Does CCP realize that they're destroying whole industries with this crap they're giving away? Does the thought even manage to pass through their head?
Thanks, CCP, for screwing over your industrial base and the people that invested in blueprints and spent a countless amount of time in producing the stuff that you decided to give away, staring drunk at your computer screens.
The nice things about previous giveaway events is that you gave away stuff that couldn't necessarily be produced. Snowballs that melt, launchers that are only given away once and can not be produced, Genolution implants, stuff like that. But this year you thought it would be a fun idea to flood the market with random stuff and screw over people who
actually spent their time producing it.
What happened to the player-made EVE we knew so well?
EDIT: In other words...
Nyancat Audeles wrote:Pius Rova wrote:Is the "industrial base" that hard up that the junk the Yule Lads have been handing out matters? Don't tell me, you had the Jita market cornered on Expanded Cargohold IIs and prototype cloaks. *strokes his Fedo*
I have no problem with unique gifts. Funny things, that CCP has thought out, either something neat or to give us a laugh, or to laugh at themselves (boots.ini, A Tank Of Honor) - it would be so interesting and fun to see CCP give these sort of things out! It would remind us that, hey, we're a member of this community, and these things would mark that we played EVE during this time. These things are fun!
But I don't think you realize the problem here. You're dismissing the importance of "Expanded Cargohold IIs and Prototype Cloaks". Someone - perhaps many people - spent hours of time investing in those. Mining, building, producing, selling. This is what makes EVE so interesting. Everything of significance is player made. But when CCP floods the market like this - they completely destroy everything those people have worked for if they produced these items. These people, who originally contributed to the market and availability of these items, have now lost a tremendous amount of time and ISK. In essence, what they have worked for has now become absolutely worthless (basic economics). This is what I mean when I say CCP has screwed over the industrial base that produced these items. I don't think I would be wrong at all in saying this.
Legitimacy of a market economy is absolutely essential to maintain proper function of that market economy. CCP, these gifts don't contribute much to the game. Why not give us something meaningful? Something unique - that would make us remember the eventful things in EVE over the past year? Something that reminds us that we are part of a massive community, a unique community, something that reflects over the year?