Last I checked they had an ecosystem that any developer would kill to have. A closed off pool of players who are all loyal. Everyone I've talked to that has gotten to play it has defended it. So it obviously has something going. I think most people just expected a normal release and it seems to have morphed into a different business model?
They aren't fooled though. Its a real game that offers what it says it does, hand crafted solar systems. Its just fucken nuts seeing whale catching tactics outside of mobile games.
Followed by the call from the bank "What the fuck is Cloud Imperium?" before your accountant files it under "bitcoin" because they stopped understanding and zoned out after "digital content"
Thats how they have to work. If you run into a player with a ship you don't have it still needs the asset to display it on your client. It just makes it seem a little silly is all. You are paying for access, and thats true for all of these game cosmetics.
Yep, art and asset takes up the most space. It also has the most space reserved for data transfer in disc readers. Its definitely the reason the new CoDs are so huge, along with their techniques of massive redundancy (if that ol' article about the way they load maps is true).
It sounds laughable, but then I realise that anyone that can afford dropping 50k on just a video game are doing way better than me and most other people. I'm not sure who's getting the biggest laugh here.
Its just the same thing as mobile game profits. They target the wealthiest players. They probably only need to sell this pack a few times to be satisfied with it. This game just has a lot more to offer than say, LOTR: Rise to War.
Well, it's not like the Norwegian wealth gap is actually growing faster than America's, or your government was caught falsifying data on the taxes and wealth of the billionaire class.
And, of course, everyone knows you only need to care about things that directly impact your comfort level.