There is a common misconception among many players who play an MMO for free: that they are somehow needed for game mechanics to work. Good examples are the miner crying "we are making your ships" to gankers and those who "pay" for their EVE accounts by PLEX bought for ISK claiming that they are subscribers since "someone else paid for it with real money".
Their problem is being unable to distinguish real items and game content. A real item needs work to be created and/or be protected by the law. PLEX itself is a coupon that allows you to play the game EVE Online. You have legal rights concerning your game subscription that is governed by real world contracts between the game company and you, typically done by some EULA/ToS. If you buy subscription and cannot play, you can sue for refund and the jury will force the company to refund, unless they rightfully banned you from the game for breaking the contract you clicked OK on. Also, CCP couldn't just give out PLEX-es for free without going bankrupt. The game needs work to be created and maintained and without payment it cannot exits.
Veldspar on the other hand is game content. You have absolutely no legal right to "your" Veldspar. If you'd have lot of Veldspar in your hangar and CCP would remove it all for no reason, there wouldn't be a court that would care. It wasn't your property. Also, CCP could create Veldspar in endless amounts without effort. The claim that "the EVE economy needs you to mine to keep the ship prices OK" is hilarious. CCP could increase the yield of miners or just sell Veldspar as NPC seeded item. If all the miners would quit EVE today, it wouldn't affect the mineral supply, assuming CCP reacts to the market swing and creates some source. They did just that with Technetium, turning the once money print moons into common ones and the Tech in your hangar worthless.
This is true for any of your game activity that makes other players pay for your account: they are game content and CCP could replace you with an NPC without loss of income. The customer (the guy who pays the real money) would simply sell his PLEX to an NPC or in the item shop instead of to you. He would get the same thing for his money. Your Veldspar isn't better than the Veldspar sold by NPCs.
Of course it doesn't mean that free-playing players are worthless. Game companies are struggling making good content and having volunteers creating it is great. While CCP could provide fleet commanding service via a GM, it would cost much more than just letting Mister Vee, Shadoo or Progodlegend playing for free.
When you think you earned your subscription by playing, you are very likely wrong. The truth is that such content creators as the mentioned FCs earned it and you just sneaked in in their shadow. CCP would probably need too much resources to separate those who create content (therefore make other players pay) from those who just sell Veldspar or update market orders. However this can change at any moment and then you are out of luck. Every day when you play for free without actually creating content is a gift you should be grateful for and not a right you earned. You'd better face the fact that your contribution to the game could be replaced by a bot or NPC, therefore you don't worth more to the game company. Sure, you might cost less than a well-programmed bot. But don't forget these when you'd say against a game change "this would make many people like me quit". Who cares if you aren't a customer?
Check out this work of art that a soon-to-be corpmember sent to the miners he liberated from their badly fit ships:
Their problem is being unable to distinguish real items and game content. A real item needs work to be created and/or be protected by the law. PLEX itself is a coupon that allows you to play the game EVE Online. You have legal rights concerning your game subscription that is governed by real world contracts between the game company and you, typically done by some EULA/ToS. If you buy subscription and cannot play, you can sue for refund and the jury will force the company to refund, unless they rightfully banned you from the game for breaking the contract you clicked OK on. Also, CCP couldn't just give out PLEX-es for free without going bankrupt. The game needs work to be created and maintained and without payment it cannot exits.
Veldspar on the other hand is game content. You have absolutely no legal right to "your" Veldspar. If you'd have lot of Veldspar in your hangar and CCP would remove it all for no reason, there wouldn't be a court that would care. It wasn't your property. Also, CCP could create Veldspar in endless amounts without effort. The claim that "the EVE economy needs you to mine to keep the ship prices OK" is hilarious. CCP could increase the yield of miners or just sell Veldspar as NPC seeded item. If all the miners would quit EVE today, it wouldn't affect the mineral supply, assuming CCP reacts to the market swing and creates some source. They did just that with Technetium, turning the once money print moons into common ones and the Tech in your hangar worthless.
This is true for any of your game activity that makes other players pay for your account: they are game content and CCP could replace you with an NPC without loss of income. The customer (the guy who pays the real money) would simply sell his PLEX to an NPC or in the item shop instead of to you. He would get the same thing for his money. Your Veldspar isn't better than the Veldspar sold by NPCs.
Of course it doesn't mean that free-playing players are worthless. Game companies are struggling making good content and having volunteers creating it is great. While CCP could provide fleet commanding service via a GM, it would cost much more than just letting Mister Vee, Shadoo or Progodlegend playing for free.
When you think you earned your subscription by playing, you are very likely wrong. The truth is that such content creators as the mentioned FCs earned it and you just sneaked in in their shadow. CCP would probably need too much resources to separate those who create content (therefore make other players pay) from those who just sell Veldspar or update market orders. However this can change at any moment and then you are out of luck. Every day when you play for free without actually creating content is a gift you should be grateful for and not a right you earned. You'd better face the fact that your contribution to the game could be replaced by a bot or NPC, therefore you don't worth more to the game company. Sure, you might cost less than a well-programmed bot. But don't forget these when you'd say against a game change "this would make many people like me quit". Who cares if you aren't a customer?
Check out this work of art that a soon-to-be corpmember sent to the miners he liberated from their badly fit ships:
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