EVE General Discussion

PLEX price is a function of how long are people willing to spend grinding to play "for free" multiplied by their income. If people are willing to spend several hours a day just to make ISK for a PLEX, or are able to make the ISK faster, PLEX prices will rise.

If a majority of people decide that 20 hours of their earning is acceptable for a month of gametime, then you'll either have to spend the same 20 hours making ISK, or figure out a way to come up with the same amount of ISK faster.

CCP has nothing to do with it (and shouldn't).

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This is not directed at the OP or any individual in particular, but is my thoughts on this recurring forum topic:

Eve's economy mirrors the "real" economy to include all of which one might considered "good" or "bad." Everyone operates out of their own self interest. Every so often you will have an event that shifts it in one way or another. Every time CCP take some sort of action, it is affecting the economy. This could be a ship change, a new way to earn isk, a buff or nerf, a character ban, a change in what ice refines into- everything has a consequence in the economy. These actions are similar to actions by our governments. For instance, when CCP takes actions to affect PLEX prices, you could think of that at the US Federal Reserve monkeying in the economy. Every action CCP takes mirrors an action that an agency or branch of the governement might take, or in some cases some other third party organization, individual, or otherwise some sort of new discovery.

PLEX prices rising are not a direct result of "one thing" over time. Sure there are all sorts of individual factors that play a major roles, but there isn't "one thing" that is causing this, other than just the open economy (and subsequent messing with it.)

Generally speaking, the issue is inflation. Stuff just costs more isk, just like stuff in real life costs more dollars. The "problem" is, just like in real life, not everyone is seeing their Eve incomes rising at the same pace. Some Eve incomes may be stagnant. We see that in the real world too. Just looking at my local economy, there are lots of low level, low skill jobs that pay around $8 an hour. These same jobs paid the same 15-20 years ago. Of course, the economy is much larger than that, and stuff costs more. There are people who, just like in the real world, have figured out how to earn dramatically more isk than the average person. Over time, this has an effect.

The best "solution," on an individual level, is to find ways to make more isk. There will never be a "solution" to make things perfect for everyone. So don't attack the "problem" of high prices for PLEX by asking "why" or asking CCP to "do something" about it. Instead, look towards yourself and see where you can make more isk.

I prefer to wake up when i want and play video games without having to leave my house much less spend my money on a video game.

People talk about the game as if it was actual market with physical goods - and as we've seen during US banks bailout actual markets aren't exactly free either: US treasury created trillions dollars out of thin air to cover errors of Wall Street gangs.

CCP can control PLEX prices - easily: few days ago there was 25% sale and price dropped by 50mil in 2 days - from almost 610 to 560. Not to mention possibility to inject PLEXes directly into markets bypassing $$$ sales stage.

It seems CCP just don't want to inject plexes into the game at the moment. And if they'll ever decide to do so - then most likely we won't know.

Well CCP mitigates the prices by putting PLEX on sale on occasion, but people only have so much limited income they want to spend at the moment.

However, as prices rise, the more people are willing to spend real money to buy plex to even it out. So let's say prices reached 1 billion per PLEX, I would wager that more people would be willing to actually pay real money to trade for isk so prices would eventually go down.

What you are seeing is the yearly increase in PLEX prices which are normal. What should happen is that a good deal of people will resub during the expansion next month and also buy plex to fuel their addiction... Most likley buying all the Sister ships they can while losing them stupidly.