Star Citizen Video Game Launches $27,000 Players' Pack (bbc.com) 193
An anonymous reader shares a report: Crowdfunded space simulation game Star Citizen has launched its $27,000 Legatus Pack, which includes nearly all its spacecraft plus extras. Only players who have already spent $1,000 in the game can access the pack. Cloud Imperium, the creators of Star Citizen, has received more than $200m in crowdfunding since launching a Kickstarter campaign for it in 2012. According to its website it has more than two million players, although the game itself is still in development. Star Citizen aims to create a vast science fiction universe that can be explored in dozens of spaceships, with first-person space combat, all online and multi-player.
Or that money (Score:2, Insightful)
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Looking at commentary on its forums, big paying folks like this seem to be more of a "engineer at a tech company, earning six figures", massive nostalgia and desire for this kind of a game - types.
This is basically their Porsche/Harley Davidson/[insert middle age crisis marker here]. And they have money to burn.
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What point playing the game if you pay to win. What have you won, you have won nothing, you just paid to pretend you did win because you can afford to pay to pretend you did win, even though you are not actually winning anything, just pretending you did and pretending to yourself because you can afford to.
So spending as a goal unto itself, much like greed has become a goal unto itself, actual achievements, nobody gives a shit about them any more.
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They have in fact promised that it won't be pay to win and that all ships will be available to everyone. How they will implement it with those sums being spent on ships remains to be seen.
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Change the record, that one's whereing out.
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I'm surprised how many people think that is what's going on. Of the rich people I know not one of them were/are like that. It's a great narrative to get all heated up about but I don't think it's a true as many think it is. I think the "engineer at a tech company, earning six figure" is far more likely and perfectly fine if that's what that hard working individual wants to spend their money on.
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I personally backed it because I wanted a freelancer with modern graphics and a better flight model. Back when I backed it, I was still playing Freelancer multiplayer. It was even at that time one of the best if not THE best arcadey space combat game and multiplayer support with all the mods was excellent.
They seem to have gone really far off the rails with that one, but I'm still interested in what they'll make it. That said, I'm in for literally minimal possible support from early days, and I'm not intere
$1000? (Score:2)
And I though that Far Cry 5 was pricey.
Re:$1000? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some games are worth it. Most people would consider me cheap and I wouldn't disagree. But I've spent well over that on Rocksmith DLC, much more if you count equipment. But that's more a hobby then a game so it's a little different. I would have a hard time justifying it for most games.
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I've got a heck of a lot more out of Rocksmith and its DLC than I did out of Far Cry 1-4. As always, I'll wait for the price to drop on steam before getting 5.
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Rocksmith actually teaches you how to play. Not so great on fundamentals like theory, but if you want to learn that one popular song from x year, chances are you can find it available for Rocksmith and learn to play it.
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Well, yes, and no.
It does use a real guitar, and teach you some basic guitar fundamentals. But as you say, not much theory.
And it doesn't teach you the songs itself, the way guitar is played in the actual songs. It teaches you to play notes or chords that can be mixed with the song without totally destroying the song.
Then the problems start.
It's very basic, due to technical limitations - the sound recognition can't handle complex harmonies or notes played at low volume, and is too slow to deal with fast f
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FYI, you play Rocksmith with a real guitar hooked to an interface box, not Guitar Hero/Rock Band controller guitars. I know this and don't even own Rocksmith.
woah (Score:2)
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Nope.
For that kind of money, I can come to your house and custom program 1/8th of a game for you
Re:woah (Score:5, Funny)
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With no guarantee of how those pieces will eventually be integrated into a final product.
Right now, the pvp sim part is pretty fair. Do you really think it will be fair if I spend a hundred bucks and you spend ten thousand bucks? They aren't going to want to screw over whales of that magnitude.
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So far, most of the negative responses here have been for the sake of getting a laugh or is based on stale or inaccurate data.
Or salty has-been-but-really-never-was ex-game-devs who wail and gnash their teeth that their crappy 90's space sim never got the love and adoration that Wing Commander did. And the SA goons that humor them for a laugh.
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Buy a server and pay a programmer to code game server software, at least.
Huge Ambitions With This Game (Score:1)
Really, the ideas and concepts they have are pretty spectacular and with $200m in funding they can probably see it to the end. I mean, I won't spend $27,000 on a video game as that's rather absurd, but I paid $45 knowing full well I was getting something that's still in its very early stages of development but at least there is progress.
