CCP sold Eve for $425 million. Meaning the game has value and generates significant revenue. No, I don’t have any numbers but you can derive potential income from the cost of the sale of Eve. Base, best guess is take annual income of a product (subtracted by overhead) and x 3 or x 5 provides the value. Again, back of napkin numbers.
Point it all this, Eve is not going anywhere, they don’t need to make F2P.
Saw over 25k online this weekend. That’s better then the first years of Eve. The longevity of this game is proven. It can end now and it will have still shown it’s reliance.