How can CCP make more money without MT

[Alistair]

No amount of improvement of EVE's core game will lead to any major increases in paying accounts at this stage of EVE's lifespan.

Like it or not, a high-learning curve, intricate, complex, 8 year old established MMO from Iceland isn't top of the U.S. Markets list of great new games to play, especially when the nickname "Spreadsheets Online" isn't far from accurate, and teh community is filled to the brim with :bittervets: bemoaning how abjectly shitty every aspect of EVE is.

And lets be clear, the U.S. market (and China down the road) is what makes or breaks a game big. While I love the EVE is multinational (part of what makes it great/special), for EVE to grow revenue, it would need to grow primarily U.S. revenue, and thats just not happening. EVE is too hard, too complicated and too old for it to ever grow again substantially in the U.S. now.

TLDR: EVE has about as many people willling to play a game like EVE as it's going to get.

CCP has only three real options. Grow revenue by expanding the playerbase of EVE players (see above) by going outside what the core of EVE is (i.e. Avatars and WiS to start, but other types of gameplay as well, Dust (although they're failiong at that being Console/PS3 exclusive), and more genres that may tie into the EVE IP, but appeal to my countrymens's simple-minded shallow twicthy-game tastes. Even that is a short-gain, as U.S. Market moves on from such things as fast as they find them.

If CCP were smart, they'd be all over stealing World of Tanks, and making THAT the ground combat for EVE Online, developed to be tied in directly with EVE as it is (i.e. go from ship to tank, then fight tank battle like WoT Clan Warfare, then back to Ships later). THAT would grow EVE IMO.

That, or grow revenue from the existing playerbase, and continue to develop EVE to make it prettier, better, deeper, etc. Avatars and WiS plays into this too (like it or not), but in truth there are limits here as well. Old established :bittervet: community will accept little int he way of changes they dislike, and MT's fall square into that.

The last option, continue to eliminate needless over-complexity (learning skills for example), continue to make the early game easier and simpler for the sparce few who do try and come on late, and take a long hard look at the mechanics that keep everyone active in EVE, PvP, PvE and Sov stuff, and make them better, not worse.

CCP is in a tough spot. Most established gaming companies in their spot would have all but abandoned EVE by now in development of a next-gen game, and perhaps an EVE Sequel, designed from the ground up. CCP seems to be doing that in part with WoD (and a popular WoD can only be good for EVE and CCP), but instead of EVE II, they're doing the endless upgrade of EVE I, stuck with much of the old and outdated design elements and software of the past.

[Tajidan]

you're doing it wrong

goal is to find ways to make more money without investing any to develop those ways

[Malcanis]

Oh well that's p. simple. Increase the base subscription from $15 to $16/mo (and increase the price of the other options proportionately). If you lose less than 7% of your accounts then you win.

Assuming an annual inflation rate of 3% (fairly conservative), EVE is over 20% cheaper now than when it launched. If your marketing guys can't sell a 7% price hike to the customer base on that basis, then chop them all up for fishing bait and open a side business selling bait, both saving and making money that way.

[Cerbus]

[kzig]

Perhaps more people would buy PLEX if it was available from CCP in smaller increments, e.g. 1 day?

[Cerbus]

for some reason i think my mother wouldn't approve of how i spend my time at 5:48 in the morning.

[Tsubutai]

Oh well that's p. simple. Increase the base subscription from $15 to $16/mo (and increase the price of the other options proportionately). If you lose less than 7% of your accounts then you win.

Pretty much this; I'd be far less pissed (read: not at all pissed) about a hike in the subscription fee than I am at the prospect of CCP eventually going full retard and introducing iwin buttons for real money.

Ho-hum.

[Bartholomeus Crane]

I've got an idea for ccp to make more money. They should start a new mmo from scratch.

It'll generate alot of subs right off the bat as people will have to try it, they won't have to deal with old shambled code from 2002 that needs to be rewritten, reviews of a new mmo are practically free advertising compared to word of mouth from the current player base who consists of bitter players who assume everything your developers will do sucks.

Plus you can fund this new mmo by bleeding the current one dry. See the success of much bigger companies (ea, funcom etc). Obviously by being bigger they must be doing something right. These companies produce a game with the funds from the last one, keep a tight budget that ensures early release (lol feeding programmers) and turning a profit on release. (someone has to buy the game to review it, if you spend as little as possible on developing it you can maximize the profit from those who will buy your product regardless of how shitty it is)

Starting from scratch ccp can fix the issues that make eve unpopular. The major mistakes in eve is the lack of conformity, the unfarmiliar UI that looks nothing like WOW is alienating to potential new players, developing UI beyond a skillbar, chat interface and healthbars is dumb. It confuses the lowest common denominator in order to sell to a very small market share. Plus it costs more money to develop and debug more complicated interfaces.

No one wants loss upon death so just remove it. The only other games with hardcore loss are tiny and shitty. Why copy them? The sci-fi genre is also dead, look how many sucessfull sci-fi mmo's are out there. Switch to something popular these days. What's on TV? Vampires. You can even make a game on vampires take place in a fantasy setting to ensure the potential players are entirely at home in their new world. Who the hell wants to play a game about spaceships anyway? You can't sell hats or dresses to spaceships. Maybe paintjobs but you can't split a paintjob into 90 different customizable items that must be purchased separately.

If CCP does decide to do this they should abuse their current mmo by using it as a testing ground. Who cares if the old game is buggy it'll actually increase the chances that players convert to the new mmo. You can quickly figure out how many players stick around and log in regularly for farmville type click fests so you can push for optimal addiction levels. You can also find what vanity items your fanbase will buy more of so you can accurately price things players will want more.

I see what you did there!

[Cerbus]