Originally by: King4aDay

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This is a bit deceptive. As Hrin said, most of these "high-end players" are actually characters retained through in-house character sales. Low class Goons and various "pubbie" industrial corps (such as our corp, Merch Industrial) are expected to spend the bulk of their time generating wealth and materials to power the war machine, with PVP experience being limited to very basic T1 frigate tackling or cruiser ewar -- cheap, disposable, low-SP requirement (can be done on an alt), mindless; most of them will multi-account to also do the production or resource gathering at the same time.

Low class Goons have an easier way up the ladder; a common path is to gather the ISK to buy the character of a high class Goon who has burned out. Once they've done that, they'll be eligible for mentoring, training sessions, access to strategy discussion forums, etc. Most take this route because by the time you train a high class character up, most Goons get bored and quit without ever getting to the "good fights." So it may look like higher retention or even a high number of returners, but it's mostly due to a boom period in lower class Goons moving up the ladder.

Members of the "pubbie" industrial corps have it much tougher. While many might be able to afford a high class character, or may even have trained one from scratch, the directorate and fleet commanders discourage them from PVPing (beyond tackling frigates / ewar cruisers), in order to keep the industrial machine churning. They're usually required to prove their worth by earning points in the Participation Incentive Program (or PIP points) during industrial break hours. This usually means a certain number of solo PVP kills, or successfully FCing a few frigate gangs of low class goons and pubbies while an experienced Goon monitors to evaluate the FC's performance.

PIPs are also the basis for various programs available to higher class Goons and their various specialized combat groups, determining ship reimbursement priority, faction loot distribution, eligibility for Sky Marshall and FC training, and other perks.

This "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" approach is proving highly successful, in my opinion, and Darius JOHNSON deserves a lot of credit for implementing it.

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