Thousands promise to end their subscriptions amid microtransaction outrage
Under-fire Icelandic studio CCP Games is being threatened with as much as $1 million in lost subscription revenues, as uproar over the company’s microtransactions policy intensifies.
The Reykjavík studio has been told by a growing number of disgruntled fans they will not continue their subscription of the lucrative MMO Eve Online.
Now a list of customers, who all wish to cancel their accounts, has been published.
At the time of going to press, some 5,257 accounts are due to be cancelled in protest. An annual subscription in Eve Online costs €131, meaning the absconding players would represent a loss near $1 million – though the number is likely to climb further.
CCP Games made more than $46 million in 2008, according to financial statements.
The expected mass-cancellation of Eve Online accounts comes as CCP Games looks to recover from a humiliating backlash regarding its microtransaction plans.
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Leaked documents show that CCP management wish to charge customers for in-game items.
The uproar appears to be centred on four issues:
* Eve Online users already pay high subscription fees.
* It is feared these items will give buyers in-game
advantages – which will force ambitious players to buy, while those that don’t will be handicapped.
* Eve Online has begun selling non-essential in-game items at inordinately high prices (e.g. $40 virtual t-shirts, $70 for virtual monocles).
* The tone of CCP’s management, expressed through leaked documents and some public statements, has exhibited a lack of empathy for the players’ concerns.
Customer outrage resulted in mass in-game protests over the weekend, where Eve’s customers ceased playing the game. Instead, together they circled game world landmarks and demonstrated their anger by attacking them.
CCP Games has still declined to assure game-affecting items will not be sold.
This week the group will hold an extraordinary meeting with the Council of Stellar Management – essentially Eve’s elected customer representatives – to debate the issue.
There's more to the current situation that just that though. At the heart of it is what looks like a bit of a conflict in what EVE really is, and who it belongs to. A set of questions which in any other mmo would have little meaning or significance but which for EVE are quite a big thing.
It's interesting to see that this too is picked up in media beyond all the communities of EVE's customers.
For example on eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-27-eve-online-in-crisis-article) with being right on the mark with "Rightly or wrongly, there is a sentiment within the community that the developer would be foolish to ignore - that CCP is merely the caretaker of a hard-knock school that the players built for themselves. The subscriptions may belong to CCP, but the world belongs to its community."
Also Massively (http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/26/eve-evolved-the-day-that-eve-online-died/) touched on a very similar angle extremely mirrored in customer viewpoints:
"CCP intends Incarna to be as integral a part of EVE as mission-running or fleet warfare and perhaps worries that if players aren't forced to use it, they'll opt out of the new paradigm.
This attitude mirrors that seen during the launch of EVE Gate, the web-based social networking platform for EVE. When EVE Gate launched, all player information and profiles were made public by default. CCP worried that if the system didn't opt players in by default, nobody would use it and it wouldn't be useful as a social networking tool. When the service went live, a surprising number of players logged in just to turn it off and make their details private. We've seen the same thing with the captain's quarters, with a huge section of the forum community opting to make use of the temporary off switch."
There's a lot more to this than meets the eye, yet at the same time there's also eve players who think a little bit beyond the sandbox of CCP and its Customers, for example http://virtuozzo.tumblr.com/post/6937328404/an-emerging-dynamic-where-the-parts-individually (if you have Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=196402223744483 is probably an easier read).
EVE players understand quite well the intrinsic difficulties CCP has in general with commitments, as they put it "this is business". But they also are quite clear that the MT course and the manner in which it was adopted, communicated on and decided contrasts structurally with many strong commercial opportunities for CCP to make money within the subscription model by catering to trends and evolutions among customers and those attracted to EVE. It's what gives a lot of people the impression that CCP as a company is somehow stuck in wanting to do new things, but while they do some research the point of origin is mostly that of "we decide, this is our game, we know better, we don't want to deal with EVE but just change it as everybody else does these things".
One thing there which unsettled a lot of people, was the comment from CCP's CEO during a recent in game media event known as the Alliance Tournament that if CCP does not follow the industry, it will be left behind. Which contrasts with the knowledge, the trust and the conviction that EVE as a product is strong enough to provide a grand creative potential that can be commercialises as long as it is worked on. Instead of changed in manners that conflict with its operational principles or by just adding on short term monetised content.
EVE is real, CCP says, and that is true. All too real.
Thanks Greg that's an incredibly useful post
I am the master behind the pilot Zora'e. The three accounts I cancelled, included BIO-Massing all characters on the accounts prior to unsubbing the accounts.
Account 1 (main): Zora'e (bio-massed)
Account 2 (alt1): Kohana Chayton (bio-massed), Jasmine Ndayia (bio-massed)
Account 3 (alt2): Elisha Matahari (bio-massed), Merideth -cookie- baxtor (bio-massed).
I not only cancelled my accounts, I deleted a 30 million skill point main, a 27 million skill point primary alt, and a 10 million skill point secondary alt.
CCP has violated my trust one too many times. Their integrity as a company is no longer in question as far as I am concerned (they have none) and I refuse to do business with a company I don't have faith in.
bio-massing on the basis of rumour and the leaked internal newsletter is a bit radical. You're going to kick yourself when this blows over and we all start to love one another again... you'll be Zora'e (or, in fact, you won't lol)
p.s. can I haz your stuff?
"p.s. can I haz your stuff?"
bio-massing means gone...for good so are her/his goods.....
I rarely in an event will comment.
The information was a leaked document of a idea and concept think of this like an in office developers brainstorming. Say for example an employee was getting fired then to revenge the company false information is leaked out. Then think like the eveworld sandbox. Your were tricked based on false rumor and inaccurate intel. So eve online pilots just gave up and quit on pure rumor.
See it all the time.
Good luck to you.
