Korinne wrote:"The new login functionality that we deployed today is designed to start changing the way users log into the EVE Universe; whilst it is often true that one shouldn't change something if it isn't broken, such a clich+¬ doesn't allow for changing priorities. "
That is some PR censored garbage if I ever read any. Tell me, just what exactly are the priorities for Eve, or do they not tell you that? Even if the launcher worked, all it is is a billboard to advertise to people WHO ALREADY GIVE YOU MONEY, any claims of added functionality is a thinly veiled lie. The only reason you would make a launcher like this is if you're already planning to try to roll out microtransactions yet again and pay to win as per the Dust model.
You say you as a company have changing priorities, and it is apparent that the priority has shifted away from making the best space sandbox imaginable, to making a fuckton of money off of 12 year old newfags, to put it candidly.
Edit: Want more evidence? Look at some of the recent UI changes that didn't need to happen. They changed the names of missles and prop mods for no reason, they've rolled out major skill overhauls several times and are about to again, they're making it easier to make babysitting cap alts, and they keep making pvp more cookiecutter by being EFT warriors, they even tried taking away ship spinning, and when that didn't work they changed the hangar. Now they're making the game itself work more like every other game, and introducing a console shooter (a market dominated by minors and people generally deemed undesirable to the Eve community).
We as Eve players have always prided ourselves on some level for being ahead and above the rest of the gaming community in intellect, competence, and maturity; these changes only detract from that, making Eve easier by giving it the nerf treatment under the guise of 'accessibility to new players'.
All of that would even be fine if for the fact that it didn't detract from Eve's bread and butter, being internet spaceships, which it clearly has. The past few expansions and patches have had little to no new content, and were merely filled with recycled and regurgitated content, thus making it obvious that overhead is being shifted away from Eve development.
Given all of this evidence, the only conclusions one can draw is that CCP no longer cares about Eve as much as they should, if at all (at best), or that they're about to scrap the subscription model and go all out with the selling of pay to win and bunny hats in a free game (at worst, and vastly more profitable in the short term).