I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve said. In fact, I’ve made similar arguments myself.
However, I would not go so far as to say everything is fine. Of course, this is casual observation, but there seems to be a marked increase in quitting threads, even the people that have been understanding and patient with resource scarcity seem to be getting tired of it, and the newbie plex ad certainly pissed a lot of people off at a particularly bad time. Yes, in-game and RL events are likely playing a big role in people logging off, but I’d bet my bottom iskie that frustration towards CCP is exacerbating their effect.
For example, it does indeed look like player numbers are dipping across the industry. However, they are certainly not cratering everywhere. And Dota2 apparently had an update or event that helped them to actually increase their numbers. It might not be by a huge amount, but considering what’s going on across the gaming industry right now, I’d say that they’re doing something right.
Eve Online
Sunday May 16th - 33,758
Sunday June 20th - 26,045
Percent Decrease - 22.8%
Counter Strike: Global Offensive (SteamCharts)
Sunday May 16th – 913,838
Sunday June 20th – 806,350
Percent Decrease – 11.8%
DOTA2 (SteamCharts)
Sunday May 16th – 593,576
Sunday June 20th – 630,863
Percent INCREASE – 6.3%
PUBG (SteamCharts)
Sunday May 16th – 385,489
Sunday June 20th – 376,704
Percent Decrease – 2.3%
Apex Legends (SteamCharts)
Sunday May 16th - 253,771
Sunday June 20th - 246,283
Percent Decrease – 3.0%
I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and, I’m most certainly not ready to give up on Eve myself. But, I sure hope CCP is paying attention, because I do think that we have a problem. Hopefully, they’ve got something in the pipeline for fall, when players traditionally start coming back.