Let me just say that I appreciate everyone’s responses to this, and everyone’s point of view. I do love a good, calm discussion between people whose viewpoints may not necessarily agree. It’s quite relaxing. I am of the mind that this is how forums were meant to be used, which may seem obvious but it is not often how things go, seemingly more often descending into pure contradiction, responding to tone, argumentum ad hominem, and name-calling. (Admittedly, I am guilty of this from time to time, and I always regret it afterwards.)
Back to the topic. Really, the only thing I feel I can add to the discussion right now is to talk about @Etain_Darklightner_Agittain’s point about what makes money for CCP.
I largely agree with this point. In order to ensure the long life of the community, CCP and by extension the game, yes CCP must do what they can to keep making money; but at what cost? This is something I think many at CCP must struggle with from time to time as I am sure they love the game for what it is, not for how much money it makes them. This creates a conflict though, since due to the nature of how it is operated, in order to keep the game going, it must make them money.
This results in them having to tread a very fine line, the extremes on either side being a work of passion where they do what truly makes the game better regardless of how much money it brings, and a pure money grab operation like so many other online games have turned into. In regards to the former, it could be argued that a truly great game will make money, arguably longer than the latter; in regards to the latter, it could be argued that higher short-term profits could allow them to put more effort in to making the game truly great.
However, overheat your prop mod for long enough and it will burn out.
Consider an online game, Game X. It has items that originate exclusively from cash purchases that also offer an advantage in some way, an advantage that couldn’t otherwise be gotten just by playing the game, for instance getting more XP at double the free rate. Let’s assume that it is a good, fun game that happens to have this aforementioned property. At first, many people play the game either freely or with these bought advantages. But as time goes on, the edge this bought advantage provides becomes more amplified. (One could argue that the players who are paying for the advantage deserve better progress simply due to the fact that they are paying, which keeps the game servers alive.) However, the free players vastly outnumber the paying players. After a longer period of time, still feeling completely outmatched by the paying players despite vastly greater numbers, free players start getting frustrated, giving up and leaving, perhaps moving on to a different but similar game. Of course, some stay and pay to get that same edge, boosting the company’s revenue for a time, but the vast majority still leave, leaving a small, passionate community. The game now has greatly reduced population and the players who still remain will take notice of this. They tell their friends about the game, and for a time their friends join in and some stay, boosting the population a bit, but again, the vast majority still get frustrated and leave. At first, they assume that another wave of free players will come, they hope. This doesn’t happen precisely due to the players who left telling their friends about the game. With a dearth of other people to play with or against, even the paying players start leaving, some going to similar games, which means they are not paying for this game. The game’s population is further reduced, exacerbating the problem. Eventually, there aren’t enough paying players to keep the servers alive and the game gets shut down. What seemed like a great way to pull in more money (on paper), didn’t actually turn out that way. This was arguably a poor business model.
Consider another online game, Game Y. It is a subscription-based game, meaning in order to play the game at all you must first pay for a subscription. All subscribers are equal, they all gain XP at the same rate, all have the potential to access to all the same items, but there’s no getting around the fact that the game is locked behind this lone paywall. At first, a small number of people play the game, just enough to keep the servers (or singular server) going, because many are put off by the paywall. This creates a small but very passionate and close-knit community. They adamantly tell their friends about the game, and some outright refuse because of the paywall, but some give it a try. Of those, some leave, but many stay as they find the like the game, but more importantly they feel like they belong to the community. They tell their friends, and so on; slowly, but steadily, the game’s population increases, building a larger but still passionate and close-knit community. The company keeps upgrading the game to add value to the game by adding what is best for their players. The players, of course, love this and only spread more positive word about the game, building the community faster and faster. The company is able to upgrade and expand their operations, continuing to grow for decades, perhaps indefinitely. Yes, it still remains locked behind a paywall, but the game is so highly praised that many find the price to be worth it. This is arguably a good business model.
It boils down to this: Game X encourages the company behind it to engage in commission salesman-like behavior, driven to just sell, sell, sell without regard to the actual quality of the product, as long as the sales are going up this week, but when word gets around that their products are of low quality, their sales ultimately wither (and they might wonder why); Game Y encourages the company behind it to create a very high-quality product, because even though they get the same amount per subscription, word gets around that their product is better and their subscription numbers will go up, perhaps indefinitely (and they know exactly why).
Apply these two models to EVE, both now and in the past, and come to your own conclusions as which is better and which has gotten EVE (and by extension, CCP) farther over the 15 years it’s been around. As for me, I would prefer Game Y, and would gladly pay the subscription for the rest of my life if it were a good game.
