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Star Citizen director Chris Roberts addresses in-game economy concerns

A recent change in alpha 3.2 has forced Roberts to revisit the plans for the game's economy.

Charles Singletary Jr

August 3, 2018 12:37 PM

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In an email blast today, Star Citizen director Chris Roberts addressed one of the biggest topics concerning the ambitious space simulator. The in-game economy is murky due to the plethora of ships that have been purchased pre-launch to support the development of the game and many in the community feel it will damage the experience when/if the game launches into Star Citizen 1.0. Further, the in-game credits contribute to additional potential for imbalances in the economy. The team is attempting to balance this with a recent update to the game and the move has lead to game director Chris Roberts addressing it in a newsletter.

First, a bit of context. United Earth Credits (UEC) is the in-game currency for Star Citizen. Alpha update 3.2 removed a cap on UEC, which Roberts says is a move to help "smooth over the transition to an in-game economy and to give people that had purchased game items through the now-defunct Voyager Direct web store the ability to 'melt' [the purchases] back for UEC." This balances the playing field for players that may have purchased items at different prices, since the development team is rebalancing the pricing and economy with each update.

"This would have happened if we’d kept the overall hard cap on UEC as many players had amassed a lot more than 150,000 UEC worth of items," he says. "We still limit the maximum purchasing to 25,000 UEC a day, but we felt that removing the cap was the right call, especially as with every persistent database reset we need to refund players the UEC they have purchased with money and used to buy in-game items. It’s one thing to lose an item due to gameplay, but it’s a complete other thing to have your game account forcibly reset with each new patch, losing all the items you paid actual money for."

Here's the lengthy section speaking on plans for Star Citizen's economy at launch:

Developing and operating a game of Star Citizen’s ambition is expensive. From day one of the campaign we’ve been quite clear on the economic model for Star Citizen, which is to not require a subscription like many MMOs, but instead rely on sales of initial game packages and in-game money to fund development and online running costs. To ensure money isn’t a deciding factor in progression, the core principle that the game follows is that everything you can obtain with real money, outside of your initial game package, can also be earned in game via normal and fun gameplay. There will also be plenty of things that can only be earned by playing.

There are two types of resource players have that they can contribute to Star Citizen to make it better: time and money.  A player that has lots of time but only backed for the basic game helps out by playing the game, giving feedback, and assisting new players. On the flip side, if a player has a family and a demanding job and only has four hours to game a week but wants to spend some money to shortcut the time investment they would need to purchase a new ship, what’s wrong with that? They are helping fund the ongoing development and running costs of the game, which benefits everyone. The exact same ship can be earned through pure gameplay without having to spend any money and the backer that has plenty of time is likely to be better at dogfighting and FPS gameplay after playing more hours to earn the ship. I don’t want to penalize either type of backer; I want them both to have fun.  People should not feel disadvantaged because they don’t have time, nor should they feel disadvantaged if they don’t have money. I want our tent to be large and encompass all types of players with varied skill sets, time, and money.

This was the economic approach I proposed out when I first pitched Star Citizen because it is the model as a player I prefer. I don’t like to have to pay a subscription just to play and I hate when things are deliberately locked behind a paywall, but as someone that doesn’t have twenty hours a week to dedicate to building up my character or possessions, I appreciate the option to get a head start if I’m willing to pay a little extra.

Some people are worried that they will be disadvantaged when the game starts for ‘real’ compared to players that have stockpiled ships or UEC. This has been a debate on the forums since the project started, but this is not a concern for me as I know what the game will be and I know how we’re designing it.

There will always be some players that have more than others, regardless of whether they’ve spent more or played more, because people start at different times and play at different paces. This is the nature of persistent MMOs. Star Citizen isn’t some race to the top; it’s not like Highlander where “There can only be one!” It is an open-ended Persistent Universe Sandbox that doesn’t have an end game or a specific win-state. We are building it to cater to players of all skill levels, that prefer PvE or PvP, that like to play solo or in a group or a large organization, that want to pursue various professions, some peaceful and some combat orientated. This is the core philosophy of Star Citizen; there isn’t one path, nor is there one way to have fun.

This may be a foreign concept to gamers as the majority of games are about winning and losing, but Star Citizen isn’t a normal game. It’s a First Person Universe that allows you to live a virtual life in a compelling futuristic setting. You win by having fun, and fun is different things to different people.

The attempt to "encompass all types of players with varied skill sets, time, and money" is the most controversial aspect of the statement, simply because it's difficult to imagine an experience where those that have purchased expensive ships won't have a distinct advantage over players that haven't. With a player-run economy, that discussion of a balance of power further spirals when considering this and it's going to take a lot of work for Cloud Imperium to show how this will work out. Share your thoughts on Star Citizen's economy in Chatty and stay tuned to Shacknews form for more updates.

Charles Singletary Jr

News Editor

Charles Singletary Jr keeps the updates flowing as the News Editor, breaking stories while investigating the biggest topics in gaming and technology. He's pretty active on Twitter, so feel free to reach out to him @The_CSJR. Got a hot tip? Email him at Charles.Singletary@Shacknews.com.