Eve Online adds ridiculous DLC

[joe]

so apparently Eve Online players are pissed because the game just added the long awaited feature that lets you walk around outside your ship, and they are charging for decoration-only clothing items. not a big deal, tf2 does that. but eve did a few things wrong:

1) you can buy the items with in-game currency which is fucking up the economy - plex are already up 10% cost in ISK

2) some of the items have functionality beyond decoration and there are hints that there will be pay-to-win items added later. this obviously pisses off a lot of people

3) the clothing items are outrageously expensive. there are items that cost $70!

4) a developer made a ridiculous forum post defending the prices, comparing in-game decorative items to $1000 japanese designer blue jeans, as if anyone fucking buys $1000 blue jeans

the whole thing is pretty funny to me. in protest, over 1000 players attacked the Jita trading hub





here's the forum post, and i'll copy it in case they take it down:
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=932

Dear concerned citizens of New Eden

This week has seen quite a controversy unfold. In almost the same instant as we deployed Incarna - which by the way is one of our more smooth and successful expansions, not to mention absolutely gorgeous - an internal newsletter with rather controversial topics addressed leaked out. To further compound the confusion there was a clear and rather large gap in virtual goods pricing expectation and reality with a large segment of the community. I‘m going to address both these issues right here.

Fearless

Fearless is one of our company values. It‘s also the name of an internal newsletter that has been designed and developed specifically to catalyze discussions on controversial topics. One of the biggest elephants in the room these days, not just for EVE but for the gaming industry as a whole, is virtual goods sales and microtransactions.

Therefore we dedicated an entire issue to exactly that topic. It‘s worth mentioning that the topic of the issue was "Greed is good?" as a way to ask a question that would then be debated back and forth and often exaggerated purposefully to draw contrasts and make points. The result of that is now widely available on the internet.

The opinions and views expressed in Fearless are just that; opinions and views. They are not CCP policy nor are they a reliable source of CCP views as a company. The employees who submitted articles to that newsletter did exactly what they were asked to do, write about theories and opinions from an exaggerated stand.

While it‘s perfectly fine to disagree and attack CCP over policies or actions we take, we think it‘s not cool how individuals that work here have been called out and dragged through the mud due to something they wrote in the internal company newsletter. Seriously, these people were doing their jobs and do not deserve the hate and shitstorm being pointed at them.

Pricing structure

People have been shocked by the price range in the NeX store, but you should remember that we are talking about clothes. Look at the clothes you are currently wearing in real life. Do you have any specific brands? Did you choose it because it was better quality than a no-name brand? Assume for a short while that you are wearing a pair of $1,000 jeans from some exclusive Japanese boutique shop. Why would you want to wear a pair of $1,000 jeans when you can get perfectly similar jeans for under $50? What do other people think about you when they see you wearing them? For some you will look like the sad culmination of vainness while others will admire you and think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whichever it is, it is clear that by wearing clothes you are expressing yourself and that the price is one of the many dimensions that clothes possess to do that in addition to style and fit. You don't need to buy expensive clothes. In fact you don't need to buy any clothes. Whatever you choose to do reflects what you are and what you want others to think you are.

We will gradually introduce items at other price points, definitely lower and probably higher than what‘s in the store today. We hope you enjoy them and are as passionate about them as you are of the current items that are for sale.

I hope I‘ve addressed your concerns and cleared up a lot of the issues you‘re having. We‘ll continue monitoring the forums and other communications channels and pick up and reply if there are concerns not covered by this blog.

Thanks,

Arnar Hrafn Gylfason

Senior Producer of EVE Online

this is what $70 (real money! you could buy BF3 with that! collector's edition of bf3!) gets you:




giant lol

[Base]

Of all the crazy social psychology concepts EVE has given us with their game, this is by far the most amazing. When you give your players that much freedom, they can use that power to rebel against you-- just like when an oppressive regime garners riots from insane taxes or theft of human rights.

It's becoming increasingly clear that people are getting sick and tired of the F2P money-grubbing system, and I'm curious to see what the industry will think of next.

[joe]

on the contrary i think most of the industry is just starting to explore F2P based on the success of a few casual titles like facebook games and LoL.

[Grndslmhttr3]

I have no idea how that whole plex thing works, but since 1 plex = 3,500 AUR and the shirt costs 3,600 AUR, does that mean you'd have to spend $40 on 2 plexes just for a shirt that hardly costs more than $20?

Also holy fuck, $70 for that?

[Avvatar]

A PLEX is a Pilot's License EXtension. The games still P2P and a PLEX represents a month of paid gametime.

[NIPPER]

don't you already pay a monthly fee for that game?

pay-to-win items suck of course but if some idiot wants to spend 70$ on an in-game shirt then I don't blame Eve for cashing in on that.

[a1dan]

This game has seemed terrible from the beginning and it seems like it's only getting worse.

[Mad_Dugan]

Sounds like they did everything right regardless of what the user base thinks.

[Avvatar]

You don't necessarily pay a monthly fee. You can buy a PLEX from the developer for cash. You can buy a PLEX from another player with in-game currency. So there are players who buy PLEXs just to sell them to other players. All supported by the developers.

[joe]

plex IS the monthly fee, just to clear that up

[Lad Stankfoot]

If it can be sold, chances are that some dumbass out there will buy it.

[a1dan]

Yep, for example see: TF2 Hats.

[Avvatar]

plex IS the monthly fee, just to clear that up

I'd swear you could choose to pay for a month's gametime directly and never possess a PLEX.

[joe]

you can pay them $15 per month, plex is the fungible asset you can also use to buy gametime