I’m not talking about gaming or computer games, I am talking about the point of games and play in every human culture known so far, digital or otherwise. Humans seek pastimes the purpose of which is to entertain and which are “not real” even when they are serious. EVE has filled this niche by not being our real lives.
Yes, Hilmar’s ideas would destroy “EVE the game”, and turn it into “EVE the second low-paying job” for real.
Sadly, that’s not even a new direction for CCP…
3 Likes
CCP as a games company are visionary’s and as quite often happens when a visionary is surrounded by fools they don’t get heard or understood.
1 Like
Son you were two decades late if you enter the black market of EvE just prepare to be collapsed.
ironic…
6 Likes
I don’t see why not. Football, soccer, basketball, boxing are all games that players can retire from. Personally I think having a parallel market where players can trade with one another for real currency that CCP takes a small percentage, say like 10%, off the top would be great for everyone involved. People who are going to play eve regardless can make a small return from their hobby of choice like they would from a yard sale. The RMT that has been going on outside the game is an untapped revenue source that would be more than willing to keep things TOS compliant if CCP made it where players can trade for real currency for in game stuff. It already happens outside the game. Just make it where only subbed accounts can RMT and limit them to like 3 order listings. Don’t charge them for listing or cancelling a listing and just take a percentage off the top when the transaction approves. Involving bitcoins could be a legal alternative so w/e the idea they have is, I’m willing to be behind it. Baseball players retire from their game of choice, so I don’t see anything wrong with people making a small return from their game of choice, eve online. The game has been coexisting with RMT for years now whilst CCP makes no revenue from it. In house RMT would create a guaranteed income stream for CCP considering people would be willing to self-sacrifice themselves from websites that provide the means for players to trade with real world currencies as it is and their involvement in things hasn’t caused eve to implode considering all those RMT transactions are expressed in the game in some capacity.
They all have for the most part respectable federations whose moderation & scoring policy are transparent. CCP on the other hand is not a respectable owner of an E-sport. It also does not offer transparent moderation or rule enforcement and its referees have been open about how they make rulings on a whim without charter or reference.
If the game continues to sink the way it is then it’ll be inevitable that unfulfilled subscriptions will be traded for $ between players less CCP be left holding the IRL liability for them at any potential wind up of the game or company. (No where near that bad yet but as others have stated MMO’s do need critical mass).
However, lets not fool ourselves into thinking EVE TQ is in any good shape to offer cashouts, years of non transparent reimbursement (1 in 5 ship losses was being reimbursed at one point according to GM’s), T2BPO, pet gifting, GM & Dev corruption, tolerance to botting & exploits have left the eve economy in a colossal stink.
I’m not saying to offer cash outs. Websites where people RMT no one is offering them a cashout. It’s people paying someone for the items they already have in game. Regardless if it’s ships, modules, or isk. This has gone on alongside eve for well over a decade. Money is moving, assets are moving in game, and we all still play eve unaffected. Meanwhile, CCP sees none of that revenue stream. All I’m saying is they just need to provide the means for players to securely RMT. What goes on in those other websites is someone’s card gets charged and someone’s paypal or bitcoin wallet goes up. Eventually they transfer it into their personal banks. Everyone involved, including the websites takes their cut. If CCP provided the means like those websites do for eve, people would naturally use CCP’s since they’d be getting a cut and consequently shrinking the revenue strength of the websites that have existed alongside it in tandem for well over a decade easily. I visit these websites to see if digital assets move, and they do. Everyone’s eve game isn’t personally affected by it. This would bring those people over to CCP since they do play the game. Just limit it to people who are subbed either through payment or plex. Alphas shouldn’t have the privilege of being able to make a return from their hobby if they don’t first contribute to it. Plus, this would get the current user base who wouldn’t mind it but don’t participate because they actually value their accounts on an emotional level. It’s has meaning that is beyond numbers to them and they intend to stick around. At the end of the day it occurs alongside even regardless if CCP does something or not. I’d rather they get their cut and I suspect the majority of those that currently use those websites would shift over to CCP’s side because I suspect that those doing the purchasing intend to stay playing the game. It’s why they’re spending the money. To get to a part of the game that they would otherwise have to spend working out. Their time is limited and they don’t want to spend what little they have of it grinding it out. CCP doesn’t have to do a cash out. They just need to tax a percentage off the top when a transaction approves like those RMT websites do. They’re not handing out cash. Players are.
