A Chinese player's appeal to CCP

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
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Hi all,

this is Sakura WU. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a Chinese player, start to play the EVE from Oct 2018. I’ve been playing this game for four and a half years. For most older players, maybe they’ve been playing for longer, but I think I know EVE as well as they do. At the same time, I am also an anchor of bilibili. I have made a lot of videos about EVE content, including teaching novices how to download games, register game accounts, etc. But recently, I’ve discovered some problems, so that’s why I’m writing this ticket. The reason of why I write this ticket to CSM, the events should have started on January 18, 2023. What CCP did in January 18, 2023? CCP took the initiative to add a new preset language, simplified Chinese, to the entire EVE game. For most Chinese players, it would be great to have games available in Simplified Chinese. But at the same time, the nightmare also started from this day. I know that CCP and China NetEase have signed an agency agreement for EVE’s Chinese server. Although I don’t know the specific content of the agreement, I know that the reason why CCP refuses Chinese players to directly log in to EVE from this day is related to the agency agreement.

Again, I know that for CCP, the content of the agreement is irresistible, otherwise it will pay high liquidated damages. But what puzzles me is that the purpose of launching EVE online in Simplified Chinese is to prevent Chinese scripts from continuing to violate the EULA agreement. I have paid attention to CCP’s live broadcast on twitch, and it was mentioned that for the Chinese script, although it violates the EULA agreement, we have added it to the whitelist. But in order to better serve Chinese players, we will launch Simplified Chinese to provide Chinese players with a better gaming experience. I think for CCP, improving player experience is very important, which is one of the reasons why CCPchoose to put Simplified Chinese on EVE. After CCP launched Simplified Chinese, they chose to increase restrictions on the Chinese region, including but not limited to restrictions on logging in to games, restrictions on purchasing gift packs, and restrictions on logging in to the official website. Even when new Chinese players want to download and register the game, the error code 1020 appears. I find it hard to understand that for a game company, that CCP will forcibly deny Chinese players access to the game, purchase gift packs, or even change the password. I know CCP will say that we are very sorry and can do nothing about the access restrictions in China. We can use VPN or game accelerator to log in to EVE, which is also a way to log in to the game. But as far as I know, according to relevant regional policies, using a VPN in China may involve legal disputes. Even if we use an accelerator to log in to EVE, for most Chinese players, they need to pay an additional fee every month to purchase accelerator services. Obviously, this is unfair to Chinese players, and it is no exaggeration to describe it as discrimination.

Of course, I need to reiterate again. I am aware of the agency agreement between CCP and China NetEase, which may cause CCP to cause breach of contract losses. I do not intend to hold on to this point, after all, it may be part of the agreement. The above is the first question I want to feedback, which is about the game official website login being rejected, the purchase of gift packs is restricted, and the game login is rejected. I personally think it is understandable to take restrictions on the Chinese region for landing games. But CCP should not restrict Chinese players from logging into the official website, or even restricting the purchase of gift packs. Such a move will not help anything other than make Chinese players hate what the CCP is doing. Next comes the second question, that of account registration.

To make sure everyone can understand what I’m going to say next, I need to educate you about something that I think is necessary even though you may already know it. You may have heard that in China, people basically don’t use Google services, part of the reason is that the vast majority of Google services are banned in China. And I am a bilibili anchor, a YouTuber-like existence. I make videos related to EVE, including how to download the game, how to register an account, how to survive in EVE, etc. Please don’t think these are naive or funny, you have to know that although English is the most popular language in the world in terms of distribution area, there are still many players who don’t speak English or learn English. This is like the CCP will have many employees who can’t speak Chinese. And the video content I made is to help these new Chinese players download games and register accounts. But I found that since CCP actively refused Chinese players to access the official website, registering an account has become extremely difficult for new Chinese players. In addition, to the fact that CCP actively refuses players to access the official website to register accounts, there is another point that when registering accounts, due to the existence of Google verification, it rejects the registration of many Chinese players. A considerable number of Chinese players spend a lot of time waiting for account registration, because they have no way to use Google verification normally like players from other countries. I think this is a lack of consideration for CCP. Even though the original intention of CCP to use Google verification is to defend against methods such as DDOS attacks or malicious registration of a large number of robots, this also affects Chinese players to a certain extent. The reason why many new Chinese players give up playing EVE is, to a certain extent, one of the reasons is that too much time is spent on registering accounts.

