[Discussion] PLEX and Omega price changes feedback thread

[Afrika_Minmatar]

It’s not so surprising that it gets more expensive - we’re running something like 7% inflation where I live so a price hike was perhaps inevitable.

However, gouging your customers 33% against a backdrop of ~7% inflation on what is, after all, a luxury or discretionary spending, disposable income, however you want to call it seems somewhat abusive - If they’d said hey, sorry guys, your $15 has to now cost $16.5 it would have seemed like a reasonable adjustment but just jacking prices by a third is… yikes.

[Pard_Sepp]

Ok, here it goes. I’ve been playing Eve off and on since 2003.

I’ve unsubbed 5 accounts, and there’s a good chance I’ll unsub my main.

Here’s why.

1. The 33% price increase made me realize how much money I was spending on a game that was ultimately unfulfilling.

Can I afford it? Of course. I cut out Starbucks and Avocado Toast many years ago.
Am I willing to pay $120 a month plus more for MCT etc., for playing Eve? NO.

The price increase made me calculate how much money I would be spending on Eve each year, even at the cheapest long term rate. Then I thought about what else I could buy with that money. Then I realized that whatever enjoyment I gained from playing Eve (precious little, let me tell you) simply wasn’t worth that amount of money.

Then I looked again at how much money I would spend even without the price increase, and I realized that Eve wasn’t worth it even then. So, I cancelled 5 out of 6 subs.

2. But why isn’t Eve worth it? The core gameplay isn’t fun. It requires a lot of time and it’s not particularly enjoyable.

In a nutshell,

Eve is boring. Ratting, missions, mining, whatever, it’s boring. I guess PVP can be exciting, but to do PVP you need the isk, and to get the isk you need to grind the boring stuff. My time is valuable, and the core PVE gameplay is a chore. And no, I’m not going to spend even more money to plex my isk to support PVP.

The slight enjoyment I got from Eve was the sense of accomplishment I got from doing something, like ratting the hardest anoms, or strip mining a belt, or living in nullsec. The doing of it wasn’t fun, and a lot of the time it was a drag, but I did get a sense of accomplishment that kept me going.

Something else that kept me going was putting my own creativity into the game. I put my own creativity into my characters, their backstories, all that. That gave them meaning for me. I liked the idea of interacting with Eve’s lore, but it was all boring missions. It was like eating dry oatmeal to get the cheap plastic toy at the bottom of the box.

I realized that the Eve’s core gameplay experience just wasn’t compelling enough for me to spend time on it, and that my own creativity and love for the characters I’d created was what was keeping me going. It was a sunk cost of another kind, I guess.

3. CCP’s behavior.

Responses like this are very insulting:

Over the years there’s been problem after problem, insult after insult, including the petty vindictiveness of CCP against one of my real life friends regarding a billing dispute. After reading about how CCP “functions” internally, I don’t feel right about giving this company any more money.

So, i’ll probably drop back to alpha, see what the future brings.

[Alfonzor_Dilapidus]

@Pyrostasis

Costs are not up 30%.

Well, keep in mind that is one 30% increase over 19 years. It actually is less than inflation. We’ve had 56% inflation since 2003.

That said, I think this has more to do with EvE having a pretty small playerbase. It has tried, and failed, to draw a much larger following for almost two decades. If we assume that isn’t going to happen, then CCP pretty much two options- stop investing in it and keep prices the same, or keep investing in it and raise prices. They are presenting this as the latter and promising big content announcements at Fanfest. If that is true- we are paying more and they are going to be putting out content faster and better- then I’m ok with it. If that isn’t true, and they’re just going to charge more without really increasing what they’re putting into the game, then that’s not great.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Afrika_Minmatar

However, gouging your customers 33% against a backdrop of ~7% inflation on what is, after all, a luxury or discretionary spending, disposable income, however you want to call it seems somewhat abusive - If they’d said hey, sorry guys, your $15 has to now cost $16.5 it would have seemed like a reasonable adjustment but just jacking prices by a third is… yikes.

