AlleyKat
Gallente
The Unwanted.
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Posted - 2010.09.15 12:03:00 -
[1]
I always ascribe EVE subscribers to an usually-shaped completely full hour-glass.
Take the amount of subscribers and apply it to this full hour glass. At the top is the amount of new subscribers and at the bottom are the beta guys.
The longevity is apparently 1 year - so those that stay after 1 year are the ones who make it through the tight middle section and the ones who don't, have their accounts go inactive and may return again, but probably will feel whatever made them feel the need to leave again, again, and stay in this zone.
The ones who are at the top are the most important people from a future perspective, as it is and always will be necessary for these guys to go through the middle, or at least make it to the middle section of the hour glass, yielding a return on investment to CCP in terms of 'how much does it cost to get a new player to stay?'
From a gamers perspective, these people at the top are also very important, as without them the economy will probably fall apart should there be a disproportionate quantity of new players willing (or only able due to skills) to purchase tech1 gear.
This is kinda off-topic I know, but it is the way I see the game and if you really think about in these terms, the capital warfare/null sec is not (from a business perspective) of major importance to CCP.
Don't get me wrong, I do strongly believe CCP care very deeply about the game we play and work untold hours to correct issues which affect us, but as to why Adults leave? Probably because they have done all that they wanted to do and have effectively played the game to a point of satisfaction to them.
Lets be honest, once you've seen one system, you've seen them all and accumulation of wealth becomes 'uninteresting' beyond 1 billion for most people, compared to how unbelievably wealthy you felt when you got your first million.
Dust 514 has the potential to be more successful than EVE from a financial perspective and I'm sure it will increase the populace, but that will not stop the hour glass syndrome.
Not everyone makes it through the middle, no matter how much sand is added and in truth I see this mid-section shrinking as time goes forth due to the absolutely humongous amount of skills which are being added all the time. I'm not siding with those who argue that 'skills mean nothing' I'm merely pointing out that a players interaction with the game is directly proportional to the amount of skills they have, minus isk. In other words there is a limit to the amount of EVE online game content available to them based on the amount of skills they have.
If a player is (only) interested in flying the biggest baddest ships in the game, they have to skill for them, and a Titan takes a very very long time to train for. I appreciate they are (kinda) missing the point of the game, and yes they will need the isk to buy, own, operate and maintain one of these ships, but in this hypothetical instance - this is all someone wants to do and it takes a very long time to get access to this content.
If you take the skills issue a step further, what is next? What is the next 'big thing' we will be able to train for? What is the next level for skills (because the older players are running out of toys to play with and are running out of sand to kick in the other children's faces) for the older players? And going on from that, how big is the gap going to be between the available content to new players and the available content to older players in terms of skills and isk.
In the future, I wonder how fast a new player quits when they have a convo with someone in a belt whilst they are ibis-mining, who turns up in a T4 thorax with Jovian MWD and finds out it takes 4 years of skills and 5 Trillion isk to obtain such a ship?
TL/DR:
EVE will fail when the gap between high-content skill-time and average subscriber length grows too high. If this equation is not addressed, as Sir Molle once said 'tick-tock'.
AK
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