Well, the New Pilot FAQ (do new pilots ever read this?) is pretty clear what type of game this is:
The “core concept” as they describe it is a full-time Battle Royale sandbox environment not very different that the death match survival games like Fortnite and PUBG that are all the rage lately. The only major difference is that it is a persistent, RPG-style one, where the massive free-for-all fight goes on forever.
So like those survival games or RTS games like Starcraft, gathering resources and building weapons of war is an integral part of the game. In fact, to be successful it may be your industrial capacity that is more important in Eve than your tactical or strategic prowess (see: The Imperium). But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a PvP-everywhere and all-the-time sandbox game where exploding spaceships is the core game activity that drives and provides meaning for most other game play, including the industrial side.
Engage with Eve as an industrialist or diplomat or pacifist instead of a warlord, or blood-thirsty pirate. It’s a great game with lots of freedom to play in many ways. But don’t expect to do so in isolation from the other players or immune from PvP. It is a living virtual world where we are all each other’s content and vulnerable to each other’s actions, not some Farmville-style grinding game.
That means players like the one you quoted in the OP are just playing the wrong game. They are looking for a game where the can craft and frolic in peace whereas New Eden is a dystopian, war-torn battlefield that isn’t very conducive to a player looking to engage with it only on their terms, and only experience constant progression with no competition from the other players (AKA PvP). That’s fine. Not everyone has to like the same thing and not everyone has to only like one thing.
Honestly, for every can’t-handle-loss-farmer like that one that quits, there is another industrialist who sticks with the game because of this competition and the value a full-time PvP environment gives to the virtual assets they produce. There really aren’t that many other games out there, maybe none, that create such value for the activities of industrialists, so much so that other players regularly pay them real-world value (via PLEX) for their in-game efforts. That is part of the magic of Eve, although one that seems to be fading each year as CCP caves in to the constant calls for buffs to safety and more wealth in game. CCP could do worse than hire CCP Eyjo or a protégé for a six month contract to take a deep look at the failing economy of this sandbox game a prescribe some fixes to try to get things back on track.
Wars are largely fine. There are some general problems with hunting and station games that has led to a rather stale and atypical meta, but the fact that ‘industrialists’ can be attacked by others isn’t one of them. You can play the game from the safety of the NPC corp and not deal with wars at all. You can return to that safety at anytime. They only thing you can’t do is enjoy the benefits of being in a corp while being immune to attack from another group. But if you want to become a bigger player in controlling (and profiting) from the shared economy, the game puts you at military risk to other groups so you better figure out a way to defend yourself.