Re:Huge Ambitions With This Game (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure Chris appreciates you helping the propaganda cause as they go whale hunting. I'm not sure the whales will be as sanguine in the end though, they're in it for slightly more than 45$.
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You know, there are some things I really like about early access, crowdfunding, and other forms of "funding before game development is done". It's given us game concepts that never would have seen the light of day before and some real gems have actually seen things through to the end (Subnautica comes to mind). But it's also given us a huge list of abandonware, "this says early access, but it's been early access for years, so don't be surprised if it never gets finished", and games that completely dropped
In real dollars? (Score:3)
So it's just like American politics. Hell. America in general.
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It buys you WIN
step up you F-in' PLEBS! (Score:3)
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It buys you WIN
If "winning" costs $27k, I'm OK with "not losing" for free.
Re:In real dollars? (Score:4, Funny)
Step 1. Buy game.
Step 2. Buy $27K pack to win game.
Step 3. Put game away because you've already won.
Wow, that is a time-saver!
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a time-saver!
Sadly, not a money saver though. You gotta pay the cost to be the boss!
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That's like saying you're done with Zelda once you have the Master Sword. I mean, I guess that could be *why* you're playing, but that wasn't the designer's intent.
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Actually mass production and the assembly line brought prices down so the common man could afford fancy stuff.
Fancy custom stuff AKA hand-made was the way of the world. $20 for a pair of jeans today = cheap. 150 years ago = over a week's wages for your Levis.
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WTF? They're made in China, have been for over 10 years. You are being flat-out robbed.
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He's probably buying REAL Levi's, they still make a few high end items in the States, not the Signature crap.
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Where? They closed their last factory, years ago.
this is what's killing mmo games (Score:2, Insightful)
200m poured in, still in development. Of the games that actually make it to release after crowdfunding a good chunk come out looking nothing like what was advertised or even what was shown in testing.
If this game comes out worth playing it will be the exception not the rule
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Off the top of my head, things like Divinity Original Sin games, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, etc all delivered on what was promised.
Some projects get things done, some don't. Welcome to world of entrepreneur.
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To be fair, they had a vote before the Kickstarter even ended, to vastly increase the scope of the game. It's wasn't even close. This is what the backers wanted. I, myself, didn't hop on the wagon until after the project scope increased, because that's the game I wanted. I've since gotten married and had a baby, so it will be a couple more years until I can play any video games at all, so the pace of development is sitting pretty with me. I think lot of backers are in my spot; we're older, a bit more money
for 28K you can buy a REAL CAR! (Score:2)
for 28K you can buy a REAL CAR!
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and several real dolls to drive in the car pool lane.
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with some leftover to bribe the cop.
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Or the "road tax deluxe" as my friend calls his HOV lane violation tickets.
Chris Roberts isn't a finisher (Score:2)
He can't move to the point where the game has any depth. He keeps chasing the duke nukem rainbow.
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Re: Chris Roberts isn't a finisher (Score:4, Interesting)
It has been many years since this project was started. The current game play is terrible and he keeps changing things to keep up with current hardware. In short he can't finish since he can achieve his perfection. In the interim, several games with similar game play have been conceived and released. Some people are good at concepts and other are good at implementation. He is the former and what this project needs is the latter. He has the money. He needs to hire someone to take over and let them get a product out there. He has a history of this kind of thing. Check Freelancer [wikipedia.org]
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Check Freelancer [wikipedia.org]
Oh man, I loved Freelancer. Probably my favorite space combat game. I'd love to find a game like it that runs on Linux.
Re: Chris Roberts isn't a finisher (Score:4, Informative)
Oh man, I loved Freelancer. Probably my favorite space combat game. I'd love to find a game like it that runs on Linux.
No idea if all of these work on Linux (some, like X2 and X3 definitely do), but other games similar to the Freelancer genre:
X2 (I know it's old, but it was still quite good if you could get over the terrible voice acting)
X3 (in its many forms. Just stay away from X: Reunion)
Rebel Galaxy (simplified combat and trading, but pretty fun)
Independence War 1 and 2 (these are really old, but classic - you can find them on Good Old Games [slashdot.org])
Endless Sky (top-down only and somewhat simple, but it's free!)
It's a pretty stale genre unfortunately. There are some games in the genre in early access right now that could end up being good, but I'd pass on them all at the moment.
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You do realize it's Chris Roberts you're talking about, who released the whole Wing Commander series back in the 90s?
