Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts Comments on Pay-to-Win Accusations

M76 said:
I want the project to succeed. But I can't deny my own experience. I'm not an apple fan. Apple shills and sc shills have quite a lot in common. They both will try to convince people that even the worst thing is actually a good thing and it is therefore by design.
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Unlike fans of Windows 10 who typically admit it's rubbish and yet think that everyone else should use it like they do. It's amazing how many consumer-unfriendly moves MS has made with Windows and people keep coming back for more.
 
gamerk2 said:
You know the worst part? Being a software engineer, I could make an engine from scratch with all this functionality in about 18 months with a relatively small dev team. There's literally nothing there whatsoever that's that difficult to actually do.

This is the modern Duke Nukem Forever; the game will eventually "release", and the opinion will be "How the heck did it take this long to implement this little this badly?"
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The Final Fantasy VII remake has been in development for longer, though, right? :LOL:

 
BlackManx said:
Don't feel sorry for those who spent thousands or even tens of thousands on this game. They pledged/donated the money knowing damn well that they may never see a return in the form of a completed game with possibly years of enjoyment value. Seems like everyone gets their information from front page click-bait articles now days or perhaps genuinely don't comprehend or don't want to understand the ludicrous ambitiousness of this game. Pot shots are an easy hit when you are standing in front of the barn with a shotgun.
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You read my post about Roberts previous movie business right ?

His last game company was a scam....
His movie company was 100% a scam that people have went to German prisons over.

The people that worked with him during his Glory days .... ALL think he is a massive tool. Roberts has spent a lot of money scrubbing the internet of anything critical. The truth is he didn't really produce the game that made him famous. Warren Spector did. Warren Spector (an actual genius game developer) is on record as saying his wing commander idea was great... but the guy has no idea wtf he is doing. There was a story told in an interview that has since been wiped off the net... about Roberts looking at an early ground breaking 3D engine at Origin, and Spector and the other Origin names knew they where looking at something revolutionary. Spector made a comment in the interview that has been cleaned that Roberts had no clue what he was looking at. (the first 3D game engine) Spector clearly thinks Roberts is a boob. When Origin took Roberts training wheels off and gave him control of a few wing commander games he almost put them out of business every time. The only way any of the Roberts WC games got released was when Origins owners said... next week your cheques bounce, so you better ship before then.

I really don't understand how anyone has been taken in by this guy. WC 1 was great because Warren Spector influenced the story telling aspects. (play deus ex or system shock... its clear that is Spector 100%) After origin he hasn't done ANYTHING at all. No game released after Origin has really had anything at all to do with him. Sure few got his name plastered on him. Advantage of having a short easy to remember name I guess.... for some reason he is treated like a game developing rockstar, I don't get it.

Couple his completely lack of video game development credentials with his criminal defunct movie studio.... its all so insane. How anyone can be so naive, but then I guess scientology is actually a thing. Guess we shouldn't be shocked.
 
SIS said:
Unlike fans of Windows 10 who typically admit it's rubbish and yet think that everyone else should use it like they do. It's amazing how many consumer-unfriendly moves MS has made with Windows and people keep coming back for more.
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So it's better to live a lie than admit to the negatives? Is that your wisdom?

The first rule of club apple, is that you never admit how rotten is the apple on the inside.
 
M76 said:
So it's better to live a lie than admit to the negatives? Is that your wisdom?

The first rule of club apple, is that you never admit how rotten is the apple on the inside.
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My wisdom is that people should ditch Windows and force developers to embrace Vulkan on Linux. Instead, they point fingers at Mac users, accomplishing nothing.

The same goes for the fake console/PC divide. People seem content, though, to be scammed.
 
SIS said:
My wisdom is that people should ditch Windows and force developers to embrace Vulkan on Linux. Instead, they point fingers at Mac users, accomplishing nothing.

The same goes for the fake console/PC divide. People seem content, though, to be scammed.
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How do you force a developer to go to linux? You depend on them, not they on you. If you switch to linux you loose access to essential software, so it's not an option. That won't force anyone to do anything. And you can't expect people to give up their access just to make a point. It would be the hunger strike equivalent of the computer world.