The price increase of a third is a lot indeed. But that’s only the case for the smallest package. I’ve posted a comparison of price increase percentage versus package earlier in this thread.

As I run longer subscriptions for the bulk discount, the price increase for me is likely going to be 3% - not something I’m going to complain about.

[Pyrostasis]

Again, my issue isnt the increase in price its the dramatic increase in price.

A battlepass could do gang busters in eve. Purely optional, kick ass cosmetics, engine flare, warp flare, turret tracer, missile contrails… etc etc etc etc.

Inflation is an issue for everyone. CCP is the ONLY one doing a 30% increase.

You dont skin the sheep, you shear it. This feels more like skinning a dying sheep.

[Pyrostasis]

You may complain though about a dramatic drop in population…

[Nemrod_Dreamwalker]

[Discussion] PLEX and Omega price changes feedback thread

Some numbers for Omega subscriptions (Assuming Euros to dollars is again 1:1) [afbeelding] (As the old price had no 2-month pack or 24-month pack, I’ve doubled the 1-month and 12-month packs for comparison) Observations: price increase is biggest for 1 month Omega at 34% bulk discount has been increased for larger packages new 24 month package is only a 3% increased price

well couse 24 month wasnt a option before (and yeah concider that its just 3% more for 2 years if you pay in advance), i just look at 1-12 month what means 14% more for paying once a year up to 34% per month.

just for a overview, couse i like numbers to be correct.

i shared my pov already a few times and dont want to feed the secret 2nd account of any mod again

but… why isnt there a lifetime sub for 400? couse eve forever or so… -that was just a spontaneous idea

[Arrendis]

@Alfonzor_Dilapidus

Well, keep in mind that is one 30% increase over 19 years. It actually is less than inflation. We’ve had 56% inflation since 2003.

We’ve also had a host of other monetization options added to EVE. CCP isn’t dependent on just subscription $$ anymore.

[Nemrod_Dreamwalker]

the monetization is only to get the money for the DLCs they make every 2 years
and the monthly content updates for which they dosnt charge us.
dosnt count!

[Gonzalez_Alvajero]

As I see momentarily at evening hours in EUTZ, player numbers decreased from 25k to 22k so CCP won at this time in profit, but the worse news they really started slow kill of the game because it’s negative effects will appear invisible in game economy, community and atmosphere as a poison. Original icelandic founders/owners/developers were dumbs when they sold their national treasure to aliens that was the start of this agony. Koreans soon will kill finally EVE Online (like a competitor of other korean MMOs).

[Arrendis]

@Nemrod_Dreamwalker

the monetization is only to get the money for the DLCs they make every 2 years

The DLCs they make every 2 years? Lol. What DLCs? What monthly content updates?

[Arrendis]

@Gonzalez_Alvajero

As I see momentarily at evening hours in EUTZ, player numbers decreased from 25k to 22k

It’s also worth remembering that those numbers are not well-distributed. Last night, during US prime time, I drove more than 6 ships 6j through FW lowsec, including 2 T1 haulers, one of which was carrying 2b in Geckos. Not only did I not get tackled, I saw a total of 5 other people in those systems. 3 of whom were in the station my asset safety crap was coming out of. Each system had an active ‘contested’ bar, but the only other person I saw in space or on d-scan was a single shuttle.

I could’ve driven a freighter through there and been perfectly safe. Which is a terrible sign.

[LowKey_Chandler]

@Pard_Sepp

The 33% price increase made me realize how much money I was spending on a game that was ultimately unfulfilling.

Stop with the truth, already!!!

[Flamespar]

What people will pay for is not a straight forward discussion…

For me its about fun and value …

But then you have people willing to throw huge amounts of money for ships in star citizen that don’t even exist.

So I dunno

[LowKey_Chandler]

The sermon at church last week wasn’t this convicting.

[Arrendis]

Considering how many of those come down to ‘because God and this grifting Roman tax collector from two thousand years ago said so’, I’m not shocked.