The real problem is really
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When he created wing commandeer he was an employee of origin and as such he had to operate under someone elses schedule. I'm not saying the guy isn't really good at getting things designed I'm just saying he will never be satisfied with any product he is working on. It not a fault to be a perfectionist but it is a hindrance to producing a salable product.
How long before this is recognized as a scam? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's been seven years since I first sent them money, and there still isn't a release date.
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I think that's the point of this $27,000 option. They are testing the waters to see how many extremely stupid people are still out there and interested in throwing money down the SC hole.
I think it is a great strategy. It takes some real intelligence and drive to accumulate $27,000 in play money that you can spend frivolously on a "product" that does not have any real world value and does not even exist in finished form yet.
If they can scam someone like that out of that much money, I would say that is a p
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Yes, I've heard this very often. "They want it to be perfect." "Would you rather test an unfinished version or a perfect one?" "Everything comes together with the next patch."
But the sad fact is that everything they release is very far from being perfect. It's riddled with bugs and has performance so far. I can accept that, because that's how software development works. Maybe this idea of perfection exi
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All I have of SC is a cross-promo game code that I ended up with as a promo prize during a livestream for a different game. One which has finally declared "release" after four and a half years of monthly, playable, releases, and almost two years since persistence, Shroud of the Avatar. [shroudoftheavatar.com] Yes, it can actually happen. And they will continue with monthly development as long as they can.
Meanwhile, is there even a properly playable version of SC yet, or is it still just a bunch of tech demo puzzle pieces?
Fuck you video game industry (Score:2)
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Pay to win (Score:2)
$200M in funding? No. (Score:2)
The Kickstarter campaign raised about $2M.
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Yes, but they have been collecting donations from devoted cult members ever since, and it's on the order of $200M total that's been raised through all funding channels. 7 years on, the insanity continues with no end in sight.
Vaporware (Score:3)
Star Citizen has been 'in the works' for what, 5 years now? Longer? VAPORWARE. And those of you forking over money for this never-will-be-completed game... a fool and their dollars are easily separated.
Gotta hand it to Cloud Imperium, they're duping everyone out of money and already litigating in courts (VERY EXPENSIVE.) Fools. This has to be the greatest thing ever for Cloud Imperium, they're making tons of money and have NEVER delivered a product. Amazing.
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Not quite, you can play parts of the game now: ship racing, dog-fighting and the FPS deathmatch. It's not a complete experience by any means, but at least it's something. Still, they really need to stop adding features and just finish a basic experience that they can expand upon later.
This and all the other defensive posts. Really? You guys are defending the game by saying it sort of works? That's some fan dedication. You're jazzed about pieces of overall game experience that's frankly, never going to happen, at this rate. By the time Star Citizen ever comes close to it's lofty goals, the hardware it's designed to run on will be obsolete.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the conceptual ideas behind this game. They were lofty at the beginning of the entire ordeal. But many year
Um... no. (Score:2)
WHO are these people with $27000 to spend on a single video game... ?
Seriously... $27k?!?.... If someone can literally pony up that much money for a video game's digital content. They should literally have their money straight up taken from them and used to house homeless people. Not even joking!
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WHO are these people with $27000 to spend on a single video game... ?
Whales
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Greatest vaproware Kickstarter scam in history. (Score:2)
I cannot wait for this to to fail and be a pale underwhelming joke like No Man's Sky only on a grander scale; if it even gets that far. The schadenfreude will be epic. This is the new Duke Nukem Forever.
Ah Star Citizen (Score:2)
How much do people spend playing golf or fishing? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or surfing, diving, sailing, rock climbing, skiing, on a car or motor bike, or god forbid: fashion?
Theyâ(TM)ve already succeded (Score:2)
Everybody's got problems (Score:5, Interesting)
That's individual freedom for you. We each get to decide how our personal property is used.
Where the system kind of breaks down is in two ways. When some people don't have any property and can't even survive. And when well meaning people want to use force to redistribute wealth by denying individuals their rights.
And if you think pissing away $27k on a video game is terrible you need to take a look at how the 1% and 0.1% live.
P.S. I'm for spending tax dollars on things that improve life for everyone, even if only indirectly. (i.e. I'm not a Libertarian) One example that has a big pay off is when women are educated to a high school or college level. Their children tend to grow up with a higher standard of living and the next generation has fewer problems with addiction. Living in a community where there aren't a bunch of drug addicts committing property crime would improve my current situation. (putting junkies in prison doesn't work, in my experience they get out and repeat the same crap and cost tax payers millions)
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One example that has a big pay off is when women are educated to a high school or college level. Their children tend to grow up with a higher standard of living and the next generation has fewer problems with addiction.
