NFT games and using cryptocurrency in games could - hypothetically - have their place, but “investing” in crypto as a way of making money (instead of as a way to take control of money back from central banks) is never going to let that happen. They are a dead end feature solely due to human greed, not due to a flaw in integrating games with a wider decentralized network.
Star Citizen is not and never was a scam. It took 10 years, but that video of the seamless transitions from space to atmosphere to landing zone to city and back is about an already available feature, only the better graphics and a couple map updates shown in the video are unimplemented.
The people who hate on Star Citizen should hate on games like Decentraland and Star Atlas, which take the early access model and abuse it. You should especially hate Star Atlas, which actually is everything bad you’ve heard about Star Citizen but with worthlessly unimplemented NFTs for the “pixel starships”. Also note that Star Atlas ships appear to be weird amalgamations of Star Citizen ship designs, but the (stated) Star Atlas ship role counterparts cost 3x the original price of backing Star Citizen the moment the site for Star Atlas was up.
Regardless of all the above, its my money that I spent on Star Citizen. I’m getting really f-ing tired of being judged for that, especially because I am in a position where I can live in relative comfort but do NOT have the money, neurophysical ability, or social influence to actually improve reality. Building an escapist space fantasy and supporting a community that just wants to have fun is a far better reason to make a video game than taking preorders for games that are tied to draconian DRM software like EA and Ubisoft, or building a pyramid scheme based on a cabal of cryptobros like the “creators” of Star Atlas.
Being patient is fine once. I enjoyed watching Star Citizen grow. I think we need to admit that ALL triple-A now have a 10-year development schedule, and that we need to re-evaluate whether every game needs the player to make a commitment to enjoy the game without buying in-game content. I dedicate myself to LEGO Brawls, Crossout and OpenTTD, I have the time to play Star Citizen too but that’s my limit. I can’t dedicate all my time off to a game after that. Maybe games need to be shorter again?