Star Citizen is going to get much worse with their RMT (real money trading) problems as the game progresses.
The Chinese RMT Industrial Complex: Star Citizen is the New Target
- Thread starter Montoya
- Start date
Impressve!
If the Goldsellers are this "productive" in Alpha, we can expect "Great Things" once 1.0 comes around.
Oh well, never was tempted to buy gold in a game.
I only ever bought the... err... DLC's? Ships? Not the horse armor though! I never was that far gone...
If the Goldsellers are this "productive" in Alpha, we can expect "Great Things" once 1.0 comes around.
Oh well, never was tempted to buy gold in a game.
I only ever bought the... err... DLC's? Ships? Not the horse armor though! I never was that far gone...
To be clear, I LOATHE RMTs, and despise cheaters and exploiters.
With that out of the way, as I see it, CIG's approach is (as well as so many other game developers) counter-productive, attacking the symptom instead of addressing the cause.
In the video, you touched on what I see as the cause, that those spending the money on RMT (which funds much of the cheating and exploiting) feel that it is worth it. However, WHY do they feel it is worth it?
It boils down to percieved friction, unfairness, and frustration. Examples of this is are:
It always feels great whenever a developer sticks it to a specific RMT, but they're just one of many, and more will just pop up to fill in for the demand, perpetuating the game of whack-a-mole.
Ultimately, as I see it, the only viable long-term solution is for the developer to take a step back to look at their game, the features, functions, mechanics, and economy, one by one, asking themselves questions like:
It is kind of like how Steam 'defeated' video game piracy despite not actually trying to, simply by providing a more valuable user experience when using their service than the 'benefits' from pirating games instead.
With that out of the way, as I see it, CIG's approach is (as well as so many other game developers) counter-productive, attacking the symptom instead of addressing the cause.
In the video, you touched on what I see as the cause, that those spending the money on RMT (which funds much of the cheating and exploiting) feel that it is worth it. However, WHY do they feel it is worth it?
It boils down to percieved friction, unfairness, and frustration. Examples of this is are:
- Completely imbalenced economy that the player feels is disrespectful of their time
- Long standing bugs that wipe out hours of effort from the player with no solution provided by the developer
- Game mechanics that actively impede the player in frustrating ways that feel illogical to the intent expressed by the developer
- Developers taking the lazy attitude of 'friction and time-syncs = content'
It always feels great whenever a developer sticks it to a specific RMT, but they're just one of many, and more will just pop up to fill in for the demand, perpetuating the game of whack-a-mole.
Ultimately, as I see it, the only viable long-term solution is for the developer to take a step back to look at their game, the features, functions, mechanics, and economy, one by one, asking themselves questions like:
- Is this adding friction for the sake of friction?
- Is this adding frustrating for the sake of frustration?
- Is this fair?
- Is this fun?
- Is this engaging?
- Is this balanced in a reasonable way that would make sense to the average player?
It is kind of like how Steam 'defeated' video game piracy despite not actually trying to, simply by providing a more valuable user experience when using their service than the 'benefits' from pirating games instead.