EVE General Discussion

Sure Plex is a luxury. So is Eve Online.

So what do you propose we do about it? Because it doesn't matter what "should be" or "shoudn't be". It matters what is. And right now people who depend on PLEX to sub game time are being left in the dust.

EVE isn't for everybody?
To play EVE is to adapt, sacrifice, even at times lose. PLEX is just a part of that reality. There is no what can "we do about it?" here, not w/o ruining what the game is which would be far worse a situation.

That mindset confuses me. How is "don't subscribe more accounts than you can pay for," belittling?

That part isn't and it is very true. Play with what you can pay.

However rising Plex costs means someone could pay for their accounts at some time, but now can't. It isn't a suggestion to simply say "Rat Harder" or "what do you mean you can't play every day and make xx millions per hour?!"

Like I said, I don't have a care as to what happens to Plex, it is simply a tool I choose not to participate in using at the moment. I want to know what their solution is instead of blaming people who can't afford it?

I used to try and raise enough isk to pay for my sub, I managed to turn Eve into a part time job that paid pence; not fun by any means.

People who play to pay and struggle to do it are choosing to subject themselves to an eternal grind, for me Eve became far more fun the moment I gave up on playing to pay.

I previously worked at a social network that saw a drastic decline in numbers (which led to me being laid off). Everything leading up to their current situation was similar sounding to what EVE may be doing. There was an increased number of changes intended to broaden the audience. There was a bit of mystery to it as well. Month after month, numbers declined. I certainly don't want the same for EVE and I hope others feel the same way. I also wish i knew what the answer is. I stopped playing EVE regularly because i'm too busy which is partly due to the fact that I'm getting older. I've had an account since 2007.

I also only played EVE intermittently because I could never understand the ganking mentality and I'm too introverted to join a corp (this game is not friendly to those not in corp). This limited my gameplay although I've always found it fascinating. I do CCP can figure out what to do. They certainly have the data and maybe they can more aggressively analyze their data. Maybe the answer to their problems is in there somewhere.

Well, fear not that CCP is tyring to broaden the audience. CCP's current development strategy is to focus on the little that works well and fix /improve/ expand it.

That sounds like a good idea since it means that CCP is rewarding their best customers by giving them more of what they want, which is something that, on average, improves retention and loyalty, specially in the long term.

It also haves the advantage that, by focusing on what they've done well, CCP increases the chances that future developments also are well done.

Yet (here comes the "but") the question is that CCP, in one hand, needs every possible customer since their product is old and has burned a lot of its potential customers, and in the other hand, it turns that 80% of all new customers become "bad" customers.

Very specifically, 80% of new customers become short term customers, which is what makes them "bad" for CCP. And according to the Customer Oriented Design Gospel by CCP Seagull, this means that they must be backburned... left behind... and focus on the Customers that Matter. That is: "bad" customers only matter if they strive to become "good" customers; otherwise, they're not prioritary.

And so in the process of focusing on good customers and ignoring bad customers, CCP is losing customers by droves. Server activity is 30% below 2013's.

CCP and EVE can't thrive just on the 20% who plays the game right. Sooner or later CCP must focus on why certain customers don't stay long and what can CCP do so those customers find themselves in a position that allows them to become long lasting customers on their own, rather than hope that they will change their moods and become "good customers".

Using the sea as analogy, CCP knows that 80% of players never exit the beach and then they quit as fast as they come in, whereas those who swim to the shark infested deep sea become long term customers.

CCP is trying to make it a bit easier and by any ways suggest beach dwellers to swim out of their comfort zone and get into the shark infested deep sea, or f*** them if they don't since the beach is gonna be nerfed, ignored and scorned.

It would be wiser to expand the beach content, or even expand it with shark-free deep pools. That would allow CCP to keep more customers with less effort and have a more balanced retention, since CCP has never tried to make high sec a deeper content.

When you're losing 80% of new customers since the day they pay their first subscription, retaining those guys should be your top priority. Specially when high sec retention is a no man's land ready for claim.

CCP Seagull is taking the little that works and work hard to expand it against diminishing returns. Thus the Rubicon plan which is just a retake on Apochrypha: more space to take for new mechanics, risks and rewards. It would be more effective to just try anything to retain high sec dwellers, since that's an empty land, without established powers nor spaghetti code from hell. But of course it also would be a shot in the dark, venturing outside of CCP's comfort zone.

And CCP lost the cojones needed to do that with Incarna.

So no. Don't fear that CCP is going to broaden the audience anytime soon, not sooner than 2017. Quite the opposite, the niche is becoming even nicher and the dwindling population keeps dwindling. At some point, CCP will lose even the ability to call back old customers with new content, since those returning vets will come back to a game where everybody else they knew has unsubbed.

I am already seeing that happen in my little neck of the woods...

Well, looks like PLEX prices are dropping atm... see, all in good time. Just be patient

My responses in bold.

Eve Online Server status does anyone even use this? last 24 hours there were 32k people on and the current record is 65k so a little less than half stayed since 2013 but also vets are coming back. I just got back from taking a break for 2 years plus Eve so far is one of the most in-depth science games that I have played. The learning curve isn't that hard. As long as your corp mates help you out and explain the game alittle bit better. If you do your research then you will find that alittle more than half actually do play this on a regular basis.