I heard that years ago CCP had a Professor of Economics as part of their team so that when they made changes to game mechanics like scarcity and cost factors, that professor would explain to them how it will effect the market. I understand that hasn’t happened in years at CCP. As a person with a Masters in Business it’s obvious if CCP wanted more people flying ships and having them blow up the result of creating inflation creates an opposite effect. If the cost of getting a new car is so extreme in real life, people (and players are real people) will try and protect their investments and not incur higher risks. So if CCP would at least consult like they did in the past with somebody with business knowledge they would be better able to achieve their goals.
A lot of this game can be mapped out to stuff we see everyday in Commodity markets and manufactured costs of goods sold. So my limited experience in Eve is that CCP tends to make changes without a solid economic understanding of what the real outcomes humans do when external pressures occur. Maybe the CSM can try to convince CCP to hire on a consulting basis at least (if CCP will not put one on salary again) someone who understands better these changes have far reaching impacts. I don’t believe if it’s necessary to consult on every change to a the game’s ship buffs and traits, but far reaching items like trade routes, manufactured goods (ships, weapons, etc.), and commodities they really should speak with experts on what human beings typically will do.
I heard CCP Hilmar say a while back that he wanted to make losses more meaningful. Moreover, I’ve heard CCP assert (in dev blogs, iirc) that scarcity will drive conflict. Plus, CCP wanted to address unsustainable economic activity and capital proliferation. Thus, the cost of living hasn’t gone up for players because CCP doesn’t understand how economics works. They did it on purpose.
Now, that being said, I, and many others, do take issue with the idea that scarcity drives conflict. The idea might have merit at the organizational level, but it breaks down at the personal level. While I only have anecdotal evidence so far, it is my belief that poor incomes and expensive ships will just make many players become extremely risk adverse, and make others just stop logging in altogether.
So, I do think that there is a problem here. Unfortunately, CCP seems rather committed to this path. Thus, I’d wager that they’ll stick to it until the metrics unambiguously indicate that they should stop. Of course, some will point to the recent cratering of player numbers as proof that CCP is on the wrong path, but there are plenty of possible confounding variables (such as it being summer and many covid restrictions are being eased for the first time in over a year).
Sigh. I don’t think that things are in a healthy state when caps are widely considered to be disposable, but I also don’t think that things should be so expensive that no one wants to undock anything more expensive than a modestly fit T2 cruiser. Methinks there might be a middle ground here.
I don’t think COVID or summer is to blame nearly as much as the war slowing down, or CCP just making EVE too big of a time suck for too little in results.
When you make industry involve more steps, that uses up time.
When you reduce incomes, that means a purchase requires more time invested to make.
When you raise prices, purchases take more time to make.
When you require people to bring in large volumes, it takes time.
Time is limited. When players no longer feel like they’re getting rewarded for their time…
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