What fake divide and scam are you referring to? That information is too vague for me.
 
Lakados said:
In EvE you could slap down a CC and plex your way into a Titan. I don’t see anybody really claiming that EvE is P2W.
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So wrong.. Ten years ago there were plenty of people calling out Even on this. The ONLY reason you don't hear it anymore is everyone that cared stopped paying attention and the only ones still playing it simply couldn't be convinced of anything else if their life depended on it.
 
SIS said:
My wisdom is that people should ditch Windows and force developers to embrace Vulkan on Linux. Instead, they point fingers at Mac users, accomplishing nothing.

The same goes for the fake console/PC divide. People seem content, though, to be scammed.
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You must be new to humans. This particular species does not unite, only if it is immediately beneficial. As a whole this species will not harm itself for a greater goal further down the road.

What you say would work but only in a perfect world, what would likely happen is a group of friends would switch to linux, realize that the game selection is smaller and then run windows on another drive so they could still play games the way they are comfortable with.

On to topic,

I have nothing invested in SC but would really like to see it make it. I think it would be a really fun experience to play. But yea, everything nowadays is a love:hate polarization in groups. I don't agree with paying money to gain advantage in games that can be played with other players. My feelings would be you could only use such things in single player instances. Cosmetic purchases, fine but nothing that alters the playing field. Yes you can earn it in game, but if I dump $50K on the game at launch to get the close to end game stuff just to grief others, is that fair? I dunno, maybe an argument can be made for "well a working dad doesn't have time to grind so he can never compete?".
 
Darunion said:
As a whole this species will not harm itself for a greater goal further down the road.
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Oh? K-12 schooling, then college, then internships, then entry-level work, then a mortgage and those very expensive children and spouses, then working under the constant fear of being replaced because you're older than those cute/fresh low-insurance-price 20-somethings in the job market, then retirement is yanked away (sorry, the money's all gone) after it keeps being extended (sorry, can't retire at 60... retire at 80!), then you're dead.

Most people in first-world nations spend most of their lives enduring hardships, hardships they choose to endure because they think the payoff will be worth it. People with less choice also use what small amount of leverage they have to typically prop up the system that put them in a disadvantaged position. If they don't like it, they can end up in prison, doing things like peeling garlic for the American market with their teeth because their nails fell out from the work.

Darunion said:
You must be new to humans. This particular species does not unite, only if it is immediately beneficial.
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We have had world wars. The name "world war" implies unification on a large scale. We also have international financial markets/banks, media, and policing. The English language and the American dollar are difficult to escape in most parts of the world. Chinese goods are difficult to escape. The problem with us isn't our inability to unify toward common goals. The problem is that corruption leads us, not rationality.

That's why I joke that the worst thing that can happen to humanity from AI is that we would be forced to live under rationality. How inhuman would that be!

M76 said:
How do you force a developer to go to linux? You depend on them, not they on you.
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Developers will very rapidly adapt to whatever platform people are using. They depend on the users for sales. I think you're forgetting the basics of business. Customer demand is supposed to generate supply, not the other way around. We're not supposed to be dictated to. We are supposed to tell product makers what it is that we want to spend our money on.

Money is human life. We are giving our lives away to get these products. It's utterly asinine to passively take whatever someone has on offer instead of telling them what it is that our lives are actually worth.

M76 said:
What fake divide and scam are you referring to? That information is too vague for me.
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Consoles, throughout basically their entire history up until the recent present, were clearly different from the X86 PC platform. That is no longer true.

Now, there is a completely artificial divide between console platforms and PC gaming. This artificial divide is fake, because there is no hardware basis, at all, to support it. Even the controller ports are USB now. Nothing about a console is special. And, it's bad for consumers because it's very wasteful. Everyone knows about the "crappy console port" problem, a problem that wouldn't exist under a unified Linux/Vulkan X86 gaming platform. Underspecced processors like Jaguar are a side-effect of this quasi-monopolization, too. In a world without these fake consoles, we would have better minimum processor standards for low-end console-form-factor gaming.

