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[POLL] How many people are actually leaving?
TheLizardbones
Member CommonPosts: 10,910
in EVE Online
I know it's an impossible question to answer, but I'm waiting for my Android SDK to update so I'm cruising the forums while I wait. What kind of impact do you think the latest series of events with CCP is actually having on the Eve subscriber base? A tempest in a teacup? A monsoon on a smallish lake?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
I'd say enough people have quit to make the future sales of their item shop goods unprofitable for them.
According to other MMO sites, EVE is dying with ex-players moving to games like Perpetuum and CCP have released a mea culpa statement for things like their cash shops $70 monocle's. So... many players, by the looks of it.
Only time will tell.
If CCP reverses their recent decisions and either gets rid of NEX or drastically lowers the prices (i.e. the $70 monocle goes down to $1.50) then we know that a lot of players left the game, enough left that the cash shop would no longer be at all profitable.
If CCP states flat out that they promise they won't ever put items in the shop that would give anyone an in-game advantage and that the cash shop is here to stay, the monocle won't be going down in price, and there will still be high priced vanity items, then we know that quite a few people left, but not nearly enough to make the cash shop unprofitable.
If CCP sticks to vague statements that there might not be items that affect gameplay, the cash shop won't see a single change and everyone can eat a bag of dicks, then we know that very few people actually cancelled their accounts.
I guess we'll see later on thois week after CCP meets with the CSM.
If I was CCP, I would never have tried the microtransaction route with EVE. I think it was a mistake for rthem to go down that road in the first place. What I would have done was leave the RMTs for World of Darkness and DUST.
Nowadays, any development studio that charges a monthly fee for their game and has a cash shop is just plain greedy. The number of P2P games going F2P shows the changing reality that players don't want to be nickel and dimed on both ends. CCP doesn't seem to realize this, but rthen again, from everything I've seen over the past week or so CCP is becoming dangerously out of touch with the MMO business model reality and with what their players want.
Last I saw it was over 3000 cancelled accounts.
The sad truth is that each monocle is worth 4.75 times the price of a single monrth's subscription. This is coupled with the fact that every vanity item in the shop is worth more than a single month's subscription. If CCP keeps adding to the cash shop and if people keep buying from the cash shop in large enough numbers then they won't really care how many people quit.
They sold 52 monocles in 40 hours, if they keep up that pace, they will sell 936 monocles in a month (if EVE has a player base of 350,000 subscribers, this seems like a plausible number.) At $70 a pop, they will earn $65,520 per month selling monocles alone. If 3000 people cancelled their accounts, then CCP will only lose $45,000 per month in sybscription dollars.
In the end, CCP might decide that it's worth it to sell overpriced vanity crap in the store and the relatively few people who cancelled their accounts can go screw themselves.
Since it hasn't been linked yet
Thread counting leavers
4482 (and rising) In that thread have declared they are leaving.
I honestly don't expect to see the real affect of how many people left for a long time. My accounts don't run out till next year and judging number of players online when there are protests by the leavers in Jita, Amarr etc. isn't gonna work.
I also know that a lot of things aren't counted in that number, some ppl are probably bullshitting about the number of accounts they have, some are gonna come back in a couple months. There's also a lot that aren't counted there: those who just left silently or posted in a different thread, those who can't speak english/don't read the forums and those who are gonna leave in a couple of months rather than right now. It's not a good measure on how many are leaving (could be way low or way high) but it's all we got really aside from waiting to find out.
Into the breach meatbags
5 accounts here. It wasn't Incarna though. Its the game in general. It isn't performing its job. It isn't fun It's hard to justify $75 a month for something you don't enjoy doing.
I hope not enough players will leave to affect WoDs development, no matter what. Thats all I want.
"To be a rock and not to roll..."
I think it's safe to assume that if CCP keeps this up they'll be releasing a new useless shiny virtual bauble every week or month or so. If enough people are willing to pay $70 for a monocle, then it wouldn't surprise me if we saw gold-plated Scorpions for $120 in a little while. So while the monocles themselves won't keep up the same sales figures, they'll always be in the cash shop waiting for someone to scoop them up and they'll always be joined by newer expensive crap.
Another problem is that if they lose say 5% of the games population (to be generous,) that's still a drop in the bucket compared to the overall game population.
The best way to fight this is to keep up the fight. Keep expressing your displeasure here, there, everywhere. Make this a marketing nightmare for CCP, keep cancelling those accounts. It makes me sad to see people with four accounts cancelling two or three of them and that's it. People aren't showing much willingness to fight by keeping accounts active, and finally boycotting the cash shop. If the cash shop fails spectacularly in earning money, it won't be worth it for CCP to support it.
