Engagement is the key to success for Eve Online. I've always believed that and have been preaching it from this pulpit for almost five years now. Getting new players engaged is the critical piece of long-term success for Eve. This is not a surprise.
Since last May I've been hard at work building an engagement system in Eve, most commonly referred to as a Corporation. Since May over 200 pilots have responded and joined Stay Frosty. Applications are open and anyone can join. We have no rules about staying and some people come and go freely. Right now we are hovering at the 170 member mark and hope to reach about 200 in the next few months. That has always been our goal.
Running a large corporation is a lot different than running a smaller corporation, in many ways. But one trend that I've noticed involves engagement. Over 90% of the pilots that leave Stay Frosty never even bothered to register on our forums. Which means they missed out on an extremely vibrant, helpful and engaging part of being in our Corporation. It also means they never registered for Comms, since those two things are tied together.
So for a Corporation whose entire purpose is engagement, we are missing out on engaging a small percentage of those pilots coming to us to be engaged. Make sense? I mean, in the overall picture, we are talking about a very small percentage of players - not many people leave Stay Frosty. But it is something that I've noticed.
In the larger picture, if WE are having issues engaging pilots, imagine what Eve must be experiencing on the larger front. Players coming to play with SF are certainly not "normal" players, so I can only assume even worse retention numbers for Eve as a whole.
This is, as I've said before, one of the biggest challenges Eve faces moving forward. And, I believe, it is critical for its long-term success. Something I am rather keenly interested in. As I'd like to continue playing Eve for a long-time to come.
All I can do is continue to try to engage players from my small corner of the Universe. And in 2014 I would like to dedicate myself to upping my own game in this regard. More events, more posts, more people joining Stay Frosty, more engagement of our victims, more of more. Whatever I can personally do to help engage a larger percentage of players, to show them the true nature of Eve, I will try to do.
Isolation is not engagement. Community is. Whatever sense of community helps you stay engaged, a blog, a corp, an alliance, whatever it is, eve is full of it. It is a rather vibrant and amazing place when you jump in. But playing alone on your corner of the sandbox is nothing more than a recipe for boredom and eventually boredom leads to failure.
I've seen it over and over again.
I'll continue to do my part. But I'm only one wittle dood.