EVE General Discussion

It's not "free to play". "Free to play" can be played without anyone paying. I can go play World of Tanks without spending a dime, if I want. Nobody else has to spend a dime on my behalf, either. I can do this indefinitely.

By contrast, if I PLEX my account, *someone* spent real money on that plex. Just because I didn't spend real money on it doesn't make it "free" - I paid for it with in-game labor, and unless I continue my in-game labors at a pace adequate enough to offset my PLEX consumption, I will not be able to continue playing for "free" indefinitely.

Its free to play by definition of the words free to play.

When you play some other free to play game, someone is STILL paying for it. The company that owns WOT is picking up your bill whenever you play it.

I couldn't be arsed to read the thread so dunno if anyone linked this yet, but if you ever needed confirmation that PLEX != win, look no further: http://themittani.com/features/alod-go-back-wow

In most games, you don't lose anything of value when you die, so getting gold only benefits you. In EVE, it makes you a big fat target. Falcon knows his business: it doesn't matter if you're flying a blinged out mach with all skills V, if you don't understand fitting, tracking, or aggression mechanics you're going to die to a gang of crows+gate guns on a lowsec gate somewhere.

That the company would not remain solvent for long doesn't change the fact that, if everyone in the world wanted to, they COULD access the game and COULD do it without sending the company money for the privilege of doing so. Yes, they would go out of business, but that doesn't change the inherent design of the business model that doesn't explicitly require payment for access - it only implicitly does, as a business requirement.

By contrast, barring promotional offers, etc., every account-month of Eve time is paid for by a customer. This is an explicit requirement to access the server.

The bold parts are where it stops being free.

WoT doesn't cost any time/effort/resource (on an individual basis) to either gain or maintain permission to access the service. Access to WoT costs zero spendable currency (on an individual basis) and zero amount of time. I don't have to make sure I kill X tanks to trade tankparts for another month's worth of access.

If I log in and play, I still have access. If I log in and don't play, I still have access. If I don't log in at all, I still have access. I literally have to do nothing to maintain access to the service. Not so with Eve.

Likewise for, e.g., League of Legends. I haven't logged into that in months. If I fire it up right now, I still have access, despite no effort or expensive or offering of any kind on my part to maintain that access. No begging, borrowing, pleading, stealing, laboring, bartering, trading, or paying required.

The Clintonian strategy, eh?

1) It is amazing how so few people recognize time as a cost equivalent. Time is money. the longer it takes for you to understand that, the longer you will wonder why you are always broke and in a rush.

2) There isn't a "free-to-play" business model out there that isn't trying to sell you something else. If you don't buy into it, then someone else is. That someone is subsidizing your fun, which is really irrelevant as the game holder is still making it's profit (hopefully).

3) EVE's PLEX is significantly different than other "Gold" packages, such as WoT. As others mentioned, those economics do not trickle over at all, If I buy gold in WOT I can get a new crew or better upgrades faster (which is WAY more "cheating via early advancement" than PLEX ever could be). That gold I spend is consumed by the system, a total sink. No other player gets it by selling me something, no one can get something they need to pay real money for, for free. Once I spend it, its gone into the aether.

No so with PLEX. when I sell my PLEX, many things happen for other players. One guy/gal who gets it can save real money that month by leveraging my real money and a little game time, generating wealth. The other guy can buy it and trade it for more isk, generating wealth. And that is just for me selling it. With the ISK i get, the other guy can sell me a shiny new ship with all the fittings, generating wealth. The other guy, he can pod my arse in my shiny new ship, generating fun, and a minor amount of wealth if I have a bounty.

In EVE, the PLEX not only allows the player so subsidize CCP, it allows players to subsidize each other. It benefits everyone, while giving no real win button. In a game about creativity and strategy, money is nothing if you don't know how to use it properly.

Well the litany of foes crushed under the jackbooted heel of ROL could probably answer that


We all remember ROL right?



Come on guys a lot of win was bought there, you ought to remember them.

I know what you want to say, but its kind of naive. Money is not everything, but its most of things. If everything else fails but you have nearly unlimmited ressources you will still win by attrition.

Even the biggest cearbear that gets ganked every day multiple times will outlast the ganker if he can just replace his retriever forever. Why? Because he cheats consequences. He can just ignore the ganker.

You devs are all so keen on that idea, consequences in EvE....you should get that point i think.

Just because we have accepted PLEX as the lesser evil doesn't mean it doesn't follow the principle of money-cheats, because it simply does (its not even a matter of opinion, its just simple fact by observation, it beams ISK to your wallet....)