I guess you all followed the very emotional discussion and protest the eve community is showing towards CCP. ATM I try to not dig too much into the discussion cause should spend more attention to my new young family member rather then the current emo driven discussion. But I would like to point out my point of view that I already described in the Fanfest roundtable.
$99 Developer License
Yes please, BUT with a couple restrictions and changes: The commercial license should be dedicated to those who’re really interested in making money from the players directly. If developers like to create an application (for example on the mobile market) or provide a service (Webapplication) where the players have to pay for with their own money, then the $99 developer license is the right way to go.
If developer decides to provide an application, service, website, whatsoever for free (real money) to the players then there should no developer fee at all. Voluntary donations (as long as they’re not needed to enable a premium access level) or advertisement is revenue (in the definition of the bizdevs) but nothing where players are directly forced to pay to use that service. Therefore the license should not be applicable. (P.S. even links to GTC shops are giving your revenue/ad money)
I also have no problems with services that are offered for ingame concurrency, cause that’s money which CCP already owns (through playtime used or exchanged plexes on the market). I don’t see a difference when somebody is putting out an informational website with ads on or a player providing a page for his ingame 3rd party service or the pirate and war contracts.
CCP Devs said on the Fanfest roundtable that they don’t want to enforce the license rules that hard and sue developers, whatsoever. I’m not sure who they wanna do this when nearly everybody must to pay a license.
Simple license definition: Does the player has to pay real cash for an app or service then “yes” otherwise “no”.
Micro transactions (MTX):
I don’t really plan to buy ingame goods with real money atm, but if CCP would have change a few little things in the beginning, lots of things and rage could have been prevented.
MTX aren’t really new to the online gaming world and not to the mobile market as well. But IMHO CCP ignored the word “micro” in “micro transactions”. MTX can be very successful if introduced, used and advertised right. Apple’s App Store is successful cause majority the apps are really lowprice and affordable. Nobody really thinks about spending 1 or 2 $ for a great app that gives him a lot of fun and satisfaction, and the apps that are generating the majority of revenue are the apps that costs only $1 but are fun to use/play.
Same applies to online games and MTX. Nobody cares, If you could buy a pair of sunglasses for just $1 and the luxury monocle for $5. In fact: CCP could have sold a lot more of those vanity items in a shorter time rather then just 52. Sometimes is more sales for a lower price better then lesser sales for high prices.
When you start a MTX store you should have lots of small things for a really low price (between $0.5 and $3) that attracts players rather then putting them into a rage. You can always introduce more expensive and luxury items later, but only when the store is running nice and smooth.
Of course those virtual goods should not affect gameplay or give players an advantage over a different player. I don’t care about faction standing, clothes, accessories or custom ship paintings but everything that effects ships, modules, industry or sovereignty is a very big no go. Maybe we can talk about vanity items that give young players an training advantage up to 5 or 10mil SP but that’s all.
With these exorbitant prices, the lack of communication, the incomplete and meaningless dev blogs and the most important fact that you completely ignored and forget about your (much loved?) memberbase/CSM leaded to the biggest protest I’ve seen in this game.
Conclusion:
CCP should make statement what they think and what they’re planning. Talk to the CSM and find a way that’s reasonable for you as company and your award winning community. Talk to the 3rd party develeoper what they really need and willing to spend. You can’t force somebody to work for the community for free if they have to pay.
I would bet that: DOTLAN EveMaps generated more satisfaction, helped new and older players and kept them happy (and therefore spending $ for the gametime) that I could ever pay me back or earn via advertisement. If you want to disgruntle those people who helped forming EVE and the community to what it is now, you’re on the best way to do so.
The community is what Eve is making so successful, so don’t do you (business) plans without us. You need us, as long as we want to play the game. Talk to us, talk with us. In the meantime: Have fun blocking Jita 🙂
Related links:
- Dev Blogs:
- Eve Online Forums:
- EveNews24 Coverage:
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Like announced a couple days ago, I just finished the work and deployed my new API Key Backend to the live version of DOTLAN EveMaps. All old keys are dropped, this was a necessary step to not mix up the database and lowers the amount of possible errors.
Just a quick note: I just upgraded the underlying operating system from Debian ‘Lenny’ 5.0 to Debian ‘Squeeze’ 6.0. After some config changes and reboots everything should be running smooth again. This update was long overdue … Sorry for the short service interuption.
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