The way I see it

So, sub prices have recently risen. Boo freakin’ hoo. Cry me a river. If the price of subs had risen annually since 2003 to match the annual rate of inflation, as literally every other service you’ve ever paid for has found it necessary to do in order to stay in business, I doubt you’d be complaining and you’d still be paying at least as much as we’re paying now if not more.

Just think about all the money CCP has saved you over the last 19 years by not increasing sub prices until now! Yet when a business - who’s bottom line is (surprise, surprise) revenue - decides that it’s time to increase their sub prices for the first time in nearly two decades, all you whiners can do is burn Jita, unsub your accounts and throw temper tantrums like the overgrown infants you are, hoping that by removing yourself from the community you claim to love so much, you’ll show those big bad CCP devs who’s boss, even though they have a well established track record of saying ‘if you don’t like it then leave.’

One thing i’ve observed in my 10 years in Eve, is that so many players follow a predictable pattern. So many bright stars have come and gone in my time and the brighter they burn the more magnificently they seem to fall. All claim to have won Eve by biomassing their toons, often departing with the phrase ‘See you in Star Citizen o/’ (How’s that going for you lol) while saying their departure is due to alienation by the devs. Yes, it seems that distain for this community is the real end-game content for naïve players who lose touch with the fact that CCP is, at it’s core, a business who doesn’t care about what you think, never has and never will. Some of us made peace with that early in our Eve career and it’s part of the culture that has kept us here; we have chosen to adapt to it rather than delude ourselves and throw a hissy fit when we see it in action.

I can empathize with those who feel like the design decisions made by CCP in recent years don’t justify the increase in sub price, and as someone who has both lost friends yet continued to play through every major downturn since the summer of rage, I’ll repeat the same thing i’ve been saying since then: Major fluctuations in subs have been happening for far longer than i’ve been present in this community, and hopefully, will continue to happen for years to come, regardless of whether or not you choose to be a part of that community. These fluctuations are a natural part of a giant we cannot fully comprehend, partly because we are never given all the info by CCP.

I can also sympathize with those players who end up paying significantly more than $20 US for their sub after their countries exchange rates are taken into account, but those players do not represent the majority of Eve players and the fact remains - current prices are not exorbitantly high for the content we are given. What other form of entertainment can you spend 720 hours a month doing for a meagre $20? Take your spouse out to dinner? You’re likely paying $50 minimum and it’s over in an hour. Round of golf? Go to the movies? You get the idea.

For the vast majority of us, working an extra hour or two or even just drinking a few less coffees each month is more than enough to offset the increase in subscription fees. If you no longer enjoy Eve enough to make that kind of sacrifice, if Eve does not represent an important enough social outlet for you to bother making that effort, then perhaps you have officially joined the ranks of the bittervets spewing toxic sentiments, have fallen into the pattern that has caused so many others leave the game, and this community is truly better off without you. Eve has always been a niche game with a relatively small community of hardcore players, and that is as evident now and in recent months as it has ever been.

Ultimately, people who unsub on ‘principal’ are scrubs on the same level as those who complain about ganking or ‘involuntary’ pvp and shouldn’t be playing Eve in the first place. Unsubbing your accounts, you say? Good riddance, I say.

For those of us who truly love this game and what it represents, we view the lower player count and increasingly empty space as an opportunity: An opportunity to take more of it for ourselves, to krab more securely, to make more ISK and to make a bigger individual impact in a community that we aren’t planning to leave until the server hamsters collapse from exhaustion and breathe their final, tortured breaths.

CCP, i’m not a fan of everything (or indeed, many things) that you’ve done to Eve over the last few years, and your siphoning of Eve funds into other failed projects makes my heart hurt. Having said that, Eve remains a significant part of my life due to the friendships i’ve made and continue to make. Personally, this game represents so much more than the extra hour of RL work required to continue paying for my 4 subs after the price increase, and despite your questionable leadership in recent years i’m currently having more fun in Eve than I ever have.

This community is and always has been what you make of it. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the negativity spewing from the bittervets and subreddit these days but it is also entirely possible to ignore that and find meaningful friendships and engaging content in this game. I can’t speak for everyone but in my circle, there is no discussion of the dastardly deeds of CCP, just a bunch of friends enjoying the game on a nightly basis. Perhaps if you don’t find yourself in a similar situation, it’s time for you to look for a new social circle or corporation that can help you find fulfilment once again.

