Has CIG made incentives to keep people playing Star Citizen?
TL;DRBeyond better ships and playing with others, the main incentive is new experiences, with modular tools letting them generate lots of content and add personal touches, planned for the long term.
The obvious answer is you're always going to try and get the better ship and play against or cooperate with players, but to Tony the thing that is really going to differentiate is the ability to experience new things. This will involve reaching cities you've never seen to new AI behaviors and new challenges and overcoming them. The approach with modular technology as a tool rather than being the only entity will allow them to generate a lot of content, but putting their personal touches and creating a unique experience for players. It's the little things that keep players coming back, it's what makes you want to keep playing. The way things are built, they've created a system that allows them to make the majority of everything, but then you can add extra touches to those creations in whatever way you would want to without the effort of creating brand new assets. They planned long term, not short term when making the tools and making the game and this allows them a lot of flexibility down the road. It can be frustrating because some things can take a little longer, but it pays off in dividends down the line.