EVE General Discussion

Just look at the stuff we know.

The game has 500k accounts, that's official. We also know that some people only have one account. So best case scenario, this game has 500k people playing it. Which, after 10 years, is pretty sad if you compare it to the competition. For example, WoW with its 9 million now, after 9 years, peak at 12 million, and most of those are 1-account-per-person, as each account allows up to 40 character slots. We also know that some people in EVE have up to 40 accounts or more. So, worst case scenario, or 12.5k people, way too low. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Next, consider quality alongside quantity. Many of those characters are just alts, used for low-quality gameplay. Such as trading, where there is no interaction between characters - each character interacts with the market, not with each other. Some of those accounts are disposable scammer accounts, others are dummy accounts where a character is being trained up for sale at the Bazaar later, transport alts, mining alts, AFK L4 mission runner alts, etc. My point is, many of the accounts are being run for low quality gameplay, whereas in other MMOs there's no upside at using an alt to do this stuff, nor is there any need for an alt account.

Bottom line - EVE has 500k subs, but considerably fewer players. Conservatively, just taking an average of the people I know in-game, there's 2.3 accounts per player, which means EVE has 220k players. Which is even more pathetic than 500k. Many of those are used for the kind of gameplay that really doesn't add much to the game. Whereas in most other MMOs, players-to-accounts ratio is much closer to 1:1, and the characters have much more interaction. Either way, after 10 years, it's nothing particularly impressive. Especially if you consider the numbers that the competition is pulling down, and add to that the simple fact that graphically and in scale, and perhaps even lore-wise, EVE is a superior game. It could have been much, much, MUCH more if CCP stopped catering to the toxic minority and expanded to grab a larger chunk of the market.

Every MMO is "pretty sad" if you compare it to WoW. WoW is an outlier, and its level of success is unlikely to be repeated by an MMO for the forseeable future.

Also multi-accounting isn't exactly unknown in WoW, or in other MMOs come to that. It's just the CCP are much more open and liberal about supporting people who want to multi-account than most publishers.

Why cant people be happy that there are 500k accounts?

You mean all the stillbirths we have had over the last decade?

Yea, tell us more about how great all of those other MMOs are that have less population than jita and enjoyed the great success of a total collapse in their subs a few months after they launched.

Ok not including World of Warcraft, which is a huge anomaly and cannot be compared to ANY other mmo, which "competition" are you referring to here that is pulling down such impressive numbers? Also I was unaware there even were any other space based MMOs that could be counted as competition.

... it takes alot of guts to "come out" on something like a flatulence fetish. What colour ribbon is that ?

"Mr. Retief" tends to confuse what he wants the game to look like with what the rest of the MMO world looks like. He's the king of the "EVE would get so many more subscribers if.....it just wasn't EVE anymore.

EVe "only has 500k subs". Compare this to the DEAD, SHUTDOWN MMOs left in it's 10 year wake (all of which have exactly 0 subs) and I think that's pretty good lol.

But of course i would think that's pretty good, because unlike some I actually like EVE :).



i've asked the question before and never got a good answer, but I'll ask them again, what do you "moar subs" people think the game will gain if 9 million people play?

Edited because I don't want a GOD answer.

I want to do something unspeakable to your avatar.

See i made the mistake to that we are all intelligent enough people who play this game, to be able to work this out...but then i look at Goons and i get a reality check (i kid i kid...there just wasn't enough Goon bashing in this thread)

PR departments will always want to put the best possible spin on why their game is performing so well. True figures will never be used as they will be a shadow of the reported numbers, so why remove alt accounts.

Either way, we subscribe to play a game that we enjoy to play and to allow it to frustrate ourselves.

That is exactly what Mr Retief wants stopped.