I played the Eve online trial back in 2008. At the first day i thought "meh...nothing for me". Then i gave it 2 days later a second shot thinking "well lets try again". At that point i would have never thought that i would play this game for more than the trial period. As a matter of fact, i play it since then. I had mates who went through the same procedure, had mates who never played it beyond the trial period. Those who got past the trial are still playing today, those who didnt dont (obviously).

Not having a trial only results in people blindly purchasing a game which seems interesting to them. Then they log in and the most of them are dissappointed and never play it again. With the trial system (almost) only those people are purchasing who enjoyed the trial, and these are the guys you want in the game, because its not likely they give up soon, since they got over the starting problems.

It is a bad concept to just try to milk the cow for a few bucks here and there, but we all know a game like this can only function and develop with a strong and active playerbase. You just wont get that without trials and without a decent sale price. Ofc 30$ are nothing compared to what you get offered; lifetime access. But first you reallly need to get the name out there via a trial, get those purchases from players who played the trial and want to take it a step further. With steam connections you get a lot of the word of mouth that such a game needs more than anything else.

Maybe a DEV could be so kind and respond to this, if we ever see a trial again in the future or not. Would be really a bummer if not. Got my whole Eve corp in the queue willing to test and possibly switch..