EVE revolt to cost CCP $1m – report

By Fred Dutton Published 28 June, 2011

Users cancel subscriptions en masse.

The user backlash to leaked documents outlining EVE Online's future microtransaction plans could cost developer CCP more than $1 million, according to a Develop report.

A list of customers who claim to have cancelled their subscription to the popular sci-fi MMO following the leak has been published online.

Currently it contains 5511 names, equating to about $1.03 million (or £648,000) in lost revenue for the studio.

Players have been in an open revolt over the last week or so over a leaked internal document discussing plans to introduce new charges for in-game items. Late last week users flooded the game's systems with traffic in an attempt to bring its economy to a halt.

CCP has announced an extraordinary meeting of the company's Council of Stellar Management between 30th June and 1st July to address players' concerns.

For a more in-depth look at the controversy, take a look at John Bedford's recent EVE Online In Crisis feature.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (46) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • soviet_ #1 11 months ago

    Key word here is "claimed"

  • Dr_Cowley #2 11 months ago

    CCP has announced an extraordinary meeting of the company's Council of Stellar Management between 30th June and 1st July to address players' concerns

    I doubt thats even nearly as cool as it sounds
    Edited by Dr_Cowley at 28/06/11 @ 18:00

  • Cosquae #3 11 months ago

    Assuming even half of those names are accurate, it's not just a $1m one off loss, those -were- persistant subscriptions, so they'll keep losing money month after month.

    No way they can make that back from monocles and pants.

  • dirtysteve #4 11 months ago

    Wow, that's a player-driven community alright.

  • hulahoops #5 11 months ago

    5.5 thousand players spuriously announce they're leaving.

    10 thousand players ask if they can have their stuff.

    How is this anything different to a normal week in the life of an MMO?
    Edited by hulahoops at 28/06/11 @ 18:05

  • Aretak #6 11 months ago

    @Dr_Cowley: It's basically just a small group of players elected to represent the interests of the community.

  • Ahskay #7 11 months ago

    In space no-one will hear you scream CCP
    This is why, if you have a good thing going with a loyal fanbase, you don't change stuff for micro-transactions and force it on players if your game is still broken in some places. You should've fixed all the bugs before even thinking about micro-transactions and Dust.

  • Crembo #8 11 months ago

    ok

  • the_dudefather #9 11 months ago

    Left4Dead2Boycottlist.jpg

  • ResidentKnievel #10 11 months ago

    [link url=http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
    ]http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/S...[/link]

    It's going to be interesting to see what that Graph looks like once it gets updated.

    As you can see from that graph, CCP managed to wipe out all the subs it gained from the Tyrannis expansion launch last summer due to the :18 months: drama and from Tyrannis being devoid of interesting content.

  • ResidentKnievel #11 11 months ago

    Anyway, I actually see CCP having a lot of success if they go down the MT route, it's just it would fundamentally change EVE into just another MMO. It would go from being a living breathing world to just some game, and it wouldn't be a game I'd want to play.

  • Xeaon #12 11 months ago

    Massive changes to the core game work well though right?

    SWG is going from strength to strength yeah? oh :(

  • Macross #13 11 months ago

    I totally disagree with the dual sub AND MT model its just sill.

    However, ccp may have had more luck if their last few expansions were more than just patches which they've rebranded as expansions.

    I know they are free but other games have regular(ish) content patches with more stuff in than the eve expansions recently.

  • timewarp87 #14 11 months ago

    Dust 514 if you convert the numbers to alphabet, and take the first letter of Dust, it spells DEAD, which is kind of what is going to happen to the game

  • timewarp87 #15 11 months ago

    Maybe they shoudl rename it "icarrus online"

  • bobfish09 #16 11 months ago

    Wow, talk about inflated numbers.

    If 5511 accounts were cancelled then that is only $82,665 in subscriptions lost.

