Hello Friend, Some thoughts about how males in this culture engage in online video game playing and why. Gendered terms used in this refer to macro level trends in societal input to our symbolic minds. The author is a CIS Male in an English speaking culture, and the observations shared here are likely heavily biased from this vantage point. Readers are encouraged to identify/relate with these statements in any manner which feels appropriate to them. Males are socialized to see our social value as being primarily rooted in three things. (1) Performance in team activities (2) Protecting (3) Providing There are others (intelligence, humor, and we are allowed certain forms of preening, though some modesty restrictions exist.) to name a few; I believe the three listed above are most prominently displayed to us in media and culture. Social forces constrain our ability to seek regular validation of those three. 1>Work provides a team activity for some of us, but the cultures which merge from hourly wage earning often results in a negative social consequence for over-achievement in work related activities. 2>There needs to be a conflict or threat in order to provide protection. 3> Pea-cocking with wealth is not possible for many. Star Citizen happens to have some whales, so I suspect a lot of people in this forum will appreciate that when you display wealth to friends who are far from being able to match, they feel bad about themselves and this does not serve an experience of social validation. Even if all of that was set aside, modesty rules exist around this behavior. Online MMORPGs allow some escape from this and, when viewed through this paradigm, several design decisions can be shown to have been quite wise. Specifically: The possibility for unsolicited world PvP creates opportunities for identification of successes in protector roles above and beyond our ability to engage such feelings when combating NPCs. Deliberate limitations upon passive income earning activities limit the accrual of wealth through capital investment. This results in a more equitable economy. (this one takes some unpacking, but is probably the reason I started this thread.) Humans derive a lot of their worth from social comparison. Our wealth has more psychological value to us the poorer our neighbor is. One consequence then of providing financial rewards for capital investment is that unattended feedback loops become significantly more powerful ways to accrue wealth than the creation of use-value items. (in SC terms, you can make more money renting Prospectors to new players wanting to get into mining than you ever could mining yourself.) ... I see that a lot of members of the community are seeking, and sometimes Star Citizen seems to consider, allowing passive wealth generation. Please consider this an essay on what kind of consequences this decision may have. Wrapping up: I have under discussed our ability to pursue validation of our intelligence through video game playing, and indeed this has a directly conflicting relationship with my advise about rewarding capital investment. Expressions of intelligence associated with the clever trader are clearly a part of this game. I believe a balance can and should be struck here. I am interested in any comments or reflections on the contents of this post. It wasn't just dressing for my conclusion there about not allowing passive income. I think this is a fascinating new paradigm through which to view my own engagement with video games I just kind of realized today. Thank you for your consideration.