Star Citizen Gets Into the Real Estate Business - Up to $100 Per Virtual Lot

[Chino]

Star Citizen is easily one of the greatest success stories of our times. Even though the game is currently in the alpha stage, Cloud Imperium, the company behind Star Citizen, managed to raise over $168 million through crowdfunding. However, the amount raised doesn't seem to cut it as the developer has decided to implement even more microtransactions into the game. Cloud Imperium has considered it necessary to start selling virtual parcels to their intergalactic citizens as another source of income. According to the company, the money will be reinvested into the game's development. If there's a particular planet, moon or asteroid that you would like to colonize, now is the time to break your piggy bank. However, it won't be cheap. You've been warned.

The current market price for a 4 km by 4 km lot is $50, while the bigger 8 km by 8 km lots are going for $100. As a Star Citizen landowner, the player will be rewarded with a fancy GEOTACK planetary beacon. This beacon prevents other players from invading the owner's property, while also serving as an aid for owners to find their way home. Cloud Imperium is kind enough to give the player complete freedom to what they want to do with their property. So, it's up to the landowner to decide if he wants to use the land to build a cozy home or put a business on it. Do you have some extra money lying around? Invest it in a virtual piece of land to start building your patrimony today!


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Vayra86]

Smart, let's hope a lot of whales buy into this so they can release this game feature complete.

Me, I'll pass on these senseless purchases. Still sitting on 35 bucks for that ship and hangar, and so far, thats as far as its gonna go. Even if they finish the game proper, Star Citizen already treads the fine line of Pay To Win with all these 'virtual assets'.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I would like the salary of the person that can call 50 - 100 dollars: "micro" transactions....
Also every time there is news about this game I just get more sad.

 

[Vayra86]

I would like the salary of the person that can call 50 - 100 dollars: "micro" transactions....
Also every time there is news about this game I just get more sad.

Don't be. Its an illusion to consider that one day 'you could have it all'. Just let that go and look at the project for what it is, an online space sim that aims for a high degree of polish and immersion. Play it as that, and there's nothing you really need.

This is also why I'm waiting to see where all these microtransactions are going to actually land once the financial reality of a final release has become clear. With every ship sale I struggle more and more to remain convinced it won't be a P2W fest, but there's hope Chris won't completely screw it up. So... see you in... 2021 or something?

 

[mcraygsx]

Since most of us cannot afford to buy a real estate in life, this look like a tempting alternative. Talk about cash grab from silly sheep. . Next we need to setup some virtual lending institutes, Pawn Shops and maybe some Debt collection agencies.

 

[Vayra86]

Since most of us cannot afford to buy a real estate in life, this look like a tempting alternative. Talk about cash grab from silly sheep. . Next we need to setup some virtual lending institutes, Pawn Shops and maybe some Debt collection agencies.

Dude thats all integrated already, we even have ship insurance.

 

[dorsetknob]

The current market price for a 4km by 4km lot is $50, while the bigger 8km by 8km lots are going for $100. As a Star Citizen landowner, the player will be rewarded with a fancy GEOTACK planetary beacon. This beacon prevents other players from invading the owner's property, while also serving as an aid for owners to find their way home. Cloud Imperium is kind enough to give the player complete freedom to what they want to do with their property

WTF I can see this Coming soon
Microtransaction per month for Virtual Land Taxes and virtual Rates/Services Charge
Fail to Pay and your Virtual land lots get virtualy forclosed

 

[RejZoR]

Usually they sell you all these virtual goods when they already have the game pretty much fully functional. These lot are selling stuff they don't yet have, but they might maybe eventually one day make it. They just have to first finish the base game. Anyone paying into this black hole must be stupid quite frankly. People behind it have ambitions of a small kid. They want to do everything at once and never finish anything.

You always get the idea, plot it down, create game basics and then build on top of that. These guys just went straight to awesome ship building and they don't even have the basics sorted out.

I wa amazed by the first demo where soldier was standing in hallway of a ship under attack. The graphics and especially sound on the impacts was jaw dropping. It really felt like you were standing in a real ship. But since then, it all just went downhill.

 

[Vayra86]

Usually they sell you all these virtual goods when they already have the game pretty much fully functional. These lot are selling stuff they don't yet have, but they might maybe eventually one day make it. They just have to first finish the base game. Anyone paying into this black hole must be stupid quite frankly. People behind it have ambitions of a small kid. They want to do everything at once and never finish anything.

You always get the idea, plot it down, create game basics and then build on top of that. These guys just went straight to awesome ship building and they don't even have the basics sorted out.

I wa amazed by the first demo where soldier was standing in hallway of a ship under attack. The graphics and especially sound on the impacts was jaw dropping. It really felt like you were standing in a real ship. But since then, it all just went downhill.

That is actually why you see so little of the game, the underlying mechanics ARE in full development and have been the past couple years. Meanwhile, they were building lore, they had the community flesh out more backstory and they had a whole range of publications already 'in the spirit of the game'. The ship sales are just one small part of all this really, but yes, I've had the same thoughts more than once. Thing is, its easy to overlook all the other work thats being done, simply because its impossible to score big with a presentation of wireframes and flow charts.

