EVE General Discussion

CCP buy PLEX if price drops too fast and sell them again (along with any confiscated from banned accounts) if prices rise too fast.

All PLEX are originally paid for by players but CCP do interfere to stabilise the market.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=235607

Why in hell would they do that a plex is 15.99 a sub is 9.99?

First of all, new players buy PLEX from CCP, not from the Market.
Infact many new players don't even realise they could simply buy account time for cheaper, rather than a PLEX.
This is something I see repeatedly prove true in Rookie Chat.

But this does not affect the price of PLEX, because these new players are converting their IRL bought PLEX directly into gametime, not selling them on the Market.

New players, even those who arrived as a result of the recent media flavor fleet battle, generally are not in a position to buy PLEX ingame. It takes time to develop an account, to learn EVE and formulate a game strategy to be able to afford a PLEX. For most players, that is atleast 2-3 months. Many do, however, buy an "extra" PLEX, when they are buying their original stack that they mistakenly is the only way to add time to their account. Those extra PLEXs make it to the Market, and are probably quite a substantial part of influx of PLEX into the game.

Second of all, I don't know the specific figures of CCPs intervention by selling existing confiscated PLEX, but I think the amount is quite small compared to the mass of "legit" PLEXs. Its more a courtesy and expedient measure to the community to re-introduce PLEX that, in an informal fashion, "belongs" to the community/economy at large. I don't believe CCP re-introduction of confiscated PLEXs has ever had a significant impact (but by all means, if a true Veteran knows of such incidents, then I defer to them absolutely).

As to CCP buying PLEX, I'd imagine that is an emergency regulatory measure to protect the market from some unintended calamity or a really serious attempt at market manipulation that threatens the community overall. I'm ok with that, and don't believe for one second that this would be a course of action taken lightly (and to my knowledge, PLEX price dropping is almost unheard of lol. if anything, PLEXs are one hell of a way to ensure your investment appreciates. Few commodities have had such a constant increase in value).

Atleast I would hope that they are careful when doing this, by introducing them at a trickle and at non-disruptive pricing. In any case, its better that they do this, than destroy the PLEX, or "re-sell" the PLEX through the CCP shop. Those alternatives are far inferior to what I understand to be their current policy.

What's to stop incredibly wealthy hi-sec T2 BPO owners and industrialists from using their vast income to buy up all the plex?

Same answer: nothing. PLEX are an in-game item.

I'll hazard an early prediction here, just for fun to see if I'm any good at this.

I expect PLEX to rise to atleast 850mil, and potentially up to just under 1bil, culminating directly before the release of the paintjobs.

This is assuming CCP don't massively change the proposal/pricing, or withdraw it altogether, and not considering other as of yet unmentioned game development announcements/implementations on their part.

Plex prices increase, miners complain in forums about how many more hours a month they have to mine to break even.

I don't see a problem.

Me neither... anything that gives me reason to spend more hours mining is awesome. :P

This ^^

A cinema ticket in the soggy south of England would cost me around £10.00 for a standard evening showing (adult ticket, non-3D), plus £0.75 for booking online and £1.20 for parking (I smuggle in my own snacks and drinks). I can get it down to about £8.00 total by going during the daytime without booking ahead and on a student card - but they don't have all films available then.

Compare that to £9.33 for a whole month of shiggles in space, purchased via the 3-month sub pack. To me, ISK is monopoly money for buying toys in a game, not a real-life financial substitute with a per-hour work rate and quota and targets and minimum requirement...

o/

That won't happen.
1) The higher the PLEX cost is ingame, the more people will buy them from CCP, thereby increasing supply again, and reducing PLEX cost ingame.
2) Even at this moment, there is NO reason to buy PLEX from CCP, for purposes of gametime. You can simply buy account time for CHEAPER than it costs to buy a PLEX.
3) When people cant afford PLEX for ISK, then they will buy gametime from CCP directly, thereby providing them with IRL currency, thereby enabling them to not have to shut down operations or the game itself.
4) If people close their "extra accounts" that they used to maintain with PLEX, it doesn't affect CCPs income even one smidgeon, because those accounts never provided any revenue in the first place.

People closing their (extra) accounts that were already paid with PLEX doesn't immediately hurt CCP's bottom line. CCP doesn't feel that pain unless the price of PLEX drops enough to cause a reduction in the rate at which people are buying PLEX with cash. Its kind of a beautiful system. Now, if people are closing their mains and leaving the game entirely over a temporary price spike, then THAT is certainly a problem.