In-game trophies sold by CIG to foot the cost of convention appearances could be purchased for $5, but sold later for $30. Aside from ships, other purchasables connected to Star Citizen enjoyed unreasonably high values amongst the community. Related, on Motherboard: This 'Star Citizen' Footage Looks Amazing, and Hard to Believ eĪs time rolled by and the funding total increased by millions a month, CIG pushed more and more ship concepts into limited-period sales or returned previously one-time-only ships back into the store. Moderation existed only to allow each trader to hold domain over their threads.
#Star citizen reddit trades free#
The open spaceship market on Reddit embraced a laissez-faire attitude, adhering to free market principles. While fan communities maintained a fevered optimism for structured organizations (with titles, military hierarchies, insignias, and even fleet manuals), the subreddit was neutral ground. I found myself scoping out the market across five fan forums and the Starcitizen_trades subreddit, which acted as a central hub. I dived right in.ĬIG soon pushed accountability for trades off the official forums and into the arms of Reddit and other communities. I saw an opportunity to make money, have some fun, and trick myself into getting spaceships guilt-free. Because I had preordered the game in that period, I not only had the ability to continue purchasing ships with lifetime insurance, but I could still buy and later trade ships that were not available to people that joined up after me. I found that despite all the last-minute fussing CIG had made about LTI going away, people that had backed Star Citizen early enough had special privileges. With far more money on hand than I'd bought into the game with, I decided to poke around the community and learn a little bit more about the after-market value of some of these ships. I sent the ship and waited for the inevitability of getting what I deserved, an email telling me the money was being revoked from my account, but it never came. The sirens in the back of my skull continued for three days until the transfer officially cleared. I was told to consider it a tip for cheerful, honest service. When I asked, he admitted a mistake converting the money from Euro to USD, but that he was fine with me keeping it since I was doing him a favor. This was setting off all kinds of alarms. One hundred and forty-six dollars soon arrived in my account, far more than we agreed upon, and nearing twice the original price of the ship. One hundred and forty-six dollars soon arrived in my account, far more than we agreed upon. I agreed to send the ship once the money was safely in my bank account, and gave the buyer my PayPal details. The risk of losing a ship that existed only as concept art failed to outweigh the reward of getting more money back than I'd blown on an impulse purchase. This came across like a scheme, and I ran through all of the possible ways I could get screwed. I posted a throwaway joke about buyer's remorse, and within an hour someone had messaged me asking if I wanted to sell it. The game's official forums were buzzing with people bragging about their last-minute collapses of willpower and the glory of their theoretical space garages. It was a headache to justify, but the concept art made it look like something out of F-Zero. It was $80 dollars and wasn't sold with a game pre-order, meaning I couldn't just trade in my Space Escort towards it. I decided to burn a gift card I'd gotten for my birthday on a second ship, something with a little more luxury value. Up until this point, all ships had lifetime insurance (LTI) which meant free replacements when they were wrecked, instead of whatever insurance costs ended up being in the game. With Cloud Imperium Games (CIG)'s proposed development timeline placing Star Citizen's release in 2015, two years in the future, my destructive ambitions rattled around in the back of my mind. I received an email alerting me that the "lifetime insurance" purchase period was ending and certain ships would be removed from the store.