Star Citizen's Crowdfunding-Driven Grey Market

szyzyg writes "Star Citizen has broken all the crowdfunding records, raising almost 25 million dollars in the last year to fund Chris Roberts' promise of the ultimate spaceship game. However, an investigation sheds light on a murky secondary market where items are being resold by investors for profit, all for a game that won't be fully released for two years. The standard crowdfunding tactic of rewarding early backers has created a tiered system with ample room for profiteering, profits which many not be shared with the developers. Few things would please me more than Star Citizen succeeding, but backers should read this article before being tempted to trade up their internet spaceships through a third party."

Comments

Re:"all for AN game"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a American and I think that most of my fellow citizens are kind of stupid. Their just not that smart compared to a Europeans. I blame are government.

So overblown

[ElectricTurtle]

Disclaimer: I am a backer of Star Citizen.

This is ridiculously overblown. People are so butthurt about not being able to get in on the super special offers of Idris Corvettes or whatever, and they're jealous of people who can pay the ridiculous secondary market prices. Meanwhile, CIG itself is butthurt that they're not getting any money off the secondary market that they inadvertently created by offering limited issue ships and empowering users to transfer them. You know, because the millions upon millions of dollars that people have given them up front isn't enough.

If you create items that are scarce and enable people to trade them, you are creating a market. Period. No exceptions. You cannot then start whining about how you don't get automatic royalties every time somebody sells an item, or even stupider complain that people are selling them in the first place. Making them scarce gave them value, making them transferable created the market. Everybody get over themselves and stop whining. Oh and scams? First rule of ANY market: CAVEAT EMPTOR, BITCHES.