I understand your reserves about the resale of pledges, but whatever you like or not, CIG decisions (maybe
involuntarily) were key into the birth of the grey market. Nothing I ever sold was made by my own hands: comics, LPs, miniatures, RPG books, etc. were made by other persons. I see no diference between selling a physical collectible or a virtual one, when I find a deal I grab it and try to make a profit from it.
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Good point, in the qualitative difference as being a completed product, sure. However the pledges are different from the comparison between a completed digital good or physical comic book. I too have a collection... quite massive for gears of war.. one of the largest in the world:
I will be selling majority of my collections to support my Star Citizen pledge goals. For supporting my family I do work by selling my services instead of items because with MOST items profit margin is minimal; which, is only made up for by reaching a large volume of sales. My time is better used in that regard to sell services because of that comparative advantage.
I went off course, digressed, to get back on topic, a PLEDGE is a conditional donation. Yes CIG messed this whole thing up, and really even CIG has advertised "BUYING" ships instead of using the term Pledge Reward or incentive. The terminology difference is important and purchasing in most countries AFAIK entitles you to more rights than donations., regardless of digital TOS agreements. Government laws supersede electronic TOS agreements. I digress again, damn it, there's a lot of variables that tie in to the overall issue I'm trying to discuss.. which is.
Is a PLEDGE reward the same as a purchased digital good?
And my argument is the answer is no if the term we are discussing is a true Pledge
...which another argument could be made that CIG has moved away from keeping this fund raising model an actual real pledge system anymore.
Being neither a physical good nor a digital good, what is it? a donation reward. Not a digital good that is "purchase-able" with the rights that are included with such.
And to argue with myself....
IMO.. CIG has moved away from the traditional pledge system by using the terminology and selling tactics that pledge rewards and incentives are actually purchase-able goods now. This means.. that.. much like comic book purchases.. imo and AFAIK you have inalienable rights in your country for whatever laws your country has concerning digital goods... it may not be the case.. we'd need legal council in each of our own countries to know for sure... If someone wants to find out that'd be great!
So then boiling that down further on why I feel so strongly about not making a profit off these purchases....
NEXT ISSUE:
Are these purchases funding the development of a currently unfinished product... any different from purchases of finished products?
In some part yes... yes it is different.
You see... let's say there was partial comic books, priced at over 500% the print cost, that an artist was selling to raise funds to do a graphic novel.. let's assume every fan of this artist really wanted that graphic novel to release... some donate directly without buying the partial comics.. others want immediate maximum benefit for their "donation" so instead they buy the partial comic books (that's like most of us buying these ship packages/pledges).
Others see opportunity to exploit the few who feel the need to collect and/or own these partial comic books from the first print cycle... there's reprints (CCUs) but let's assume purist collectors and super fans desire comics from the first printing. Each exploited sale doesn't benefit the artist at all (albeit cash buyback purchases still support CIG) but rather the exploiter. The super fan collector gets the 1st printing they missed at an outrageous premium... and many of them shortly later feel a bit of disdain and buyers remorse for letting their excitement and fandom cloud their judgement. As they "OVERVALUED" the collectible partial comic they purchased and the loss they incurred did not help the artist. This is indicative of exactly what happens in the stock market due to greed/fear in undervaluing or overvaluing a stock.
I DO NOT want to be a guy responsible for someone else's buyers remorse for having paid way too much for what's supposed to be a pledge reward. I do not want to be the guy that is essentially taking potential money AWAY from CIG. And I do not want to be the guy exploiting a system designed to benefit the development of an amazing game. I would say, the comparison between these pledge rewards and other digital goods as are to physical goods when trading/selling... is an apples to oranges comparison.
And therefor a fallacious stance on the issue.
This grey market profit selling exploitation, mixed with fans over excitement clouding their judgement, has created a overvaluation of these ships.
And what happens when things get overvalued?
People end up losing big, while the exploiters sit on a throne of everyone else's loses.
In the real world, outside of fundraising, yea sure.. sell away overvalued assets because people are generally pretty stupid and emotionally driven.
But when fundraising is involved.. like saving people or animals or creating something useful.. don't be that guy or gal pooping in the sandbox and taking out all the toys for themselves.