Imagine a purple module being listed for real money. Imagine the incentive that would cause for people to leave high sec.
That is entirely why CCP will in all likelyhood soon allow RMT on TQ via plex. It is already happening without plex on RMT sites and within alliances where CCP see’s no cut. Allowing Vets to trade their in game wealth to newbro’s who want to use their IRL wealth to get a jump start in eve just plain makes sense, within a balanced healthy MMO. Eve however is not in a healthy state.
The other time you want to allow RMT is when your game is about to go poop, to extract the last revenue streams from it, this is a more likely event for Eve.
CCP facilitated RMT is soon gonna come to TQ as it has on Serenity, there is gonna be lots of tears but this is a reality as expressed by senior devs and within financial minutes. Pay to play, paid to play is the future of Eve & CCP games, get used to it.
2 Likes
Thats me unsubbed until I hear CCP is withdrawing from this disgusting activity.
It’d be a success if it’s done through players like those RMT sites. Remember, if someone sells isk with the intention of generating real world currencies, they acquired those digital assets through playing the game fairly. CCP just needs to facilitate that here legally and they’d be making a ton of money considering it’s been happening alongside eve the entire time which means if it did have game breaking effects we all would have felt it by now. Yet, people keep crabbing and people keep selling/buying. Even if CCP did nothing, it wouldn’t stop those who already partake in it and the buyers typically DO care if they get banned. They’d use in house services to buy things from players if it existed since they already do as it is. I just hope whatever it is that they do that they allow players to trade freely since that’s what’s going on in those websites. This also makes it where anything sold is farmed from actually playing the game as opposed to microtransactions provided by the house.
Though I think microtransactions for cosmetics isn’t a bad thing for the company really. It’s really only harmful if digital assets are being created in the transaction really and digital assets acquired through playing the game fairly took time which is why it wouldn’t destabilize eve. It’s basically wealth redistribution when one thinks about it. One player gets money and another gets digital assets acquired by the money maker’s efforts from actually playing the game. Have CCP take their cut from the top and everyone is winning and CCP is generating income for an IP they have provided that isn’t earned from injecting items into the game universe.
I think y’all (and CCP) are kind of forgetting that even at the highest end of money-making activities in EVE, like blitzing C6 wormholes or top-tier abyssal sites, or ratting with a capital in null-sec, the income caps out at something like 500 million ISK per hour, which is equivalent to five dollars and some change.
Does that sound like “retirement” money to you? Even as an “interning junior assistant helper to the secretary” I make like ten times that amount, and I’m still dirt-poor by local standards. The only retirement that grinding space bucks in EVE would afford me is a half-bottle of budget blended whiskey and a single .45 caliber bullet that I’d have to discharge by ramming into a PVC tube and manually hammering its ass-end with a rusty nail.
I’ve made money from RMT in games before, and even at the absolute peak, with like two dozen VMs going at it and working 18 hours a day (compared to a normal work day that’s 7-8 hours long), I was making maybe $4,000 a month, which is considerably lower than the local minimum wage.
Also, these game markets quickly collapse on themselves, because what you get is a situation in which 99.95% of the participants are producers (who usually employ economies of scale), leaving just a handful of people to buy stuff, of whom only a small percentage actually does. The only other buyers are new players in the process of “leveling up” so that they themselves can reach a point at which they can start making money.
Game RMT markets very quickly turn into pyramid schemes, and the only ones who can benefit are those who live in places where electricity and labor are very cheap, where making a few bucks through a video game can actually feed your family for a day.
1 Like
As you say, the math simply doesn’t work out. The only way I can see this not being a total braindead moment for Hilmar (not that that would be unusual) is if he forgot to include the context “retirement plan for the top 0.01% in the game”.
The key to that being the “pyramid scheme” scenario you mentioned. It could either be, for instance, someone at the top of a 10,000 memer null alliance managing to squeeze $10 a year of income per member out of his nullbloc. Or a variation of the “Alliance Tourney packs” sold such that a single years ‘retirement level’ income could be squeezed out of the player base for, like, the top two players in the tournament or something.