You mean when people are educated to a high school or college level? Or is it that you can pair a college-educated woman and a grade-school-educated man and get the same outcome you'd get with two college-educated parents?
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It's based on a study I read (which I might be able to dig up if you'd like). Mostly the study was to show that literacy in women is an important factor in the third world. Perhaps not directly applicable to the US.
Growing up in the rust belt, I know that there are (or at least were) full time jobs for men that paid pretty well and didn't require a college education. And fathers generally have less of an impact on early child development than mothers. Paying the bills and make sure the baby has material nee
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Growing up in the rust belt, I know that there are (or at least were) full time jobs for men that paid pretty well and didn't require a college education. And fathers generally have less of an impact on early child development than mothers. Paying the bills and make sure the baby has material needs met is the classic contribution of a father. But babies learn to talk and (hopefully) read from their mother. In an ideal world both parents would contribute equally, but if you're working or traveling from 7am to 6pm you aren't necessarily the biggest part of your child's life. (sorry to share the bad news)
But if you're college-educated, you're more likely to be employed, especially if there's two of you. Consequently you have on average less time for the child. If you're an employed woman, and the father is less likely to work because you are the one getting more money, how come that "fathers generally have less of an impact on early child development than mothers" in such an arrangement? Are women doing absolutely everything in such pairs?
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The huge caveat is your story predicates on their being a pair of parents present.
How so?
Change it to single mothers, or both parents working, and now no one is there for that 'biggest part of your child's life'...or why it'd fail in the West.
Yea, all those working class single mothers with nannies in the US.
Absolutely children with single working mothers don't have their parent around them 24 hours a day. But that doesn't automatically mean that a mother is still not the primary caregiver for a child. It means a small percentage than before, but not necessarily less than 50%.
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If you're going to blather on about "Oh, your point is invalid because it isn't a guarantee, only a factor",
Thanks for ending the discussion. No need to read any further. You could have saved everyone a lot of effort by opening with that one.
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"And when well meaning people want to use force to redistribute wealth by denying individuals their rights."
I'm curious what you mean by this given that all successful and current world governments that I know of practice some form of wealth redistribution.
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Let me put it in a different way. A way inspired by cayenne8, c6gunner and roman_mir:
*froth* *froth* Venezuela *froth* *froth*
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I'm not sure if I'm following you here but bringing up Venezuela to point out how wealth redistribution has failed does nothing to contradict its success story in every first world nation.
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You aren't. Reading comprehension is a bit of a prerequisite, I'm afraid.
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Hahahaha. Yeah, this is a well written post that is perfectly clear to someone who isnt you
"Let me put it in a different way. A way inspired by cayenne8, c6gunner and roman_mir:
*froth* *froth* Venezuela *froth* *froth*"
For starters, you rattle off three names I'm sure are slashdot handles. Are slashdot users so famous now that everyone just knows their name? Do you really think that everyone should be so invested in slashdot that they should know the names of users you deem to be important enough to know?
Af
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I acknowledge my privilege. I have a good job. Live in a region of high paid (perhaps overpaid) highly educated people. Still there is lots of property crime in my neighborhood, so this is not really an affluent area, despite the $700k houses.
And you definitely should be skeptical of anything I have to say on the topic of poverty and wealth. But my own situation doesn't invalidate a logical argument.
I'm technically not in the 1%. Maybe the 5%? If I can speak metaphorically. Let's say 90% of Americans are on
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I have a good job.
I'm technically not in the 1%. Maybe the 5%?
You have to be below $32500 to not be in the top 1%. You have an American job below $32500 and call it "good"?
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Re:people are starving (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, North America has an obesity problem several times larger than it does with undernourishment. I believe that even the rate for morbid obesity is twice as large. If you're starving in the U.S. or Canada it's either because your out in the sticks and completely cut off from most support systems (and probably your immediate neighbors) or because you're mentally ill and wandering the streets.
There's such an abundance of food here that no one need starve. The real issue is that people would rather lament about it online instead of actually doing anything in the real world themselves to solve even a tiny part of the problem.
Re:people are starving (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's starving to death in North America?
The only cases I know of are those of "starvation due to self-neglect" (i.e. elderly with no family, young children neglected by their parents) and starvation as a result of a crime (someone literally holding someone prisoner and starving them). And those are very rare cases.
