It's a year from now. Contrary to popular current option, Dust isn't dead. In fact, there's still a decent number of people playing what is a quite improved game. Newbies don't stick around much though, on account of being constantly stomped by vets. It's no fun going 0/10 every match you play, and there are newer 'fairer' and less grindy games out there.

For those that stuck with Dust, they've maxed out all their core skills and can fit at least one protosuit and protoweapon. Some can fit several different types of proto stuff. They have vehicle alts they created at almost the same time as their mains that can do the same with dropships and HAV's on account of passive sp. They also have eleventy billion isk and no fear of economic loss, so they run Advanced fits all the time in public matches, protofits in corp matches, and they still turn a small profit at the end of the day.

These players don't buy AUR to pay for boosters anymore. Why would they? Their core and favourite dropsuit and weapon skills are maxed. Anything else they want to try out they're content to wait a little longer for by not opening their wallets. They don't care for Standard suit and weapon BPO's because they never run Standard.

CCP release new Merc packs still, of course, but the overwhelming player response is "Go **** yourself, CCP"

Sales are naturally very light because by now the playerbase has wised up to the fact that 'Flubalub' Assault Rifle, 'Jubalub' Assault Rifle, and 'Pubalub' Assault Rifle have exactly the same stats as the dozen Assault Rifle BPO's before them, they will always have the same stats, and it's just not worth the money for simply a different name and skin.

Even now, you could probably afford the Elite pack, but the BPO's bore you and some are actually Militia posing as Standards. Why do you care for a Swarm Launcher BPO that has Militia stats when 1500 isk will get you something better? So you decided against purchasing it; if you bought, Veteran packs were chosen instead for the Standard LAV, and you'll never need a LAV BPO again.

One year from now Dust still costs money to run, however. Those servers fees and staff salaries bear heavy and CCP management are not willing to subsidise this game via EVE forever. It's just not good business. So they ask themselves, "What is it that our players will open their wallets for if not boosters and Standard suit, weapon, and LAV BPO's?"

The answer is clear. They will open their wallets for initially Militia dropships and HAV's (Standard later), Standard equipment BPO's (Advanced later), and Advanced dropsuit and weapon BPO's.

I told you to keep that a secret.

Completely disagree.
Players won't and shouldn't pay for or have access to those BPOs. Even the ones we have now are bad for the game.
When someone runs a free suit in a match it affects total match ISK returns. When you kill a free suit you gain no ISK for it.

When people use BPOs the economy suffers.

As for your point of where money will come from, mostly boosters. CCP are constantly working on better ways to make "balanced" matches so noobs aren't put up against vets. The most recent example of this are the academy matches.
Younger players (in-game, not real life) will buy more boosters and gear. When we have our in-game market people will buy AUR gear and sell it for ISK.
Revenue isn't dead, there are just a few technical steps that need to go in to the game first.

Because there are BPOs, there will be BPOs for everything?

Fail logic is fail.

Because there are BPOs, there will be BPOs for everything?

Fail logic is fail.

What my more vulgar forum-friend here tried to say is that BPOs at the moment are a means to an end. That end being getting into Dust more easily. They are not meant to be a free ride ticket to the cool toys.

BPOs in the future will also be available for ISK (again, when we get our in-game market) so all our troubles will be over.

Only if you don't have the capacity for complex thought.

Our more vulgar forum-friend overlooked the fact that BPO's have become an important revenue stream for CCP, and possibly the most important. CCP will wish to continue earning revenue from them. However, players will not continue paying for the same item with simply a different name and skin. Therefore, CCP must release more and better BPO's if it wishes to keep people opening their wallets. The only thing that's currently left is Militia dropships and HAV's, and Standard equipment. Once all who would spend have bought those, they will need to release still better BPO's. And on it goes, till we have Advanced BPO's of everything.

The lack of complex thought is on your side, not mine.

