7hm said:
Isn't EVE a pretty consistent source of revenue?
I thought they were doing well.
They're doing well for a medium-sized company by Icelandic terms. They're heavy in debt, but if they can maintain the source of revenue then they'll pay off those debts in time. Time is the key factor here.
The problem is that they're working and acting globally, with 4 offices scattered around the world, working on multiple projects. What's worse, it's a 600-man company run on the mentality of a bunch of coders working in a basement, focused on nothing else than the continued growth of the company. Everything else is secondary. Their corporate infrastructure is shit, and they have no plans to re-structure the company internally to fix this.
Destroid said:
Of course they won't take action. Players don't want to do all the boring jobs that keep the Eve economy running (mining, hauling etc) because they are boring. More bot accounts also means more subs and more $$$.
Read the EULA:
7.CONDUCT
A. Specifically Restricted Conduct
Your continued access to the System and license to play the Game is subject to proper conduct. Without limiting CCP's rights to control the Game environment, and the conduct of the players within that environment, CCP prohibits the following practices that CCP has determined detract from the overall user experience of the users playing the Game:
[snip]
3.You may not use macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play.[snip]
B. Selling Items and Objects
You may not transfer, sell or auction, or buy or accept any offer to transfer, sell or auction (or offer to do any of the foregoing), any content appearing within the Game environment, including without limitation characters, character attributes, items, currency, and objects, other than via a permitted Character Transfer as described in section 3 above. You may not encourage or induce any other person to participate in such a prohibited transaction. The buying, selling or auctioning (or any attempt at doing so) of characters, character attributes, items, currency, or objects, whether through online auctions (such as ebay), newsgroups, postings on message boards or any other means is prohibited by the EULA and a violation of CCP's proprietary rights in the Game.
The second paragraph is included because many of the bots are used to generate ISK to sell to players illegally. But because CCP are incompetent, they can't tell the difference between a bot that's "just helping its owner generate extra income", and a bot that's fueling real money traders.
One third of the playerbase is violating the EULA, yet CCP does nothing about it. Think about the message that sends. It sends the message that the EULA is
meaningless. It also sends the message that players that are playing the game themselves are Doing It Wrong. Why should they continue playing, or paying?
zeitgeist said:
Any info on how this data was gathered? Not really questioning the validity of it, since it sadly does sound pretty plausible, just interested in the methods.
The original article that got the current ball rolling is
this one.
The website that hosted the other article that stated the 33% number has removed said article, for some reason.
But if you look around EvE-related fansites and forums, you'll see the discussion on this, and everyone agrees that bots are running rampant in EvE.
J_C said:
Yeah, just kill one of the last unique MMO on the market. Well done.
Not a chance, EVE has relatively small, but dedicated fanbase for a long time ago. Has a steady subscription number, and an EVE wannabe game won't kill it.
Remember, just because it's unique doesn't mean it's special. It isn't always a good thing. For every good thing EvE does, it does about 2 things wrong. Otherwise the bots wouldn't be running rampant.
There's a number regarding to EvE you need to be aware of. It's called Player Retention Rate. It's how long a person will, on average, play EvE Online before quitting. The average playtime was 7 months the last time I checked, it's propably changed by then. The point is, that players don't last very long in EvE and alot of its numbers are new players who keep quitting the game.
So where do the new players come from? There's a "core" of players that have been playing for years, the veterans. They are the true source of new players for EvE, because they are the ones that get friends, family, people at work interested in the game, to go and try out the game. Word of mouth is still the best marketing campaign out there. But lately even the veterans have been quitting the game in droves, their patience with EvE is either wearing very thin or has worn out completely. There's even a forum housed almost exclusively by "bittervets" of EvE, who have quit playing the game for various reasons, but like to keep in touch with it... most of them only waitingfor the inevitable trainwreck that is approaching on the horizon.
Maybe you want me to mention subscription numbers?
There was an influx of new subscribers when the last expansion (Tyrannis) was released in May, but by September the subscription rate had actually droppped back to what it was before Tyrannis was released. Growth is now only minimal. Note that these numbers do not reflect the "impact" of the latest expansion, Incursion.
The game has grown stagnant, both in growth and content. Even with the much-touted "Walking in stations" expansion finally being released this summer, it's being done at such a snail's pace that it's hard-pressed to be the smash-hit success that it needs to be.
's out of 10.