With projects like this that have to create a whole game architecture from the ground up, you will see that the actual content is just a tiny sliver of its total production time, but a large portion of its production cost. Architecture just takes a lot of hours, you don't need much more than a programmer and his PC.

So far, between all the progress updates and the actual progress being made, I just recognize real (Agile) software development at work, every time. Realistically, Chris is just being a SCRUM master (ánd product owner) across a project of tremendous scale, that's quite a feat to pull off - especially when you consider this is all being made public as well.

For those who don't know what Scrum is: have a read, its pretty interesting as a framework and it'll shed light on why you see the things you see when it comes to game development.
http://www.scrumguides.org/

 

[the54thvoid]

Can't recall when I bought my 75 dollar package but I wish I'd bought bitcoins instead.

I stopped caring a while ago about this game but I can almost foresee my account disappearing due to lack of access.

Then I sue.

 

[Vya Domus]

Oh boy , so it begins...

The half decade old still in development holy grail of a game has just acquired some hefty microtransactions. This is going to be great , can't wait.

 

[the54thvoid]

Oh boy , so it begins...

The half decade old still in development holy grail of a game has just acquired some hefty microtransactions. This is going to be great , can't wait.

We should call them macro-transactions to describe the cost.

 

[erocker]

Even if you're a hardcore fan of this project there's no reason (from a gameplay point a view) to purchase any of this. If you're in the mindset that after 5 years they still need your monetary contribution for a parcel of fake land, you go ahead and open that wallet.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So conflicted on this. If the game were done, sure! But it's not done. This stinks of Shroud of the Avatar. In perpetual development with constant beg-a-thons. Up next, StarCitizen Initial Coin Offering?

 

[AsRock]

I was getting some hope on this game, and well not any more and so glad i opted for ED even more than ever.

 

[R0H1T]

Since most of us cannot afford to buy a real estate in life, this look like a tempting alternative. Talk about cash grab from silly sheep. . Next we need to setup some virtual lending institutes, Pawn Shops and maybe some Debt collection agencies.

Huh, I already have a farm booked on Mars! Though I'll probably need to go into deep/cryo sleep (& hope someone can wake a fully intact me up) before man sets a colony there.
Trust me ~ Mars is the next big thing, after BTC/ETH & a microcosm of these loot crates of course

 

[dozenfury]

$168M raised for an incomplete (and imo currently unplayable) game, and now this? At some point more money doesn't even really help development. There is a point of diminishing returns. This company's never-ending cash grab for promises of future minor feature adds, while making constant excuses for delays in getting to a base working game, is far worse than the current loot box uproar as far as I'm concerned.

I loved the old Wing Commander games, and had high hopes for SC. Maybe they'll prove me wrong. But it has every warning sign of people at Cloud Imperium showing up to work one day with a taped sign on the door that the company has closed and the money will be in a bank account in the Bahamas.

As a side-note I worked at a IT company where that happened, and thankfully I left a few months before that happened...and it happened a week before Christmas no less.

 

[dorsetknob]

Late news Flash
Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff Gets Parole and is hired by https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
As Financial Consultent"

 

[R0H1T]

Late news Flash
Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff Gets Parole and is hired by https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
As Financial Consultent"

Must be irony fire sale day, right along with news that Mike Flynn will probably sing like a canary

 

[Prince Valiant]

I just want Squadron 42 to come out already .

 

[wiyosaya]

Smart, let's hope a lot of whales buy into this so they can release this game feature complete.

Me, I'll pass on these senseless purchases. Still sitting on 35 bucks for that ship and hangar, and so far, thats as far as its gonna go. Even if they finish the game proper, Star Citizen already treads the fine line of Pay To Win with all these 'virtual assets'.

Agreed. I have several ships and a hangar. If the game were already complete, I might consider this. However, I'll pass for now, and once it releases, I might consider it then.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

This is a Jackie Chan moment:

The game is not done. The game is far from done. They haven't delivered what was promised. And now they're expanding the scope of the game adding a feature that was never advertised. If this isn't feature creep, I don't know what it is. Chris Roberts should know better which begs the question why is it happening?

They ran out of money.

Slam, don't push, the eject button. It's Shroud of the Avatar all over again.

 

[dorsetknob]

. I have several ships and a hangar.

And no Game to play them with sorry but

 

[Divide Overflow]

Quite a mischaracterization to try to label these "micro-transactions". Early backers can provide them with *donations* to advance the game, but they really have more than enough at this point to make sure that happens. I'd like to see them focus on getting Squadron 42 out, but I'm comfortable with seeing the progress that's being made. Alpha 3.0 is pretty amazing so far!

 

[Vya Domus]

They ran out of money.

I don't think it's just that. Just a hunch but there is probably something shadier going on.

There's no way they could've spent so much and still need more.