EVE Online microtransactions no threat, community reps conclude

EVE Online players have nothing to fear from microtransactions, its player-elected liason body the Council of Stellar Management has concluded, following an emergency meeting with developer CCP Games.

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EVE Online players have nothing to fear from microtransactions, the MMO's player-elected liason body, the Council of Stellar Management, has decided following an emergency meeting with developer CCP Games. The world of Internet spaceships became an unhappy place last month after leaked internal documents fanned upset over microtransaction items, suggesting that CCP planned to sell items giving distinct in-game advantages for EVE and future games.

"We are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods, only pure vanity items such as clothing and ship skins," CSM chair 'The Mittani' has written in a joint statement with CCP. The developer shared its plans with the CSM under non-disclosure agreements, and apparently all's well in Iceland.

"We have been repeatedly assured that there are no plans for 'gold ammo,' ships which have different statistics from existing common hulls, or any other feared 'game destroying' virtual goods or services," The Mittani said.

"We have expressed our deep concern about potential grey areas that the introduction of virtual goods permits, and CCP has made a commitment to discuss any proposals that might fall into these grey areas in detail with CSM at the earliest possible stage."

EVE senior producer Arnar Gylfason assured, "There are no plans, and have been no plans, as per previous communication and CSM meetings, to introduce the sale of game breaking items or enhancements in the NeX store." He added, "The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time."

EVE introduced paid microtransactions with its recent "walking in stations" update Incarna, selling virtual clothing at prices ranging from $5 up to around $60. Yet a leaked internal newsletter contained talk of introducing better ships, ammunition, and weapons for EVE, console tie-in shooter Dust 514, and CCP's World of Darkness MMO. CCP insisted--and the CSM now agrees--that the newsletter was deliberately provocative to spark debate, but players were unsuprisingly displeased.

The CSM has criticised CCP for its poor planning and communication, launching paid microtransactions with only a limited--and expensive--range of items available, not adequately assuring players of its future plans, and being reactionary in its response to the outrage.

"We believe that the situation that has unfolded in the past week has been a perfect storm of CCP communication failures, poor planning and sheer bad luck," The Mittani concluded. "Most of these issues, when dealt with in isolation, were reasonably simple to discuss and resolve, but combined they transformed a series of errors into the most significant crisis the EVE community has yet experienced."

While CCP has the CSM's support now, it seems the meeting process didn't go entirely smoothly. Here's The Mittani and Gylfason chatting about the controversy and their discussions:

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 4, 2011 9:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, EVE Online microtransactions no threat, emergency meeting concludes.

    EVE Online players have nothing to fear from microtransactions, its player-elected liason body the Council of Stellar Management has concluded, following an emergency meeting with developer CCP Games.

    • reply
      July 4, 2011 9:34 AM

      but I wanted gold plated ammo...

    • reply
      July 4, 2011 10:22 AM

      Anyone else find it ironic, or maybe just supremely fitting, that 'The Mittani', (http://www.shacknews.com/article/48596/eve-online-spy-game) the director of (I guess now defunct?) Goon Swarm's Intelligence Agency, one of the most duplicitous and conniving individuals to ever play the game, is the elected community representative?

      It's probably old news to the current playerbase, but I find it hilariously awesome and appropriate, all things considered. In fact I hope this is all part of some grand goon scheme, or at least laying the framework for the greatest troll attempt in the history of MMOs.

      • reply
        July 4, 2011 10:24 AM

        Mittani may be a conniving bastard, but he's always been a conniving bastard for the Goon Swarm, which is a HELL of a lot more than you can say for a lot of other players and their shifting alliances. Plus, that's the way EVE works, yo!

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        July 4, 2011 10:51 AM

        When ccp announced the emergency meeting. There was an awesome quote I saw about it. Something along the lines of "you have to be doing it all wrong when you are asking the ceo of goonswarm instead of your own ceo." (Assuming you didn't know, GIA still exists, but he moved up the ladder to be the CEO of the goon alliance again)

        • reply
          July 4, 2011 10:55 AM

          hah, all wrong I guess..

          "You know your business is screwed when your customers trust the Goon CEO more than the real CEO. "
          http://twitter.com/#!/eclipticrift/status/86496574833831936

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            July 4, 2011 11:09 AM

            hahaha that's fantastic.