This is the second point. For Chinese players, is there any better way to register an account without Google verification? I think this problem should not be left to the players to solve, but should be solved by the game company. If it is difficult to even register a game account, and you need to use various tools to register an account, this is the game company’s dereliction of duty, not the player’s problem. Next is the third question, that is, it is very difficult for Chinese players to buy gift packages on the official website, because players must use PayPal or VISA credit card to pay.

Like the second point, I will introduce to you which payment software Chinese people usually use in their daily life. In China, there are four mainstream payment methods. The first is cash payment, and I think cash payment is the most popular no matter where. The second option is to pay with a credit card or debite card. Please note that there are some differences between credit cards or debite cards processed in China and credit cards in other regions. For example, I apply for a credit card in Australia, and this credit card can be paid by VISA. But if you want to apply for a VISA bank card in China, you need to provide a lot of information, so most players will not choose to apply for a credit card that can be paid with VISA in order to buy EVE gift packages. And due to foreign exchange control and other reasons, even if you have a credit card paid by VISA, you may encounter other new difficulties when purchasing gift packs on the EVE official website, which is extremely inconvenient for Chinese players. And the third payment method that is popular in China is WeChat Pay. Maybe you haven’t heard of WeChat software, so I suggest you use Google to search the keyword “WeChat”, which will be much easier to understand than me explaining it to you directly. Simply put, at this stage, most Chinese people use WeChat Pay every day. Whether it is online shopping or going to an offline supermarket to buy daily necessities, we only need to open WeChat on our mobile phone and scan the QR code to pay the merchant. The process is similar to that of Apple Pay. You only need to scan the QR code to transfer money immediately. The fourth mainstream payment method is Alipay payment. Similar to WeChat Pay, Alipay can also transfer or receive money from other people at any time. In daily life, people often use Alipay to pay for daily expenses. But whether it is WeChat payment or Alipay payment, these two payment methods are mainstream payment methods in China. Nowadays, Chinese people seldom carry credit cards when they go out. All they need is a mobile phone with WeChat or Alipay in it to make payments to merchants anytime, anywhere. There is no need to take out your own bank card and put it on the POS machine, and you need to enter a series of cumbersome processes such as passwords. But unfortunately, I don’t know why CCP has not opened WeChat or Alipay payment methods so far. If CCP is willing to open WeChat payment or Alipay payment, I think this will make it more convenient for Chinese players to buy gift packs, and there is no need for Chinese players to go to the bank to register a credit card that can be paid with VISA to buy gift packs.

This is the third point, its about CCP should provide WeChat pay or Alipay to Chinese players. I don’t know how CCP thinks about payment options. But for Chinese players, if either of the two options of WeChat payment or Alipay payment can be added, it will greatly increase the income of CCP in EVE. After all, who would say no to a game that can be paid for with WeChat or Alipay?

To sum up, I think there are three main problems for Chinese players playing EVE at present. The first is the restricted login, which greatly affects the game experience of Chinese players. The second is that CCP uses the Google verification method, which caused many EVE players to fail to register accounts normally, and finally gave up playing EVE and chose other games. The third is that there are too few payment methods available for EVE, and more payment methods should be added to cater to game players, rather than forcing game players to apply for a special credit card in order to play games.

Finally, I don’t know if you will be able to read this ticket, but I hope you will read it and give my suggestions back to your supervisor. I hope that the content I wrote will attract the attention of CSM members. Game companies should try their best to improve the game experience while ensuring a good game environment, starting from downloading the game, starting from registering an account, and starting from recharging gift packages. Only in this way, EVE will have more new players willing to join, play the game, and increase the income of CCP companies. Of course, for gamers, the experience will be great.

Thank you for reading so far. I don’t want Chinese players to suffer any unfair treatment on the tranquility server, and I wish EVE can become better and better.

Have a nice day,

Regards,

Sakura WU,

10/02/2023.

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It was actually a letter to the GM, but unfortunately they only seem to use the official answer to tell me that I should give feedback to CSM. I hope that more people can participate in the discussion on this topic. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing, but I still hope that EVE can be more friendly to Chinese players. This is my small request.

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CCP does have its problems thats for sure, but the biggest problem is the other CCP, Chinese Government. Most if not all of the restrictions are because of them.

