players in stable will encounter ships they’ll never be able to own.
Most of my friends that play it say it’s a fair trade since you’re paying so much for them, but it still feels largely like a scam to me. You could so such much better for yourself with that kind of money than just owning a digital asset.
Oh and those ships? They’re not tradeable to other players afaik.
Krzd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
All ships (will be) earnable in-game *¹, the only difference is the insurance. Currently during special events people can buy ships with “Life Time insurance” which won’t be a thing in-game.
*¹: Except special editions, which only differ in their paint job, which is totally fine IMO