EverQuest is older, and still at the $15.99 price point.
Congrats, you’ve just highlighted the massive pile of dishonesty surrounding the ‘oh, come on, it’s only $5/month’ line.
Who told them this was a bad idea and even worse messaging.
Really? Because SWTOR—in space!—just released an expansion. That’s when they would have increased their prices. LotRO—15 years old, not far off EVE’s 18 years—just released an expansion, and has made more of the game free to all players. Generally, the trend around the industry is ‘lower the up-front price point to get more people in, and then market them more things they want to spend money on through the in-game store’.
CCP, OTOH, is raising the up-front price point, and actively refusing—even yesterday during the Q&A, specifically refusing—to implement the many kinds of microtransactions that their customers have told them we will happily pay for.
So yeah, you know what? I’m reasonably sure CCP’s moves here are not indicative of the trend, given that they’re directly against the active trend in MMO pricing.
M2 going down is a bad, bad, bad idea. The growth in the money supply should be roughly proportional to the growth in the real economy, given a stable velocity of money. A little bit of deflation is tolerable, too much will crash the economy.
Most of you are venting, not offering up replacement ideas. So here’s one:
For much of it’s core ideas Albion Online borrowed from EVE. Perhaps a solution to the need for more income can be borrowed from Albion. On it subscription service is not account based but character based. Give us the option to pay $5 per month per character to subscribe, which makes the price unchanged if someone wishes to keep all 3 subbed.
We’ve offered replacement ideas for years. CCP’s heard them. Alliance SKINs. Corp SKINs. Structure SKINs. Corp/Alliance logos on SKINs. Frikkin’ CAT EARS, FFS. There are hundreds of cosmetics they’ve been begged to add for years, things players would happily throw money at them if they could.
But CCP actively refuses to implement any of the suggestions that would be legitimately popular with their customers.
Yes, low inflation is also tolerable as well. And precisely targeting the money supply is extremely difficult as it entails a crystal ball and nobody has one that good. And discretion has a crappy, crappy history. So much of the last 40 or so years it has been rules to determine policy.
And alliance/coalition skins would have the development costs outsourced. I am pretty sure there are some people in the Imperium who can do some pretty damned impressive art. And I would not be surprised if the same were true for Pandemic Horde or Fraternity. “Here is our first alliance skin, check it out and if you approve put in the game.” Bam 18,876 skins bought within a couple of days of release.
Okay, but the issue is more revenue…I am not sure cheaper will do that as the subscription has been getting cheaper (in inflation adjusted terms) until now. It depends on a number of factors such as the price elasticity of demand.
So the important question needs to be asked to those saying this is their last straw with CCP.
Can I have your stuff? I’ll be sure it gets reinvested into something long-lasting like EVE University.
As someone that has no attachment towards their playtime in any particular game or the money spent within them, my opinion hasn’t changed and I’ll continue to enjoy EVE and everything the game and community has to offer for as long as my boredom is kept at bay.
For those seriously having issue with this, are you having issue with the price itself, the amount of increase of the price, the perceived value of the “engaging gameplay” provided by the price or the timing of the increase in price?
Cheaper lowers the barrier of entry and allows more people to more easily grasp the game’s full experience. Many games also offer small initial deals to people as once they’ve spent for what they consider a worthwhile purchase they’re likely to keep on doing so. For me, personally, it would offer a lot more flexibility and value to be able to sub individual characters rather than whole accounts.
