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Take a look at someone who spent $30k on ships in Star Citizen. http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-a-fan-who-has-spent-30000-on-star-citizen-ships/ http://www.pcgamer

Take a look at someone who spent $30k on ships in Star Citizen. http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-a-fan-who-has-spent-30000-on-star-citizen-ships/ http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-a-fan-who-has-spent-30000-on-sta... He seems like a reasonable person to me. He's not in financial ruin. He doesn't seem to regret his purchase. He's just putting money into his hobby, the same way a different 40 year old would buy an "unproductive" boat or an "unproductive" Rolex.

ethbro 11y ago
I think both the original article's and your points are valid. Especially when you start to see games/virtual items as a "thing" (which probably started with UO/WoW) as opposed to a "fake thing". That said, as a thought experiment, I disagree with the fact that government and regulation have no place in the way a society consumes things like this. If you accept that our knowledge of psychology, biochemistry, and neuroscience are improving and likely to continue doing so, and that calibrated external actions are capable of influencing our behavior, and that progress in the former begets progress in the latter, then either: a) We will reach a point where we will stop making progress in those fields b) We overturn the majority of our current social psychology knowledge and realize that yes, people actually do have absolute free will c) We will develop techniques so sophisticated and reliable to influence behavior that it becomes unreasonable to expect an average person to resist them As I (and the original article seems to) see it, the current free-for-all that is "freemium"/casual gaming basically targets all of capitalism's motivation and resources on arriving at (c) as quickly as possible. And... we're getting pretty damn good at it. PS: Positech Games makes great stuff, btw! GSB had several free expansions just because Cliff Harris is cool [he == Positech]. He absolutely could have charged for the content if he'd felt like milking more money out of his users.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  > we're getting pretty damn good at it I'm not so sure. I play a video game, and invariably get bored to tears within 30 seconds or so. It might have something to do with when I was a student, I had a job that involved play testing video games. It's also true that my old game Empire was well known to be addictive. I'd play it myself, but would rarely get too far into a game before I'd go back to tweaking the AI, which was where the real fun was.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Ironic username, given the conversation topic. ;) While yours may be a true experience: statistics. I'm not sure a personal experience poll on an entrepreneurial technology news site is the best place for a representative sample of people with low willpower. And social psych findings have born out that are a lot of easily manipulated levers to reliably influence people's behavior in an intentional way. To me, it's not about the people with Fort Knox reserves of willpower. Say instead I'm born into the genetic/epigenetic/life lottery with a crappy ticket, what's fair? (And if you don't agree that that's possible, try volunteering at your local homeless shelter a few times) Is it fair that everyone else gets to leverage my vices to transfer my wealth and the profits of my work to themselves? Or is there something morally not right about that scenario? I agree it's easy to go overboard with regulation, but just because it's possible to addict babies to cocaine in utero doesn't mean that's the society we should build.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - Pyxl101 11y ago
      What's ironic about his username? His name's Walter Bright.
      - ethbro 11y ago
        Ironic in the context of a discussion of vices and addiction, though now understandable (apologies for my lack of knowledge of 70s games & compiler names!) echo "WalterBright" | sed 's/Bright/White/'
        WalterBright 11y ago
        > my lack of knowledge of 70s games Prepare for enlightenment: http://www.classicempire.com http://www.classicempire.com
        11y ago
- stephentmcm 11y ago
  >b) We overturn the majority of our current social psychology knowledge and realize that yes, people actually do have absolute free will Err... All current research suggests that you have almost no free will and are little more than a complex set of reactions to external stimulus.
  - noobermin 11y ago
    Hence his comment. He's replying to people who claim all/most transactions in capitalism are willful actions by free, rational actors.
  - Paradigma11 11y ago
    So there is no unexplained variance in behaviour and we have models that explain and predict it as good as let's say classical mechanics? Free will is just a conceptual mistake based on metaphysics.
zouhair 11y ago
When you buy a boat or a Rolex, you own a boat or a Rolex. Now you can buy all Star Citizen's ship you will own nothing, if tomorrow they decide to close their servers you are pretty much screwed.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Owning a boat can be a real drag, though, once the novelty wears off.
  - gregimba 11y ago
    Literally a drag...
    - marvy 11y ago
      nice one!
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  When you buy a ticket to a movie, a concert, or a theme park, after you're done, you have "nothing" by the argument you're making. Want to ban movies, concerts, and theme parks? People get value from things that aren't tangible. Many of the most valuable things aren't tangible.
  - zouhair 11y ago
    That's not the same. Some people spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to level up in some games, they have no recourse if the company shut it down. For a movie you clearly know what you get into.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      your conclusion isn't supported by your premise, which seems to be that it matters how much a person spends. Where is the line?
bduerst 11y ago
He is not putting money into his hobby. If you buy $30k worth of golf clubs, you have $30k worth of golf clubs. If you put $30k into a kickstarter project for some digital assets exclusively in a piece of software that isn't even written yet, you don't own that. That's not putting $30k into a hobby, but giving $30k to someone without even a contractual obligation for delivery. It's exactly why the SEC won't let non-accredited investing into crowdfunded equity projects, but the reality is that people already think they're buying something without getting equity.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  There is at least an implied contract on Kickstarter. They say as much in their TOS: https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4 https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4
  - mcphage 11y ago
    Star Citizen isn't through Kickstarter, though. At this point it's through themselves.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Has this ever been held as legally binding in civil court?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  If I want to spend $100,000 on ephemeral virtual items in a video game that might never actually be released, that's my problem, not the government's. I'm the one that earned the money, so I'm the one that decides how to spend it. It's totally inappropriate for the government to insert itself between two informed and consenting parties. A paternalist government is not compatible with a free society.
  - deleted 11y ago