    Because you can only assume they would've subscribed for the next month, not anything beyond that. For all we and anyone else, know, these players could have been planning to jump ship to another MMO in a month or two anyways.

    Really, I know EVE players are rabid zealots, but it is NOT a big problem, 5000 out of 400,000 is NOTHING!

  • riceNpea #17 11 months ago

    as usual the furore that surrounds this game is more interesting then the game itself

  • DanForinton #18 11 months ago

    I think it's safe to say at this point that this whole screw-up has cost CCP rather more than 52 monocles.

  • chrisc #19 11 months ago

    My character is on this list, and I can assure you I have cancelled my auto renewal (whilst it's possible to completely delete your account characters, I don't think anyone has done this yet, so no: you're not getting my stuff -- at least, not yet) although obviously I can't speak for anyone else.

    The critical piece to take away here is the act of sending of a message. We're all, as far as I can see it, prepared to step away if CCP were to introduce economy-breaking "pay to win" items into the game. And it's not like there's a consensus -- there's a definite spectrum of opinion from "ditch NeX!" (not gonna happen) to "I was kind of drifting away anyway, and this kind-of broke the camel's back" (probably not coming back). Really, it's the only thing we can do as a player base to tangibly express our discontent short of the nuclear option of deleting our characters, as "disgruntled forum post" is worth even less than the literal cash-value of a single "FOR the KIDS!" voucher they give out at supermarkets for every £10 you spend in-store.

    Tortured analogies aside, I'm optimistic that a reasonable agreement will be reached between CCP and the CSM, and out of this gigantic PR clusterfuck will emerge a beautiful butterfly. With a monocle, and sporting shiny Icelandic $1000 pants.

  • Squire #20 11 months ago

    I guess greed is bad

  • President_Weasel #21 11 months ago

    no, no - they sold 51 of those $70 monocles, which would have grossed them $3570 dollars. Their new macrotransaction model was a genius move and will more than make up for the loss of 1000 subscriptions at around 12 Euros a month. That's only 144,000 Euros a year less revenue, while the running costs will be exactly the same.

    We can assume that 4 in 5 of the people who claimed to have cancelled their subscriptions were bullshitting, right guys? Guys?

    Where'd everybody go?

  • Sharzam #22 11 months ago

    Put your money where your mouth is players, people 'claim' to cancel subs all the time. Hell if the WoW forums are to be believed then the game would of folded 6 years ago. Personally i remember being disgusted at the thought of alliance getting shamans, and the whole guild would quit if the burning crusade turned out to be true and well we all know what hapened there.

    Happens all the time in all MMOs people get passionate about some change and so say they try to give the developer an ultimatimum. The only difference with Eve is the player base is what you might call hardcore and will invest in years and years of there time if they can so if they did quit it would be a massive blow.

  • uknortherner2000 #23 11 months ago

    You see, this is how you protest, by hitting them where it hurts the most - their bank accounts. If only anti-DRMers, anti-DLCers anti-seasonal rehashers etc, actually did the same and told these publishers where to go instead of falling for the "developers deserve my support/respect/loyalty" trap.

  • 43n1m4 #24 11 months ago

    I will wait a bit and see how they react.

  • trooperdx3117 #25 11 months ago

    The thing about this as well though is a lot of people who have accounts usually have two or three accounts, so these guys leaving could mean that almost treble that amount of accounts have been cancelled

  • mumblyjoe #26 11 months ago

    How very dare a developer want to make money grom their game! The complete and utter bastards!!

  • Amblin #27 11 months ago

    I un-subbed, no way their get another penny if i'm going to be nickel and dimed on top of a subscription via microtransactions.

  • Kanjin #28 11 months ago

    Bets that CCP mess it up even further? Mind you, now the CO can't go on his second holiday now, so it's now serious business.

