Corporate Incomes Vs. Red Sector Incomes

To me, that's pretty fucking wild and sometimes makes me wonder, "Well, how are they even doing the best at their jobs and representing the company that's hired them if all they're doing is advertising their trade services in their SIC tags 90% of the time?"

It's, quite frankly, disheartening that even I (someone who's had a corporate character for the majority of play times) have considered going back to tailoring/selling art to supplement my character's income to rake in chyen to get to a goal faster so I can push it back into the game's economy and to create opportunities for the players coming up under me.

That's disturbing and ruins my immersion. Am I wrong in that perspective? I understand 100% that it can be a skewed vision, as one player's observations can be radically different to the next on the spectrum. At the very least though, I thought it'd be interesting to bring up.

Once upon a time I was desperate for cash and went selling vacuums door to door. We hit up neighborhoods with large houses–turned out to be the ones where people had the least money to spare. We went the next tier down in middle to lower-middle class streets, and suddenly we had customers. I also saw lots of mansions with empty rooms in them. Big spaces, tiny amount of furniture. They blew it all on the shell.

Living in Houston, I saw this too growing up with fam. Fake it til you make it. My uncle boasted having a giant house once--dude was swindling people and using the money to build an indoor pool! I never knew til the feds came knocking one day to question everyone on possible involvement.

But you know? That's a high-level Withmorian mindset for you. You don't got it? Swindle and steal til you get it. Sidle hustle quietly and hide what you don't have. It's just about running on air sometimes. Meanwhile people seen as "poor" are flaunting stuff you think they shouldn't have. That's life, discrimination and bullshit all rolled into one.

Getting into the swing of things as a Corporate character might require a different sort of learning curve. But they're hugely less likely to die while discovering that learning curve.

Another way to look at the Mixer Vs. Corpie debate is to always remind ourselves that we're not talking about JUST Mixers, here. We're talking about PC Mixers, or in other words Mixers who have a tendency towards higher-than-average potential, at least compared to that Ambient NPC population who don't even get a "Face in the crowd" kind of description at time.

What I'm getting at is, these PC Mixers (the enterprising ones) can have status/income comparable to IRL Organized Crime people. Like, the Mafia and the Yakuza. It is very possible an valuable yet young-ish member of an Organized Crime outfit is making WAY more money than an entry-level 40k-50k yearly salary.

When a Mixer (PC or otherwise) ends up making more than some Corporate characters, think of that Mixers as a promising Mafia person or whatever. They make a lot of money.

And then consider that even in the modern day, Organized Crime has shifted a great deal towards corporate-related activities. At least I'm pretty sure that's what the Yakuza does IRL (Ever wonder where the inspiration come from, when the Sindome timeline talks about Crime Syndicates incorporating?).

The point of mentioning that is: Corporate Characters have access to still doing crime to make money, like Mixers do. Fraud and embezzlement and stuff.

Mixers risk their lives for flash. Corpies risk their careers for flash.

I personally think that's more or less fair. But I could be wrong.

most corpies are wage slaves and wage slaves are meant to struggle, too. just because they live in nicer places doesn't mean theyre immune to it.

if your random PR scrub from VS has gotta play the data broker, or joy, or tailor, or drug dealer on the side just to make ends meet, it's more power to them. its not like most players spend all that much time doing their actual salary jobs anyway.

whether in the mix or topside, salaries are meant to allow you to sustain yourself while you're out RP'ing with others and getting to the real chy

This. It's easy to buy into the logic that corporate characters are rich, and Mixers are poor. However, your own particular corporate character, unless they've risen to a very high rank, is not necessarily rich.

A lot of what you hear about the IC class divide is propaganda pushed by the corporations. They want people to buy into the idea that they're better, that they have everything great, that Mixers are animals, etc, but that's not necessarily true.

