hi
there has been talk that CCP is accepting damage to the game in order to meet financial targets of the merger agreement that trigger bonus payments. Those bonus payments are mentioned in the press reports about the merger. If these allegations cannot be immediately dismissed, I’d like the CSM to ask CCP about details on the upcoming summit.
If you were a shareholder in CCP I’d say you have every right to ask a question like that, but as you’re just a customer I’d regard it as none of your damn business…
Stakeholders have every right to ask questions. It’s the right to get an answer you are talking about.
[Citation needed]
I’ve never heard this before. Really just sounds like bad players not understanding what’s going on so they’re coming up with fake things to try and explain it to their friends.
Here are two recent examples from the forums:
I’ve also heard it from alliance mates. The bonuses are not a fake and the entire idea is at least plausible. As it is also falsifiable (for example the cutoff date might already be over), I think it’s sensible to ask CCP about it.
You are never going to hear any details of the agreement, unless you work at high enough position at CCP or at Pearl Abyss.
Cool, so it’s actually like I said:
If you had anything worthwhile and reputable, maybe it’d be worth paying attention to. Some kind of interview from CCP or article written about it. All of your sources are about as trustworthy as a crap filled paperbag on fire.
Does it matter? I mean can’t you assess the idea on it’s own terms? I’m not convinced it’s true but it seems to explain much of the weirdness that has been going on. It costs nothing to ask CCP for clarification.
That was Sep 18 and CCP was not inclined to answer the questions then. Maybe they are now.
That’s why I asked CSM to ask - they may be high enough and are bound by a NDA. Also the reason for secrecy might be gone by now or overridden by other factors.
Customers aren’t ‘stakeholders’, they’re just punters.
Here is an additional citation:
“I think we are witnessing a scramble to the revenue target. I have not seen a genuine conversation that leads me to believe there is any real intent here”
They aren’t, the information would still be NDA:d. Again: Unless you either work for CCP or PA or own enough stock in either to have enough power to ask for it, you won’t hear details. That is how business works.
Also that article has no actual proof of anything. Just speculation.
I was asked to prove there is speculation and articles written about it.
There’s always going to be speculation about something like this. That is normal. That is all your are going to get though.
Maybe try posting something that isn’t just, “Look, some guy on the internet has expressed an opinion!”
You’ve somehow managed to come up with “citations” that make flat earthers and 9/11 truthers look rigorous in their studies.
What I posted was: “Look, a significant number of people have this opinion. Maybe we should look into this”. I provided four examples.
You want me to go into details on how the “era of chaos” may boost short term income for CCP while damaging long term income? OK. That may shed a light on our apparent diametral unterstanding of EVE. People tend to have differing world views due to differing playstyles but I can’t stretch my imagination so far to see “meet the revenue target” as an overly complicated explanation of recent events in terms of occams razor. Why do I even have to spell it out for you?
Long term income: Lot’s of people in null sec are pissed off by deprecation of casual gameplay (blackout/cynos), permanent crisis mode (chaos), sudden lack of mid and long term planning ability (chaos again) and brutal changes to mechanics that could have been introduced with more thought and care. They are slowly leaving. This is counterbalanced by resubscribing hunters and newcomers attracted by the fuss. Of the newcomers, only a small fraction will stay. It has always been this way and CCP has not been nearly radical enough to change this (which is probably a good thing). The predator/prey dynamics are well known and the forums suggest that even the predators are currently not in the best mood. This suggests a very bad outlook on long term income. Of course this is a matter of debate and viewpoint but you cannot simply dismiss this as being on the level of 9/11 truther - flat earth talk.
Short term income: We can safely assume that management wants to meet revenue targets for the bonus so everything they do should be inspected closely. Unfortunately this is about how they think the game works and not how it really behaves. Let me give it a try: Assuming that the cutoff date for revenue targets is near and that most people have opted for long term plans, cancelled subscriptions should mostly hit revenue after the cutoff date. Now we have lot’s of hunters and some extra newbies making new subscriptions due to the blackout. As earning money in nullsec has become much more difficult but nullsec entities are reluctant to change, some nullsec players will buy PLEX with RL money (price has fallen drastically - does anybody know whether demand or supply changed?). The cyno change necessitates retraining and creating a ton of cyno alts and I heard the time frame for this is tight. This may again boost PLEX sales by CCP.
I can link you to over a dozen assholes with opinions about the earth being flat.
You’d have to be a ■■■■■■■ bobble head to think that means something is “worth looking into”.
So a bunch of really bad players who don’t know what they’re talking about are spreading rumors started by another bad player who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Just because there’s a lot of idiots does not mean those idiots are worth listening to.
If they are your paying customers, you should probably listen to them. Part of my motivation for asking here was that maybe the whole story can be easily falsified.
We live in an era where misinformation is the biggest plague in history. Attempting cause more of it and claiming to be doing it to try and help is just as bad as intetionally trying to get others to believe it.