            Yeah, I haven't been following much of the EvE meta-game lately. Last I heard Goon Swarm forgot to pay some space taxes, lost their sovereignty, and imploded? Glad to hear it's still around, though! I might not play anymore, but I love hearing about all the space melodrama courtesy of Goon antics :3

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              July 4, 2011 11:15 AM

              it never imploded, they just moved to Deklein.

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                July 4, 2011 12:10 PM

                they did lose their alliance name and all their space in the intervening time though, burning through a temporary name and region before ending up where they are now with their current name. It was sort of an implosion

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        July 4, 2011 11:03 AM

        Anyone who's that deep into EvE for five or more years must really love the game though.

    • reply
      July 4, 2011 4:59 PM

      A frilly item shop in EvE would actually work out extremely well, especially if you can sell the items ingame.
      It would work out exactly like the timecards, where you can buy timecards for isk, giving players a "legal" alternative to buying isk from russians.

      If its just a cooler looking version of a ship, its harmless and will give lots of extra cash to CCP to continue developing eve.

      Bi-winning

      • BJL legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        July 5, 2011 6:23 PM

        The thing is, your argument is flawed with the current items for sale... If you can afford the item for sale in isk, you could convert that isk to plex and not have to purchase from another player but get a cheaper deal from the Eve store. There is currently no way to profit as a player from this unless you want to go large scale and purchase many items and hope that people would only want to purchase 1 item as currently it takes a minimum of 2 plex's to buy anything. 1 plex = 1 month game time = 3500A, minimum priced item is 3600A. And profit from 1 item isn't going to make this a feasible way to make money which is the entire / only reason to sell something in a game.. why sell an item for a real money loss?

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      July 4, 2011 9:24 PM

      PC gamers (my self included) start needing to chill the fuck out when it comes to new revenue streams for developers/publishers.

      F2P supported my micro transactions have been the norm in Asia for years yet we still feel that a free game must be garbage and MT's are simply greed and stupidity on the part of the devs. Well, start getting over it because thats the way the multiplayer PC gaming industry is heading.

      A new Tribes game was announced recently and it looks great. Unfortunately when it was announced that the game would be free and supported by MT's people lost all sense of rational thinking and rejected it before we even saw how it was to be implemented. Given the fact that many publishers don't even want to deal with the PC as a gaming platform we should probably count ourselves lucky that we are even getting quality games for the PC in 2011 and beyond.

      • reply
        July 4, 2011 9:47 PM

        We'll stop freaking out when the industry stops holding gaming hostage every time one of these announcements is made.

        Oh, look, you did exactly that yourself: "Well, start getting over it because thats the way the multiplayer PC gaming industry is heading."

        We're sick of seeing games selling themselves out for "new revenue streams", sacrificing gameplay and features that encourage gameplay. Happened with Star Wars Galaxies when they made it so easy to go Jedi. The Call of Duty franchise has sold itself out to make DLC map packs instead of a longer single-player campaign or a new evolution of the multiplayer gameplay mechanics (though allegedly Infinity Ward is turning the killstreak system on its head).

        Games need to be profitable, yes, but they don't need to be a Zynga clone.

      • reply
        July 4, 2011 10:09 PM

        Ah, the good old "bend over and take it" line along with "Devs are doing us a favor by selling us things and we should suck their dick."

        Fanboy rating 8/10

      • reply
        July 4, 2011 11:24 PM

        Xbox kids like yourself shouldn't tell others when to chill out, really. :)

        The Tribes game LOOKS GREAT. Does it matter? No it doesn't. Gameplay has little to do with how it looks, but I guess you weren't around back when the original launched.

      • reply
        July 5, 2011 12:18 AM

        [deleted]

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        July 5, 2011 3:08 AM

        [deleted]

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          July 5, 2011 7:51 AM

          Agreed, but not every f2p is p2w. Though ANY item shop in a game you must subscribe to in the first place... THAT I could see subscribers becoming vexed over.

          If you buy the game initially, AND pay $$$ every month being milked like a cow, an item shop selling "premium content" would piss me the hell off, unless 100% of the profits went to charity or something.

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      July 5, 2011 2:53 PM

      The scary thing about this is now much control the hardcore EVE playerbase (which is pretty much all of them) has over a company. The community is so tight knit and controlling the could bring CCP to its knees if they wanted to. This means the profitability of the game is somewhat out of CCP's hands, which in the end could be bad for everyone involved.

      Note, I'm in no way in support of microtransactions...this is just an observation I've seen recently in online communities.

    • reply
      September 11, 2011 4:05 PM

      https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=6590
      EVE players need new things to do, not new things to wear!!

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