Market Discussions

I didn't really have the second part in mind (and I don't imagine the decrease in demand from banned players is significant). I was only observing that to have a constant supply of PLEX from banned players, they must continue to ban players.

A banned player's PLEX, unlike perhaps their ISK and other assets, are not ultimately the product of an exploit, but an ordinary PLEX purchase, so I don't think the question arises. [1]

I wouldn't expect an increase in supply to return you to the same equilibrium point, no, which is what you seem to be saying. A lower price can't increase demand to the point where the price isn't lower, and yet continue to increase demand.

I think these paens (this isn't the most obvious one, to be fair) to leaving the market in its natural state are overstating the case, for all the OP's proposed remedies were clearly unworkable, and it's not clear there's an actual problem from CCP's point of view.

The market doesn't have a natural state; CCP can't _not_ interfere. They decide the manufacturing inputs to every recipe, the drop rates of every dropped item, the price of skillbooks and blueprints, etc - and specifically here, the RL cost of PLEX, the PLEX cost of ex-Aurum items, and the amount of gametime PLEX gives you.

Deciding to return banned players' PLEX to the market is interfering, but just as much is permanently removing it from the game interfering. The decision is only how to interfere.

[1] Yes, one can imagine an exploit that manufactures PLEX, and in that case you'd expect the cloned PLEX to be removed from the game regardless.

I don't know why CCP would reintroduce confiscated PLEX. PLEX that was bought with real world money that was confiscated is no longer a liability as it can not be used any longer. The only way that I would think this PLEX would ever find its way back into the game is if they literally resell it for real world money again. If CCP wanted to attempt to drop PLEX prices then you'd get a super PLEX sale.

No, I'm not asking for that. Personally I don't care about the PLEX price one jot - I pay for my subscription with cash money and always have, bought my character transfer PLEX and MCT PLEX with cash money, don't use New Eden Store cosmetics nor skill injectors or extractors. I'm not asking for anything, there isn't a price I would like, and this is nothing to do with my needs or wants.

I'm discussing an idea that was mooted in the thread - and the other thing I'm pointing out is that calling it an intervention is a bit misleading because anything CCP does - even nothing - is equally well them manipulating the market. It doesn't have a natural hands-off state.

This is obviously true in the short term, but equally it seems likely that a high price will cause a decline in the number of players, but a high player count helps keep everyone interested. If a bunch of poors leave, that may cause whales to leave (and meaning there's not a net change in the ratio of supply and demand) - making this a bad thing in the long run. I imagine CCP have a better idea of what might happen than we do, which is why it's interesting that the suggested intervention has been done in the past as a response to a rapidly rising PLEX price.

It's misleading, I think, to refer to doing one thing as a "correction" and not to doing another thing. It's all equally artificial.

If you had read the discussion above you would know the answer - as a response to rapidly rising PLEX prices, just like they did last time.

I think we started with simple feasiblity - someone mentioned the reintroduction of confiscated PLEX, you said "one off, not a long-term price effect", I said "not if they keep doing it". Nothing about "should".

I think it is interesting to discuss what could be done and what the outcome might be - and I don't think the discussion is any more or less interesting if we label one course of action "intervention" and the other "no intervention".

I think they do. I mean, you're undeniably right that there's been a change in demand resulting from the new facilities, and that's not going away, but an ongoing decision to reinject ban-confiscated PLEX would produce a change in supply that wasn't going away either.

Well, there's a difficulty here - besides the possibility of a drastic price crash brought on by an anticipated drop in demand - we've had an understanding for years that the PLEX:gametime ratio is unchanging. If it can be changed, it can be changed both ways, and PLEX are no longer an investment with an inherent value that can never be lost.

Lower the cash price? All very well, but it immediately hits the balance sheet (although of course if it brings in more players in the long run, worth it).

The advantage of the confiscated PLEX scheme (after all, there's nothing magic about the number confiscated, CCP could print as many as they liked if they thought it would raise revenue in the long run) is it reassures the people with hoards of the stuff that the extra supply is of a definitely limited size.

I agree with Potato Mode Beard Brurak, Plex should convert to game time once purchased, no double dipping.

It seems like there's even a simpler idea.

If there is a need to keep plex around a certain price... the simplest way to do so is to introduce more plex to the economy.

I'm not sure if that's necessary or not... but if CCP decided they needed to drop the price of plex... then simple give every subscribed account X number of plex. The price will drop. Pretty simple.

If you need to drop it more... give away more plex.

I do not see any CCP solution by PLEX in the market to bring down the price. This only gets worse because the smart ones buy these PLEX and resell.

The solution would be made non-negotiable in the purchase by the game market so that I could buy it on the site directly from CCP and sell it on the game market. So I can do ISK with PLEX but I can not buy it in the gaming market and resell. If you buy it on the market you could only use the plex or donate.

I remember a few months ago the PLEX was 800M ISK and soon it will be double. I'm being stolen by these who buy and resell. They are manipulating the market with each update and I believe that within 8 months PLEX will be worth 5bi ISK.

Make it non-negotiable there will be a lot of people looking for other ways to do ISK because the dough is over.

The CCP will sell much more PLEX and I will pay cheaper. The server with the cheap PLEX will have more ALPHAS becoming OMEGA.

Scialt knows they sell it, obviously, and while I don't think this is a remotely likely remedy (albeit that there are PLEX drops in the current event, a first), if you'd read the thread you'd understand the rationale. If they think a very high price reduces player count and long-term income, they might very well be willing to take a short-term hit to avoid that long-term problem.

All I know is that all my acquaintances stopped playing. Only this month I lost count of how many stopped playing. There are 2 players OMEGA. Those who buy on the CCP website and those who buy in the market. These two can not share the economy. Because the external PLEX is dirty game. The external PLEX will always be the beginning of the quit. Guys buy hundreds and thousands of PLEX on the market and wait for the crises and poe the price it in heights. Making real money influence the ISK. This has to stop! Do not let anything external influence the EVE economy and punished gambling sites and other external influences but PLEX is one that makes the game almost impossible for new players.

Take a test and if you need ISK buy PLEX and sell it.

But if you need PLEX and have ISK you will be poor if you buy PLEX in the market.

So the guy can not buy it, he'll just turn ALPHA and automatically his game is over.

Back when plex were in the 350-500m range I used to sub 4 accounts and usually gave away a plex to some random nooblet every few months. During this time I could reasonably expect an income around 7~ish billion a month give or take based on drops and market flux. Comparing this to today where the ships available for my isk making are worse, the loot sold sells for around 30% or so of its previous prices in years gone by, it can be a challenge to get 2b out of exactly the same items, and take longer getting them.

Nowadays my brother and brother in law no longer play, so I have only my and my alt accounts to sub, forget handouts as it's too expensive to afford. However, upon recieving the 6 days left email for my alt account and looking at the market I decided today's 1.56b overwhelmed the benefits of having even my own alt active. As for the fate of my main account.... stale content is stale content. At time of posting it's less than 20K accounts logged in whereas at this time in summer it should be 30-35k around this time of day.

There are too many factors involved to say one thing drives the plex market one way or the other, but as I have very little RL money, the rising plex prices will eventually make an unobtainable celing where I'll have to walk away for good.