You mean players who pay less than they should.
I mean Kazakhstan players who should move to Russia now so that they do not pay less than they should.
So less than the full price.
Who pays the full price?
Euro pays 131,40€ which is worth $148.15 now but I am paying $131.40 in United States for one year sub.
Should I move to Europe to pay the full price for better supporting CCP and have all the benefits to be a full price player?
Not trolling here (honest!) but I guess some countries you HAVE to you Steam? Not sure why anyone would use it otherwise. Steam sux
Technically you’re freeloading while Euro players have to pick up the slack for that. But we’re not talking US, we’re talking countries where they pay half of the normal sub.
I cant help but feel bad here for the op as what he is saying is true, 230 a month? thats minimum wage a week where i am… i understand cost of living may differ but holy jesus f~~k balls thats a hell of a mark up for those earning that little.
Whilst i do think people should be paying the same theres also a part of me that screams this really does suck ass - and no wonder the gap gets bigger between richer and poorer.
The answer seems clear, we need to tank the USD. I’m open to any suggestions.
You… I really don’t know what to say, but it seems you’re one of the good ones!
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
I don’t know. If they can make 3D flying spaceships, over 8,000 solar systems, and a sophisticated player-driven economy… Seems like they could make an automated subscription prices system, which is based on real-time foreign exchange values. I’d do it, if I where them. Benefits:
-Keep your paying players, even if they don’t play as much (temporarily or permanently)
-Keep your players, so they can expand your product in their countries
-Be an awe-inspiring MMO in which players from literally all around the world live in a single-shard server
-Be the first to do something like this, and enjoy the intangible benefits of being cool to people who can’t control the economic situation where they live.
And go bankrupt.
The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. Or to put that in more modern terms: go woke, go broke.
I don’t claim to have been an economist - but it seems to me that some money coming in is better than no money coming in. CCP getting 7 monies from a customer seems better to me than CCP getting 0 monies, no customer, and no another player in the game interacting (hey, it could happen) with other players.
again: cost per user, needs a profit per user. If some users don’t pay the cost it takes to have them as a customer (data usage, server power, GM assistance etc etc etc) then it doesn’t work.
How about you start a company that produces stuff and then have 30% of your customers only pay half of what you need to have them as a customer. And then have someone say “but you’ll have more customers, isn’t that diverse and great? Kumbaya!”.
No, you’ll go bankrupt.
May I remind you that alphas have been a thing for awhile now. As I’m sure you are aware, alphas pay nothing. Is it your contention CCP is going bankrupt?
No but they are calculated for and they have the chance to become a full paying customer.
Someone who pays half price now because of the disparity, will keep paying half price because that won’t change.
or… how about we start a company in a third world country and only pay them a tenth of what we would pay them in the west? thus saving money!
Honestly though, not sure how or what can be done but you sir are clearly privileged.
Heh, I think Socialism does not mean what you think it does.
So, wait, you’re suggesting that the company has somehow calculated how many ‘alpha accounts’ they have, and through some other calculations they are able to determine how many may become full paying accounts and are therefore able to definitively come up with a price per user that generates them a profit… how many years did they offer a 2 week trial for, versus now allowing alpha accounts… cause I didn’t think the price has changed much since 2003?
That’s some damn good future seeing skills right there!
Would you like to try again?
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
Your logic makes very little sense.
They changed to alpha because a 2 week trial just isn’t enough to get immersed into the game especially not with the changing landscape in regards to MMO’s (less “hardcore” MMO’s, also people are simply less used to sub based MMO’s compared to f2p with cash shop ones), meaning they’d lose more potential players. By changing to alpha model they assumed that long term they’d get more paying customers. Given that the PCU stopped declining and stabilised I’d say they were right.
For that to work they needed the introduction of skins, injectors and the removal of Aurum in favour of more granularity in plex (1 plex being divided into 500) making it much more easy to actually have MICRO transactions (also because plex is just a lot easier to trade with, Aurum was a farce) and suddenly you can make a buck on Alpha accounts as well. Before it would just not have worked, after the changes it does. Who knew, it’s almost as if they planned it that way.
Regardless of what logic you use, customers from countries that pay less because of their economic situation will ALWAYS pay less (be they omega or buying some stuff for their alpha account) or pay zero. Whichever way you look at it (if you’re being honest) that’s a problem.
The problem is accounting. Accounting costs are directly proportional to the currencies involved since each currency requires it’s own bookkeeping. Now this is Steam’s problem since steam just pays dollars to CCP no matter what the user paid; Steam can afford that because they sell millions of dollars worth of videogames in every currency available. But for CCP, just keeping track of five currencies is tough; they earn dollars, euros, pounds and rubles and operate in kronas and have expenses in all the above but rubles maybe, adding dozens of local currency would be too expensive because of extra manpower.
I guess that price change is Steam doing since they can aim for whales paying full for premium games and ignore Eve losses, but CCP should look at it differently since they’re not in a position to lose a few thousand players just because.
They are if those are not pulling their weight in terms of income for CCP.
Don’t be silly. The operation cost of individual players is neglectable, they’re just a bunch of electrons moving up and down on a server that’s paid for a flat rate (power is not billed indvidually, it’s just a part of the total hosting bill), and the corporate cost barely escalates since CCP accounting and administration is dealing with literal millions of accounts at any given time.
CCP’s main expenses (less to more) are on marketing, personnel and R&D, and those are not caused by the amount of players.