Yeah, thanks for clarifying that the reason for dwindling log in numbers could possibly be this, that or even the other thing.
One thing you forgot to factor in is all the failed game projects which doesn’t inspire confidence with investors. Plus all the cutbacks and downsizing of CCP. That usually indicates a problem, mainly financial.
Heh, get your facts straight. MT was introduced because CCP had a very large debt that was due plus they had already invested time, money and resources into producing 2 other games which didn’t pan out for them.
The reason for the summer of rage wasn’t just about MT’s. There was a whole list of reasons for it.
CCP have repeatetly stated now and in the last couple of years that EVE is very profitable. The reason for the layoffs was CCPs constant gambling with products for dying (PS3) or non existing (VR) markets in the search for the ride on the hype train.
Source?
Microtransactions where not the only reason but one of them. What I said was that CCP did not add them because EVE was not profitable which you implied. May have gotten that wrong though if you ment CCPs finances and not EVEs profitability I may even agree
About the only sensible statement I have seen you posting so far…
The Summer of rage was caused due to four main factors:
A lot of players actually liked the "idea" behind the clothing store, especially with Ambulation being on the horizon. What people were so upset about was the price tag for those items which were the equivalent of $40 for a t-shirt, $55 for a pair of boots and $75 for a monocle.
To make matters worse, CCP Zulu, in his infinite wisdom, decided the best way to calm the crowds was to write a blog defending the price tag for said vanity items by arguing they were analogues to someone buying a pair of $1000 jeans in real life.
I seriously doubt that. In fact, judging from you posts, I think you weren’t even playing Eve back then.
“World of Darkness” and “Ambulation” ring a bell? I’d like to know how much time and money they sunk into the development of of those two projects which never saw the light of day.
Having loved Vampyr: The Masquerade this still is slightly depressing, but the above was suitably ironic.
I play this game for ~11 years now. How is reading so diffucult, here is what I actually wrote:
I highlighted the important part for you. EVE was in a seriously bad state back then. Big fleet fights ended with one side just disconnecting and desyncing, hell I was in 50v50 fights in lowsec that didn’t even work and half the people just got desynced. There where lots and lots of bugs because CCP added half baked feature after feature, promised to iterate on them and forgot about it 5min later. It was at that time that Incarna hit with seriously overpriced microtransactions, one rusty room and the greed is good leek which got it all to explode.
But anyway, the point was that they introduced it when the subscription numbers where at their highest and not in a desperate move to save the game or whatever. It was simple and utter greed.
I asked for a source for the claim about the financial state that is supposedly the reason for the introduction of microtransaction. World of Darkness was written off and “Ambulation” is just another name for the WIS feature, so where are the actual numbers?
Do some research instead of constantly flaming others. Here maybe this will get you started:
2011 Summer Of Rage happened due to a multitude of reasons:
CCP failed to deliver WiS that was promised years ago known as Ambulation in Incarna Expansion.
The 1001 Papercuts thread - large list of various broken game mechanics and unfinished content - ignored since 2003.
CCP releasing half finished ‘Bugged’ content which constantly broke existing content in-game.
Massive amount of Lag in-game creating problems for everyone - large fleet battles impossible to conduct.
CCP introducing NEX Store and MT - selling overpriced items for real money bypassing in-game player production.
Threat of ‘Gold Ammo’ and ‘Gold Ships’ enabling ‘Pay to Win’ exploitation.
CCP ignoring Eve Online by investing development resources into WoD and DUST514 projects.
The leaked ‘Fearless Newsletter’ memo - Greed is good.
CCP statement of viewing Eve Online Community as the Golden Goose.
Forcing 3rd party programs to pay real money for providing players with free Eve Online applications.
CCP failure to maintain their promise of ‘Commitment to Excellence’.
Forcing player participation in Captains Quarters, later showing them ‘The Door’ - removing player’s option of choice.
CCP attempt to diffuse situation in forums with excessive thread locking and banned accounts.
Poorly written unoptimized code released in Incarna resulting in major client side issues.
CCP lack of communication / poor Public Relations due to ignoring input from player base.
Hilmar’s statement - “Watch what they do, not what they say.”
Basically Hilmar’s statement became the rally cry for the Jita Riot’s which led to mass unsubs. Having a large loan payment due later resulted in CCP downsizing the company, laying off employees and placing projects on back burner.
All jokes aside, what monetization features/changes will our new Korean overlords implement? Near term / long term? Causes and effects?? Has your approach to the game changed any since the bomb got dropped? Lets get a think tank/brainstorming session going!
Here are some of the changes that I think will be implented.
Eve will go back to a monthly subscription and alpha status will be eliminated. There will however be a limited timed trial period similar to how it used to be. In my opinion this simplifies things and creates a steady base flow of revenue on top of all the extras that they will be charging money for.
Plex will no longer be tradable. You will not be able to buy/sell plex on the market or trade with other players etc… Plex will be locked to your account, maybe even to a single character (We dont know their level of greed yet!). Rest assured the real life money cost of plex will go up!
