Eve’s pricing model is simple and easy to understand:
There is an unlimited free trial that lets you do and play a lot. In fact, there are whole aspects of the game that don’t require paying for it ever. You are free to either play what is available in the free trial, or, if you like the game and want to do more - pay for a subscription.
The subscription model is completely transparent and fair. Monthly subscription pays for server maintenance and expansions that you don’t buy separately. That’s a pretty fair deal, at least by my standards.
The rest of the monetization goes to cosmetics and convenience, while trying to balance what CCP tries to offer with the in-game market (for example: LPs)
It is highly depenent on what your hobbies are though. If it’s jogging and walking – you can do that for free. If you like to write poetry – again, free, and you end up contributing something to the world.
If it’s video games then that’s not a free hobby. Video games can’t be picked from a tree like apples (and even in case of apples you gotta pay for the tree first). Somebody is putting their time and effort into them to make them, it’s their work and they will naturally charge money for it. If you want to play them, you gotta pay. (The ‘‘free’’ ones are just a marketing trick, by the way. It’s a way to weed out some competition and to gain clients who will pay for other things or will generate revenue in some other form anyway).
Most hobbies in today’s world end up costing a buck if not being downright expensive.
Hehe, in theory, yes. But if you look at the amounts of money people spend for “sports clothing” “running shoes” “gadgets” “tracking apps” - thats ten times more then what an EVE sub would cost.
People just keep complaining over nonsense. EVE is a service, just like electricity, network services, water supply to your house and whatnot. You want to use that, you have to pay the people that provide and maintain that service. It’s really that simple. Those people need to eat too, they don’t work “for free”.
Alpha Access in EVE already is extremely generous. If it was up to me, it would be restricted a lot more.
That is exactly what I am doing. However, that does not exclude me from being here occasionaly. I am not wasting any time that belongs to me either. I simply have a job that has a lot of downtime. What’s with the word entitled, have you all been dating American women for too long or something?
Why am I here? Well, several thousand Euros of subscription money and this account says I can. I am, in fact, entitled to the forums ha ha ha. I would wrongly be entitled when I would posit that CCP has to let me play for free, but I never said they have to. It’s just what would get me back into the game.
That’s the difference. I’m just saying I’m not playing Eve Online because I think the experience too expensive. An entitled person would, at the very least, expect things for free. I expect that Eve stays way too expensive. So there.
What you’re asking for is to be able to cherry pick the bits you want, while the server hamster slaves away 24/7 providing the full service that is basically what every Omega is paying for. I never go to wormholes…..I don’t send CCP requests asking that they deduct from my subscription the cost of maintaining wormholes. You keep ignoring that what your subscription is paying for is the availability of these things.
You’re trying to reason with someone who didn’t reason himself into an opinion that isn’t reasonable to begin with, that’s a waste of time because it’s never going to work.
He sees you (and others) trying to use reason and logic, explaining things, and feels that he is winning because you still don’t understand what’s going on. To him this whole conversation is a form of PVP and the more people he can lure into lengthy arguments the more he controls you and the more he’s “winning”, in his own mind.
Except that childish pointing does exactly nothing, Aisha.
You’re putting so much extra effort in putting a light on one persons so-called “entitlement” that me and my IRL friend over here might laugh in a similar manner: look at this corporate shill attack people’s personality over the suggestion that this MMO’s developers could look into alternative payment options or microtransactions. But I don’t do that, Aisha. That would serve no purpose.
There is one thing I do want to point out: this tendency to tell the world some fantasy about what is going in other people’s heads is a horrible personality trait. I suggest you work on that. Good luck ignoring me. We’ll see if you have the discipline.
