These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE General Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

The rising price of PLEX and its consequences.
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Ferrenc
State War Academy
Caldari State
#101 - 2011-11-13 01:10:21 UTC
its simple, dedicated players, the people who play a lot and go where the isk is, have flocked to the isk faucet incursions, they're all subbing their accounts with said incursions (in a few hours per month of game time) driving down the supply of plex, at the same time incursions are pumping massive amounts of fresh isk into the game, which essentially amount to printing money, which has the obvious and predictable effect of causing inflation, which makes the isk price of plex rise, which creates an incentive for newer players to buy plex for real money as 35 dollars can now get you over 900million isk, as opposed to the 600 or 700mil it was not that long ago. none of this is accidental, ccp created incursions with this exact outcome in mind, its no coincidence that they came out at a time when ccp is openly stating they need to increase revenues through plex, this was supposed to all be tied in with aurum, (i.e. you take you fat stack of isk from incursion and buy shiny pants or whatever) the problem is ccp overestimated the degree to which people would buy more plex for real money, now supplies are running out, as the price rises there will always be people who would buy plex for RM cause they need isk, and theres the people who would maybe buy a plex for RM cause their isk value is so high, but theres a limit to how much plex will be bought for RM, since this is affected by out of game circumstances, i think ccp is holding their breath and waiting for it to fix itself, im honestly not trying to troll or be cynical but id stake my degree in econ on the fact that we're witnessing the beginning of a serious problem for plex
Shalia Ripper
#102 - 2011-11-13 01:24:27 UTC
Ferrenc wrote:
wallofpoorlypuncuatedtext


Commas are not a replacement for periods.

Blaming PLEX prices on one style of gameplay and one style only is rather nearsighted. It is a failcascade.

Sig blah blah blah blah
Blood Fart
Rock Hard Productions
#103 - 2011-11-13 14:19:49 UTC
Gogela wrote:
Blood Fart wrote:

OR...

Market manipulation by CCP because of too high of an "old plex" supply and not enough paying subs. When you buy a plex they get the money for a voucher to be used in the future. That money is already collected, reported and spent.

#1 CCP Buys up and destroys plex which cause prices to spike
#2 CCP offers bulk sale prices on plex
#3 Players that use them either grind out more money for shiny stuff and a plex or re-sub to keep their isk for shiny stuff without the grindage

Any legal issues with doing this is probably insanely hard to prove if it's illegal at all. Nice idea it's just as old as dirt and probably won't work considering all factors.


There is NO WAY CCP is doing this. None.

As we have seen, there are more leaks at CCP than there are in my Jeep's radiator... and my radiator has a LOT of leaks.

If word of that got out they would be DONE as a company. I mean... forget ever publishing a game again done.

Take off your tin foil hat. It attracts mind control beams from space aliens.


Tin foil hat is usually something people say to me when I show them a time line and enough credibility to start removing their own doubt about things they don't want to think about.

Put on your common sense helmet and join me. Just because something has never happened before doesn't mean there's NO WAY it CAN happen.

Looks like a duck....quaks like a duck.....it sure as shlt ain't a duck-billed platypus....it's a duck.
Jacada Ansari
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#104 - 2011-11-13 15:23:24 UTC
I have your answer, its this little thing called supply and demand. Demand outstrips the supply, if this revelation upsets you please spend more of your money on buying plex.
Tore Vest
#105 - 2011-11-13 16:40:52 UTC
Its allso ppls lack of things to spend isk on....
Its nothing big and expensive to waste money on anymore.. (after patch)
Caps is out.. Plex is in... P

No troll.
Zowie Powers
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#106 - 2011-11-13 19:37:19 UTC
Run Incursions for 4 hours. BAM, enough PLEX for a month, even with idiots in your gang.

ISKURSIONS are the way forward. If you don't run ISKURSIONS you're at a natural disadvantage to every other non botter.

