Player Features and Ideas Discussion

CCP needs people to purchase them?

I was of the belief that with the failure of the Icelandic banking system causing financial stress, PLEX is an added measure to allow additional "hard" currency to end up in CCP's pocket. I'm not saying that this was the sole cause for the introduction of them, just an influence.

He's already mentioned that section was phrased poorly, and props for leaving it unedited.
By your definition ISK is the fiat currency of Eve and Plex is a commodity currency, correct? If you could explain the distinction between these I'd appreciate it, and it might be useful for others. Also explain where Aurum sits in this definition if there is only one currency. A Dev recently indicated on reddit that the vast majority of Aurum purchases are being made directly from CCP.

They have a notional value. ISK has always had a $ notional value whether in relation to RMT or GTC/Plex. Plex also has an opportunity cost value in relation to RL currency.

If the speculation of wealthy players restricts others from keeping their accounts active it's a concern (to me, if not you). It's probably not a concern to middle aged professionals in the northwestern hemisphere who can afford to skip over the grind to stay subbed. To be fair, these types also buy their supers & ALOD pimpmobiles via Plex sales and are probably generating the supply, as well as providing an unending source of hilarity. But there are groups of players who are being priced out of playing EvE either by age, geographical location or profession. It's noticeable that a portion of these are actually damn good gamers who might not be willing to stick around indefinitely grinding. I've had this conversation many times with unsubbers and whilst I disagree with their reasoning (anyone who needs to Plex should find passive income sources) you can't force them to change the grind mentality, and they can be elitists in other games for free. There's a problem with the subscription model as well as the Plex market and it's not an easy one to resolve.

To be fair, the screeching of those who are evidently well versed in market trading when any changes to Plexes would suggest there's a vested interest. That said, I agree with the rest of your snipped comments because it is a bit too simplistic to blame Plex prices purely on speculation. I suspect once a super/cap rebalance is on the table people will resub their unused alts (and cynos etc) and it'll give people 'endgame' pimpmobiles to actually start selling plex again to fund.

No. This is the dubious illogic of listening to player feedback and considering their comments fairly. The only problem with discussing economy with EvE players is that they have this awful habit of forgetting that there are actual people involved. It's the downfall of nerds everywhere scribbling on spreadsheets and writing up purist arguments - people aren't logical, which is why this topic requires a bit more thought.

Sometimes imposing limits on gameplay mechanics (i.e. Phoebe) have to be implemented over the protests of the rich old gits, because frankly, they're selfish old gits. I've bought and sold plexes, but never actively traded them because I find the market ethically questionnable after listening to the complaints of people priced out of playing. I have similar concerns over companies IRL who attempt to control basic commodities such as water in deprived areas for shareholder profit, and I doubt it's just me. Those who argue that the ability to play Eve as a FTP in a declining MMO subscription market are 'entitled brats' are delusional and should probably change their incontinence pads and check their pre-nups before their 3rd wife runs off with the gardener. They'll be here soon declaring how many minutes or hours they spend grinding IRL or ingame, so it's not their problem and the 'poors' won't be missed.

Moved to Features & Ideas.

Step 1: Make PLEX worth less.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!

Again, CCP has no direct control over the ISK value of a 30 day subscription. If anything, increased ISK price for a PLEX is good for CCP because it increases the value of the PLEX which in turn drives sales.

You're quite wrong here, PLEX is not priced higher than people are willing to pay, because they pay it. Personally, I refuse to pay almost 1 billion isk for a PLEX, so I pay $40 a month on 3 month subs for 3 of my accounts, letting the 4th lapse because I'm not in need of it at the moment.

What you, and all those like you whining because you can no longer PLEX your accounts on a couple hours a week of ratting, fail to understand is that CCP is under no obligation to you to reduce the price of PLEX, either in game or out. The price of PLEX is at its current high level because there is enough of a supply:demand ratio to bring the price to that level. Simply pay your sub with card, or unsub, and if enough people stop paying ridiculously high prices, the price will come down. This is how free market economics works.

One way or another, please stop crying about PLEX prices.

By this point it's definitely speculators trying to find the top of this peak. Eventually somebody is going to get spooked when the rolling average turns down too low and we're going to see a selloff like Nov '14. The price will drop into the low 800's again, at least for a while. I'd never attempt to pin the market down to a date, but a steep, consistent rise like this will overshoot the equilibrium price guaranteed.

In a few months I will have to return to plexiglass two accounts - at current prices it will not be fun, but is doable.

The major problem I see is this -

Average player base is like 18-20k at any given time on the server.
When it needs to be like 30-50.

CCP killed multi-boxers, which is great, but they have yet to get the numbers to replace those one man fleets of 50.
Seeing as there are fewer active accounts demanding PLEX, the supply went away. We are currently in a dam and is higher than supply, this prices are high.

You want prices to go down - start getting your friends to join - CCP could do more to support this as well.

Not quite.

When CCP got rid of multiplexing/input broadcasting it reduced demand for PLEX at all price levels, an "inward" shift of the demand schedule (or curve). There was probably little impact on the supply schedule. So what you'd see would be a drop in the price of PLEX. Of course players adapt and once again prices started going back up.

As for more people, that might help if they spend RL money on PLEX to fatten up their wallets early on, but eventually that would just lead to another price increase once many of them started raking in ISK by shooting rats.

Here is a question...how much ISK can one make in an hour while ratting? 50 million an hour? So a PLEX at 1 billion needs 20 hours spent ratting to pay for it or about 40 minutes every day for a month. Is that an outrageous amount of time? For an asset to be in a speculative bubble the price has to become disconnected from the intrinsic value of the asset. Has that happened with PLEX?

v0v

This is getting into a really complicated area of finance and economics. One way to analyze this would be with a markov switching model (aka a regime switching model). Unfortunately my primary text on that is at work. However the basic idea is that there would be multiple structural processes and that which process we are in would be controlled by an unobservable state variable that is governed by a (first order) markov chain. Basically, we can move from one process to the other randomly and as such predicting things like when the bubble is going to burst (i.e. what is the peak) is not going to work. And typically, things like bubbles are really noticable only after the fact.

I don't want to jump into your discussion here, but I run a bunch of services ingame and I get offered PLEX all the time. Many characters even offering to pay more than the ISK fee directly in plex (example 1.7bn cost, offers 2 PLEX). I realise this isn't strictly a "Market transaction" but it's for a service.



1. I never said CCP had direct control over the value of PLEX.
2. I am aware that "PLEX is worth more, I should buy some" is a correct concept.

There's plenty of people who still operate those fleets. I know personally of about six players who run fleets of 20+ accounts. They didn't go away, they just got used to clicking a lot and choosing lazier options, like launching Tech 1 drones and abandoning them en masse rather than individually ordering them to return.

If those people are still here - because really who thought that an input duplication ban would really deter the people with 20-50 accounts? They obviously love this game a lot - then why are we down to 2007 peak user levels?