  • bemaniac #29 11 months ago

    Just tried a trial. This game seems full of awesome stuff but I just can't get thru all the layers of complex learning to get to enjoy it :(

  • DodgyPast #30 11 months ago

    Hoping it cuts into their cocaine budget, then they might be capable of rational thought :p

  • President_Weasel #31 11 months ago

    bemaniac, there is a Eurogamer EVE corp who will get you into the game. Join the Eurogamer.net channel in-game.

    I used to run it; it's obviously not as good now as it was then, but they're still a good bunch of guys doing their best, struggling manfully under the burden of not being me.

  • Desheep #32 11 months ago

    Massive drama.

  • ircaddicts #33 11 months ago

    i would say I hope this kills eve but then all the assorted scammers, gankers and other scum who play this POS would join other games and try to do the same in them as they do in eve. I want them to stay in there so lets hope it does'nt

  • Macross #34 11 months ago

    come off the on the pointy end of a scam irca? you have my sympathy. seriously though eve is a good training ground for how not to get scammed or screwed over in another other game, and even real life. if you can avoid getting f**ked in eve you can avoid getting f**ked anywhere. (as many of us eve players manage in more than one sense!).

  • Genome #35 11 months ago

    I expect Microsoft to take a small hit as well, with fewer people purchasing Excel to do their EVE spreadsheets and accounting.

  • Harmonica #36 11 months ago

    Even with the addition of Dust, I doubt EVE is going to fundamentally progress beyond what it's been for years, many veterans have long since moved on from it, and CCP have recognised that they can easily afford to piss off the remaining hardcore corps if a more casual crowd will support the kind of payment schemes they outlined.

    I find the uproar slightly baffling - as a game, EVE is designed to be a timesink where the only way you can make a remote difference in game terms is by joining a megacorp and putting in thousands of hours (most of which will be accumulated whilst you're not even playing the game). It's a game for MMO players with larger bank accounts, basically.

  • levitate #37 11 months ago

    I've only been playing EVE for 7 months and I'm already feeling jaded bitter. Well done CCP.

  • Nephirion #38 11 months ago

    Its not broke ..... Let's fix it ...... Oh fuck

  • scoop #39 11 months ago

    Anyone else here who was playing back in 2003 may well recall, that number is pretty close to their original core userbase.

    ~5000-7000 people online was the average for the first few years.

  • scoop #40 11 months ago

    @bobfish09 If 5511 accounts were cancelled then that is only $82,665 in subscriptions lost...Because you can only assume they would've subscribed for the next month, not anything beyond that

    The Develop report (read it) was taking into account a potential annual reflection... accounting is done on an annual basis, not monthly. Apples and Pears I know, but there you have it.

  • levitate #41 11 months ago

    A lot of EVE players are joining Perpetuum Online instead. Their servers have become overloaded by the new rush. That's somehow funny and sad at the same time.

  • shave_my_donkey #42 11 months ago

    announcing an ''extraordinary meeting of the company's Council of Stellar Management ''

    that just rocks

  • Flipper79 #43 11 months ago

    Worth considering that the majority of those players who cancelled would have been pretty active if they felt strongly enough to do so. It's pretty fair to base the figures on the annual rather than the monthly loss, especially when you consider that's 5000 people who would also potentially be recommending the game to friends/relatives/forums.

  • ircaddicts #44 11 months ago

    no I was never scamed marcos but I saw enough of them about to know eve is full of them and other such scum so I hope that eve stays around for a long time to come so they don't come and infect other games with thier poison. Thanks for the the negs guys you are just proveing my point

  • Gylfi #45 11 months ago

    Council of Stellar Management

    awesome, it's like RPing about seroius stuff.

  • Steel_Slinger #46 11 months ago

    What caused me to cancel my two accounts is the fact that last year CCP made vague promises that they were not going to introduce a MT based system. Now that they have they make the same vague promises that it will not be "Pay for advantage" Followed by leaked documents that basically say what the customers say does not matter to CCP only what the customers do. I can still reinstate my accounts which I may do at some future point, we will see what CCP does to fix the wound they inflicted on their "Golden Goose"