Assuming that there will be vehicle BPOs and higher-grade BPOs in future is ignoring that CCP experimented with such things in the beta and deliberately removed those because they were too easily abusable. It was actually implied at the time that the devs were using the free vehicles as a way to emphasise vehicle use for testing purposes.

You're ignoring anything beyond the most basic of thought processes and not addressing anything that actually requires more complex logic than "if it happened before it can happen again". I'm the one looking beyond the surface here. Nice try though.

Do not underestimate the value of cosmetics.
Just look at the Team Fortress 2 financial model. People spend buckets of RL money on hats.

To me, BPOs in the future should be replaced by colour schemes or other cosmetic items.
I personally would spend so much money on bow ties and hats that it's almost embarrassing...

If you were capable of complex thought truly, you wouldn't be making the link between free vehicles in a beta that brought no real life revenue to CCP and 'free' vehicles in release that do bring in real life revenue for CCP.

Remember though that the cosmetics in TF2 bring no advantage in game. However, the precedent of advantage - however slight - has been set in Dust with the introduction of the very first BPO. Once you set a precedent, and that precedent pays your bills, it's virtually impossible to go against it.

Remember though that the cosmetics in TF2 bring no advantage in game. However, the precedent of advantage - however slight - has been set in Dust with the introduction of the very first BPO. Once you set a precedent, and that precedent pays your bills, it's virtually impossible to go against it.

And if you were capable of complex thought, you'd realise that CCP are focused on the long-term, and always will be, and adding in things that people will legitimately argue as pay-to-win items is NOT going to happen because that's the death of the community and would effectively give them a short-term revenue boost at the expense of continuing profits.

Cosmetic functions are confirmed, and THOSE will be the real cash-cow for CCP.

There's a more solid precedent for advantage-giving items to be nerfed or removed, or for ISK-based versions of those items to be made available.

The precedent you're arguing is for items that let you save a SMALL amount of ISK by running VERY WEAK equipment. It's NOT for anything that could qualify as a pay-to-win item in any form.

Even a Militia HAV or Dropship can be a credible threat on a level that no Dropsuit ever will be.

A Standard LAV is a fair bit better than a Militia. They introduced that. There's been no mass exodus from Dust. Why would there be for Militia dropships and HAV's? You can probably go 20/0 with a Standard murder-taxi. Same as you would with a HAV.

It's only P2W if there's no isk equivalent of something. There will be isk equivalents of the Advanced BPO's.

I've seen plenty go 20/0 with the starter LAVs too. I've seen players run 20-0 without the LAV. And in spite of that, a broken mechanic that needs fixing isn't a basis for an argument, and we all know LAVs are a broken element in the game right now. When they're actually working as intended, you won't see 20-0 LAV Drivers.

And even in the current state, I've seen a good Militia HAV driver and his gunners clear out almost the entire clone count of an enemy team in Ambush. 40 kills between 3 players. You don't get that with a single LAV, even a Standard one that the person doesn't have to buy again.

And that's before you consider that the LAV BPOs come without turrets, and you have to fit one for them to be valid and usable, so you're forced to spend SOMETHING if you want it to happen.

If there aren't ISK BPOs at the same level, no there aren't.

You can get away with Militia and occasional Standard BPOs because the real competitive gear is all Advanced and Prototype. You aren't giving people an advantage, because there are reasonable options for low-level players to compete against those options with equal AND BETTER gear. If they're releasing Advanced BPOs, the game WILL go to the people who spent the most money on infinite-use items, and because nobody else can compete without also spending money, they won't get new customers, and that in turn means they won't get more money, because guess what? ALL THE PLAYERS ALREADY HAVE THEIR BPOS AND DON'T NEED TO BUY MORE.

Sales are naturally very light because by now the playerbase has wised up to the fact that 'Flubalub' Assault Rifle, 'Jubalub' Assault Rifle, and 'Pubalub' Assault Rifle have exactly the same stats as the dozen Assault Rifle BPO's before them, they will always have the same stats, and it's just not worth the money for simply a different name and skin.