Sadly, if they even get 1% of the population of EVE buying regularly from the cash shop, it'll be well worth it for CCP to lose 5% of the game's population over it. CCP will just begin to rely on the "Star Trek Online" business model: bilk the hardcore fans by selling them stuff that is basically useless, worthless and takes no resources or energy to make (from a development standpoint.) Appeal to the morons who have lots of money and little sense and keep making overpriced shinies for them to shell out cash for constantly.
i only log in to put a skill in the training queue. i dunno why i still do it. subscription ends in a couple of months for reasons not exactly related to what is happening now.
the game just doesn't feel the same for me anymore... something just didn't feel right.
Closed 3 accounts, main from 2005.
Been a while coming really, but this just tipped it all over the edge.
If you look at the numbers they have had a slow decline in numbers of loged in users since the start of 2011. I am fairly sure that slow bleed is way worse than anything you see now.
I just resubbed on 1 account though. Two others once I get my income rolling again.
Not making light of a bad situation, well not much anyway, but I wonder if the players who aren't against the cash shop items will stage a protest and buy more than one item to show solidarity. Could make things a wee bit silly if so.
Too much of a good thing?
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Why would people have a problem with novelty items such as those monocles? I just don't get it.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Someone dumb enough to pay $120 for a gold scorpion isn't going to be smart enough to realize that he'll be KOS for a lot of people.
If I take that provided numbers are true, it is 2.25 accounts per user. Interesting...
To have those numbers broke down even further:
Accounts - Users
43 - 1
31 - 1
27 - 1
20 - 1
17 - 1
16 - 1
12 - 2
11 - 1
9 - 7
8 - 5
7 - 12
6 - 20
5 - 50
4 - 142
3 - 371
2 - 688
1 - 681
Even more interesting...?
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/26/eve-evolved-the-day-that-eve-online-died/#continued
I can see why people would leave EVE for Perpetuum. I mean, just look at the stunning animation quality and the crisp Runescape-like graphics.
But yeah, the monocle is way too OP, just look at the stats it gives. Stop throwing a tantrum about vanity items.
Eleanor Rigby.
Have read it and really doesn't answer the question for me. I would not care if the monocle would cost $1k.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
To be honest your looking at about three to four thousand pilots that have left or are treating to leave. Maybe 2% of the entire population and I don't think they're going to affect the game at all.
Also to be honest, I think a certain majority have overreacted to this situation. It was an internal memo throwing ideas around, it goes on everyday in almost every large company across this world. Because, I can't believe they would have implemented this idea without approaching the members or at the very least the CSM.
It might be common for specific group(s), does not speak for whole game population though.
Anyway, the people quitting are just insignificant minority, in numbers and represented revenue.
So this is my understanding of the situation, a lot of MMOG could probably get away with lesser impact in a cash shop implement like this, but as far as I know, the number crunchers of MMO players are all gathered at EvE Online, and to release a cash shop like that in a playerbase like this, the spreadsheet mmo, truly outdone itself.
What were they trying to achieve with this?
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
There will be a dip at first, but eventually people will realize the sky hasn't fallen and many of those leaving won't be able to resist coming back, because even with all the new and up coming titles out there, none of them will deliver the same experience as EVE does.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Nah, just a delusion of self-importance.
Just because you are a 'vet' does not make you more important to the game than a week old carebear in high sec.
People leave and come all the time - especially when the game hit some more or less major changes, even those POS fuelers. And honestly, I think most will be happy if there will be less titans around
EVE won't stop spinning, it will change, if even anything, like it did so many times before.
I believe a complete breakdown of trust has occurred. Players have built up their collection of ships, stations, planetary resources, corps membership and only to be... nickel and dimed. Lulled in, and then *bam* $70 monocle *BAM* $50 shirt *WHACK* etc give us your money, give us all of your money.
The trust has withered, once that's gone so will the subs, which is clearly happening. A small percentage yes, but how many accounts are onliine at one time ~50k players? Take about 5K off that leading upto maybe a predicted 10k accounts leaving in the next few weeks that trims the server down to a more lonelier ~40k playerbase on at any time. Some people here might not have a problem with the vanity items, and that's great for them, really great. But players who have suffered this breakdown of trust clearly do have a problem with CCP and are leaving due to their trust being abused and any enjoyment of EVE used to lure them into a continuous nickel and dime effect of the vanity items in the store and Noble exchange. And the leaked memo's about putting game effecting weapons and ships into the store must be the final poisonous icing on the rotten cake. Trust has to exist on both sides to function genuinely, It appears to have died on the side of the leaving players and will be very hard for CCP to rebuild.
Skyrocketing ship prices in EVE were enough to make me leave after 3 years. Everything so expensive and I didn't have the time for a in game day job EVE requires.
This fiasco just solidifies the fact I am not returning.