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.
Well, you know where the level of RMT and duping is at when you look at the chat and watch the beggars ask for a couple millions to start things off.
Seriously though, fighting RMT in the current state of the game is moot because right now it's one big pain in the ass sprinkled with occasional WOW! moments.
As long as I loose something as basic as access to my inventory after half an hour or so every damn session, I am less than interested in "who makes or buys millions what way?".
Patch 4.8 made it verry clear that you "can't take it with you" anyway.
I am absolutely positive that come the day that Star Citizen is ready for V 1.0 they will do everything in their power to kill RMT.
And sell their own cash bundles, obviously.
Until then I'd love to hear that all hands are on deck to make V 1.0 come true.
But we all know that a lot of manpower goes into new ships, paints and other stuff we not necessarily need but want none the less.
Then again, that pays for the game development, right?
Maybe?
Somewhat?
Somedays I look at the me backing the game 12 years and 5K$ ago (not including cost of hardware, mind you) and wonder if I started out as a masochist or if it was simply an unavoidable coping mechanism.
Seriously though, fighting RMT in the current state of the game is moot because right now it's one big pain in the ass sprinkled with occasional WOW! moments.
As long as I loose something as basic as access to my inventory after half an hour or so every damn session, I am less than interested in "who makes or buys millions what way?".
Patch 4.8 made it verry clear that you "can't take it with you" anyway.
I am absolutely positive that come the day that Star Citizen is ready for V 1.0 they will do everything in their power to kill RMT.
And sell their own cash bundles, obviously.
Until then I'd love to hear that all hands are on deck to make V 1.0 come true.
But we all know that a lot of manpower goes into new ships, paints and other stuff we not necessarily need but want none the less.
Then again, that pays for the game development, right?
Maybe?
Somewhat?
Somedays I look at the me backing the game 12 years and 5K$ ago (not including cost of hardware, mind you) and wonder if I started out as a masochist or if it was simply an unavoidable coping mechanism.
I firmly believe it's an addiction similar to gambling or smoking.
Not just SC - all games with microtransactions or any way of spending real actual money within the game on stupid in game pixels.
Sadly It's got out of control so much so that kids are nicking their mums c card to buy stupid shite in game.
Mad.
I spent my $1k or so back in 2016-2018 as I wanted to support the game and actually help the game not die.
I could have easily spent more - but I decided 1k was plenty for a shot in the dark at making a really cool game the likes of which the world had never seen. I also had my thirst for pixels tempered by a guy I met who had an idris and loads of other ships but was living with his mum and eating beans every day and could barely afford to buy a couple of pints. That there shocked me into the realisation of how moronic all this money spending on games really is.
Sadly it's gone way past that now they've hit a billion and now everyone else is just spunking millions on capital ships for no real reason. I don't actually think it's contributing to the success of the game any more - they literally don't know what to spend it on now hence the £100k+ studio decorations for their youtube videos (which, remember that side of the company was only supposed to be funded by subscribers and our ship purchase donations was supposed to fund actual programming and game-dev progress).
Not just SC - all games with microtransactions or any way of spending real actual money within the game on stupid in game pixels.
Sadly It's got out of control so much so that kids are nicking their mums c card to buy stupid shite in game.
Mad.
I spent my $1k or so back in 2016-2018 as I wanted to support the game and actually help the game not die.
I could have easily spent more - but I decided 1k was plenty for a shot in the dark at making a really cool game the likes of which the world had never seen. I also had my thirst for pixels tempered by a guy I met who had an idris and loads of other ships but was living with his mum and eating beans every day and could barely afford to buy a couple of pints. That there shocked me into the realisation of how moronic all this money spending on games really is.
Sadly it's gone way past that now they've hit a billion and now everyone else is just spunking millions on capital ships for no real reason. I don't actually think it's contributing to the success of the game any more - they literally don't know what to spend it on now hence the £100k+ studio decorations for their youtube videos (which, remember that side of the company was only supposed to be funded by subscribers and our ship purchase donations was supposed to fund actual programming and game-dev progress).
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
I appreciate your empathy here, but what you are arguing is that these folks have an excuse. Fuck that. They do not have an excuse. They are criminals, doing crime that impacts everyone. Every player, every playTESTER, every developer, investor, etc.
Just to be clear, there still are no real players in game. There are playtesters oniy. We are testing the game to remove the problems the criminals are using as excuses, and without the testing these problems can’t be removed.
Empathy is a great thing until it justifies evil. Then it is toxic empathy. Justifying evildoers doing their evil is never helpful, always toxic.
In the big picture it’s important to realize that the criminals doing the crime will always have an excuse. It really does not matter how much effort anyone puts in to “respect” them. They are criminals and they are going to do crime no matter how everyone else does their job. Stop making fucking excuses for them. They are hurting everyone. They are criminals. That’s what fucking criminals do.
I neither have empathy for nor am I justifying their actions. I'm pointing out the pattern and how they justify their actions to themselves.
For example, there've been many studies on thieves and muggers into their thought process, and why when confronted they frequently resort to violence instead of fleeing. One of the most surprising thing found from these studies is that before they even started their actions they first convinced themselves that they're justified in their actions, then they're able to conclude that whatever they take already belongs to them, it is just in someone else's possession. As such, they then see any resistance to them claiming what they've convinced themselves rightfully belongs to them as theft from them, to which violence to protect their possession is justified.
I know, very convoluted, but after doing it a few times they no longer have to think through it, it just 'is'.
Still, it is important to understand the thought process if a long-term effective solution is desired. For example, I played WoW with my wife for a bit several years ago, at that time the RMTs were so prevalent that Corporate Chinese RMTs had completely taken over the in-game economy, instead of competing with players they were competing with each other. Blizzard, trying to use the traditional methods of dealing with them (whack-a-mole approach) didn't even make people feel good anymore as it was a drop in the pond. The RMTs literally had multiple bot accounts in every single city all day long dancing and emoting to advertise the websites for their respective RMT company. Blizzard then decided to completely change their approach, reworked loot drops, gathering, and crafting to be far less random, as well as started selling the in-game currency through their own site to baseline the potential profit margins. By the time I stopped playing WoW, the Corporate RMTs had all left the game or gone under, leaving only the private RMTs that lacked the cohesion to control the game's economy.
It is impossible to 100% eliminate RMTs in games like this (just like it is impossible to completely remove crime), but by understanding the motivations that underpin it then it becomes possible to address those motivations to a degree that undermines RMT growing to a problematic point.