(credit: Opening image based on Eve Online assets courtesy CCP Games.)
Long before loot boxes became the bane of the Internet’s existence, in-game purchases at large could cause a bit of commotion within certain gaming communities. Roughly seven years ago, for instance, a simple monocle almost brought down one of the most active gaming communities around: EVE Online. With a staff holiday looming tomorrow on July 4, we’re resurfacing this cautionary tale of computer-gaming consumerism. It originally ran on July 11, 2011 and appears unchanged below.
Controversy was expected, but not virtual riots.
On June 21, developer CCP updated its popular space-opera-slash-MMO EVE Online so that players could take their avatars outside their ships and walk around the game world. With this new ability came a store that sold vanity items—in-game clothing and accessories that alter an avatar’s looks but don’t change an avatar’s abilities. The price for these items was much higher than most people expected for vanity in-game items which did absolutely nothing, and it made players nervous. The EVE playerbase didn’t want their game turning to microtransactions to increase the cost of playing.
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