Bad Pennyy
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Posted - 2011.06.24 22:01:00 -
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This notion that if you "are in it for the long run you have to think in similar terms" is a fallacy when it comes to a revenue model for Eve. Eve is unique in how players advance and how value is perceived by the paying community. And, as Harvard business studies have indicated, it is more expensive to acquire new clients than it is to keep existing customers happy. Perhaps making micro transactions available only as an option to "older" toons would be a better balance between protecting revenue and being too ambitious.
By introducing pay-to-play enhancers, you risk devaluing the investments made by a long term, loyal client base. Specifically address that concern and paying members may become open to the idea. Other game models are based on actions one takes. For example, one gains experience by killing mobs; one is limited only by their play time. In Eve, one gains skills by paying one's subscription. No matter how many rats I kill, I cannot train skills faster beyond what certain, fixed rate. Access to the game is throttled. Thus, access to the upper end of the game is predicated on having paid a certain amount of money to train one's avatar over time. This is not the case for other models that allow one to buy upgrades.
Additionally, other models tend to isolate the impact of one player upon another. Everquest to Everquest II is a great example of how such a change made gameplay much less interesting. Mitigating player interaction to offset the impact of microtransactions and a primary appeal of Eve will be lost.
Also, there is an operational risk extended to monetizing assets. Essentially you have to be prepared to protect virtual assets as you would credit card information. This means legal risk too. If one person makes a reasonable argument to a payment processor that they were defrauded out of their purchase made with real money, CCP has a larger issue their hands then just maximizing a profit model. You now bring an unsophisticated executioner into your thought process. With few exceptions, the banks are not imaginative when it comes to taking risks. The second you are described as an offshore gambling entity, you lose the ability to accept credit cards. Just having to answer (win or lose) such a claim amounts to a loss. Keep in mind, this is a game where people have sued one another in real life for real money without this additional emphasis on the exchange of money for goods. This idea won't scale well with a large group of people (as is clearly evident).
Further, with the financial incentive introduced, security risks increase and your profit is potentially lost by having to re-invest in process such as process-based security engineers and business response units (Customer Service). Many people do not consider that innovation brings operational process that must be addressed. The pressure to address unperceived risk is an incremental series of concessions and it will slowly grind away your financial gains. What happens when a tertiary developer suffers an SQL injection attack that exposes information for which game logic has assigned a real, monetary value too? The innovation curve for Eve will decrease dramatically as you slow to protect microtransactions. Stay nimble.
Lastly, in the U.S., Internet access providers are very close to being able to surcharge for gaming access. The risk is this will throw gaming costs back into a Compuserve surcharge model. Many people will not be able to game online as they can now. Asking them to incur additional expense may be unrealistic in a time when a global economy makes it hard to justify discretionary spending.
A micro-transaction model can look attractive if the scope is manipulated to make it look attractive, but the idea does not seem to be considered in an appropriate context. Find a way to articulate in game logic and customer service skills how your existing cash cows will be treated as sacred cows and I'm sure the U
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