Reality check, CCP doesn’t care about losing your 4-6 subbed accounts and you aren’t proving anything by unsubbing when someone else is finding reasons to re-sub their own accounts for the same reasons that you are leaving and is buying plex on top of it all. It is the whales that keep Eve going and CCP only needs a relative handful of them in order to meet their bottom line. Unsubbing only hurts you.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk o7

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Sorry, TL:DR and nothing new here anyway.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s literally thousands of games out there cheaper than EVE that didn’t see any need to raise their prices.

Reality check: I can afford, and do afford, multiple subscriptions. EVE just isn’t one of them, anymore.

For most players it’s not even a question of affordability. EVE is simply becoming a game that isn’t worth $15 a month, much less $20. It’s not worth signing for longer subscriptions to get a discount, because more and more people realize they won’t be playing for those longer periods anyway.

People say vote with your feet, vote with your pocketbook, if you don’t like EVE then leave.

And then when people do that, they’re all like “OMG you cheap bastards why you quitting? Just pay the sub!”

“The door’s that way” is an attitude a game can afford when they have millions of players. When your player base is barely a fraction of that, and dropping rapidly, it’s stupid to keep singing that song.

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@Luther_Fairfax That’s a long O.P. to simply say if you don’t like it there’s the door.
Looks to me that you care more about players leaving than you let on.

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Good luck to keeping good players anymore. Seems there a dying breed.

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Is that right? You’ll have to explain the logic behind that bold statement to me cause I don’t see how I’m being hurt by keeping an extra $20 a month in my pocket.

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Why do people say they didn’t read something and go on to prove that they did read it? All in the same post.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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Literally none that offer the complexity of Eve or that have been around since 2003; basically every other MMO that has been around for nearly as long has experimented with price increases if they don’t already charge flat fees for their expansions, something Eve has never done.

There is undeniably more content in Eve in 2022 than there was in 2003, the price has basically remained the same accounting for inflation. If you no longer find it worthwhile because you’ve been doing the same thing for 19 years or don’t have friends to log on and enjoy the game with, that seems like a you problem.

Not really, just feel like active players are being under-represented.

Simple, $20 is a small price to pay for the endless hours of fun you could be having in game :smiley:

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Dunno. Why do people assume stupid things that aren’t true just so they’ll have something to complain about? You may be unable to scroll past a wall of text and pick up the sense of it by skimming 6 words out of every paragraph, but I assure you I’m under no such limitations.

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So many of you forum trolls are the same - posting negatively about the state of the game on characters with zero in-game experience or killboard activity then claiming you’re ‘just a forum alt’…It’s okay I understand, Eve is hard :wink:

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EVE used to be hard.

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It’s still hard.

What it’s lost is the cold, dark, and harsh that got me into the game way back when.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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Face it. It’s not hard to play anymore.

Crap, I have to agree with you for once.

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The Way I See It…

I think CCP could have made more money by cutting the sub price to $10 bucks a month than raising it to $20 bucks a month and freaking everyone out.

This would have made CCP look like a hero…and possibly attract new players. That CCP so desperately needs. They already have my money.
I’m down to one account now.

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Attracting new players is not the problem. Keeping them is.

Lowering the sub price will not fix that.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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What would you rather have?
50k players paying 10 for 500k a month
or
10k players paying 20 for 200k a month

I guess I’ll see myself out now.

I only want elite customers, I don’t want any rabble.

You can still have that, just go set up an Athanor with a moon drill and hang out for a few days.

Shut up, give me all your stuff, and biomass.

Fishing for GEO, MB, and that new temp likes?

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

Just convince at least a few people to pay it and they come out with a profit. Like how some people are convinced apple products worth their overpriced tag for just the brand name even if they underperform compared even to cheaper alternatives.

Convince billionaires to play EVE and that it is a status symbol to play it for the $1M USD and you’re good to go. Maybe implement a daily updated public leaderboard too. Imagine Elon Musk, Bill Gates and such competing in EVE too. :wink: To them the sub price would be pennies anyway.