Like, this may fall into an IC scope and maybe I shouldn't be brining it up, but the theme is that the corporations are using everyone, including their own employees. The theme also expects you to use them in return. Being corporate is not a free pass to make mountains of flash, it's just a different sector of the game with different rules, responsibilities and challenges.

In an area of gameplay where everything is fueled by having money (or the appearance of having it), making money should be a primary concern. It's that need that drives corporate players to cross the line and work with Mixers to try to get ahead. Without that, we'd be living in two separate bubbles, one a murderdome and the other a fantasy-land.

Think someone is making a lot of money? Rob them!

Instead of complaining about what we perceive as a certain character(s) making tons of flash, grab a few buddies and smash open that pinata! Crime is a backbone of the game. If you spot someone making tons of chy, make it your chy! Make an enemy, commit fraud, find a way to take their advantage and make it yours.

Get out there and do some criiiiimes mang!

Right now, only one gang is only ever really used for hustling, because the price point of the gear is just low enough to requisition to net a profit for everybody involved.

I vaguely remember that it was different before the nerf. So now there is a disparity between the ganger NPCs not based on RP or ic circumstances but because of where the system is calibrated. One gang is armed to the teeth while others are bare naked.

it's just a suggestion. like there's a very specific example i can give about how the 25% nerf basically kills one of the gang's ability to arms themselves, but that would be kinda crossing the tos.

People lie, all the time, constantly, and outrageously, about how much flash they do or do not have or make. Corpie and Mixer alike.

Don't believe everything you see on SIC.

*Adjusts diamondweave tie infront of crowd

*slinks back to cockroach infested cube to cry self back to sleep

The issue may not be with the payouts, it may be with your perception of how to get gear to sell for a price that makes it worthwhile. For people with advanced skills/knowledge, it's still worthwhile. For someone who has little idea what they're doing, it's not. That market is self-correcting.

In most cases, people aren't just getting these items for free. And if they are, there's considerable risk in getting them for free. Most of the time (in my experience) there are a chain of people involved in moving those goods (wow, RP!) and the person cashing them in is only getting a small portion of that 10k/25k to walk away with. You might get a 10k payout, but you had to put up 8k just to get your hand on it. And the whole time you were moving it your butt was clenched about the entire experience.

Beyond this, people are having to pony up the up-front cost of the item every time they buy one from someone. Every time this occurs it creates an opportunity for either side to backstab, which is a very real risk. This is risk for the Fixer and for the runner, and it's nothing to be shrugged at. I've seen a lot of people suffer dearly for engaging in this behavior with losses that greatly outweigh the "free 10k". Also, if people are moving a lot of shit in this way, people are definitely going to hear about it, and there definitely will be consequences.

Any large amounts of money made out in the open (unlike chy coming out of a job payment terminal) is a magnet for trouble. This is cool, because its way more opportunity for RP.

I get that this is a "dialing-in" process, where things are subject to change, but I have to say that the recent adjustments to the prices did bum me out because it left me less money to throw at immies to get them involved in things. It was really cool to have that extra chy, because it allowed me to create low-stakes plots for characters who are desperate for engagement and money. Now that things are tighter, I have to be tighter too, which means I'm paying immies less (or not at all) to fetch stuff or do things that I could easily do on my own so I can involve them. I remember being an immy and feeling like I had no "way in" with people. Being able to throw a few extra kay a week at immies to fetch me drugs or whatever while being a hardass felt like a ready-made scene to introduce them to the game. I can't help but feel that players higher up on the totem pole may be experiencing similar situations where they have less money to throw at plots. Having that extra bit of cushion made doing long-bombs just for the sake of having a plot much easier to justify oocly and icly.

I'm sure that there are people who hoarded it all, but it was really cool to be able to pay it forward aggressively like that while it lasted. I get that we need to make sure that people aren't getting a TON of money, but there are consequences for plots and immy involvement when that money gets tighter. Generally, the more chy there is, the more shit is going on, since gear and the presence of big wads is what motivates people to act.

Just wanted to throw my experience onto the pile here.