this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
170 points (96.2% liked)
Games
16758 readers
739 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
I never said it's not voluntary. The decision to buy the game is voluntary as well.
But it being voluntary doesn't mean it's not purchase. When you buy, idk, jewelry, or something to the same extent of not-survival-necessity, it's still a purchase.
And here it is as well. It is not a pledge, it is not a donation. When you're explicitly asked to "pledge" to get a ship, it's a purchase.
You're not asked to "pledge" to the jewelry shop and get a "kind owner's gift" of your earring? You just buy it.
You're asked to "pledge" to PBS to get a tote bag
Of their own volition? Do you think the complaint is that people think these purchases are done by players held at gunpoint?
No, but some are arguing that they might be due to peer pressure (which I find unlikely in this particular case, but if someone can be peer pressured into wasting $48,000 on digital assets, they probably can easily afford it), or gambling addiction (which also seems unlikely to apply in this case), since those are common causes of people (especially children) wasting money on microtransactions.
peer pressure and ones wealth is probably inversely related if anything.