A Nasty Marketing Ploy
Dust 514 is a FPS game for gaming consoles set in the EVE universe and its results are fed back into New Eden with results that have the potential to shape and change the space around capsuleers.
But what is supposedly “Dust “becomes an input” for the computer-based MMO and “dictates” aspects of its content,” might just be the biggest marketing ploy CCP will pull on its fanboys, and girls.
As Dust 514, as I will just call it Dust, is presented as a completely new game which will be played in the EVE universe in its own seperate setting, is it not a little funny that it is not being released as another expansion to EVE itself?
Sure the game is designed towards console players that would regularly not play the computer version of EVE, but CCP could have easily also created Dust for the PC as well.
The game is very similar to an expansion. Â Let us pretend it is an expansion, where the new gameplay can be easily and fluidly interplayed into our everyday lives in New Eden, and it will be what the dwellers of 0.0 can do to gain soverignty for their space. Â If it was released like this, I would have no problems with it. Â When people beforehand had to go take down POS’s now they spend that time playing Dust.
But it is not an expansion for EVE, it is a seperate game that people will have to pay for.
If an alliance within EVE would like to gain soverignty over a region, their members would be encourage to go buy, also possibly subscribe to, and play Dust. This way the pilots can fight for their side even further to advance their control over the region.
Why might a player do that? Well a hardcore EVE player, which most 0.0 living citizens are, will do a lot of metagaming to whatever extent to strive for further conquests and dominate their empire. Dust in this light is simply an extention of metagamaing, with the meta part being out of the actual EVE game participating in another game to boost their alliance’s power in game.
The two games will be dependent on each other, creating a need for players to feel they need to play both advance in both. If the Dust character wants to gain money and advance in their career, they will play EVE to generate objectives and ISK for the Dust character. And vice versa, if the pilot in EVE wants to help their alliance, they will participate in Dust to help takeover and gain planets.
So once this happens, we might be seeing players in EVE, instead of having just one account, have one EVE and one Dust account, and because the games rely on each other, vice versa again as well.
Some will say that Dust will entirely support its own population and as will EVE’s 0.0 people, but the whole experience is so Dust is necessary as a part of EVE “Dust “becomes an input”" (what else will get sov for you?) and, EVE will control Dust’s players “computer-based MMO and “dictates” aspects of its content” (how else will Dust players earn cash?)
The point I am trying to make is, Dust is probably just another game from which CCP will gain another revenu, which is taken from EVE players, thus effectively doubling their income with practically one game.
Should Dust not just be released as an expansion to us PC gamers as well as a single console game to the FPS fans out there? Â It seems like CCP is royaly ripping off the loyal players to try to squeeze more money out of them.
Other points to note:
- Dust becomes an ISK sink, so more people can buy PLEX to play to pay for Dust objectives
- Low sec players are left out on this incorporation again, as low sec does not have any sov mechanics invovled (as of we know so far)
- Faction warfare mechanics may be incorporated into this, but who in FW has that much cash to spend on extra things like Dust?
- FW militias with large 0.0 alliances backing them may be the only ones who will also participate in Dust if it is incorporated into FW
- CCP is probably going to try to push more people into the 0.0 zone
- It will be harder to make a breakthrough into 0.0 space as large alliances who already own the territories there will have the good moons to feed into their Dust militaries to fend of intruders
- CCP is hoping for subscribers who also have a console to grab a new game, when it is really just a second account
- It is a marketing ploy similar but on a much more big scale, like Crackdown and Halo 3 beta, Mountain Dew and WoW, and etc, but instead of a bonus item you get sov.
Of course I have a lot of questions to be asked, and a lot more details are being withheld from us at the moment, I know, but this is less of a “speculation at the game” than a speculation as to “why is this not also a PC game and an expansion?”
Before you denounce this article and proceed to the comments to write a flame, think about my ideas. Any constructive critisicm is welcomed.
25 comments
I can understand you viewpoint but my only problem is that we have so little factual data to go off of. These could be valid issues/concerns but I think you are overlooking the key component, will their be giant robots, therefore making it the greatest game known to man?
In all seriousness though, I can’t wait to get more concrete details, and see how all the speculation looks in hindsight (my own included)
“Released to the PC as an Expansion”… have you not heard of Walking in Staions, is it not too much of a stretch to think it could be expanded to be the “DUST” Expansion for the EVE PC?
They are describing it s a MMOFPS, so IF they released it to PC as a separate game wouldn’t they be creating competition for their own flagship game? It only makes sense to release it to EVE as an Expansion, and in my opinion WiS is either a precursor to this or IS DUST for PC.
Well of course we’ll keep it constructive… :)
First off, I’ll agree that CCP plans to make a lot of money on this, if they pull it off successfully. Branching to consoles is a surefire way to expand their player-base and potentially bring people into the PC game.
