The idea is a one time character creation upsell offer. You optionally pick any single ship. You get that ship with a basic T1 fitting, and the bare minimum skills to fly it (in addition to the other standard starting skills). Cost in PLEX is commensurate with the ship, additional skills and SP required to pilot it. If the upsell option is selected, it probably makes sense to also mandatorily charge for a year of Omega and bundle that with the ship.
If people want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars when rolling new characters, good. =)
Pay to win is actually neither here nor there. I want salaries to be paid. If subscriptions, PLEX and packs are working, then there is not a problem. At least in mobile, whales basically keep the games running, but they use a free to play model. For better and for worse, much of the industry seems to be going in that direction.
Additionally, note that the powers that be are not necessarily content to break even, even if the customers are happy with that arrangement. Healthy businesses grow. Ideally, there is some sort of floodgate that can be opened to allow those who are willing to pay to do so. Maybe that is simply monthly $500 PLEX packs for the credit card warriors.
EDIT: This is a pay to catch up mechanism more than a pay to win mechanism. From what I have read, old players are happy to pop new players who inject into things like carriers without knowing how to effectively fly them. An argument could be made to just drop PLEX on injectors because people can already do that. Ideally, there is a way to pull in new big spenders so CCP has the cash to pay for more developer hours.
This is not a mobile game, quit trying to turn it into one.
Second…
Screw your whales!! I am sick of trying to teach ppl how to play that are thick headed, stupid, arrogant, and unwilling to learn or be productive in any type of fleet cause they are wallet warriors.
SO really @Triniti_Crimson shut your mouth and quit trying to promote this crap, jesus christ your starting to sound like a Sabus Naarian alt.
@Lis_Torin
Markets adjust to changing conditions. Even if we agree that they can hypothetically be “ruined”, I do not think there are enough whales out there for markets to be thrown into disarray. If there are, “people are spending too much money” is a good problem from a business to have. Furthermore, if the concern is bypassing the player driven economy, then items could simply be purchased on the open market behind the scenes.
The way I see it, flying a hull with basic T1 modules and no support skills is probably a killmail waiting to happen. The bigger and fancier the hull, the more dubious the proposition. The notion is to have have people pay the market rate in cash to start as an X pilot. To be useful, the pilot still needs to train or inject skills, and the ship needs more than an entry level fitting.
As the first person to respond pointed out, this is a starter pack. Not only that, it is a complicated started pack that would require developer effort to implement. Furthermore, genuinely new players would have no idea what ship to choose. Although it could work for alts or well advised new players, I am leaning towards bad idea at this point.
@Max_Deveron
I sense hostility. Throwing ideas on the table in no way attempts to EVE into anything at all. My understanding is that the developers do not actually do much with the ideas that get thrown around on this forum. My question is, what are the palatable ways for CCP to grow revenues? Is the EVE community just generally adverse to monetization ideas?
If you do not like wallet warriors, then do not fleet up with them. Use them to pad your killboard. Developers get paid, dedicated players get kills, and whales live out their fantasies without putting in real effort. Everyone wins.
I can see if Sabus Narian has said anything that is useful to me. Is there anyone else I should be aware of? EDIT: So far as I can tell, Sabus mainly posts about high sec. Was he posting about monetization at one point?
Pretty much this. There is already a way for any “whale” or “wallet warrior” to do what you are proposing via PLEX purchases and using that to then buy injectors. It already works, plays well with the existing market. I haven’t seen any compelling reason that your option is necessary and does have the downsides already presented.