[Nemrod_Dreamwalker]

exactly

[Shaktar]

I would suppose that the declining paying player population was hitting their margins too much, remember this is no longer CCP, its now Pearl Abyss.

So instead of listening to what players have asked for (which has been covered extensively), or coming up with new ideas that make eve the engaging, fun and fulfilling game it used to be, including the in game events that altered the universe forever (and not the 1vX frigate fight crap events we have now), where factions invaded other factions, chaos erupted with Devs getting in ships and making things happen… what do they do?? Hike prices… genius!

I’m sure that instead of a revenue increase, they will see a sea of red, as people do the math and realize what they have been paying for in a game that is but a shell of the eve we loved. I for one, am thinking of unsubbing 2 of my accounts, not because I can’t afford it, but because doing the math I find it hard to justify it.

I love this game, but what they just did is akin to cutting the alcohol and opening the windows in a casino which made the players realize the sun was up… so many stop playing and go to bed.

The game has SO much potential, I just hope that their “creative” department realizes it before its too late, and instead of doing stuff like the Doctor Who event, they actually move their own IP forwards while engaging with the player base.

[Arzi_Pavia]

Well, as a new player I can’t really speak about a lot of what I have seen others mention in here regarding past updates/nerfs/etc.

What I can say however is that while I like some aspects of the game, other aspects feel severely dated. Expected of course since the game is 19ish years old. One example imho is the whole skill point system. While I’m sure back in the day it was a unique implementation of an alternative to the experience point system of leveling, it essentially requires multiple characters if you want to have any hope of being able to tailor your game play to what you specifically like.

For me, I like trade skills and markets in my gaming. Unless I want to simply subscribe for months at a time so that I can get one character all the skills necessary to be able to produce items and sell them even remotely competitively, I would need at least 2 Characters (1 for resource gathering/Transportation skills, 1 for production/research/Trade skills). A third would be nice for the combat skills so that I could run missions for ISK and Loyalty Points for the different corporation, although that could be an alpha since you appear to be able to train way more in that career path without a subscription.

So for me it would either be 2 accounts or 1 account with 2 characters but with a multi training certificate which costs more (if I were to by the Plex in the store) than the actual subscription. Under current prices that would be 30 a month for me to play how I enjoy in the “Sandbox”. More expensive than other games but I could live with that if that was the end of it. But its not…

What I get for my days of waiting for skills to train is kind of underwhelming. Sure, Eventually I can research more jobs at a time, I can lower my sales tax and broker fees, and I don’t have to pay the Alpha tax when producing items since I am a subscriber. Using the Industrialist Certified Skill plan would take about 22 days as an Omega subscriber. The Production character would need around 60 days (and 30million ISK roughly) to basically just lower tax/broker fees and be able to use a few factories. Not even any research skills included.

This is getting a bit long so to sum up, I would be paying 30 dollars a month for at least 2 months to essentially sit on my hands and wait for training to complete. That being said I was actually considering it. But when I noticed the tile on the launcher and started reading about the price increase, I changed my mind. I pay money to a developer in exchange for something that I can have fun playing. Not to sit and stare at a timer to complete before I can start doing what I would like.

I was able to get 30 days of Omega time for 10 bucks due to an offer that came up and have a couple days left on it so no real loss for me. I don’t find the game difficult, just overly complex. So I’ll let my account slip back into the Alpha state to see if they make any changes that interest me. If not, oh well, only cost me 10 dollars to try it out.

[Altesse_Tsukaya]

This feels like an insult added to the injury of those last 2 years, i used to enjoy mining in null sec and making ships and stuff and this has been almost impossible for 2 years straight. You need materials from all over the universe to make ships that arent even worth the cost of the materials.

I am starting to understand that the long term plans for eve is to become one of those game in which you have to buy everything with real money, they killed the economy to sell ships and modules directly to the players in the future, or at least it does look like that.

So yes i COULD pay those extra 5$ a month or less (if i go for a longer term subscription) times 4 because yes i do have multiple accounts, but i wont. Been waiting for 2 years for basically nothing.