Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Agreed. "No" as you had answered to my question if CCP would be able to turn a buck. That was my point, in that CCP profits from players paying for their services with real dollars outside the game, hence my comment that the in game economy does not add to CCP's bottom line. Its only an auxiliary aspect of the game that adds its own value within the game perceived by its players.

Furthermore, you mentioned demand, which is part of "supply." So if players stopped buying PLEX to redeem for in game currency, and demand remained the same, not only would the PLEX market dry up but prices would sky rocket, and that would be economics in action too

Only to the extent that there are PLEX still in the market.

Adam Smith noted well over 200 years ago that specialization can take place depending on the extent of the market. Same thing here. So long as there is a PLEX in the economy, then CCP is not losing money when people buy a PLEX and use it for their game time.

Once the last PLEX is gone note that you cannot use ISK to "pay for your subscription". That right there should tell you your position is extremely problematic.

If we're going to quibble over wording then he's correct, CCP counts PLEX still in the game as deferred income. Until someone spends it it's a debt, not income. People who buy and redeem PLEX in-game essentially do pay CCP just indirectly.

So yes, seriously, they are adding to CCP's bottom line. Both in accounting terms and in literal economic terms by driving the purchase of PLEX for players to sell in-game.

Exactly, that's right, assuming the purchased PLEX from CCP is sold for ISK in the game and not redeemed for player time or multiple training. I think we're saying the same thing but seeing it differently.

Peace

I'm actually somewhat knowledgeable on the behind the scenes aspects of game dev economy, and I can tell you from that experience that items like PLEX are actually treated as deferred income. The same goes for most MMOs that have a in-game real-money-only currency.

Yes, it's not worth anything, yes you can't get it back if the company dies, and yes they're still going to spend that money in the meantime, but it's still treated as deferred income for them in their accounting ledgers.

I won't pretend to understand the vagueries of accounting and tax law, I can just tell you that Teckos is almost certainly 100% correct about how unredeemed PLEX is noted in CCP's accounts. This matches with old reports CCP used to release on the state of the company and the economic notation used there.



Actually I think the restriction on Alpha training had more to do with limiting the amount of training Alphas could do before having to go Omega, as well as keeping them out of Pirate Frigates without obtuse restrictions.



You're free to be mad about it, but what Eve is, what the design restrictions are, and all of that is pretty clearly written on the metaphorical tin (or literal if you bought the box edition). The game isn't designed to restrict you to one race of ships and there's no particular in-game or cannon reason for it to do so.

It's not like in Star Trek where one race has tech another doesn't, the languages are different, and accessing another race's hulls is fundamentally pretty difficult to do. In Eve it's all a matter of training to fly what you want, finding someone who can build it, and then buying it, because no faction has access to tech the others don't. The differences between racial doctrines are just that, doctrines, not hard tech limitations.

Also for reference which race is considered really really good at any given thing has changed pretty widely over the history of the game as things have been rebalanced, new tactics and tricks have been found, and economic conditions have changed. For example the current Machariel doctrines a lot of Null is using wouldn't have been viable 2-3 years ago. The stats of the ship haven't changed much since then, but the price and availability of the hulls has gone way up as has the number of pilots who can fly them, which has made the fleet tactic viable.

Play the game long enough and you'll see the fortunes of just about every ship in the game wax and wane as things get tweaked around, players adapt, and things fall in and out of fashion.

So yeah, if you want an MMOG where people don't min-max I don't think this is it. I'd recommend one to you but I really can't think of one.

Which is why you make your ships expendable - I've got a T2 (drills) and T1 mix exploration and mining Venture set up that costs 2mil.