The only thing a console is today is a form factor, a case. Whoopee. We have ITX which can work just fine for that. Everything else about consoles is force-fed top-down quasi-monopoly bogus BS.

One of the stupidest things about the Apple III, Apple's biggest marketplace mistake, was that the case was designed before the innards were. Back in those days, it wasn't so easy to squeeze a computer into a small case that had no fan and even ventilation slots. The point here is that Apple's biggest failure is, hilariously, the very basis of the definition of the contemporary console! The case is all there is now. The only reason this stupidity is selling is because of the near-monopoly power of Microsoft and Sony: duopoly.
 
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SIS said:
Developers will very rapidly adapt to whatever platform people are using. They depend on the users for sales. I think you're forgetting the basics of business. Customer demand is supposed to generate supply, not the other way around. We're not supposed to be dictated to. We are supposed to tell product makers what it is that we want to spend our money on.
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Your view has no basis in reality. People don't choose a platform arbitrarily, and then bang on the table demanding to be served. They choose a platform that suits their needs. And currently linux doesn't suit most desktop workstation and gaming needs.
You don't go into an indian reastuarnt and demand italian food. Well maybe you would, but don't expect to get served. But if the indian restaurant decides to serve italian food, people with that taste will start to go there.

The ball is not with the users. The ball is with linux distros to make their platform appealing to software developers, to lobby and to win over as many companies as possible. Then the users will start to come over as well.
Money is human life. We are giving our lives away to get these products. It's utterly asinine to passively take whatever someone has on offer instead of telling them what it is that our lives are actually worth.
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As I've said no basis in reality. I'm not going to wait around for linux to become a gaming platform. And commercially I can't afford to wait around for anyone. Business demands here and now.


Consoles, throughout basically their entire history up until the recent present, were clearly different from the X86 PC platform. That is no longer true.

Now, there is a completely artificial divide between console platforms and PC gaming. This artificial divide is fake, because there is no hardware basis, at all, to support it. Even the controller ports are USB now. Nothing about a console is special. And, it's bad for consumers because it's very wasteful. Everyone knows about the "crappy console port" problem, a problem that wouldn't exist under a unified Linux/Vulkan X86 gaming platform. Underspecced processors like Jaguar are a side-effect of this quasi-monopolization, too. In a world without these fake consoles, we would have better minimum processor standards for low-end console-form-factor gaming.

The only thing a console is today is a form factor, a case. Whoopee. We have ITX which can work just fine for that. Everything else about consoles is force-fed top-down quasi-monopoly bogus BS.
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Consoles are easier to get into than PC for most people. They could say that it is a small form factor gaming PC, but what would that change? The smaller hw differences mean porting is easier. Nowadays except for the few platform selling exclusives everything is multi-platform. Thanks to those similiratiies in architecture.

It's not that I'd not like it if consoles were just PCs and the same version of every game would just run on all platforms. But again, it's not realistic. Sony and Microsoft are bankrolling game development for the sole reason to lock people to their platform. If everyone would have a happy open platform, they would have no incentive to make consoles in the first place, let alone spend hundreds of millions on game development.
 
M76 said:
Your view has no basis in reality.
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When you begin a post with a flame it makes me inclined to think it's not going to be very well-reasoned. Just an FYI.

M76 said:
People don't choose a platform arbitrarily, and then bang on the table demanding to be served. They choose a platform that suits their needs. And currently linux doesn't suit most desktop workstation and gaming needs.
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See? You're not actually rebutting what I said. You're talking about a different issue. Nothing I said suggested that people should arbitrarily demand anything. That is pure invention on your part.

Starting a post with a wild, arm-flailing flame, then propping it up with putting words in my mouth — to discredit an argument that never existed, is not particularly persuasive. At the most basic, my post clearly has basis in reality because I exist and posted it. So, right there, you're already into hyperbole territory by making such a claim.

