Brand new big-budget triple-A games typically cost something like 60-70 dollars/euros at launch. Oftentimes there are some special editions of the game (often with fancy names like "deluxe edition", "gold edition", or whatever) which cost 10-30 $/€ more. Some of these special versions can cost up to 100 $/€.
Then some of these games may come bundled with so-called day-1 DLC's. In other words, downloadable extra content available from the very day of launch. At an extra cost. In the greediest possible examples, if you wanted everything the game has to offer, and are willing to pay for everything, you could end up paying something like 200 $/€. In the absolutely most egregious examples that could go as high as 300, if you purchased absolutely everything that the game has to offer on day 1 (unlimited in-app purchases not counting, of course, because there's no limit on how much you can spend on them). Quite a lot, but I suppose some people are willing to pay such prices for games they love.
Now, what is Star Citizen? It's a crowd-funded in-development massively multiplayer space simulator game, which is intended to be one of the largest, most massive, and most epic games of those genres. In principle at least. In practice it's just a large triple-A space simulator MMO. Perhaps it will end up having a rather unusual amount of content and scope, but still.
Development started in 2011, and it's still in early access, and extremely incomplete (there's already a rather large amount of content, but it's still far, far from being at any stage that could be classified as publishable and complete in any sense). So yes, it's one of those development hell projects; already 7 years in development, and nowhere near completion.
That's still not stopping the developers from selling the game, though. As an early access package, of course, but still, just outright selling it.
Like with so many games, especially ones that are so massive in scope, there are several packages available for purchase. Now, make a guess how expensive the largest package, containing pretty much everything the game has to offer so far, is.
Did you guess $200 or $300, like the most egregious examples mentioned above? Perhaps a bit more? Perhaps as much as $1000?
Nope. You aren't getting even close. The full package costs $27000.
Yes, you read that right. That's not a typo. 27 THOUSAND dollars.
And no, this is not like some kind of investment, where you invest in the company expecting some profit back in the future. This is a pure purchase, and nothing else. You pay them $27000, you get all the content of the game so far, and that's it. You are just paying that money in order to get all that content.
And do you know what the kicker is? It's my understanding that most of that content can be gathered in-game via grinding. Sure, it takes an enormous amount of time to grind that much, but in principle you could still get most or all of it by purchasing the cheapest possible package, and then simply playing, rather than paying extra money for it.
And do you know what the other kicker is? Some dedicated Star Citizen fans are actually defending this. (They are, in fact, so rabid that they are attacking people criticizing this pricing.)
This pricing is absolutely insane. Not even the greediest triple-A titles out there are asking for even a hundredth of that amount.
Then some of these games may come bundled with so-called day-1 DLC's. In other words, downloadable extra content available from the very day of launch. At an extra cost. In the greediest possible examples, if you wanted everything the game has to offer, and are willing to pay for everything, you could end up paying something like 200 $/€. In the absolutely most egregious examples that could go as high as 300, if you purchased absolutely everything that the game has to offer on day 1 (unlimited in-app purchases not counting, of course, because there's no limit on how much you can spend on them). Quite a lot, but I suppose some people are willing to pay such prices for games they love.
Now, what is Star Citizen? It's a crowd-funded in-development massively multiplayer space simulator game, which is intended to be one of the largest, most massive, and most epic games of those genres. In principle at least. In practice it's just a large triple-A space simulator MMO. Perhaps it will end up having a rather unusual amount of content and scope, but still.
Development started in 2011, and it's still in early access, and extremely incomplete (there's already a rather large amount of content, but it's still far, far from being at any stage that could be classified as publishable and complete in any sense). So yes, it's one of those development hell projects; already 7 years in development, and nowhere near completion.
That's still not stopping the developers from selling the game, though. As an early access package, of course, but still, just outright selling it.
Like with so many games, especially ones that are so massive in scope, there are several packages available for purchase. Now, make a guess how expensive the largest package, containing pretty much everything the game has to offer so far, is.
Did you guess $200 or $300, like the most egregious examples mentioned above? Perhaps a bit more? Perhaps as much as $1000?
Nope. You aren't getting even close. The full package costs $27000.
Yes, you read that right. That's not a typo. 27 THOUSAND dollars.
And no, this is not like some kind of investment, where you invest in the company expecting some profit back in the future. This is a pure purchase, and nothing else. You pay them $27000, you get all the content of the game so far, and that's it. You are just paying that money in order to get all that content.
And do you know what the kicker is? It's my understanding that most of that content can be gathered in-game via grinding. Sure, it takes an enormous amount of time to grind that much, but in principle you could still get most or all of it by purchasing the cheapest possible package, and then simply playing, rather than paying extra money for it.
And do you know what the other kicker is? Some dedicated Star Citizen fans are actually defending this. (They are, in fact, so rabid that they are attacking people criticizing this pricing.)
This pricing is absolutely insane. Not even the greediest triple-A titles out there are asking for even a hundredth of that amount.
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