EVE General Discussion

I read an article today about how more and more games - especially MMOs - are going free-to-play. And not just from poor performance in subscriber retention, like TOR, but games are going free-to-play and seeing anywhere from a doubling of revenue to a revenue stream 12x the size of the paywall's revenue stream. And these were games that were already successful in their own right (TF2, for example).

While I know that there are a lot of good arguments - and deeply-held opinions - against free-to-play among the EVE community, I have to wonder - could EVE work as a F2P game?

Frankly, given the vociferous disdain for the NeX Store upon its inception with Incarna, and just given the structure of EVE, I doubt we'd ever see an EVE Online that's F2P. Unlike a lot of F2P games or games that have gone F2P, the way EVE is designed really doesn't lend itself to being F2P. Since most of the ingame content is player-driven, it'd be very difficult to restrict that to people who have paid X amount of dollars without severely impacting the game.

Not to mention the droves of players who would leave upon hearing even the slightest hint of EVE going F2P.

While F2P would be possible, it would require a lot on, IO think, unfair restrictions that would damage playerbase trust in CCP as well as gameplay in general. A skill point limit wouldn't work, nor would essentially giving people an eternal trial. It wouldn't be fair to lock F2P players to a specific race nor would it make sense to lock free players into newbie corporations.

But then again, I'm no game designer. So, EVE, what do you think? Could EVE 'work' as an F2P game, or would it crash and burn*?


*(The latter option is what seems most likely to me)

It seems like you answered your question in your post already.

The discussion's already been had several times.

no, no, and.. no..


I am perfectly fine with EVE Online being sub. based and would resent it if it was F2P.

It's OK, this is how GD works anyway.

Well, um, I'm sorry for opening an old can of worms, then.

People dont realize how PLEX works: essentially thousands of new players paid the subscriptions of veteran players, and then leave in disgust. This is why membership has plateau.

F2P would crash the PLEX market, the only way to have even F2P would be to have a Pay-to-Win system too. Which is universally opposed.

I do however think that trial accounts should be more than 15 days. Make them 6 months or something. You know, give the noobs time to want to pay.

Sure veterans would open up alts, and work them, but Character Bazzar limitation could be placed (such as not being able to transfer for 6 months of paid account after trial is over).

But eve needs more people and the payment is a barrier of entry indeed.

No discussion needed.

No.

The free to play model assumes that in game assets and in game activity is effectively a ride you go on and in the case of PvP games, PvP being inconsequential like Guild Wars for example.

Eve Online is a very different animal because on the upper echelons of play its about Alliance, Territory control and warefare. This the heart of Eve but the entire function of that heart is the bloodline of mining, production, research and the entire industrial cycle which given a free to play setup would be utterly destroyed.

I mean the day it goes free to play I will make 10 characters, setup PI, start training industrial skills, research skills etc.. within a few of months I will make be able to make 10 billion ISK a week without ever logging in until the economy collapsed in on itself and nothing in the game has any value.

In short, it would be a complete disaster. The only thing keeping me from having 10 fully trained industrial characters is the cost.

You will never see a free to play model in Eve Online.

Even if it could work, it would do so so without me.

At most, given that Eve has no 'win' as such, one could only buy an unfair advantage.