I do have to disagree with a lot of your premise though.
Yes it would be cool to have Dust simply be an expansion for EVE, doing all of us a favor by saving some $ and keeping us in our chair, but really… this is not even close to the size of your average expansion. Going from space combat to a twitch, physics, FPS-based gameplay are nothing alike. New engines, new programming… they are completely different games mechanics. This is different than Ambulation, which wouldn’t require any sort of physics engine, combat balance, weapon development, whatever ranking system, etc, etc.. Ambulation is simply a cosmetic way to look at your avatar and see other avatars in a space station. That easily merits a simple expansion release.
That aside, it could have been CCP’s decision to just release this as a seperate PC game altogether, which would have made some sense… but I think their choice to start on consoles (I say start because I’m sure they’ll release it for PC eventually) is not just a huge financial ploy… I think it’s an honest effort to introduce more people to the EVE universe.
Think about this: If Dust was only PC based… same subscription as EVE Online, who would play Dust? Probably mostly just current EVE players. This would take people out of space. Less people in space would probably rock the current mechanics of EVE, or just make them much more boring for those that don’t have interest in FPS. And to invest all of this development energy into an entirely new game that may only show them a slight increase in interest overall isn’t really worth it for CCP is it?
But releasing on consoles opens to a new audience entirely.. to the benefit of the current EVE community, I think. The 30,000 Capsuleers or so will remain an elite group compared to the potentially millions that could buy the console game, if it’s successful.
I mean, of course it all depends on how it’s all implemented. It could surely bomb. But I have more faith in CCP that they’re not simply milking us for cash. I think they’re acting on some pretty heavy ambitions to try something that hasn’t been tried in gaming before… bridging multiple formats in one world, all affecting each other.
Agreed, if CCP implements the SOV changes in a way that requires people to purchase Dust in order to fully advance, that’ll be a shit move. But based on the press release it seems like they have a better plan:
“You will increasingly have to fight with your fleet [in EVE Online] but you will also have to contract people who play DUST, the console MMO, which then feeds into the sovereignty control system of EVE. Then EVE feeds back into that again by funding the mercenaries, giving them goals. The fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying.”
So we won’t have to play Dust at all. We work in our game to “hire” Dusties to do the dirty work. The more we play EVE, the more ISK we have to do the hiring. We’re rewarded seperately.
So them’s my thoughts. Sorry it’s long and ranty. Just wanted to share my perspective.
I agree that probably a lot of EVE players will be on DUST. Like a 3rd / 4th / xTh account ;). Like with the retail boxes they sold.
But it being a console game, it won’t attract as many of those. Only a few who don’t own a console will buy a console because of this game.
As I already posted on my blog, I am very sceptical about this. Shame they didn’t spend 3 years further developing eve :(.
What Rettic said :D
We can’t really judge how big a part this will play in the mechanics of EVE until it actually happens. As I say in my post on the subject, The realtively short shelf life of the console hardware and the fickle nature of the console games market means that for CCP to put all the emphasis in the upcoming sov changes into Dust would be a ridiculously stupid move, and last time I looked CCP weren’t stupid.
@Morph You don’t get it do you, THIS IS DEVELOPING EVE! Whether or not you choose to buy and play DUST you will still gain the benefits of it in EVE.
Idk about you guys, but id much rather have real humans taking the planets for me than some crappy AI code. You may not want to participate in the DUST part of EVE, but you still gain the befefit of being able to hire REAL PEOPLE to do stuff for you planetside… It benefits EVE, even if you can’t/don’t want to participate in DUST.
It sounds genius, until you realize that a few months after release EVE will have more planets being contested than possible human Dust players. Or until you take into account the average console FPS player would rather do sweet jumps with his future-jeep than go out and kill the enemy. And you can’t really penalize console players for “having fun”, they just wander off to play CoD 7 the second their instant gratification stops.
It’s not that CCP have a bad idea, it’s that the current market for Dust is mostly composed of spazzes.
@Chainer Cygnus
Yes, the missing factual data makes all of this an insane ramblings of mine, and pretty much everyone else’s, and it will be good to really read over what we thought in the past in the future. As speculation, I’m trying to expose my ideas on the economic effect it will have on players.
@Keldar Anassi
I highly doubt CCP will release a PC version of Dust as it is a standalone game. Dust would not be a competitor for their flagship product of EVE if it was released as an expansion as then it will be apart of the game, where current subscribers can play.
I don’t see how Dust could ever become a competitor game for EVE as even if it was dropped on the PC standalone, EVE players will get in that too, and if it is to be released like Apocrypha, EVE players will still be playing.
Also, I do not think WIS is Dust, but just a place where Dust players can get into the same space as EVE players. Speculations again.
