Eve Online: Begun the great Shitstorm of our Time has – Devblogs, Microtransactions und Spielerproteste

Eigentlich wollte ich heute nicht schon wieder zu einem Eve Thema bloggen. Aber während sich in WoW alles auf 4.2 vorbereitet. brodelt es in New Eden. Ich hatte ja gestern bereits das Thema Incarna und Microtransactions sowie das Leak der internen Zeitschrift aufgegriffen. Heute ist das Ganze noch weiter hochgekocht. Zunächst haben Spieler einen Massenprotest in Jita und Amarr aufgeführt und diese Hubs praktisch lahm gelegt. Alles wartete auf einen Devblog, von dem es hieß, dass er dem CSM, dem Council of Stellar Management (aka Spielervertretung) schon vorglegt worden und dort durchgefallen war.

Als der dann heute abend veröffentlich wurde, war sozusagen Polen offen, wie man sagen würde. Anstatt einer diplomatischen, auf die Spieler eingehenden Antwort gab es ein relativ nichtssagendes und beharrendes Posting von CCP Zulu, dass nicht nur mich so weit enttäuscht hat, dass ich einen meiner Accounts schon einmal gekündigt hab. Das Posting gebe ich hier wieder:

fearless, virtual goods, and rage

reported by CCP Zulu | 2011.06.24 20:54:37 | NEW | Comments

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