Out of Pod Experience

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/12/17/in-an-age-of-f2p-eve-online-sets-records/

Nice stuff was said

But...but...but......isn't EVE dying?

EvE is worth to pay sub, and CCP need founds to run 75kw serwer + hire quite large CCP employe team, and being able to develop and working on EvE in future, espetialy 450.000 subscribers isynt a lot like in other games, so these days EvE cant be a f2p MMO, EvE can be f2p only in case if they got like milions of people who play EvE , this model in theory give a lot money form microtransactions, but 450k subscryption isynt enough to run EvE without monhly fee.

Also CCP Working on other projects DUST and WOD, another milions dolars - euros investment, without subscription in EvE they cant afford these projects, becuse EvE is only one source that give money and abbility to grow this company, in economy aspects.

Well, the Sun is dying too, but, oh, you know, the timeframe and all that jazz :D

Subscriptions mean they can do that rather than have their development focus driven by the need to sell more shiny crap to players.

I realise that I'm probably in the minority here but I don't see how F2P is sustainable on anything other than a short-term basis. The business plan looks like complete bullshit to me, but what do I know, I've never bankrupted a company

"450,000 isn't a lot" - I hear that preconception a lot, but i guess that's only natural since people only ever see WoW's subscription numbers and assume that's normal.

WoW's subscription numbers are an anomaly. A freak accident. Blizzard lucked out with it, nothing more.

450,000 subscribers is fine. In fact, it's excellent, or even great. The original EverQuest was the WoW of it's day, where it wowed the analysts (pun intended) with it's massive, unbelievable, staggering and impossible 500,000 subscribers at it's peak. This was the number WoW was expected to reach, never the millions of subscribers they actually got.

In fact, almost every MMO can easily survive just nicely with about 50,000 subscribers, at which point they're at least breaking even. Consider that the second largest Western MMO currently is... Wait for it..... EVE. Not Lotro, not TOR, not any of the other 'hopefuls'. Aion had a very, VERY shortlived peak at 900k, though i can't find out whether that's global or Western (probably the latter). Guild Wars 2 is B2P and can't be compared.

As far as i know, Lineage (the first one) is the only other MMO currently in existence which breaches 1 million subscribers, though this also counts a lot of 'sweatshop' accounts and accounts that are paid by the hour in cafes.

EVE is actually the most succesful Western MMO aside from WoW. Every other MMO has far less loyal customers, Incarna disasters or not. Some may peak well above the 450,000 of EVE, but they always fall down to below that number within months of reaching it. F2P is not the moneymaker people make it out to be either, because people are far less beholden to a game if they don't have to pay for it (which is why the new F2P games are being pumped out of the Korea and China factories on a near-daily basis as older ones fizzle).

Consider this: 450,000 subscribers allowed CCP to develop 2 completely new games on the side. While some of the money is borrowed, it's still a considerable achievement considering most people think that you need a million billion subs to just break even.

That said, EVE cannot be turned F2P, not 'because it doesn't have enough subs' but because the game is impossible to monetize that way. Anything useful is something that should have been made by players, not given out by a cash shop. Clothes work because they reside outside of the normal market system, they can't be made or destroyed nor do they give any stat bonuses. However, anything ingame is pretty dangerous. What would you sell? Ships? Ammo? Weapons? All things that are vital to the economy to be produced and sold by players only.