@Rettic
I agree with that the task of incorporating the Dust engine into EVE’s current engine may be impossible, but it is not all that difficult to create the client with a login scenario, like EVE, and you log into your EVE account there. That saves the money of having to get another account, like my speculation, and eliminates the one engine two types of game problem.
I agree with the point that sov will probably not be 100% dictated by Dust, but if it is as big of a thing as I think it is, which I think is pretty big since the whole game REVOLVES around EVE and planet capturing, then it will dominate the sov system.
Anyways, how can CCP expect EVE players to jump aboard the Dust train if it will not be necessary and an EVE player can get sov in game. Why spend more money, is what I am saying.
As people from consoles enter Dust, this will bring in more players, but only to the Dust universe. If it was also released as an expansion, not only will the already EVE playing population have a seemless time jumping between the two, but CCP should also gain some more players from the ones who do not have a console.
@Morph
Exactly, if it was also an expansion, we may actually see more Dust players from the PC side of things. And more people may play if it was linked to our EVE accounts, so they do not have to pay to play it.
@mandrill
Yes, the console wars will make a debut someday, and the lifetime of Dust probably will not make it into the next generation in my opinion. We will have to see, that is a great point.
@Keldar Anassi
I know that while the player base still can benefit from Dust, people will still try to get in on the action, which is CCP’s marketing ploy to get more money. Money is the thing I am focusing on, and less on gameplay.
What do you need to do if you want to get real people to do stuff for you planetside? ISK, and how do you get ISK? PLEX’s, more gaming time, pay to play and do your own objectives without “giving” that much money to your toon.
Of course the Dust playerbase will try to get you to bid for their use, so they will need more money from EVE players, thus EVE players will need to spend more ISK, and again, ISK comes from PLEX’s.
—
I deeply appreciate everyone’s comments. Again, this is all speculation on the economic side of EVE players that CCP will have by releasing Dust in a format that I have just speculated.
Thanks again!
@Baltir
Some more good points you have there.
The FPS community is very volatile, relating to the fact that they like to jump around games when they come out. Halo 3 and Call Of Duty may still stand strong, but less mainstream games are prone to die off very quickly.
I read the whole press release on Dust, and ended up being pretty skeptical about the whole thing. We don’t have many details, but my feeling is that if they have been working on the game for over two years now many of the concerns that have been voiced by yourself and others in this blog should have been taken into account.
I’m waiting to get more details – for the moment my best guess is that they actually want players to wonder what this all means to create a hype that will be good to build on to market the thing. What better than thousands of bloggers suddenly fantasizing about a mystery game?
Speculation can be fun, but it is just a gamble in the end. You may be right, chances are you are not. I for one will just keep on playing EVE and wait to see what really happens :)
@Keldar No I don’t get how this is developing Eve. After the hype (if there will even be one) cools down and DUST players will start to leave after a few months as they have found a new game, there won’t be any mercs for hire.
I am a skeptic. I do not like consoles. I do not like to play PC games with most 12 yr old kids. I do not want to muster a fleet jump 30 jumps and hope and pray that enough ritalin will calm the kids down enough to capture a particular objective, for a given about of $.
Is change exciting, …yes it is. I wish they would control the flow of information better at CCP, as information is what we are lacking atm.
Nice points all, I cannot help but agree with quite a few of your points Tony…lets see what happens eh?
@Morph Maybe they will leave, or maybe this is a “real” console MMO and they will have reasons to keep playing, its all up in the air and we will have to wait and see.
But my point is, I am not basis my opinion of this game on how I think its players will act, or no act for that matter, because that honestly is not a realistic thing to try and base an opinion off of. I am basing my opinion on the details at hand, and from what I have read the only adverse effect this game might have on EVE is that It means that people may have to spend more money to engage in the planetary part SOV warfare.
Say they were releasing this as a mini-game inside of EVE, people would be buzzing about how cool it was. I see alot of this negetivity in the community as alot of console haters pissed off that they wont get to (as far as we know) participate in awesome FPS EVE action fights.
That said, I agree with Manasi, we are ALL jumping the gun WAAAAY to early, tbh NOTHING is known about this game other than it will interact with EVE and be similar to COD/HALO/Name FPS here. Who really knows how deep the interaction will go, or what gameplay will be like… or if WIS will be integrated with DUST, point is nothing is known. We should all just wait and see :)
/rant
Firstly, of course its a ploy to make money, they would suck as a company if they didn’t make any :)
Secondly its a great idea bar one thing. Everyone seems to be forgetting what a bunch of dicks the 14 yr old console jocks are. This game will make or break depending on how many idiots we get playing the game.
Thirdly, I would HIGHLY expect WiS to be integrated into this somehow for the PC. We will get this or a version of it, have no fear.
As said numerous times before, a lot of our opinions at this time are based off of pure speculation as the information currently available is seriously lacking. However, for my own opinion, I agree with another point made previously that this is exactly what CCP wants, for us to wonder and speculate.
