While true, CCP appear to be shooting for a wider audience too, although some recent changes indicate that they may be considering going back to catering for their traditional niche.
We also don’t know what the current veteran retention rate is either, which will also matter.
Indeed it does, I can’t say for sure but some of the changes in the semi recent past appear to have driven some veteran players away, I suspect it’s actually more obvious on the forums than it is in game considering the amount of familiar faces that are no longer here.
What we do know though is that CCP are worried about retention, and so I’d be hesitatnt to just dismiss retention as a non-issue.
I think that most MMO’s are worried about retention, the advent of mobile games and the rise of MOBA’s etc all eat into market share.
It’s kind of subjective, many of the changes since 2012 could be seen as potentially trying to attract players from the mainstream; on the other hand they could also be seen as CCP being tone deaf and lobbing poo at the wall to see what sticks.
Alpha and SP injectors were an unfortunate turn for Eve and forced it to where we are now and why we’re having this discussion to begin with.
I try and see no-risk alpha gankers as just a new breed of pvp gameplay to deal with (seeing as I mostly do pvp in the game), but I do get the idea of attracting more innovative and non-violent playstyles to the game, don’t get me wrong on that point.
One should not get on top of the other though, with suggestions like optional pvp in Highsec as some would see that it happened, supported by dubious retention claims on numbers and stats …
EA would pull the plug on their own mothers, they’d harvest her organs and steal the life support machine to make a profit. They’re like the Borg, they can’t innovate so they assimilate, and then discard the fleshy left overs.
Unfortunately many of the titles that they do push out are franchise titles, they often seem to be the same game year after year with some minor changes to minutiae and flashier graphics.
No, it’s your opinion. It’s your opinion that 95% of people are anti-PvP like you, and it’s your opinion that appealing to anti-PvP players is the best strategy. Even if you take the 95% number as truth CCP has two options:
Attempt to appeal to the 95%, a market that is already saturated with competing games where they will struggle to get any decent market share.
or
Attempt to appeal to the 5%, a market that has very few competitors and will give them almost 100% market share.
The simple fact here is that 99% of 5% of players is more than 1% of 95% of players, giving CCP higher revenue and player counts despite only targeting 5% of the people that play games. And by taking away from the things that appeal to their current customer base they risk losing the 5% while gaining nowhere near enough market share with the 95% to offset the losses.
The massive issue is that it represents a fundamental departure from EVE’s identity, that all players participate in the PvP sandbox and you don’t get to wall yourself off in your private instance where you can ignore everyone else.
And it’s incredibly dishonest of you to talk about this as if it’s only about low-level PvE when you have rejected the idea of literal 100% PvP immunity for genuine newbies because it doesn’t give enough protection to established PvE players who want 100% safe AFK farming.
The reality is that the game overall is not particularly harsh or difficult
Nonsense. EVE is a difficult game because success in EVE comes through competition with other players. It’s much more difficult than any PvE-focused game, where the predictable scripting of NPC behavior allows people to write detailed how-to guides and easily optimize the perfect farming strategies for them. At best a PvE-focused game can add fake pseudo-difficulty where the decisions are all still very obvious to everyone, but the incoming damage is so absurdly high that the slightest hesitation or mis-click kills you.
Oh, it’s not for him. It’s to make it clear to anyone reading the thread, who may not have experience with him, that the things he is posting are utter nonsense. I know there is zero chance of him ever accepting reality and having to admit that he was wrong.
Cities Skylines is where it’s at, it’s everything the last Simcity game should have been; optional DLC that allows you to pick and choose which new features you want, plus the mod and asset scene for it is awesome.
And NOW… take a look at UNSUCCESSFUL games on the market and WHAT KIND OF GAME they represent.
Looking at only the successes is an incomplete picture. You also have to look at how many PvE-only games have tried and failed at capturing the market already owned by WoW. If you’re in charge at CCP and you have a choice between maintaining the current profitable market niche or throwing it all away on a gamble that you are the 1% that succeed and not the 99% that fail are you really going to take that risk?
(I mean, you would because you’re utterly clueless, but no sane company would do that.)
Nope. Most failed games are PvE games, in large part because most games period are PvE games. But if you look at the percentage of games that attempt to challenge WoW for control of the PvE market the record is dismal. Attempting to make a PvE MMO is extremely likely to fail, and matching EVE’s current performance is a pretty optimistic goal.
The success rate of PvP games overall is irrelevant. CCP has a 100% chance of success with a PvP game because they already have a profitable PvP game. They have faced the risk of failure and emerged a winner.
The success rate of PvE games overall is very relevant because you are advocating abandoning EVE’s current concept and target market in favor of taking a shot at a new market with a new concept. Most games that attempt to do what you are proposing fail, and I see no reason for CCP to have higher than average odds of success here.
TL;DR: only an idiot would trade certain profit from the game you already have for a tiny chance at breaking into a saturated market.
Maybe YOU don’t like it but what does that say about the minority YOU represent?
And CCP has to focus on the top market…the niche is shrinking and may be not enough to survive and CCP WILL have to focus their attention outside said niche or will perish and i bet they know it…
imagine thinking you could actually get CCP to make PVP optional. this is a fairly decent troll imo