Starvation due to lack of funds hasn't been a thing in North America is something close to a hundred years at this point. It's so good that even relevant charities trying to collect the funds now have to mask the numbers under arbitrary definition of "food insecurity" as to mask the fact that starvation due to lack of funds has been all but eliminated outside a few regions in Africa and Asia. And we're well on the way to eliminate those soon.
The food related problem that is actually acute in North America is the exact opposite. Far too much food. People are too fat.
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Citation needed.
It's such bullshit that they have started to claim 'food insecure', as if that counts...Because they know poor people are _fat_ on average.
Re:people are starving (Score:4, Informative)
Because they know poor people are _fat_ on average.
Citation needed.
Turns out something like hunger is a complex subject, and isn't as clear cut. That's why several tiers of "food security" exist; to better understand the problem. If you can only afford things from the dollar menu at McD's three meals a day, that's not good food security. You might not be starving but your diet is garbage, and your health and quality of life will likely suffer for it.
If you are making a choice between paying your utility bills or going grocery shopping, you're in bad shape... and by that definition, that's about 6 million people in the US [usda.gov].
=Smidge=
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How many of these six millions died of starvation. Citations please.
Hint: if there was even one such death, it would be international news for weeks. Wide variety of social nets specifically aimed at keeping people that can't afford food fed in North America has been fully reaching everyone for decades at this point.
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So if you're not literally dying from starvation, you're not actually starving and it doesn't count?
First of all, fuck you for that attitude.
Second, we're lucky enough to have social programs, both taxpayer funded and privately operated, that people can generally avoid literally wasting away to death... but that does not mean hunger isn't a problem. The mere fact that such programs are necessary means that hunger is a problem.
=Smidge=
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>Literally, people are starving to death in North America
Yes, my definition of problem solved is people not starving in North America.
Have you ever seen what world hunger did in Africa and Asia? Just how sheltered, ignorant and frankly stupid are you to even suggest that this is not a good thing?
You truly are a fool, but not because you click on slashdot comments. Get out of the damn basement, and hit those few remaining regions in the world that still have hunger for a serious reality check. You sound l
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You can also die from being too fat. And chances of you dying of it are infinitely higher than of starvation, because as I noted above, no one dies of it any more due to financial constraints.
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So what you're saying is that there are government and community programs aimed at making sure people don't starve to death as long as they don't "self-neglect".
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If there was a case of someone genuinely dying of starvation because they couldn't afford food, which was the claim, it would be international news for weeks.
So good luck looking for citations of things that aren't about self neglect, dependent neglect or crime. Because you won't find any. Starvation has not been a thing in 1st world in so many decades, we literally don't know what it looks like any more, hence the knee jerking.
See, people dying of starvation are actually fairly visible. They look the part.
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You can tell someone has lived a sheltered life when they spin a first world problem of "mom didn't wake up in time from her hangover, so kids get lunch as their first meal" as something even remotely comparable to "people dying of hunger".
Seriously, fuck you. I've seen what actual dying of hunger did to people. You trying to conflate that with your first world problems of "oh noes, they're slightly hungry in the mornings" is beyond the pale.
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Literally, people are starving to death in North America, and on the other hand, 27000$ megatransactions. THE FUCK
This argument equally applies to any form of recreation. The gaming industry is ~$80 billion a year. The (legal) gambling industry is $335 billion. Film industry (Hollywood) is $40B. Tobacco is $500B. All of this is money being pissed away that could have just as equally gone to starving people.
And just why the hell do you only care about people in North America? All those starving kids in South America or Asia can just go chew shoes I guess?
But I guess that's an important distinction, because we're pretty
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It's a trick to get it posted all over the place, and since I'd never heard of it before Slashdot posted this story, mission accomplished.
Posting to reverse an accidental mod (I was trying to mod the parent as "Insightful" and accidentally hit "flamebait")
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I'd never heard of it either, but as the expectation of the amount I'm going to spend on them is somewhere between nothing and fuck all I'd say mission *not* accomplished.
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Would I rather play Elite where all real money will buy you is a sick paint job and people with nice ships actually have to work / farm / grind / cheat for it.
Or would I rather play Star Citizen where only rich elitists bastards with money and no brains get to have nice ships?
For me it's not a hard choice.
This may be a snarky response, but the Star Citizen model seems to be a more realistic simulation of space exploration. Maybe that is what they are going for.