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Maybe there is. But I need to be clear that as a game company, it is necessary to help players. Each region’s policies are different, and CCP, as a game company with a global service, needs to consider the reasons for local policies. Since the game service is provided, but the game registration service or gift package purchase service is not provided, I think this is not the Chinese government’s problem, but the CCP’s lack of consideration.

Each country’s national circumstances and policies are different, and local government policies cannot be blamed for being problematic because they are not in the interests of the game.

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I understand the concerns and I share them, but I don’t think that the company has any wiggle room here. If they want to continue to be able to get licenses from the Chinese government, they have to follow the Chinese government rules, as best they can, and that means it’s not going to be easy to play the game on TQ. I don’t see any way around this, unfortunately.

In a perfect world, there would be no need for a Chinese server, and we’d all be playing together on TQ. Unfortunately, Chinese law doesn’t allow for that.

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Yeah…probably not in most cases…
The first two years I played EvE I was unhealthily obsessed with playing it, reading about it, talking to corpmates about it and learning from them, watching all sorts of videos about EvE, etc. I did my work and slept a couple hours per night but otherwise pretty much every other moment was spent on EvE. I learned a lot about playing the game but it was a stupid way to live. Even so, I doubt I knew as much about EvE as the people who had been playing it for the five years it existed before I found it.
Maybe you do, probably you don’t.

Interesting to hear about payments in regard to regular Chinese people., but many outside of China are aware of WeChat.

I think you bring up some good points in your post. However, I might guess that the (legitimate) issues you bring up are most likely not due to any anti-Chinese bias’, but rather business things we as players might not be privy to.

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Yes, it’s more of a derivative of the agency agreement. If this is really due to regional policies that are causing a decline in gaming experience, there is no way around it. But I still hope CCP can make some changes to it if possible, such as offering more payment methods etc. This can really help a lot of new players playing EVE.

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Yes, I’m glad that someone else learned about WeChat software. Most Chinese use WeChat Pay in their daily lives, and unlike in other countries, mobile payment is more mainstream in China. The most important problem is that many Chinese gamers don’t apply for a VISA credit card for a game, but there is no doubt that this will cause many people to be unable to pay properly. Although we have other ways, such as connecting to a Steam account and using Steam payment to purchase packs. But it takes too long, and I think it’s very unfriendly.

If the first two proposals are too geopolitical to pass, I don’t think WeChat Pay or Alipay seems to be difficult relatively speaking. I have visited Australia and now many merchants already support WeChat or Alipay payments. The principle of operation is this, we will pay RMB to WeChat, and WeChat will convert our money into the corresponding foreign currency according to the exchange rate at that time and pay it to the corresponding merchant. This doesn’t seem to be difficult, and there are already a lot of merchants that allow WeChat and Alipay to pay. When I buy games on Steam, I also use WeChat Pay. When deducting, it will show how much the exchange rate is at that time, and how much it is converted into RMB. I would prefer that CCP consider how to improve the user experience, whether it is in-game or purchasing packs.

note: The renminbi (RMB) is the legal tender of the People’s Republic of China. Another way to write it is Chinese yuan (CNY)

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Sakura WU, I have a question that originates from my ignorance. What, in your opinion, is the problem with playing on the Serenity or Infinity servers? From my limited understanding, those are two servers exclusive to the population living in China.

For the same geopolitical reasons you struggle to play on Tranquility server, I do not have access to the Serenity & Infinity servers.

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Hi,

Sorry about that for reply it too late. I got a busy job need to do. For serenity servers, its similar like Tranquility. But player can buy the AT ship on the market. I mean you can use it, you can buy it, and the ship price might be looks like when you buy a paladin or something else in Tranquility server.

For Infinity server, thats a big different between Tranquility and Serenity. No invasion, no trigavan, the map has been change, your ship can used by cloud calculate. Thats mean like when you buy a paladin, you can use the ship on cloud calculate. When you do that, if you buy another battleship, like abandon, you can get maybe about 20% large energy turret damage extra buff. The map has been change means in Tranquility, the imperial function live in the map central, like jita, rens, amarr, dodixie whatever. But in Infinity, The region in which the four empires lie is the outermost part of the map. That means all the 00 region is in the central, players often clash and lose ships.

Lots different, If I need to list all the different between these servers…I might need to write about few thousand word on it lol

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