ATX: The best of the rest.
Tivookz
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#107 - 2011-11-13 20:27:52 UTC
This is because EVE is a very time consuming game.

Therefore it attracts unemployed people.

Unemployed people have lots of time but no money to buy subs or plexes.

They expect to be able to play enough to support their accounts with plexes.

When too many unemployed people think this way, this is what happens.

Get a goddamn job.
Morar Santee
#108 - 2011-11-13 20:49:01 UTC
Zowie Powers wrote:
Run Incursions for 4 hours. BAM, enough PLEX for a month, even with idiots in your gang.

ISKURSIONS are the way forward. If you don't run ISKURSIONS you're at a natural disadvantage to every other non botter.


I really wish people would stop posting this uneducated **** based on rumours and exaggerations. 110 million is pretty much the hard cap for ISK/hour from Vanguard sites. That only ever happens with an excellent fleet composition, winning every competed site and no down-time due to logistics shortage etc.
When you calculate the actual ISK/hour for the individual player, including the time it takes to get X-ed up and down times / lost sites, ISK/hour value is much closer to 50-60mil. (This does not include LP, but a)most people never turn that into ISK anyway and b)it doesn't contribute to inflation.)

This is still a huge ISK faucet and yes, it quite possibly contributes to rising PLEX prices. I just wish people would stop pulling numbers out of their ass so the argument can be considered seriously.

Also: Random comments about unemployed people ruining the in-game economy make my day. Every time I read that trash, I can't help but wonder how those folks managed to get a job with their apparent lack of education, or whether this is a clever coping strategy involving public self-abasement.
Saraell Tellon
The Classy Gentlemans Corporation
Moist.
#109 - 2011-11-13 22:24:15 UTC
Tivookz wrote:
This is because EVE is a very time consuming game.

Therefore it attracts unemployed people.

Unemployed people have lots of time but no money to buy subs or plexes.

They expect to be able to play enough to support their accounts with plexes.

When too many unemployed people think this way, this is what happens.

Get a goddamn job.


I sense you don't like paying tax.
Gogela
Epic Ganking Time
CODE.
#110 - 2011-11-13 23:40:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Gogela
Blood Fart wrote:

(redacted)
Tin foil hat is usually something people say to me when I...
(redacted)


All I needed to know is that people talking about your 'tin foil hat' is a common occurrence...

I don't see any ducks. Are you seeing ducks? What are the ducks telling you?

CCP is not buying up plex or inflating prices. There have been several posters here now that have sound theorys, many of which are the contributing factors to PLEX prices. Martyr Theos had a good point from the player behavior angle:

Martyr Theos wrote:
Plex prices are rising for two reasons.

1) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions are extending their game time by purchasing PLEX with isk from their game wallets. This has increased the demand for PLEX and thus increased price.

2) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions no longer buy PLEX with RL cash to sell PLEX for isk on the game market. This reduced PLEX supply on the market and thus increased PLEX price.

(redacted tears)


I think this is a very sound assessment. Jennifer Starling explains the market behavior side of the equation as concisely and simply as I think is possible... if you can balance a checkbook you can follow her thinking here:

Jennifer Starling wrote:
When prices rise there's one or two reasons:
1. More demand
2. Less supply

ad 1) more demand may be caused by:
- people earning less RL money because of the economical crises and wanting to pay with ISk instead of RL cash;
- people getting more ISK in-game because they find ways to earn more ISK/hour;
- people spending less ISK than before so they have a surplus;

ad 2) less supply may be caused by:
- less people buying plex because they have less RL money;
- NEX items may cause plexes to be removed from the market;

and so on.


Pretty easy. And that is it. This is why PLEX is going up in price. Just this. No CCP conspiracy, no "unfairness", just economics.