ethbro 11y ago

I think both the original article's and your points are valid. Especially when you start to see games/virtual items as a "thing" (which probably started with UO/WoW) as opposed to a "fake thing". That said, as a thought experiment, I disagree with the fact that government and regulation have no place in the way a society consumes things like this. If you accept that our knowledge of psychology, biochemistry, and neuroscience are improving and likely to continue doing so, and that calibrated external actions are capable of influencing our behavior, and that progress in the former begets progress in the latter, then either: a) We will reach a point where we will stop making progress in those fields b) We overturn the majority of our current social psychology knowledge and realize that yes, people actually do have absolute free will c) We will develop techniques so sophisticated and reliable to influence behavior that it becomes unreasonable to expect an average person to resist them As I (and the original article seems to) see it, the current free-for-all that is "freemium"/casual gaming basically targets all of capitalism's motivation and resources on arriving at (c) as quickly as possible. And... we're getting pretty damn good at it. PS: Positech Games makes great stuff, btw! GSB had several free expansions just because Cliff Harris is cool [he == Positech]. He absolutely could have charged for the content if he'd felt like milking more money out of his users.

WalterBright 11y ago
> we're getting pretty damn good at it I'm not so sure. I play a video game, and invariably get bored to tears within 30 seconds or so. It might have something to do with when I was a student, I had a job that involved play testing video games. It's also true that my old game Empire was well known to be addictive. I'd play it myself, but would rarely get too far into a game before I'd go back to tweaking the AI, which was where the real fun was.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Ironic username, given the conversation topic. ;) While yours may be a true experience: statistics. I'm not sure a personal experience poll on an entrepreneurial technology news site is the best place for a representative sample of people with low willpower. And social psych findings have born out that are a lot of easily manipulated levers to reliably influence people's behavior in an intentional way. To me, it's not about the people with Fort Knox reserves of willpower. Say instead I'm born into the genetic/epigenetic/life lottery with a crappy ticket, what's fair? (And if you don't agree that that's possible, try volunteering at your local homeless shelter a few times) Is it fair that everyone else gets to leverage my vices to transfer my wealth and the profits of my work to themselves? Or is there something morally not right about that scenario? I agree it's easy to go overboard with regulation, but just because it's possible to addict babies to cocaine in utero doesn't mean that's the society we should build.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    What's ironic about his username? His name's Walter Bright.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      Ironic in the context of a discussion of vices and addiction, though now understandable (apologies for my lack of knowledge of 70s games & compiler names!) echo "WalterBright" | sed 's/Bright/White/'
      - WalterBright 11y ago
        > my lack of knowledge of 70s games Prepare for enlightenment: http://www.classicempire.com http://www.classicempire.com
        11y ago
stephentmcm 11y ago
>b) We overturn the majority of our current social psychology knowledge and realize that yes, people actually do have absolute free will Err... All current research suggests that you have almost no free will and are little more than a complex set of reactions to external stimulus.
- noobermin 11y ago
  Hence his comment. He's replying to people who claim all/most transactions in capitalism are willful actions by free, rational actors.
- Paradigma11 11y ago
  So there is no unexplained variance in behaviour and we have models that explain and predict it as good as let's say classical mechanics? Free will is just a conceptual mistake based on metaphysics.

zouhair 11y ago

When you buy a boat or a Rolex, you own a boat or a Rolex. Now you can buy all Star Citizen's ship you will own nothing, if tomorrow they decide to close their servers you are pretty much screwed.

WalterBright 11y ago
Owning a boat can be a real drag, though, once the novelty wears off.
- gregimba 11y ago
  Literally a drag...
  - marvy 11y ago
    nice one!
JoshTriplett 11y ago
When you buy a ticket to a movie, a concert, or a theme park, after you're done, you have "nothing" by the argument you're making. Want to ban movies, concerts, and theme parks? People get value from things that aren't tangible. Many of the most valuable things aren't tangible.
- zouhair 11y ago
  That's not the same. Some people spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to level up in some games, they have no recourse if the company shut it down. For a movie you clearly know what you get into.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    your conclusion isn't supported by your premise, which seems to be that it matters how much a person spends. Where is the line?

bduerst 11y ago

He is not putting money into his hobby. If you buy $30k worth of golf clubs, you have $30k worth of golf clubs. If you put $30k into a kickstarter project for some digital assets exclusively in a piece of software that isn't even written yet, you don't own that. That's not putting $30k into a hobby, but giving $30k to someone without even a contractual obligation for delivery. It's exactly why the SEC won't let non-accredited investing into crowdfunded equity projects, but the reality is that people already think they're buying something without getting equity.

maxerickson 11y ago
There is at least an implied contract on Kickstarter. They say as much in their TOS: https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4 https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4
- mcphage 11y ago
  Star Citizen isn't through Kickstarter, though. At this point it's through themselves.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Has this ever been held as legally binding in civil court?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
marcoperaza 11y ago
If I want to spend $100,000 on ephemeral virtual items in a video game that might never actually be released, that's my problem, not the government's. I'm the one that earned the money, so I'm the one that decides how to spend it. It's totally inappropriate for the government to insert itself between two informed and consenting parties. A paternalist government is not compatible with a free society.
- deleted 11y ago