M76 said:
Consoles are easier to get into than PC for most people.
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False. Consoles are X86 PCs.

M76 said:
They could say that it is a small form factor gaming PC, but what would that change?
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The point is that a unified software standard makes sense when you already have a unified hardware standard.

What is wasteful is having three different "platforms" for the same hardware standard. The only reason that is happening is because there is a situation of duopoly. A neat-looking case is not enough of a justification for the pain caused by these artificial walled gardens.

M76 said:
The smaller hw differences mean porting is easier.
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There is nothing easier about the current situation (except one thing), as opposed to having a unified software layer to go with the unified X86 hardware layer. It's the opposite of easier. The exception is that it's easier for Sony and Microsoft to get money they don't deserve by selling people obsolete parts like Jaguar and wasting their time and money on the artificial divide.

M76 said:
Nowadays except for the few platform selling exclusives everything is multi-platform. Thanks to those similiratiies in architecture.
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You're making my argument for me now. You're pointing out that there is no good basis for having these walls. To support your position, you should be arguing the opposite of what you're arguing.

You should say things like "Having the Playstation platform, the XBox platform, and the PC platform leads to there being more variety, more diversity, more innovation". That's the opposite of what you just argued. You literally said there is no reason to worry about the different platforms existing because all the games are on all the platforms already anyway. That is not the argument you should be using to justify their existence and perpetuation.

Plus, "except for a few platform exclusives" is a big case of trying to have one's cake and eat it. That, right there, is an example of the pain caused by this artificial divide. If Johnny wants to play X and X is only on Sony's platform, Johnny's Mom has to fork over money for the Sony console as well, since Johnny already had Microsoft's console and a PC. That's three different purchases Johnny's Mom needs to come up with money for. Why? So Sony and Microsoft can make a cut from the PC gaming platform — offering absolutely nothing substantive from the hardware end themselves. On the contrary, they've been peddling Jaguar, a product that would never have gotten the slightest bit of market success if not for their duopoly.

Duopolies and monopolies create market situations where inferior obsolete products succeed. Instead of the product succeeding on its technical merit, it succeeds merely due to the monopoly power of the peddler.

Here, we have Jaguar, a CPU that has worse IPC than Bulldozer, dominating the "console" gaming market for two generations. That is atrocious. Even Piledriver would have offered gamers much more, and it is the biggest CPU target for mockery in enthusiast territory.
M76 said:
It's not that I'd not like it if consoles were just PCs and the same version of every game would just run on all platforms. But again, it's not realistic. Sony and Microsoft are bankrolling game development for the sole reason to lock people to their platform. If everyone would have a happy open platform, they would have no incentive to make consoles in the first place, let alone spend hundreds of millions on game development.
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It is very realistic to have a different situation than the one we have now. The world slowly coalesced around the X86 hardware standard. It makes great sense to coalesce around a common software layer to go atop that common hardware, especially given the maturity of Vulkan, Linux, and OpenGL.

Right now, we already have common hardware and we have software that is capable of providing a unified experience that is superior in efficiency to the obsolete walled garden approach.

Not only do we have the extremely strong example of the X86 hardware standard, how it came about and took over the market — we have the history of console and PC gaming to look at. Consoles, as I pointed out before, used to not be X86 PCs at all. Now they are. Things change. "It's not realistic" is not a strong argument against change because it continues to occur.
 
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Lakados said:
In EvE you could slap down a CC and plex your way into a Titan. I don’t see anybody really claiming that EvE is P2W.
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Not really true. It takes many many months of training to effectively fly a Titan...
 
And it takes 20 minutes to buy a Titan trained pilot with plex ISK :)
 
You know sometimes it doesn't matter if a game is pay 2 win. I guess its better if you admit it, but star citizen fans see something in this game, something they have not been given in many years by any other company. I sympathize with that, I think pay 2 win is garbage and should never be in any game. But ultimately I have played a few pay 2 win games. Its just that game offers something no other game seems to offer, so you are stuck pay 2 win, grind, or have less fun playing games you don't like is much.
 