You are not entitled to play eve. It is not a right. This is a game for paying customers. You can pay with cash, or you can play with ISK. The latter is an odd privilege imho, but it makes perfect sense and I think the system works really well. There are way too many pilots on these forums trying to get CCP to put an "easy" button in their CQ... if I come in and find an easy button in my station, the value of a plex or a subscription in my mind is going to crash. Playing this game has value because it is NOT easy.

Signatures should be used responsibly...
Raith Mistwood
The.Event.Horizion
#111 - 2011-11-13 23:49:44 UTC
Azahni Vah'nos wrote:
You have to wonder what affect the botters have on the PLEX market as we know they wouldn't be paying a sub. Also unless their whole group was banned then it would be far to easy with one or two accounts left to create another group of botting accounts and PLEX them.

Is botting still prolific in EVE and has CCP taken banning them back a few notches after losing so many subscribers? It would also be some interesting theorycrafting guessing what the PLEX price might be without the botters.




Its completely prolific.. Every day that I have mined I have witnessed bots and reported them and nothing was done..


Eve wont clean them up... its driving the prices of minerals down and driving the prices of plexes up.. I have decided not to renew my subscription plex or cash... Until I feel satisfied that they have been dealt with.
Blood Fart
Rock Hard Productions
#112 - 2011-11-14 01:07:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Blood Fart
Gogela wrote:
Blood Fart wrote:

(redacted)
Tin foil hat is usually something people say to me when I...
(redacted)


All I needed to know is that people talking about your 'tin foil hat' is a common occurrence...

I don't see any ducks. Are you seeing ducks? What are the ducks telling you?

CCP is not buying up plex or inflating prices. There have been several posters here now that have sound theorys, many of which are the contributing factors to PLEX prices. Martyr Theos had a good point from the player behavior angle:

Martyr Theos wrote:
Plex prices are rising for two reasons.

1) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions are extending their game time by purchasing PLEX with isk from their game wallets. This has increased the demand for PLEX and thus increased price.

2) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions no longer buy PLEX with RL cash to sell PLEX for isk on the game market. This reduced PLEX supply on the market and thus increased PLEX price.

(redacted tears)


I think this is a very sound assessment. Jennifer Starling explains the market behavior side of the equation as concisely and simply as I think is possible... if you can balance a checkbook you can follow her thinking here:

Jennifer Starling wrote:
When prices rise there's one or two reasons:
1. More demand
2. Less supply

ad 1) more demand may be caused by:
- people earning less RL money because of the economical crises and wanting to pay with ISk instead of RL cash;
- people getting more ISK in-game because they find ways to earn more ISK/hour;
- people spending less ISK than before so they have a surplus;

ad 2) less supply may be caused by:
- less people buying plex because they have less RL money;
- NEX items may cause plexes to be removed from the market;

and so on.


Pretty easy. And that is it. This is why PLEX is going up in price. Just this. No CCP conspiracy, no "unfairness", just economics.

You are not entitled to play eve. It is not a right. This is a game for paying customers. You can pay with cash, or you can play with ISK. The latter is an odd privilege imho, but it makes perfect sense and I think the system works really well. There are way too many pilots on these forums trying to get CCP to put an "easy" button in their CQ... if I come in and find an easy button in my station, the value of a plex or a subscription in my mind is going to crash. Playing this game has value because it is NOT easy.




Yep supply and demand....pretty easy to understand. What's fueling such a supply shortage and demand spike is what I'm talking about. Most of the reasons I see people talking about were the same 5-6 months ago and the plex market was fine. It only started to skyrocket right before they offered bulk sale prices. Seems fishy to me.....or ducky.

I think my theory is much more sound than NEX items causing plex to be removed? no?....because from what I see they can't get players to buy that crap even when they give free AUR.