However, something that I think often is forgotten by Eve players, and MMO players at large, is that these companies are not just there to make games, they’re there to make money. Eve has turned into a fairly successful game and like many game developers, they want to branch it out to the console players as well. They already have a successful PC game, why not play off that success by relating and tieing in their upcoming console game with Eve Online? To me, that’s what this is really all about.
Personally, I don’t play console games. And it gives me a bad taste in my mouth to think that fighting and defending sovereignty in 0.0 might be partly dependant on paying isk to a bunch of unknowns. For me, I’m cool with CCP making an FPS. And I’m cool with it being related to Eve. I’m just not cool with the idea of it possibly having a serious impact on my gameplay unless us current Eve PC players have access to it as well, without having to get a console and/or pay another subscription fee.
@AeonOfTime
Yes, Dust so far is definitely a hype machine. Like you said, we will have to wait and see.
@Morph
A very good point. Like what @mandrill has said, players will most definitely move on, especially with the possibilities of the new gaming “consoles” that do not require a disk, but just an internet connection. If Dust is developed for one of the current generation of machines, which I highly suspect after 3 years in working already, then it could quickly be phased out by things like OnLive and etc….
@Manasi
Haha it will be funny when the objects that we usually can do in a coherent group, are going to be sold of to silly kids who balls probably haven’t even dropped.
@Keldar
So far there has not been any FPS that has been able to retain a lot of layers, especially not from any not “in the news” game companies. Sorry, but this just probably won’t happen, though we will all have to just see.
@Biomassed
Thanks for giving me hope. With enough of the forum mega threads going one maybe, just maybe, CCP will change their mind and create some kind of toned down version of Dust.
@Selina
Yea, leaving part of our gameplay to other people’s control does not appeal me.
@Manasi; way too funny, can we load freighters with Ritalin and bring them to drop sites? I can’t say how I feel about Dust yet, not having enough info, but I do find the idea of console/pc gaming interaction very interesting. Don’t you think it’s a little risky trying to get a good balance for CCP though? If the “Dusters” find they can’t fight because the Capsuleers didn’t give them isk (supplies) they will quickly lose interest, and if the Capsuleers find they are losing claim to planets/systems/regions (not solely, but partly) due to their Dusters failures, won’t they quickly become disillusioned with 0.0 warfare? I think this will be a fine line to walk between the 2 mediums which is uncharted waters in the MMO world. I would like to see how it all turns out.
You’re getting way ahead of yourself here.
You know very little about this product and how it will be implemented. You know even less about the impact it’s going to have. Yet you feel compelled to say some very negative things, without knowing boo about it.
What I see here is a dramatic increase to the existing Eve userbase. That’s not a bad thing. Other than that, who the hell knows?
@worg
That is why this is just speculation, but I do feel compelled to say negative things about it because in my personal opinion that this product is trying to take more money out of the userbase, and in this case, includes me.
This could be an increase, or a decrease, as this bigger than ever change could really push people over to the point where they do not want to play anymore if, and only if, they feel they have lost too much control over a part of the game, like sovereignty for example.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts though, I gladly appreciate it. Perhaps you are right and this is a great thing, but my instincts gravitate towards the other side of the spectrum.
They’re trying to make more money out of the userbase with a whole new game?
I don’t really see how that follows. New people are going to be playing the game.
There are presumably going to be mechanics for hiring, transporting and deploying troops or squads. I don’t see any requirement in there for existing Eve players to buy or play the game at all.
@worg
The existing playerbase will be compelled to go play Dust, as well as new players.
Agreed, this statement does say that you will be “encouraged” to, but not that you will have to. In my opinion rich kids may get an advantage there, but that is already the case with EVE itself (Timecodes, PLEX, Character Trading). Then again, you can not realistically field a new product (Dust) and just give it away to subscribers of an existing product (EVE) even if they are related. A discount maybe, but if you want to survive economically it is just the way it works.
I do not think CCP will force nullsec alliances to get active in Dust themselves (just encourage them for an additional experience). You will be able to fund Dust mercenaries from within EVE, so you will not have to be a mercenary yourself. If you like you can participate and discover a new aspect of EVE’s game world. That is how I would do it anyway.
Oh, and I do not think scarcity of players in Dust would have any effects on the availability of mercenaries for hire in EVE. There is bound to be a constant pool of NPC mercenaries so that the gameplay in EVE is not affected. Again, that is how I would do it.
Seen this yet? It adds a bit of info, tho CCP still tight-lipped.
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1153056
@AeonOfTime
It is in my thinking that there will not be any NPC mercenaries to hire, as when the real players are playing against NPCs, the NPCs will most likely lose.
I hope CCP will not force nullsec alliances to get into Dust, but I think that is what they are trying for.
@JoeBear
Yes I did read that interview. I agree, CCP is being very secretive on this one.
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