I followed the results of the CSM Summit in Iceland as well as hitting the high points of the community response in my RSS reader. I would have kept blogging throughout the whole process, but on the first of the month I formally took possession of the game store I've purchased. What followed was two 12-hour days followed by three 16-hour days. I completely renovated and re-stocked a failing board/card/video game store, continued to deal with lawyers, accountants, and vendors, and generally worked my ass off.

I won't go back and document in detail the events of the last week. There's other people who followed that more closely and did better writeups of it. I will give you the TLDR version from my perspective.

  1. Leaked information from inside CCP seemed to indicate that they were intending to spring Pay2Win microtransactions into Eve.
  2. Rather than immediately address the leak and concerns of the community about Pay2Win, CCP indicated, both intentionally and unintentionally, that it was either unaware that Pay2Win was the real problem, or aware of the rage but unconcerned about it.
  3. Riots, mass unsubs (including your humble griefer), and a freighter full of bad/amused press coverage followed.
  4. CSM called to Iceland. Silence at first, then some positive tidbits, then the CSM stating that it believes CCP's statement that the rage against Pay2Win is acknowledged and that there are not plans to implement it.

Was it really just a big misunderstanding? The intentional and unintentional communications from CCP seemed to indicate otherwise. After all, why even toy with the idea of Pay2Win in a company newsletter if it was already the position of management that it was unacceptable?

Either CCP made the mother of all communications screwups in the wake of this PR disaster, or it was really planning to turn Eve into a Pay2Win game? Ultimately, we'll never know and it doesn't matter. One way or the other, CCP was concerned/frightened enough about the united actions of the playerbase following the scandal to fly delegates into Iceland, print a very blunt statement from the CSM on the game's homepage, and release a video in which the Senior Producer states that Pay2Win is a bad idea and there are no plans to implement it.

Could it all be a lie? Sure, but at this point there's no better reassurance possible that it isn't. I suppose that they could work up some sort of legal framework that would make them liable in civil court for such an action, but they'd be stupid to sign such a thing. The fact that CSM is satisfied and will be acting as a watchdog on this issue from here on out is reassuring to me. In fact, I'm guessing that this becomes the primary CSM focus from here onward.

CCP heard the player base loud and clear on this one, and I hope that they remember the events of June 2011. CCP has created the most profound gaming experience in history, in my opinion, and as long as the community remains united in its support of that game, CCP will be able to collect our golden eggs for many years to come. It's not a bad relationship to have.

To the haters who said "Stop whining and just go away": That's not how this works. If Eve was a game that didn't mean anything to us, then we wouldn't be upset when it showed all the signs of making a terminal mistake. If nobody cared enough to make some noise to get CCP to stop and re-assess, then we'd soon lose part of what makes Eve amazing. I will laugh at all tears posted below about my return.

So there you go. I'm downloading the Eve client again and praying that my settings remained intact. I know that I lost my Evemon and EFT settings when I uninstalled those programs, but that's not such a big deal. Optimistic tail-wagging may now continue.