Edit: By the way....my tin foil hat picked up the US real estate market scam, the internet stock scam in the 90s, DEA running guns and drugs from mexico and numerious other "NO WAY CAN HAPPEN" situations. All known to be true now.....want the next real bubble to pop? "pre-owned" US car loans on a buy now-pay later sceme....get out now if you have money near that toxic sh1t.
Azahni Vah'nos
Vah'nos Family
#113 - 2011-11-14 02:05:56 UTC
Ferrenc wrote:
It's simple, dedicated players, the people who play a lot and go where the isk is, have flocked to the isk faucet incursions, they're all subbing their accounts with said incursions (in a few hours per month of game time) driving down the supply of plex. At the same time incursions are pumping massive amounts of fresh isk into the game;
- which essentially amount to printing money,
- which has the obvious and predictable effect of causing inflation,
- which makes the isk price of plex rise,
- which creates an incentive for newer players to buy plex for real money as 35 dollars can now get you over 900million isk, as opposed to the 600 or 700mil it was not that long ago.

None of this is accidental, ccp created incursions with this exact outcome in mind. It's no coincidence that they came out at a time when ccp is openly stating they need to increase revenues through plex. This was supposed to all be tied in with aurum, (i.e. you take you fat stack of isk from incursion and buy shiny pants or whatever).

The problem is ccp overestimated the degree to which people would buy more plex for real money, now supplies are running out, as the price rises there will always be people who would buy plex for RM cause they need isk, and theres the people who would maybe buy a plex for RM cause their isk value is so high. But theres a limit to how much plex will be bought for RM, since this is affected by out of game circumstances.

I think ccp is holding their breath and waiting for it to fix itself, im honestly not trying to troll or be cynical but id stake my degree in econ on the fact that we're witnessing the beginning of a serious problem for plex

I'm wondering what will happen to PLEX prices if CCP actually puts something that people really want in the NEX Store. I see many people saying that you don't need to pay cash for the NEX items because you can get a PLEX with ISK, the only problem is this will further increase the demand for PLEX. Also on the other side of the coin, the more CCP makes earning ISK in game easier, then buying PLEX with cash to then sell for ISK becomes less desirable.

When do you reach the oversaturation point where people really do not need any more ISK from selling PLEX and simply don't need to buy more. If you can run your operation based on selling X amount of PLEX for ISK, is the incentive high enough to just keep buying even more PLEX for cash to sell for ISK after that.

One other thing to note, expecting that new players are going to buy PLEX to sell for ISK only really applies if they are of the 'must have it now' crowd. Of how many new players this may apply to, only CCP knows.

With already having PLEX and CCP chasing money for all their projects and loan repayment requirements, have they been willing to risk the in-game economy and the players who use PLEX for game time to add in microtransactions on top of that. At this stage only time will tell.

So will having items in the NEX that are popular (unlike what we have seen so far) push the price of PLEX up and thereby affect those that use them for game time. Remembering that NEX items can only get on the market if someone purchases them with Aurum first, which is only attained through PLEX (other than the freebie). Certainly something to ponder.


I also find it interesting where people say that ISK has no effect on demand for PLEX. If you are literally gifted an amount of ISK over what you require for your usual day to day gameplay, then what incentive is there for you not to use PLEX for game time. When one of the main deciding factors to use PLEX for game time is being reduced, then the choice of using it instead of paying for a sub is being made that much easier ... the deciding factor being how much your time is worth.


p.s. Sorry Ferrenc, I had to fix your post, well somewhat. Smile

Nex (Cash Shop) / Aurum - removing sand from the sandbox since Incarna. Currently the only use for aurum is to buy virtual items in the in-game store, but Cockerill expects to expand its uses in the future.

Elyssa MacLeod
Doomheim
#114 - 2011-11-14 04:07:10 UTC
Karn Dulake wrote:

1. More people want to play for free


then more ppl are idiots... SOMEONE has to pay for this. Its not free

GM Homonoia: Suicide ganks are a valid and viable tactic in EVE.