Skill injectors will also no longer be tradable. You will no longer be able to buy/sell on the market or trade with other players! You will only be able to buy skill injectors from the eve store with plex. Skill injectors will also be locked to your account, maybe even individual characters! The skill injector cap of 500k/400k will be drastically increased or even removed altogether. The more skillpoints per injector, the more they’ll charge!
Same goes for skill extractors. They will not be tradable and you will only be able to buy them with plex from the eve store. Skill extractors will be locked to your account and you’ll only be able to extract/transfer skill points between characters on your account for a fee of course!
Ship skins will no longer be tradable! You will no longer be able to buy/sell skins on the market or trade with other players. You will only be able to purchase skins in the eve store with plex. Ship skins will also give different bonuses to armor,shields,weapons etc depending on the skin(s) you purchased. Skins will be locked to individual characters and will no longer be permanent. Skins will have a timed lifespan and will be sold in different time/bonus increments.
I can see the start to these changes implemented within the first 6 months to 18 months. Itll be a slow methodical process as they probe the playerbase and experiment with different things to gauge reactions,etc…
Just my .02 and pure speculation of course!
Good luck and much love!
Did you not read the reaponse from CCP?
This is nonsense. I don’t know why folks are going so overboard when there is no indication of ANY changes.
If that changes then fine but sheesh! This guy literally making things up out of thin air. Good God
Plex makes more money than a sub they wouldn’t cancel it… I stopped reading after that
None of that makes any sense whatsoever.
Yes, CCP is no longer owned by handsoff investors, but by a handson investment management company. That is a big change, but it is only a potentially big change in terms of effects on a product level. As long as CCP meets its targets, it’s fine, and change through simple exposure and rubbing off will be just gradual.
If that were to change, you’re looking in the wrong direction of the sliding scale. No limitations, but alterations. Increase grind, segregate niche gameplay, enchantment mechanics, accomodation modifiers (time / resource / ability) and so forth - where monetised shortcuts are favoured.
It’ll be easy for players to see if the dynamic shifts. Until that time, it is EVE as you know it, always changing.
Tbh I expect changes that were planned months or even years ago, when implemented, to be decried as PA’s doing for quite some time into the future.
Everyone knows what EvE needs and a quick way to make money.
EvE needs a real life store with more than 15 items.
This is a repeat of existing threads, please stop repeat posting.
I, too, am worried about PA having a bad influence on the game by eventually implementing pay2win features (such as gold ammo, skins that give bonuses, premium ships, respawn/ship recovery for PLEX etc.).
Consequently, I quit my yearly subscriptions on all my accounts (I still have nearly a year on all accounts tho) and am unlikely to use any subscriptions lasting longer then a few months until I‘m reasonably sure that PA will indeed not interfere with EVE (as CCP assures us). I‘m not willing to pay hundreds of dollars at a time in advance in these rather uncertain times.
However, to get back to topic: I think the OP has it backwards. Most of your suggestions/worries are likely to actually have a negative impact on monetisation. What you seem to be forgetting is that CCP (and by extension PA) don‘t give a damn if you buy cash-shop items with real life money or if you buy it from a player who bought it with real life money. Either way, the item was paid for with real cash, so it makes no difference if you pay CCP $13,99 for a month of game time or you pay me ISK so I essentially pay the $13,99 to CCP for you (and obviously PLEXing an account actually costs more then a subscription so CCP earns even more that way). Thinking of PLEX/player-traded cash-shop items as “free“ (out of the perspective of CCP) is roughly the equivalent of thinking of self-mined ore as “free“ (out of the perspective of the player) - it‘s total nonsense.
The only possible reason CCP/PA could have to implement untradeable cash-shop items or untradeable PLEX from a profit standpoint would be if players had huge reserves of said items on their accounts already and CCP/PA were totally desperate and would be willing to screw these players (including the many whales) over. That doesn‘t sound like a particularly sound business model to me… I only see those kind of drastic things happening at the eleventh hour and don‘t think we‘re there yet.
I personally expect (and frankly, dread) many more gradual changes towards pay2convenience and perhaps later even open pay2win (we already have pay2save time in the form of SP-trading via cash-shop-only items so I don‘t think this is beyond the bounds of the possibilities, sadly).
I guess only time will tell… and in the meantime I, for one, will be observing the continued developments regarding monetisation with due vigilance.
Big
Bada
Boom
Ok, well thank you for actually providing a source. So I apologize and agree that they tried to milk EVE with microtransactions because they where in financial troubles. The bitter part is that EVE itself was actually profitable and they just shoot themselves into the foot with this.
Yeah…except for almost every corporate buyout of almost every “popular” franchise in the entire history of the games industry. They all said exactly the same thing. “Don’t worry, current customers, everything will stay exactly the same.”
But you and all those like you can keep your heads buried in the sand and keep on believing what a company with a vested interest in lying to their customers to try and keep them as customers, tell you.
I can be pretty safe in telling you, based on historical evidence, that this game will be nearly unrecognizable this time next year.
Willing to take a bet?