SIS said:
When you begin a post with a flame it makes me inclined to think it's not going to be very well-reasoned. Just an FYI.
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It's an observation of fact, not flame. It would've been flamatory if it wasn't true, but I demonstrated it's validity.

See? You're not actually rebutting what I said. You're talking about a different issue. Nothing I said suggested that people should arbitrarily demand anything. That is pure invention on your part.
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It is rebutting what you said, because it is a fact that contradicts your utopia where people should move to another platform where nothing they use is readily available. What part of that is invention?

Starting a post with a wild, arm-flailing flame, then propping it up with putting words in my mouth — to discredit an argument that never existed, is not particularly persuasive. At the most basic, my post clearly has basis in reality because I exist and posted it. So, right there, you're already into hyperbole territory by making such a claim.
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Yet you don't explain what was your argument that I supposedly misunderstood. If you were posting in good faith you'd explain that.

False. Consoles are X86 PCs.
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Right, so you're either trolling or no I can't even fathom someone being that ignorant.

But let's be sure that I'm not misunderstading you. You're saying that buying a console and a game and slapping the disc in, requires the same entry skills, knowledge, and investment, as buying or building a pc and getting into pc gaming?

The point is that a unified software standard makes sense when you already have a unified hardware standard.
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It makes sense in your head, it doesn't make sense in the current monetary economic system. For reasons I already explained.
What is wasteful is having three different "platforms" for the same hardware standard. The only reason that is happening is because there is a situation of duopoly. A neat-looking case is not enough of a justification for the pain caused by these artificial walled gardens.
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'Wasteful'? Yes. Almost everything that makes big money is wasteful, haven't you noticed it yet?

There is nothing easier about the current situation (except one thing), as opposed to having a unified software layer to go with the unified X86 hardware layer. It's the opposite of easier. The exception is that it's easier for Sony and Microsoft to get money they don't deserve by selling people obsolete parts like Jaguar and wasting their time and money on the artificial divide.
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So this is about nothing else than you being butthurt over the fact that their current practices make them money.

You're making my argument for me now. You're pointing out that there is no good basis for having these walls. To support your position, you should be arguing the opposite of what you're arguing.
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Sigh. I explained it to you. I'm arguing against walled gardens, but I'm intelligent enough to realize that what I want and what is actually going on are different things.

You should say things like "Having the Playstation platform, the XBox platform, and the PC platform leads to there being more variety, more diversity, more innovation". That's the opposite of what you just argued. You literally said there is no reason to worry about the different platforms existing because all the games are on all the platforms already anyway. That is not the argument you should be using to justify their existence and perpetuation.
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No, no. I said most games are multiplatform, not all. And I also mentioned except platform selling exclusives. My point was, that the situation is better now, than it was during previous console generations with widly different architectures.

Locked down platforms exist becuse they want to make money, and the best method to make money is to lock in people to their platforms. What's so hard to get about that? Again I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm saying that is reality.

Plus, "except for a few platform exclusives" is a big case of trying to have one's cake and eat it. That, right there, is an example of the pain caused by this artificial divide. If Johnny wants to play X and X is only on Sony's platform, Johnny's Mom has to fork over money for the Sony console as well, since Johnny already had Microsoft's console and a PC. That's three different purchases Johnny's Mom needs to come up with money for. Why? So Sony and Microsoft can make a cut from the PC gaming platform — offering absolutely nothing substantive from the hardware end themselves. On the contrary, they've been peddling Jaguar, a product that would never have gotten the slightest bit of market success if not for their duopoly.
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What are you arguing? I'm not caliming that the artifical divide is good for players, I'm stating why it exists and why are they trying to maintain it. Do I have to start from 1+1=2 ?

Duopolies and monopolies create market situations where inferior obsolete products succeed. Instead of the product succeeding on its technical merit, it succeeds merely due to the monopoly power of the peddler.
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Whatever the market rewards corporations will do. And the market rewards this behaviour. So what do you expect? I'm the first to vehemently protest it, but that doesn't change the facts.

