I have to say, those images aren't really that funny or relevant. Though it turns out the former one was posted on r/starcitizen subreddit, and instead of being hidden by downvotes it is a top post of last seven days.
Star Citizen Discussions v7
- Thread starter Brett C
- Start date
It a pretty accurate description of the development of the last 12 months though...
Because the truth stings and more and more people get frustrated with the lack of progress so snide remarks tend to get more visibility then being bombed into oblivion. It might be very true that "good games" need 8+ years to develop but actually waiting 8 years is a different matter then talking about it and of course its highly arguable how much progress you can expect after 2/3 of the way are behind you. And with this we enter the terrain of intentional deception and wading through all the wish wash advertisement to make you think its all further ahead then it is. Once you get tired of all the back and forth and of course.....waiting (because that never changes) its easy to laugh about stupid stuff....helps you to not take everything too serious as well.
Some comments from Matt Sherman regarding selling currency, ships, pay to win etc
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7e11yh/following_the_battlefront_2_pay2win_drama_star/
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7e11yh/following_the_battlefront_2_pay2win_drama_star/
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
TL;DR Matt sherman is just excusing SC eminently pay to win model via the "all that can be bought with real money can be obtained in the game in time" line. Which has already been argued as irrelevant in games were time is precisely one of the main differentiating elements that leads to progress and advantage between players.
But he is CIG, so his interest to wave the issue away is obviously vested.
Regarding his comments on currency, especially the total absence of the notion of a reserve currency, I think he would do well in listening to some more informed opinions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumZLwFXJqE. Unles, that is, CIG does not plan to allow any kind of trade between players.
But he is CIG, so his interest to wave the issue away is obviously vested.
Regarding his comments on currency, especially the total absence of the notion of a reserve currency, I think he would do well in listening to some more informed opinions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumZLwFXJqE. Unles, that is, CIG does not plan to allow any kind of trade between players.
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I read that as "we need the money, so we're going to have pay-to-win, and people with fat wallets who don't (choose to) have the time to play Star Citizen will be given a fast-path to the better ships and loadouts. The economically disadvantaged can grind their way up without having to pay".
The odd thing about that is you're supposed to *enjoy* playing games. If you have to pay money to skip though a lot of the gameplay, doesn't that mean the game hasn't been balanced correctly? And if they're going in with that attitude, it doesn't bode well.
Of course, the whole "pay to win" argument depends on the game having a definition of "win". Or, at the very least, "advancement". Since they're currently peddling a tech demo which can't even cope with a single fully-crewed capital ship in an instance, let alone offer that crew anything worthwhile to do, it's all a bit meaningless. They don't appear to have designed any of the game play systems yet, never mind implemented them, so it's a bit early to decide how best to monetise them.
"A big part is that Time = Doping on both sides of the equation. When you go up against a well-matched athlete, what does it matter how the other person obtained their muscles?"
Cool mentality.
Not even joking, I designed a very similar looking ship to that (wing configuration in particular) for a Starlancer mod about 15 years ago
Damn, I was one hard drive crash (which wiped my entire archive of stuff I'd created for that game) away from being able to send him a 'SEE YOU IN COURT ROBERTS!' letter lol.
Issue is they don't see this stuff and don't connect dots, and those are mostly young gamers and even teens.
The most straight-forward definition of P2W does not really rely on any kind of underlying “win” definition. Put simply, if you can pay real-world money to ignore or bypass some game mechanic, you have pay-to-win.
If you can buy progression, then you are bypassing the balancing mechanics that dictate the normal speed of that progression. Indeed, any kind of time skip follows the same pattern: you're bypassing the game design that put that time constraint in the game and you're ignoring the mechanics put in place to enforce that design. This is why all the “…but you can get it in time” arguments are not just pure , but are inherently self-defeating. In trying to explain why it's not P2W, it only succeeds in proving beyond any doubt that it most definitely is: it is only ever explained as a means to not have to play by the same rules as the non-payers.
It's really no different than the most egregious of P2W, when you have to pay to get the “best stuff.” That's essentially a case where your payment goes towards not having to abide by the same gear limitations as everyone else. All advantages that P2W end up giving out will follow that same pattern, and it's really only a matter of taste as to how critical you feel any particular game mechanic is to the overall experience.
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
For me one of the most insidious aspects of P2W, in addition of the obvious monetary discrimination we all know, is the fact that game devs are forced to design the game around that kind of monetization first and foremost (selling cool in game items/progress is the goal, balance or player level ground be damned), relegating the creation of a game that is good in its own right to a secondary priority. Only the best and most disciplined of P2W game dev teams can manage that double (and often conflicting) objective to reconcile an objectively good game that integrates P2W seamlessly. And for the most part those are F2P anyways. Games that on top of all that also require from the player a AAA entry fee to start with, like Star Citizen, probably have the hardest bar to overcome, and their shortcomings can only be excused with the most abusive mental gymnastics like CIG Matt Sherman´s above.
Those mental gymnastics by Matt are very similar to the ones offered by Dice´s Paul Keslin to Angry Joe recently on the topic of Star Wars BF2... just mere days before EA basically acknowledged publicly that those excuses were cattle biowaste, do a 180 on that logic, and decided to remove that P2W, at least temporarily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Ky9-OoWyo
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I don't know any developer who put any thought or planning in to "grinding". Everybody acknowledges that it's sole purpose is to act like a time sink. What's really the difference in me playing hours to earn in game credits and me working a real job and earning the money to buy in game credit.
That's why I don't buy the whole P2W arguments. In the end you either pay with time or money. Now exclusivity unless balanced I can see the argument for.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
If you are playing solo exclusively, no difference. Your choice to miss out or not on certain grind.
If you are playing in an environment that asks you to pay a full AAA game entry fee, bases progress on time and where there is a chance, as small as it may be, that you may encounter a competitive situation of any kind with other player where that progress is tested, then the difference and destruction of a level playing field created by applying money to bypass time with additional microtransactions is dramatic.
Or at least the most downvoted post in reddit history seems to suggest a number of people think that way.
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No need to invent new words for each of the MT malpractices. Paying for in-game advantage is P2W. Arguing about "win" is just petty semantics. Name it what you want: paid cheats, pay to not play, "player choice" - it's all the same, depending from which side you look at it.
The Sabre Raven - Part II (SCLeak)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69y87z
The Sabre Raven - Part III (SCLeak)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69y8io
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69y87z
The Sabre Raven - Part III (SCLeak)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69y8io
Sure, you can stretch the definition that thin if you want, but "win" is in the phrase, and the straightforward definition is the literal one: paying to achieve the win condition.
But that's irrelevant. Even by your more general definition, SC still doesn't offer any "progression" to speed up, or "mechanics" to bypass, so the point stands.
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So what's he's saying is that Chris Roberts was talking out of his hind quarters when he said they had enough money to finish the game?