Even now, you could probably afford the Elite pack, but the BPO's bore you and some are actually Militia posing as Standards. Why do you care for a Swarm Launcher BPO that has Militia stats when 1500 isk will get you something better? So you decided against purchasing it; if you bought, Veteran packs were chosen instead for the Standard LAV, and you'll never need a LAV BPO again.

The argument that it's not P2W if there's an isk equivalent is not mine, it's CCP's.

I know that even militia BPO's are a small P2W because you take away the economic cost of warfare for yourself whereas others still have it. That makes you a bit bolder in play, maybe thereby more successful even.

Low level players could have easily competed with starter fits. Why did they then introduce militia BPO's? A test to see if people would pay real life bucks. They did, so CCP increased their development spending. Now everyone who would pay has their militia BPO's, so they slowly introduce Standards to be able to maintain their development costs. And so on and so forth.

Again, I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying it's inevitable.

There's the option to add new ISK-only tiers as you start selling more and more Aurum tiers. If everyone can buy a proto-BPO the top players don't get quite so antsy if they can still use a MegaHyperProto dropsuit that only they with their massive ISK and SP can fit.

Bare in mind that adding tiers is difficult and resource-intensive (we still don't have racial variants of dropsuits after all this time) but introducing a BPO of something that already exists and is reasonably balanced is both easy and profitable.

We all want Dust to be great. It won't be great without development. There won't be development without real life money. And real life money is most easily acquired via new and exciting BPO's

Actually, adding new tiers of existing equipment just means a new colour scheme on the existing model.

It's no more intensive than adding the AUR version of the same item, and if they're donw at the same time, it would make the process even easier.

Add an AUR Advanced item, and a Proto+ version of the same item for ISK. That way, the top-level competitive players will still be running the top 2 tiers and lower-level players or those running BPOs will run "cheap" gear.

In response I put to you "Last chance to get these Merc pack items before they go away permanently!" and then a week later they're in the Store. We'll see the Omega boosters again, despite the allusion they were a one-shot deal, precisely because they were bestsellers. Everyone knows there's no scarcity of digital goods so to make it seem so and get people to part with money quickly you have to lie.

When the real potential for more money is involved, a company very quickly forgets its promises. CCP has proven that time and again. And ten years down the line is less important than being able to pay the wages now. They would have introduced Gold Ammo into EVE too had it not been plastered across the media, causeed an immense player backlash, and threatened their bottom line. With Dust, however, world + dog expects Gold Ammo to an extent since the base product is free.

I too would hope Dust goes the way you hope it to go, but I would stake an immense amount on it going the way I believe it will.

McDonalds has been doing it for years with its nasty little mcrib.

1 - That particular merc pack was removed, not the items. It seems you failed to read "The items however will be available for purchase in the store.
2 - Of course we'll see omega boosters again, they are a wanted item. Saying "this week only" implies its a limited time offer, not that its a one-shot deal.
3 - Limited time offers on popular products are a proven source of profitable income. McDonalds has been doing it for years with its nasty little mcrib.
4 - After 10 years of providing enjoyable games to enjoy, increasing their revenue to begin developing a generations first console to pc integrated virtual world and providing it for free, i have no doubts that CCP will make this game into the dream they envisioned.
5 - If you "worried" about CCP's financial state, buy a merc pack and donate money to them.

Would like to point out that all of the BPOs in the packs are for reskinned (and renamed) Standard gear.

I have 2 different AR BPOs, the Exile and the Dren, both have the exact same stats and equipment requirements.

I run BPO gear because I have .79 KDR and am a terrible shot, so I would rather not use (and thusly lose) ADV and PROTO gear in even match to survive. So I just run around in Free/Cheap fits until my skill improves.

1. Actually, that clarification about those items being available in the store came some time afterwards. If you check this announcement you'll see the post was edited about two weeks after it was initially posted. Easy to miss for your average person, but the sharper ones among us know what's going on.