EVE General Discussion

CCP has said that they feel that FtP / microtransactions, as opposed to the traditional subscription model is a growing trend, and at minimum they want to have a system in place in case "customers demand it". Well.. they are right, it is growing, or at least was. However, this is because the vast majority (if not all) top tier mmo's that use such a system have just been wow clones, clones that do the wow model slightly differently, but always more poorly than wow itself. So of course, just doing the same thing over again, more poorly than the last time, will find it hard to attract subscriptions. Other games, such as farmville and it's ilk, are just simply not good games, they couldn't make money under any other system. There are also some people that feel they cannot afford a subscription.

The natural progression of this line of thinking is "How do we integrate the two systems, so that we can attract more customers that are used to a FtP model". I would argue that this line of thinking is a fallacy. You do not fundamentally attract customers by diversifying your payment options, you attract them by making a good game. In addition, EvE is a niche game, the people who play it are attracted to that niche. Your goal is not to change EvE in such a way as to make it more palatable to your typical WoW player, but rather to invite them to join our niche on our terms, because eve offers that fundamentally different experience.

"EvE is forever", It's a good mantra, and it's the best way to think about your business. EvE is your business, your not going to make EvE2, your going to continue to expand on, redo, and maintain EvE. On that road you will have to take radical steps that shake people up, one day you may have to take a hard look at the skill system for example. However don't sacrifice short term gains for long term growth and stability.

The NeX is fundamentally gamplay displacing, and thus a drain on the overall game value of EvE, nobody is out there saying "Hey come play EvE because you can buy shoes for your avatar without playing the game". So, as you've said in the past "HTF", admit that it was a bad choice, and just get rid of it. Perhaps have the NeX items be distributed via semi-rare drops from faction bs's, commanders, plex's, etc. Ship skins are a good idea, but should expand on the manufacturing gameplay, not pop into existence via the NeX. All in game items, with the exception of plex should be derived from player actions in game.

Know what EvE is, attract EvE players, don't suffer from multiple personality disorder. MMO's as a whole are a dime a dozen these days, being niche is a GOOD THING :)

Keep focusing on what EvE is good at.

You whined and moaned and got the expansion you wanted, now leave the actual new stuff alone.

What "costs" would those be?

A couple of days programming time to reallocate the NeX store clothes to the character designer / placed in loyalty point stores ...

Or are you claiming there is still a positive income-from-NeX against lost subscriptions-due-to-NeX ?

And if CCP compared the list of credit devices & accounts subscribed against those of the failquitters, wanna bet what that delta would yield?

I'd just about guarantee those failquitters really WERE fail-quitters, as in they still play.

CCP makes money on the NeX crap, and it's not going anywhere. They will find new ways to make real money, and will exploit it. It's the way the business model works.

So you don't believe that a large number of eve players unsubbed over the NeXCarna fiasco then?

And you believe that CCP do actually make money on NeX taking into consideration accounts dropped citing NeX MT in a subscription game as a reason?

Hmmm,

Let me tell you about business "models".

Business models that work involve selling something to a customer base that the customers in question want. Prior to NeXCarna we had some exhaustive crowd-sourced polls that showed quite convincingly that the Eve player base did not want MTbased content behind $ payalls in this subscription based MMO.

The "industry experts" (at that time) refused to listen.

The unsub crisis was the result.

Jade ... Nex never was implemented for the core player base that flies in space,
it was implemented for the other kind of players, that like to run around in Avatars.

These people like to pay money for useless stuff that's just there to "show off".

I don't see any issues with that, as it doesn't have any impact on EvE/SpaceShips.

Again ... we made quite sure this won't happen.

Also, the "unsub crisis" was not a result of that one reason you are giving,
it was the result of a whole lot of things, INCLUDING the reason you are giving
or INCLUDING the fear of what could happen ... EvE going f2p/p2win.

But but I like my replica goggles and military heels... and would like to see them only available from the NEX store...

Well last summer CCP Zinfandel and Mittani were talking about "golden ishukune scorpions" right from the NeX store straight into people's hangers. That doesn't sound like pure avatar polishing to me. In the same months we had talk about "convenience" microtransactions on things like ship fittings, respecs, etc etc. This stuff is the thin end on the wedge and it will come to mess up the flying in space eve online if it is allowed to corrupt CCP into delivering ship skins and corp/alliance logos in this manner.



Incarna is effectively dead. NeXCarna apocalypse showed that the kind of "new players" who could be attracted to these things in no way makes up for the unsubscription of existing players who remained with ccp for the spaceships. Hence NeX remaining is going to be tempted to mess with the flying in space content and you'll see increased pressure on stuff we've traditionally seen as "part of the client" coming behind an $ paywall that will fracture the server into dollar haves and have nots. The danger is that it hits people right in the suspension of disbelief and they come to see this game not as an expect from the horrible economic disasters of the outside world - but an nasty little profiteering echo of such.



That war isn't over. This weekend there are some collaborating voices on the current CSM who are going to be welcoming certain compromises on Microtransactions that will lead to nasty things in the future.

The eve we know is still under threat from the so-called "hybrid model" and while fans of microtransactions are happy to downplay the negative impact of long term players quitting over this stuff - the reality is that Eve is about its community and if the long-term community is comprehensively alienated by the fracturing of the playerbase between those who pay for extra content and those that don't then we'll see a resumption of the downward spiral that began last summer.

Crucible was a good expansion. It staunched the bleeding wounds.

Now we have to stop "industry experts" attaching microtransaction leeches to the patient before she's even gotten out of bed.

Why?

Because you think that makes it "exclusive"?

Its common as muck. Anybody with a CC can click button and replicate eternally.

If you wanted genuine exclusivity you'd argue for them coming as rare drops or at the end of some complicated player-led industrial function with an eve price tag in billions.

Or do you like to pretend these things are exclusive because you see eve as an essentially single player game?