Here, we have Jaguar, a CPU that has worse IPC than Bulldozer, dominating the "console" gaming market for two generations. That is atrocious. Even Piledriver would have offered gamers much more, and it is the biggest CPU target for mockery in enthusiast territory.
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You said that already, and?

It is very realistic to have a different situation than the one we have now. The world slowly coalesced around the X86 hardware standard. It makes great sense to coalesce around a common software layer to go atop that common hardware, especially given the maturity of Vulkan, Linux, and OpenGL.
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And you'll finance this happy open platform? Because sony and MS won't as they don't stand to gain anything from it.

Right now, we already have common hardware and we have software that is capable of providing a unified experience that is superior in efficiency to the obsolete walled garden approach.
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They have 'common' architecture because it is cheaper. That doesn't mean they're willing to give up their soverign platforms.

Not only do we have the extremely strong example of the X86 hardware standard, how it came about and took over the market — we have the history of console and PC gaming to look at. Consoles, as I pointed out before, used to not be X86 PCs at all. Now they are. Things change. "It's not realistic" is not a strong argument against change because it continues to occur.
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It's not realistic in terms of the economics. It has zero relevance how little difference is there between the architectures. The obstacle of opening up the platforms is not the HW, nor the SW. It is the fact that sony and ms has nothing to gain from it, but a lot to loose. I cannot belive that you can't get to grips with that.
 
I mean and let's be honest, pc gamers don't buy games at retail launch prices, its wait for steam 80% summer/winter sales to buy games. Not very enticing to a publisher. So how do you beat it? You find a way to get people to pay money in small increments over the life of the game so that the initial sale price isn't as relevant.

Games haven't gone up in price since what the nintendo 64? Not that I am saying it is some benevolent gesture by the publishers, it is just that the market will not allow it so they are moving to make money in other ways with the game.

SC though, is the exception as they seem to have just made all their money before releasing a game.
 
Darunion said:
I mean and let's be honest, pc gamers don't buy games at retail launch prices, its wait for steam 80% summer/winter sales to buy games. Not very enticing to a publisher. So how do you beat it? You find a way to get people to pay money in small increments over the life of the game so that the initial sale price isn't as relevant.

Games haven't gone up in price since what the nintendo 64? Not that I am saying it is some benevolent gesture by the publishers, it is just that the market will not allow it so they are moving to make money in other ways with the game.

SC though, is the exception as they seem to have just made all their money before releasing a game.
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$49.99 was MSRP for N64. AFAIK the Xbox360/PS3 was the first (major) generation with $60 games.
 
MavericK said:
I seem to remember a lot of N64 games being $60 or even $70, but that may have not been MSRP.
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Hell a lot of Square Enix games for super Nintendo were super expensive. I remember paying 60 bucks for FF3 and 75 dollars for Secret of Mana.
 
MavericK said:
I seem to remember a lot of N64 games being $60 or even $70, but that may have not been MSRP.
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MSRP in the states was $50 I’m pretty sure.

I really wish I could remember what I paid for Goldeneye at launch. I got a strategy guide with it though.

There seems to be references on the internet to the MSRP being $50. That said other people have the same recollection you do about above average priced games.

I still have my N64 collection and can tell you for a rare Cart I’ve paid more than that. No I don’t want to talk about it. Yes I should have saved my OG Conker’s cause that shit was expensive to rebuy.
 
Wages, employment, majority of goods & services have been flat since the N64 was "new".

Jus' sayin'...
 
MavericK said:
I seem to remember a lot of N64 games being $60 or even $70, but that may have not been MSRP.
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As a complete aside, I paid £65 for International Superstar Soccer 64, in the summer of 1997. A quick Google suggests that using exchange rates at the time, that would have equated to nearly $110. To be fair, that was the most expensive N64 I bought, and most were about £35 to £40 iirc.
 
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