Where is your God now carebear?
Elyssa MacLeod
Doomheim
#115 - 2011-11-14 04:09:04 UTC
Morganta wrote:
plex leeches don't matter
if they leave CCP does not lose a subscription
the worst consequence is fewer people for pew, but I suspect most plex leeches are not pvpers


wait... dont most leet pvpers brag about their not paying for te game? Since when is doing this a bad thing roflmao

GM Homonoia: Suicide ganks are a valid and viable tactic in EVE.

Where is your God now carebear?
Mr LaForge
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#116 - 2011-11-14 15:21:29 UTC
It couldn't be because alot of people are starting to come back to the game in anticipation for the next big patch right?

Stuff Goes here
IGNATIUS HOOD
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#117 - 2011-11-14 15:29:36 UTC
Karn Dulake wrote:
Eebi wrote:
Karn Dulake wrote:

1. More people want to pay for free
2. The new Microtransations market
3. Speculation that Plex prices are going to hit 550 million by Christmas so investers are buying them up hoping to cash in and also inadvertantly driving up prices


I'm sure this might have had a certain impact.

I would also assume (since it's of personal relevance) that a lot of unsatisfied people during the gold ammo/NeX/CQ time switched from paying real money to pay for plex with isk while trying do decide to quit or not.

Might as well burn you isk if you decide to quit before actually doing it, especially if you have a lot of it.

If a lot of people do that, that would increase demand of plex significantly, and the price goes up.

People who think "Plex sells for a nice sum of isk" might help the supply but i think it will be a while before it will go down again.

Of course, this is pure speculation.



First class post and so completely true. I know a lot of people doing this and i did this myself for a while. A lot of people are converting there wealth into plexes and just logging in to change skills.


Interesting. So what you're basically saying is that you view PLEX as a stable investment platform for your isk. Are you doing this out of inflationary concerns or are you doing this bescause the commodities market (PLEX) is bullish at the moment.

Is this a long term investment stratagey?
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."   --H.L. Mencken
Skex Relbore
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#118 - 2011-11-14 15:44:51 UTC
Morganta wrote:
plex leeches don't matter
if they leave CCP does not lose a subscription
the worst consequence is fewer people for pew, but I suspect most plex leeches are not pvpers


You fail at economics (and probably life too)

A plex is actually better than a subscription from CCP's point of view. A plex costs more than a recurring sub there for CCP gets more money than they do from a Credit card subscriber. Even better from CCP's point of view is that some of those plex's will be converted to Aurum (I know but the world is full of idiots as demonstrated by this post) and those are essentially free money for CCP since they don't have to credit someones play time with them.

As far as the over all point of the thread. The reason plex are going for the prices they are is that people are willing to buy them at said price. If the price reaches the threshold where enough people can no longer afford to plex all their accounts then demand will drop and prices will drop as well.

It's basic micro-economics 101, supply and demand go read up on it I'm sure wikipedia probably has an article on it.
Ptraci
3 R Corporation
#119 - 2011-11-14 18:15:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Ptraci
Obsidian Hawk wrote:


Its that whole supply and demand thing, drive up the plex price far enough people will just quit, demand goes to 0.


Demand for PLEX will never go to zero. And unlike a house, PLEX ceases to exist once someone adds the game time to their account. This in fact generates demand for another PLEX, 30 days later. While what you said is true: at one point the price of PLEX will exceed even the ISK faucet, and PLEX will no longer be an "easy" way to sub, thus limiting the demand for PLEX - the demand will never disappear. I expect a new equilibrium at a higher price.
Raven Ether
Doomheim
#120 - 2011-11-14 18:26:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Raven Ether
Maybe a saviour will buy all the plex and relist them for 300m each?!

Said person will then be crowned Emperor, and venerated by thousands of noobs, bittervets, trolls, griefers, scammers and other sorts of players. His glorious vast empire will go on an endless crusade and conquer half of the eve galaxy. The other half will then form a rebel alliance to take the plex-emperor down and thus eve will enter a new age of cheap plex, and empire vs rebels gameplay.


PRAISE THE PLEX-EMPEROR!