EVE Online has found itself waist-high in controversy. After documents were leaked with plans to bring in gameplay-altering micro-transactions, and the reveal of a $70 in-game monocle, many users took to protesting. Lucky for us, we got the chance to interview the game's lead designer Kristoffer Touborg about the MMO fiasco, the future of EVE, and the upcoming PS3 MMO Dust 514.

Q: Could you talk about the decision to implement a micro-transaction system into the game after eight years without one?

Kristoffer Touborg: We're seeing companies with similar products, who weren't doing very well suddenly flourish because they found a better suited business model for their game. For us though, it's more a case of needing to future-proof our game. We've been around for eight years, and we'd love to be here for decades to come. Sometimes, reaching that goal means changing.

For most companies, I think offering extra services to players who are interested is an integral part of responsibly developing a successful product. I have to stress the word "interested" though, as that was key to our strategy. The virtual goods store is a great way of people investing in something they love, but at the end of the day, they're vanity items that players don't need to buy to be successful. That's not to say that selling other things is bad business, it just doesn't really fit our particular product.

Q: Is it reasonable to think in the future high-cost micro-transactions will be more regularly seen in games?

KT:Definitely. People like shiny things; that doesn't fundamentally change just because you use the internet. No game company would be doing this if there wasn't some fundamental need to fill in your customers. 99 per cent of your players might think a 500 dollar pink leather vest or sparkling pony is silly, but there is still that 1 per cent of your users that think it's the most amazing thing ever produced.

I really like cheaper items personally, because it allows more players to participate. An alternative route is to let people trade said items, which we allow our players to do. But yeah, high price items will definitely be in the mix; they need to be there to make the collectors happy and let the rest of us go "what a sucker" when we see someone wearing them.

Q: The issues surrounding the leaks seemed to explode across the Internet. Was this blown out of proportion?

KT: Yes and no. I think the average player had a lot of questions at the time that needed to be addressed. I think the reaction of "tell us what's going on!" from the player base was completely justified. We should have been better at communicating with them, not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because I think we could have killed a lot of the major concerns early on.

Then of course there were death threats, hate campaigns etc. which was defiantly out of proportion. It was a very small group of people though, the majority of the EVE community had relevant concerns that we've hopefully addressed since then. If not, we'll try doing so moving on.

Q: Customers threatened to cancel subscriptions after all the drama regarding changes to the game. Does this deter you from making changes to the formula of Eve in the future?

KT: I think that's a tricky question. I don't think we saw cancellations because of what we did, I think we saw cancellations because of what the community thought we might do in the future. Or said differently; players were more upset at the prospect of buying gold ammo down the road, than a monocle today. Of course there was some backlash against the monocle, but the core of the issue was uncertainty of the future.

Overall, changing EVE's formula needs to happen, we're a live product that that needs to exist not just today, but also tomorrow. Part of keeping that product fresh and attractive is making changes to that formula. It's tough, but it has to be done unless we want to fade away. What we need to make sure, is that chose changes to the formula are clearly communicated and that the players are on-board.