The 30ms figure is just the earth->satellite->earth part though. It still has to go through terrestrial wires to the server, and then be processed, and back through wires to the transmitter.

Datacenters make deals with network providers. Why should it be any different with Starlink?

30ms would be you and the game server both on Starlink, on the same satellite. Otherwise, you have to add that to the latency between the ground station and the target server.

IIRC, the plan with Starlink is to have many stations that are supposedly easy to operate in many large-ish datacenters in major areas as opposed to systems like Iridium which have few, complex downlink stations in comparison.

That's not 30ms ping, that's add 30ms ping.

Not always I don't think.

Maybe from me to a geographic location 400 miles away, yes. But what about 4k miles away, like coast to coast?

That would probably depend on how many satellites it has to bounce through and how far it has to travel terrestrial, but I would think there is a geographic distance where that 30ms is faster.

Up to three. After one bounce, it can be redirected into a geostationary or a polar satellite where the final bouncer would reach its LEO peer again.

That statement assumes no transmission latency on your current setup. Kinda doubt that's the case.