So what you are saying is pay to win is a good thing? I mean, why play the game at all when all you need to do is drop 30-150 bucks and get enough money to buy and fit out one of big 3?
You type in "elite dangerous credits" into google and one of the very first links provided on google is to a site selling "credits" by way of you paying them money then handing over your login details for elite dangerous for them to set up a "credit farm" on your account. On that site, the three sellers on PC have around 500 ratings between them (26 in the last 30 days), meaning that at least 500 people, on that site alone have cheated their way to riches risked their account and paid the seller real money. They did that despite the risk of FD finding out that bots may well be getting used on their account, despite it being very much against the EULA and gave away their login details to some internet randomer. Imagine how many more people would be doing it if all they had to do was ask for a credit transfer?
The fact of the matter is that there are people idiotic enough to buy credits using this kind of means so they are abusing the system at the moment despite all the risks to their account, money & personal data. Introduce credit transfer & a certain cadre of players will simply abuse it more, it won't stop gold sellers or account "boosters" not one bit, it'll simply make their "job" easier.
How is it pay to win? tell me how you win in this game? pay to skip the grind at best. How do you feel so cheated by this? because someone hasn't done the grind? the game is quite niche & what better way to make it more accessible to newer players by opening up other paths to obtain credits. If there is as much demand from these Gold Sellers as you say, surely it would be safer & help FD coffers if they sold credits instead. Most people will have no trouble grinding the credits, but for those select few who really need to buy erm, let erm & let them do it legally & safely from the FD store. You aren't gonna beat the Gold Sellers, they probably have like 50 accounts that they've bought in the Steam Sale or of Humble Bumble. Do you honestly think FD are gonna sink time & treasure into hunting out these Gold Miners & banning accounts that are using the Gold Seller services. If they did, these things would never have got started. Best way to beat it, is play them at their own game & sell the blasted credits.
They can PR this by saying somthing like "It as come to our attention that players are being exploited by third parties selling in game currency by giving over their account details. Credits are easily obtainable in this game but have felt to safely allow commanders to obtain credits without giving their account details over to third parties, we will now sell credits"
Judging by what these Gold Miners charge & what FD sell their game for during a Steam/Humble Bumble Sale there is a huge disparity. The Gold Sellers sell their services at extorted prices.
Also on credit transfer, if they also implemented this around the same time they introduced credits for sale at the FD store. It will show good faith that FD aren't trying to nickle & dime people, since friends can boost friends getting into the game with credit, even thou they still do it by dropping them opal voids or whatever.
This isn't the 1930s & you aren't gonna bust these criminal syndicate like J. Edgar Hoover by denying/ignoring the prohibition black markets exist. You beat it by legalizing & monopolizing it yourself.
I'd be more worried about straight up cheating, given the game sells so cheap during a sale, people could hack & if they lost their account just buy another one for a fiver. Its the same problem CS:GO as there.
There are certain consequences to certain actions from FD marketing. If you sell your game cheap you reduce the stake for hackers if they get caught, if you don't sell the credits, black markets open up selling credits, hell the hacks for the game probably sell for more than the game in a sale. the black market credit problem can be solved by selling credits in the store. The hacking problem can't since FD are between a rock & a hard place, since they put their game on sale to get more players into the game, although black marketeers & hackers alike will take advantage of that. The same as they do with CS:GO
Its funny, the same people who say they don't care about the grind seem to get quite angry at the prospect of FD selling credits. Its odd. Star Citizen already plan to sell credits themselves, & have already sold nearly every ship they've made & look how much revenue the company as pulled in. Seems some people talk a good game of grind but when push comes to shove they're splashing down £100+ for a space ship so they can skip the grind. Not suggesting FD should do this, but selling credits is probably worth looking at & allowing players to transfer credits would probably show good faith that its been introduced to curb the black marketeers.
Again another example, Star Citizen beat the Black Marketeers nickling & diming people with LTI by beginning to sell the LTI ships again themselves during sales & stopping founder accounts from being able to convert ships into LTI Ships. The inflated prices immediately dropped on E-Bay & the likes, since people knew during events ships could always go up with LTI again. I mean Star Citizen could have let that racket continue since alot of people were conning themselves over the LTI craze going to E-Bay buyers, but eventually they took a ethical position & put the racket to an end by selling LTI ships again. During the LTI craze, the buying & selling of ships, CGI were making a small fortune out of that, again with people having this compulsion of "gotta catch erm all" like they do in this game with the PP modules.
Sell the credits in packets of 50 Million Credits for £1, each 1p is worth 500,000 credits, & for a pound would allow most new players to jump into a fairly decent ship right off the bat. No Gold miner could beat that value, the electricity bill would cost more than the rate that they can be mined out unless they have hacking software that generates credits. From which i would cede that the credit transfer would be a bad idea. Yet gold sellers could still get beaten by selling credits in store.
