EVE General Discussion

At first I thought this thread couldn't get any dumber than the Thorn guy posting.


Then I saw the PIE guy complaining that PLEX allowed Pay to Win strategies.


Then I saw your post.


I am frankly astonished that that lot of you haven't suffered some tragic real world accident due to the absolute highest levels of stupidity and short sightedness ever encased in one human body.


Thorn, you are dumb. There are no other words to covert it.

PIE guys, people will buy money in MMO's, its a historical fact, you can't stop it, fighting it takes millions of dollars and intrusive software that EVE players have flat out said is a no go, so circumventing that by legally allowing a method was the obvious cheapest/best choice. Denial of that basically makes you thorn.

Then this last guy.....I have no words, because you make the first two guys look like god damn rocket scientists.

CCP have the stats, but consider:

A PLEX buyer (isk->PLEX) wants to buy a PLEX every month for every one of his accounts.

A PLEX seller (money->PLEX) wants to buy a PLEX... eh, whenever. Maybe only once, to get things started. Maybe after he gets podded with +5s in.

A PLEX seller who wants to fund a specific purchase (money->Aeon) will purchase less PLEX as the price (PLEX->isk) rises. As prices are observed to rise, occasional PLEX sellers who just want extra isk, since they're not on a schedule like PLEX buyers are, can sit and wait comfortably to see if prices continue to rise. And when they do sell, the higher price means that they're content to not sell PLEX for longer.

And whereas the PLEX buyers brag proudly about playing for 'free', and tell others to get in on this awesome system, and are seen in the forums even to have a sense of entitlement over the price (PLEX->isk) of PLEX, the PLEX sellers tend to silence, and are stigmatized to an extent.

It's certainly not unbelievable to me that five-PLEX-a-month 'clockwork' demand is outpacing the 'whenever' supply.

whats the matter? isk not selling so converting it into plex to sell cheaper than ccp can?

From an accounting perspective, Thorn Galen is right on one thing (although he is way off with his math).

There is a critical step that people here are missing.

1. Player A buys GTC online and converts the GTC to PLEX.

2. PLEX that is unused and sitting in the hangar adds what CCP would most likely call "Deferred Income". 1x unused PLEX = Cash stuck in limbo (no one can touch it) until one of three conditions are met: ***NOTE: Even PLEX that is bought with ISK by another player is still unused PLEX.***

A) Player A (or anyone other than Player A that bought the PLEX from him/her) redeems the PLEX for game time.
B) Player A (or anyone other than Player A that bought the PLEX from him/her) donates the PLEX to a cause hosted by CCP.
C) Player A (or anyone other than Player A that bought the PLEX from him/her) redeems the PLEX for Aurum.

Those are the only three conditions in which cash in limbo becomes unstuck and is no longer deferred income.

3. If conditions A or C are met, CCP keeps the cash and marks it as service income.

3.1. If condition B is met, CCP doesn't keep the cash so it pays the cash to a charity.

If you consider how PLEX is now commonly used as a traded commodity and thus some traders might just simply hold the unused PLEX for future trades, that means there is a great deal of cash stuck in limbo. How much? Only CCP knows.

But regardless, CCP doesn't lose money this way. They lose money when players unsub.

Of course, I could be wrong as well. Can anyone come up with a better theory?

Wow. PLEX is at 450? It has gone up... yikes...

But you are talking about the books. How they record it. But while that sale should be recorded as deferred income (presuming CCP is on GAAP or another system that follows that rule (IFRS?)), they are by no means forced to put that cash in an untouchable escrow account until the plex is redeemed. They have the cash, and they can spend it. Don't forget about the other side of that entry. They record the cash in a regular cash account, not restricted cash account (CCP is not a NFP).

And you forgot scenario D) Plex is destroyed when in the cargo of a ship that goes boom. This would like a gift card that never gets used.

Ok, sorry for this becoming an accounting thread :)

I love it when someone who actually knows what they are talking about posts.

Again, all of this is dependent on the laws ccp is working under, which I do not claim to know, and when it comes to taxes, corporations have some accounting method options for tax purposes, but it is very likely CCP pays taxes on the income they get from plex sales, even if they are not yet redeemed. It is called a book to tax difference. Taxes do not run on the same system as financial reporting standards.

If CCP reports on a cash basis, they absolutely would pay taxes in the period of the sale. If CCP is on accrual basis, I'd have to research it more. Generally I'd say deferred revenue (unearned revenue) that would be taxed when earned. The revenue could be recorded as unearned for a max of (2 years?) before it had to be recorded as earned revenue and taxed. However, the fact that plex can never be refunded for real money may throw a wrench in the normal rules.

The fact that CCP has promotions to redeem plex for charity is irrelevant and unrelated. If you redeem plex for a charity, ccp would simply credit cash, debit a charitable donation expense.

But no way would CCP have to "mark" this cash in any way. It is simply cash collected. What gets "marked" is the revenue figure, which is a purely book figure. It has nothing to do with the cash CCP can or can't use, just what it will eventually pay in taxes.