These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Market Discussions

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
Previous page12
 

Is CCP Manipulating PLEX or a Third Party Alliance?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
0Lona 0ltor
Adeptio Gloriae
#21 - 2013-04-14 13:14:07 UTC
CCP will happily ban anyone who trys to crash PLEX, it has been said before.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#22 - 2013-04-15 07:37:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
First off, simple common sense would tell you that CCP putting up PLEX for sale on the markets would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Not that they never did anything foot-shooty in other areas, but hopefully they learned to do that less often.
Besides, offering discounts for bulk PLEX purchases does the trick quite nicely already anyway.

Second, why does it have to be some major alliance ?
There are traders in the game that could easily afford to have HUNDREDS of PLEX stockpiled for SHORT term arbitrage, and them putting some batches up for sale whenever the price starts to rise would be something fairly natural, if a bit lazy.
Then again, they get gobbled up eventually, so it's probably the rather smart kind of lazy, IMO.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
0Lona 0ltor
Adeptio Gloriae
#23 - 2013-04-15 09:05:34 UTC  |  Edited by: 0Lona 0ltor
Akita T wrote:
First off, simple common sense would tell you that CCP putting up PLEX for sale on the markets would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Not that they never did anything foot-shooty in other areas, but hopefully they learned to do that less often.
Besides, offering discounts for bulk PLEX purchases does the trick quite nicely already anyway.

Second, why does it have to be some major alliance ?
There are traders in the game that could easily afford to have HUNDREDS of PLEX stockpiled for SHORT term arbitrage, and them putting some batches up for sale whenever the price starts to rise would be something fairly natural, if a bit lazy.
Then again, they get gobbled up eventually, so it's probably the rather smart kind of lazy, IMO.


They have said they use ISK and PLEX removed from those they've banned and I also suspect they would invest RL money to stabalise the market if needed to keep subscriptions steady such as providing discounts on PLEX deals which is simply a cash injection detracted from RL $ sales into the EVE market.

I'd love for a massive war on PLEX to see if a part of the player base could break CCP and the PLEX market. You never know CCP might offer some sort of RL gift if you start winning? Guest package and free flights to Iceland anyone? Either that or they'll just ban you.

TL;DR CCP does manipulate the PLEX market via PLEX sales and RL PLEX price costs.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#24 - 2013-04-15 14:28:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
0Lona 0ltor wrote:
They have said they use ISK and PLEX removed from those they've banned and I also suspect they would invest RL money to stabalise the market if needed to keep subscriptions steady such as providing discounts on PLEX deals which is simply a cash injection detracted from RL $ sales into the EVE market.

They've implied they COULD do those first things if absolutely needed, but so far the only thing they actually needed to do was hold all those discounted PLEX sales since back then.

For PLEX discounts, while they may look at a first glimpse as if CCP might lose the full discount because of them (and eventually, in the long run, they sort of might, but it's at least partially if not even fully counterbalanced by the possibility of early repayments of debts they still have anyway, so it doesn't matter that much, if at all), the short-and-medium-term loss is noticeably lower (since they generate sales which would not have happened otherwise), which might actually lead occasionally even to a net gain overall.

P.S. Ok, technically, they also (sort of) indirectly purchased some PLEX back for cash at times (NVIDIA cards "sales", humanitarian aid and other such stuff).

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
0Lona 0ltor
Adeptio Gloriae
#25 - 2013-04-15 17:31:52 UTC
Not really as they were plex that had been paid for and thus CCP loses nothing on PLEX for Aid or Cards. Things like that just drive up the price of Plex while PLEX sales drop it. Mass bans of bots will also drive down PLEX while allowing botting to slide will drive it up.
Callduron
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#26 - 2013-04-16 18:13:18 UTC
Sentamon wrote:
"Ecomomists" can't help but meddle in the free market, it's their nature,and it always ends badly.


And yet you and I only have computers because of First World protectionism.

I suppose it "ends badly" from the perspective of Malawian peanut farmers.

I write http://stabbedup.blogspot.co.uk/

I post on reddit as /u/callduron.
Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#27 - 2013-04-16 19:10:45 UTC
0Lona 0ltor wrote:
Not really as they were plex that had been paid for and thus CCP loses nothing on PLEX for Aid or Cards. Things like that just drive up the price of Plex while PLEX sales drop it. Mass bans of bots will also drive down PLEX while allowing botting to slide will drive it up.

Well actually if you consider the fact that those graphics cards were not top of the line only worth say $200-250, they cost what 20 PLEX which even at the discount price of $17.95 rather than the normal $20 is still about $350 per card. So really CCP made $100 of each card slod, and each EVE player paid 50% over market value for those cards. They were just able to buy them with in game isk thru PLEX that other players have paid real $ for.

My point is, if, when CCP was selling new graphics cards for PLEX someone was to buy the needed 20 PLEX with real money. Then Used those purchased PLEX to trade for the card. It would have cost them much more than just going to tiger direct and buying an even better graphics card. I am sure CCP got a nice bulk discount on those cards as well. So they defiantly made a profit off that deal.

Was this a scam on CCPs part? NO. It was a great deal for many players that do not have a lot of real money, but spend a lot of time playing EVE. Players that pay their sub every month with PLEX they bought in game. Players who used isk they earned playing the game to buy those PLEX and trade it for something that they would other wise have had to buy for real money. It was a great deal for both sides.

CCP not only took a big load of PLEX out of circulation, but did it in a way that saved them real money. For example even if we take PLEX at its non sale value of $19.95 USD. it is actually worth only one months game time which is around $15 or less for a long term subscription paid with real money. So they already make a few bucks per PLEX sold. Not only do they get that money now rather than when the game time is actually used, but they get more than a regular monthly subscription. A win win for CCP and for the players who buy PLEX to sell in game for isk.

Now they take some of those PLEX and offer graphics cards or Fanfest tickets for a specified number of PLEX. The graphics cards for example are worth about $200, in fact CCP probably got them even cheaper, but for this example we will stick with a $200 value. 20 PLEX at normal price is about $400. So CCP basically bought those PLEX back for half of what they sold them for. $19.95 each for 20 PLEX is $399. 20 PLEX for a $200 graphics card is only $10 per PLEX. CCP effectively sold those graphics cards for at least double what they paid for them.
Previous page12