Because there are lots of people in this thread who paint whales as "rich schmucks" who can afford to spend $48k without thinking twic. This is a myth that lots of the gaming industry itself loves to perpetuate, because it absolves them of taking responsibility for ruining lives.

Research has shown repeatedly that whales are much more likely to be people with mental health problems and/or gambling addicts. That Star Citizen isn't a freemium game with loot boxes makes it marginally better than - let's say - Genshin Impact, but offers like the bundle in the article is still predatory.

Only for Players Who Have Already Spent $10,000

This is so predatory in itself.

I know it’s not the same, but you could just play elite dangerous which is an actual game, and you can get new ships through a crazy new innovative mechanic called “playing the game”

Never play Star Citizen, even if it somehow becomes playable. Got it.

Some poor fuckers are getting fleeced.

I wonder if games that require such farfetched amounts of money should be included in the Luxury tax?

A lot of those "whales" have cognitive difficulties and/or gambling addictions issues. Since many if these game developers/publishers have no qualm blindly milking and profiteering. It should be no surprise if some sort of tax is levied to help societies (à-la-tobacco or sugar tax) attenuate the ravages of gambling addictions.

Moreover, Star Citizen has been released over 10 years ago while been continually updated.

At what point is it just senseless greed that has taken over the game?

According to a friend of mine that plays, the whales were asking for this feature so they didn't have to go through the purchase process for each ship

Remembering when it was not yet released, thinking "This looks kinda cool, but the business model looks terrible". Seems it got much worse.

Not real life money right?

To quote Thor. Star citizen is a storefront pretending to be a game.

Cap'n i see the whale thar she blows

If you are rich enough to afford to pay for this, you're too rich.

That $48K can get you a real plane though, or boat. But maybe someone paying that for ships in Star Citizen has both already 😅

Wait, in real money? Or like video game money?

This kind of news really allows me to know which games not to play.

Honestly, at this point, if you buy this you and SC deserve each other, have fun.

I hope an underground software liberation group (cracking) can make this software accessible for everyone.