The state of politics in the UK right now is mainly down to people genuinely holding this kind of attitude, but like, actully unironically, rather than just used as hyperbole to highlight OP’s ridiculous demands
You rais perspective I think resonate with lots of players different waysSubscriptions bring stability for company but t create also feeling of pressure to play you mention doesn’t really match with unpredictable life. Some people can put aside time for gaming regurly every month but for others no so regular so subscription model not always serve needs of individuals. At same time EVE always be tied to subscription one way or anotherso natural a lot caution for the idea for broadening monetization. Microtransactions is more flexible right right but also bring questions for balance about weather certain feature is tobne be behind paywalls, and on how far a company should go before player start feel like every little action has a price attached nnd that’s where opinion usully split some people see as opening the game for more players yet others fear rhe chip away at EVE identity being subscription-first MMO. What you propose keep Omega as is while allow Alpha player option to spend in smaller increment tries find middle ground at least so I think it fair to say the more flexibel way people can to engage in the game the more doors open that’s through tokens, bundles, or other creative ideas it is worth to explore how welcome those who want to play without stress of “get their money worth” in a sub.In the end this like balancing act of preserv what make EVE unique alsonstill makensure it os accessible to many types of players as possible.
Correct. While Gloria may not send requests asking CCP to reduce her subscription costs, I do not send CCP requests to provide alternative monetization methods: I simply choose not to p(l)ay and indicate honestly what would be required for that to change. The both of us are free to determine whether the cost of playing is worth the dopamine. For Gloria, that seems to be the case.
But I am not her. I have played for years. I appreciate this game but after so long I can easily miss it. That has nothing to do with my appreciation of the game itself, but the fact I’ve dumped a few thousand on it already, and feel that the game’s diminishing returns and the cost of playing “on my level” require too much PVE from me in relation to the money I am already paying.
There is no strong emotion or hostility with this. No haughty entitlement. No ultimatum in that sense, but simply the admission: under these conditions, I would play. Under the current ones, I am not. There is nothing wrong with critical consumerism.
I think this actualy one of more balanced ways of looking at the whole thing.Often these discussion are clouded by strong emotions anger frustrationor even nostalgia but theres something refreshing for laying out plainly: the value proposition doesn’t work the same for everyone, and that’s fine some players stil find subscription or grind worth the dopamine annd others don’t. Neither stance make one person more “right” or more of “true” player than other what I find intresting is the quiet way you frame it. There no outrage no fingerpointing just admission for where the line drawn for you personally in a way that is the purest form of feedback any company can want: not angry demands but silent absence of those who aren’t being met where they need tobe.Sometimes walking away says more then a thousand angry forum post It also highlight something important for long-term play when you been around for years the novelty fades what used to feel exciting become like maintenance. That doesn’t erase appreciation of what game isit just change the equation for what it takes to stay invested right right for some people that shift happen earlier others laterbut eventualy everyone reache point where they ask “is the cost in money time or effort still worth what I’m getting back?” In that sense what you wrote isn’t onlyabout EVE or CCP but about how we all relate to entertainment in time. The product may stay the same, but the player doesn’t.
Except that under your proposed conditions a lot of people would quit in disgust….which would include me.
Under your ridiculous conditions EVE would totally break down and dissolve into those micro bits people were prepared to pay for. The less commonly used bits would simply end up disappearing.
I never use the local park. I think I’ll stop paying for it. In fact only 10% of town people use the park. So they end up paying ALL the costs of maintaining it between that 10%…..which now costs 10 times more per person than it would under a global system.
Well…..’stuff that’, people will think. And the park will just end up being used even less, with subsequent higher and higher price per person until there’s just one user left and getting a £10,000,000 a year park maintenance bill.
That is how your silly system ends up. It is the entire reason why there are not ‘pick and choose’ taxes in RL.
Interesting you’d mention the park. Is it happens, I do pay taxes to maintain local parks. And yet the local park looks absolutely dreadful, because there’s another system at work where our tax money is used to import more of the unemployable riffraff that eventually ends up in those parks, begging for money, stinking of drugs, scaring away the local kids for whom the park initially was built. That’s your one user right there.
Eve is not comparable to a public park. It is comparable to a privatized themepark to which you have a annual subscription. I have already quit in disgust and out of boredom with the rides. That argument has always been there: if they do X, then I quit. Well, I already did that. And now I say: if they do X, I would perhaps return.
Wasn’t that the topic at hand? I merely suggest that you sell tickets to your park so I can visit it for a day. Themeparks don’t break down because of this. Your MMO also won’t. It will just lose a few people who have overly invested time and money into an MMO. Everyone is replaceable.
I know this audience, I’ve been a part of it. It will broker almost no change to fundamental systems, and will endlessly repeat arguments coming down to not liking it when others get things for free, or a little faster.
