(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.

Read 36 remaining paragraphs | Comments



More...