So it would start to sound less pants-on-head crazy and make a bit more sense if we modified Hilmar’s interview to include something like: “Yes, games should be able to provide a retirement income for a few of the most valuable players in the entire game. And everybody else pays their way for them.”
That absolutely seems more like a Hilmar vision, to me.
1 Like
People sell stuff on those websites all the time. Players use those websites. I’d rather they do that activity here so that instead of some third party website making money for in game transactions, CCP does. I imagine realistically it’d be more like a mix of farmers and yard sales. And considering even the prices of isk sometimes fluctuates upward on these websites shows their in game inventory has limits. It’s why they raise prices in the first place. To control demand. However, through competition the prices usually trend downward with the more common items available, but if someone has a vepas’ modified x-large shield booster for sale at w/e price players are willing to pay for it, those kind of items would remain modest in price due to their rarity and when players that otherwise wouldn’t have an incentive to go out into null see that people are willing to pay more than the common items for those, naturally you’d start seeing more action creep into null. The more rare stuff like limited edition ships would be like rare baseball cards. Farmers would keep things steady probably like minerals, t1 stuff, and isk which in turn would provide CCP a steady revenue stream. They don’t even need to hold money technically since those websites only do so until an in-game trade can be proven. With eve CCP could incorporate the system legally and allow transactions instantly like a digital amazon of sorts. CCP isn’t providing the items but rather providing the service to facilitate the player trading in the first place in a legal and TOS compliant way. It has been going on for over a decade and CCP sees no money from it and its existence proves players are willing to player trade and don’t mind if they get nickle and dimed by everybody invovled. The RMT website takes a cut, paypal takes their cut when they transfer it to a bank and the bank sometimes takes a cut for the transfer service. I’d rather see the RMT websites substituted with CCP. I’d even participate in it myself even if they only allowed a currency like bitcoin to be used.
The farmers already sell on those websites. The effects of their labors has been in the game this whole time and they have persisted the whole time. They’d be the ones providing CCP the guaranteed income stream whilst other players would probably simply sell to in game markets to participate in isk trading and/or have yard sales every so often to make money for their Friday night outings.
It’d create value for players and draw players in due to the prospect of being able to make money. It’d incentivize high sec players to leave to null to get those rare modules. It’d also profit gankers who land those fat and juicy kills. It’d also give players with dormant accounts incentive to return and participate in such a system and if you have it where only those with an omega account can trade for real world currencies, they’d give back to ccp to see their desires done. Combine that with the draw such a thing would create and you’d have a steady revenue stream. Some months from it would be better than others naturally as most players are playing eve to play eve. Would also make salt that much more valuable. People have lost over $1,000 from plex in the past and the game didn’t die. Ultimately, you’d get at minimum players keeping a sub up, contributing to CCP, to participate in selling digital assets to other players who would buy it since they clearly exist. Both get together and agree on the transaction and because it took place in eve online, CCP just takes a small cut like those RMT websites already do. It happens in every game including games where you can’t even trade with other players. People’s game play wouldn’t be impacted and it already coexists alongside eve. You’d get more participants than the underground do since most eve players that stick around don’t want to risk their account on the potential of being banned for breaking TOS.
Just limit each subbed account to a single digit number of listings and it’s how you keep it from over taking the in game economy.
That’s because right now, EVE is still a game, and there’s a reasonable balance between RMT producers and RMT consumers. The moment RMT goes legit, that ratio is going to skyrocket as the masses rush through the door to make some weed money from a vidyagame.
It will be just like the hat market in Team Fortress 2 was quickly after trading was implemented; everyone was trying to make some Steam bucks to get video games “for free” and all the prices just kept crashing because people spammed more and more farming accounts.
It absolutely would not.
This is rich coming from someone who made $4k from RMTing. The balance wouldn’t destabilize eve if you only allowed a limit on how many sell orders sellers can have listed. Just make sure they’re omega and have done the account management page stuff. Money gives people incentive to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. It absolutely would give people incentive because I bet in a legit environment that running lvl 4 missions would yield those players less currency than sneaking into null and acquiring modules that would naturally have a better return ratio due to their rarity. Limiting the number of sales a seller can have open would also go a long way in establishing equilibrium.