Economy

Star Citizen in basic format is broken down into the following major markets:

• Sales directly to the company
• Sales between players of giftable / tradable items
• Sales between players of in-game currency
• Sales between players of accounts
• Others

Star Citizen allows players to purchase items, ships, game packages, merchandise. Sales made directly with the company are allowed under the Terms and Conditions. There are stiffly enforced rules about any activity outside of direct sales.

Star Citizen allows certain items purchased directly to be gifted one time to another player. This is intended to be free of value (not a sale). Gifting giftable items is allowed, selling them, however, falls into the Grey Market and is not condoned or supported by the company. Players found to be selling things for real money risk suspensions, bans and more. Since grey market activity is not illegal it does represent a significant amount of revenue loss for the company as players recycle funds and resell so the new owner has not purchased directly from the company. There are several ways money in Star Citizen can be recycled and gifting is a big one but not the biggest.

Store Credit is the recycled money component of Star Citizen where the greatest value is lost. Players can melt their purchased ships and items and convert them back to the original USD equivalent value. This value is then somewhat locked into the player's account and is diluted on the markets. It is not rare for players to purchase Store Credit at $0.60 to $1 (60% off). To dilute value even more, store credit can then be used to purchase cheap ships and upgrade to more expensive ones saving players most of the cost of the ship. So by gifting and usage of Store Credits players gain access to ships they would not otherwise be able to afford but also the funds no longer go to the game company.

The result is the new owner gets more for his money (albeit unsupported officially and risky) and the seller gets to recover part of the funds he paid to back the game. There are valid reasons for this activity as due to Star Citizen's long development timeframe many people move on from gaming or the project outside of the refund window. Selling by gifting items in their accounts allows some of the money to be recovered.

Where gifting items with attached Store Credit is not illegal, selling accounts can be depending on local laws. Selling and buying Star Citizen accounts is considered Black Market activity and results in players losing access to their accounts altogether. The risk with purchasing accounts is much higher and there are middlemen and online stores that mitigate that through legal contracts and other means, however, the risk is the highest. Even so there is still a market as players might need burner accounts or seek rare items that are account bound. With so many backers feeling scammed and outside of the 30-day refund window, many turn to selling their accounts as a last resort. Players sell their accounts at great losses in the hopes of recovering anything from their investment into a lost passion.