You have to look at the game and CCPs actions as a whole and not just a subset of it. Not everything they do is harmful to the game, but neither is everything they do good for it. Overall the direction they’re taking the game favors harmful short-term cashgrabbing over keeping it healthy long-term.
Citadels alone won’t save EVE. Only a drastic change in development direction can do that.
Micro transactions have been going on for years in the form of selling game time for isk… it’s been going on since before i started which was 9 years ago… I’ve spent over a $1000 on my toons, mainly because i don’t have time to make in-game isk… I don’t know why a $40 skin that gives no mechanical advantage to a player is going to change anything? I don’t regret spending money on my toons either.
In addition to what Nick is saying… There is no guarantee that anyone will buy this skin with cash. The whole point of changing Aurum to PLEX and splitting PLEX was so that people could buy these skins without spending any money.
If you can afford a carrier or super carrier, you probably have isk to spare. As such, you won’t buy plex off CCP directly. You buy PLEX on the market and use that. You are buying PLEX from someone like Nick or myself who needs isk but doesn’t have as much game time. We need the isk so we buy plex and put them on the market.
It anything, these skins are simply one way to redistribute wealth in the game. And that is not a bad thing. It gives players with ample isk a vanity item to spend the isk on while giving the players who aren’t as space rich but want to convert plex to isk the opportunity.
PLEX are not the same as skins or clothing. For the price of 500 PLEX, you get (almost) full access to the game, which is not a microtransaction, it’s paying the subscription. Paying 500 PLEX for 1 skin, on the other hand, is in no way comparable to that … save for the fact that it’s also not a microtransaction. Please do yourself a favor and don’t mix that up, it really makes you look bad.
Furthermore, you cannot buy the skins without any money being spent. That’s the same as with PLEX. You cannot get gametime without any money being spent. Whether you spend the money directly or indirectly does not matter at all. What matters is what you get in return for the spent money.
@Lady_Ayeipsia Your argument for Aurum change to PLEX so that people can use them without paying money is hilarious. Before, you could buy Aurum tokens on the market to buy things in the NES. Now you buy PLEX on the market to buy things in the NES. Virtually nothing has changed: People still have to pay RL money to get these items in addition to the subscription.
It’s also not about being able to afford something. It is about that you pay a full game’s worth of money every month but don’t have full access to the game any longer.
Please, you two, inform yourself before you continue to ridicule yourself.
What are you on about?? my god boy. Hows is it not a micro transaction? Player A buys PLEX with real money to sell for ISK to get an in-game advantage (thats me!) Player B then buys PLEX with isk to buy Game time. PLEX all comes from one source! real life money so therefor no matter how you look at it, it’s a fricking microtransaction. Your reply is dumb.
40 EURO is not a micro transaction, regardless what the source is and where it comes from and how it is being traded. You also don’t see your 40 Euro gas bill on the gas station or your monthly 40 euro energy bill or your weekly 40 Euro groceries bill as “microtransaction”. Neither are 20 Euro or 30 or 10. Your ignorance is disgusting to say the least.
40 Euro is a micro transaction, don’t get confused with the ‘micro’ part… a micro transaction is defined as a transaction for a virtual item… go check it out in the english dictionary. Have you ever played games like league of legends? they offer stuff at a much higher price… anyway, you don’t have to spend the 40euro, you can use in-game isk instead… Stop crying about nothing.
You could even directly convert an old Plex to 3500 AUR with two or three clicks.
Well, originally it was a transaction of a micropayment:
But it seems only natural for a multi million $ revenue company to loose track of what’s actually micro and what not… When it comes to how the term is actually used today, you are probably right, big emphasis on ‘transaction’, very little on ‘micro’.
I do not play these games exactly because of this rubbish. However, you picked the wrong game for the comparison (again showing that you are clueless): LOL has no monthly subscription fees, which means that other revenue streams like “microtransactions” actually are sensible. You can play the game without paying anything, you do not have to pay to play LOL. In EVE, however, you have to pay subscription in order to play and additional money to get access to the full game.
If you do not see the glaring difference between these two things, you are beyond help.
Projects have purpose. The word you wanted was “failures”.
Ironically, the mis-step(s) are the ways they have gone about trying to make other branches of their business.
They are? Doesn’t really seem that way.
Seems they have made a lot of their playerbase more than a little uncomfortable over the past few years, imo
Interesting, thanks. Human behavior is endlessly fascinating.
WOW! CCP, you are sure over reaching, seriously, on this one. Greeeeeedy!
They’re trying to act like they’re drawing lines in the sand and staying on the “safe” side of them. You still can’t buy skills straight from the NES, even though we all know how they were made.
Yet.
If they want to get rid of the AFK gameplay that is extractor/injector farming, they’re going to end up selling filled injectors or attribute boosters straight from the cash shop, because there’s no way they’re going to give up the short-term income they’re getting from that feature.
This new SKIN is CCP testing to see how mad we’ll get over ever more expensive things in the cash shop. Carefully. The more paranoid would think that maybe that’s why it’s a limited time offer: so they can just take it off the table at a moment’s notice if we actually did riot.
Here is a crazy idea…just don’t buy it.
Holy crap. 
Stop asking for cheap/free stuff. Vote with your wallet.
I don’t see anything wrong with skins neither, they don’t give ships god like strength or new powers… It’s just pretties.
People can take skins or leave them. I’m glad we have the option for a coat of paint on our ships. And it’s possible to buy them with in game isk. When AUR turned into nuPLEX, I bought a venture skin with it and bought another with isk.
You just described how to abstain with your wallet.
Voting means unsubbing.
See the difference?
If someone here was asking for free stuff, we would complain about the subscription. No one complains about the subscription, however. We already pay with our subscription money for the development, which means we already paid for these items and therefore they are not free. In contrast, they cost us double regardless how we purchase them.
To me it seems more like people defending these macrotransactions are more butthurt than those rejecting it. So far, I have seen more name calling and butthurt accusations from the defenders than the repudiators. 
I consider the skins to be equivalent to merchandising, like t-shirts etc.
Some people buy them for EVE players as a gift, some lonely people buy them for themselves as gifts 
I dont see the harm in them, or why anyone would take issue with them.
Its just a skin. If someone wants to fork out 40bucks for one, thats their choice.
Its no skin (pardon pun) off anyone elses nose.
Paying for skins? I rather go and try touching the moon !! (Oh, and I have way enough income to afford it, but I rather take my wife on a luxury dinner for 200 bucks than spend it on something worthless).