2018 has so far seen its fair share of underhanded, greedy, and downright scummy moves by the game industry; the consequences those respective companies having faced. Live services are being pushed in order to have less content that is more monetized, loot boxes are now being evaluated by multiple committees and organizations to determine if they’re gambling, and the new Smash Brothers still doesn’t have my favorite character in it.



One company, on the other hand is trying to be the proverbial light in the darkness—CCP Games. Just recently, the company announced their December update, and along with it the 13 Days of EVE. This event rewards players for logging into the game with various gifts, ranging from ship skins to skill points. This was, unsurprisingly, met with backlash from the EVE community at large.



“First, skill injectors, now they just give SP away for free; what a joke. #eveisdead” reads one of several tweets sharing a similar message. “Whatever happened to HTFU?” writes one of the few people that still use the EVE Online forums. “You know what we got for logging in during the holidays back in my day? Podded. AND you LOST sp, not given some for free.”



In a brief candid interview, CCP Falcon admits to us here at the Onion that he has no idea what the players actually want. “On one hand, you have people wanting SP compensation for server outages, and now people don’t want free gifts for the holidays,” says a distressed Falcon. “It’s almost as if the most vocal part of the community is an unpleasable, incomprehensible angry mess.”



CCP immediately began to hotfix the holiday giveaway, removing anything of actual value and reserving the skins for those that brave the darkest depths of abyssal space or defeat a massive pirate incursion. “I’ve seen better…” begins the top-rated Reddit comment for the hotfix announcement. “Wait, what do you mean we aren’t getting free sp? CCP is so greedy after being bought out,” replies the second-most rated comment.



Can CCP perfectly balance a holiday event to please every member of its community? Could this event spell the end for CCP Games and EVE Online as we know it? The answer is no, obviously. You crazy or something?



The moral of this story is don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, or in this case, a gift skin in the… pixels?