Yes, we are paying for entertainment time. However, in paying a subscription for a game, you are supporting its continued existence and development.
That second sentence is what I disagree with. You are paying for entertainment time, fullstop. The money may or may not be used for the continued existence of the game. In fact most of the time only a fraction of the money is used for that reason, if any.
From my own perspective, I am not so much interested in the morality of CCP (they are a business). I am more concerned with lack of responsiveness in addressing ongoing problems with their product and whether I feel like that product continues to be entertaining or a good match for me.
Ok for the "continues to be entertaining". Lack of responsiveness is only relevant insofar as it influences your entertainment (and considering CCP has never been responsive there's a good chance that players either quit very soon or, if they only quit after an year or more of playtime, they'll eventually come back within two or three years of hiatus).
That said, I do feel that choosing to play and subscribe to a game is a statement of support for the work that goes into it. If I have a finite amount of cash to spend on gaming, I choose to put it into a product/group that I like.
Yes and no, depends on what you mean with "statement of support". If you mean you like the game as it currently is (including the feeling of being part of something that still isn't but will be, which, as a feeling, is part of what it currently is) then yes.
I think the WOT and DUST titles brought that feeling about, our money used to go to providing a sandbox, now it goes to other games.
Your money has never gone to providing a specific sandbox. Any reasonable company invests in what gives the most potential return (at minimal risk). In the beginning it generally is just the first product, but as soon as that product has had a reasonable amount of work done, part (if not all) of the revenue goes for something as different as possible within the same know-how (in the case of CCP, it's another single-shard MMORPG but for a completely different platform and a completely different playstyle).
Which in itself would not be so bad if a lot of eve's end game was not in need of developer time.
The problem of EvE is that it now has an endgame. A sandbox should not have an endgame, just an horizontal evolution in terms of diversity, not a vertical evolution in terms of more power. As for nullsec, they'll redo it a few times. Beginning with DUST (wait and see: DUST will influence EvE nullsec much more than most people think. Not when released next year, but in 3 to 5 years).
Still that said, i am staying for much the same reason srike mentions its kinda of exciting where this game is going i sense a journey is to be had here, and i am looking forward to it.
I'm staying for the same reasons (also I came here but did not leave EvE, I'll most probably run multiple accounts both here and there. And probably on DUST too).
This game has a lot of potential. We'll see. The most worrying thing IMO, at least in terms of theorycraft, is the way attributes influence EP usage (EvE got this working much better. They did dumb-it-up and made it much less interesting recently, but the underlining mathematic is much more solid).
