Inspiration
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Posted - 2011.06.23 19:37:00 -
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Edited by: Inspiration on 23/06/2011 19:45:55
CCP has made a strategic mistake of EPIC proportions!
For many players PLEX are the ONLY method of paying their subscription they can sustain. They grind missions or mine in EVE and buy PLEX from other players using ISK they earned in-game. This mechanic is a win/win/win scenario for buying, selling players and also for CCP. By hooking in-game virtual items to real life money trough PLEX, they are disrupting this positive balance. It can only make PLEX more expensive as demand for them picks up as new useful items will be released, effectively locking part of the player base out of the game.
Second, the forced changes makes the less powerful machines of these less wealthy people tank (seriously). Making the game less affordable or at the very minimum, make multiple accounts really unfeasible. This too will cost CCP active accounts and thus income from loyal subscribers as well as hurt the sandbox as player content disappears (less targets and human interaction).
Now we get to the situation of the lucky players where the above mechanics do not apply. A LOT of development time financed by existing subscribers is being used to develop features and purchasable items that very few actually desire as it now stands. This implies a lot of misdirected resources that could have also been directed towards solving the known (but largely ignored) issues the player base voiced over the years. To add insult to injury, CCP starts charging for limited(?) content that they indirectly already payed a heavy price for! This practice is mind staggering stupid and morally disgusting. Realize your paycheck comes out of our pockets CCP...the game might be your intellectual property, but we are by no means forced to play with your IP forever, thus listening to your customers instead of some mad game designer is a prudent and just thing to do!
There is "something" to be said for walking in stations and what new features it can spawn into. But you have to consider the trade offs with respect to your customer base needs. Right now many feel betrayed (and rightfully so IMO), and you should take serious notice CCP. And really virtual items for real live money, do you really think that the sum of players that do get into this feature will be enough to recover the true aggregated development (and maintenance/testing) time spend at CCP? If not, and I think that is very likely right now, it means that it is subsidized work, paid for by neglecting other efforts as development resources can be spend only once!
It sets a very BAD precedent too. You are moving to a business model where you do not deliver what your paying customers communicate they want. You create an incentive to actively deliver substandard content that is paid for in full by subscriptions and that also pays for additional content that players might want but have to pay for an additional time just to get it. It is like quality insurance in reverse. It is corrupt from the ground up and a practice most people will hate from the bottom of their hearts.
And on AT9 you talked about wealthy players showing off their wealth...well wealth in EVE means ISK. Which means the items should be NPC items that should be paid for by ISK and not PLEX (RL money). Remember my comments about PLEX, you are disrupting the balance and are cutting off people from EVE...actively and as a new design policy!
Thit is a MAD business model that can only lead to decline of actual revenue. Stop being short sighted for profit and expand on your strengths instead of playing copy cat of failed business models. WAKE UP before it is TOO LATE...for your own sake! You dont have to throw away all the work being done so far, but you need to serieously change the workings of the new shop!
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