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So how bad did the economy just get screwed by Amazon?

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Cristl
#121 - 2013-10-28 11:28:05 UTC
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?


You genuinely can't see the problem with a small group of players (Americans who saw the deal) being offered 3 plex for $5, while the rest of us pay $17.50 for each one? In a competitive game? Offering one group of players super-cheap playtime / ISK over others is pretty bad mate.

The only saving grace in this situation is that the error was spotted quite quickly. I.e., while the harm is self-evident in my opinion, at least it wasn't too extensive.
BobFenner
Black Hole Runners
#122 - 2013-10-28 11:35:15 UTC
Malcanis wrote:
BobFenner wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong, but surely if an Alliance suddenly got a MASSIVE influx of money through this PLEX deal it would give that Alliance an unfair advantage? What?



Why would any one alliance get a particularly large influx?


I can fully imagine someone spotting this deal and passing the information on to his Alliance buddies to take advantage. Not saying it did happen but it would be a possiblility.

Maybe I just need to remove my tinfoil hat? Roll
My missus thinks of EvE as 'the other woman'. :)
Antihrist Pripravnik
Cultural Enrichment and Synergy of Diversity
Stain Neurodiverse Democracy
#123 - 2013-10-28 11:43:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Antihrist Pripravnik
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?

The "damage" is, like in many other cases even in RL, done to market speculators only who sit on larger piles of PLEXes. That don't have to be individual players, but can also be investments made by corporations or alliances (so the piles can be quite big). If one thing is certain lately, it's the steady rise of PLEX prices so they make quite neat investment (especially during pre-expansion period). Individual players who bought a couple of PLEXes to fill the hole in their in-game wallets (outside of the Amazon offer), haven't lost much because 400mil drop for 10 PLEXes is not that much after all and the price of PLEX is still good enough as it is.

It's like the Ishukone Scorpion incident, where no actual harm was done, but the outrage was fueled mainly by speculators who "lost" a good amount of ISK due to bad investment. And if the wallets of market speculators are affected then it's automatically called "market crash", "direct damage to the economy" and so on.

In reality, no damage to the economy has been done, because PLEX does not generate ISK and its final value is 30 days of game time. The only damaged party here is CCP, because they lost money with every PLEX sold in this incident. The winner in this situation is a regular Joe who buys PLEX for game time.
Baaldor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#124 - 2013-10-28 11:48:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Baaldor
Antihrist Pripravnik wrote:
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?

The "damage" is, like in many other cases even in RL, done to market speculators only who sit on larger piles of PLEXes. That don't have to be individual players, but can also be investments made by corporations or alliances (so the piles can be quite big). If one thing is certain lately, it's the steady rise of PLEX prices so they make quite neat investment (especially during pre-expansion period). Individual players who bought a couple of PLEXes to fill the hole in their in-game wallets, haven't lost much because (400mil drop for 10 PLEXes is not that much after all and the price of PLEX is still good enough as it is).

It's like the Ishukone Scorpion incident, where no actual harm was done, but the outrage was fueled mainly by speculators who "lost" a good amount of ISK due to bad investment. And if the wallets of market speculators are affected then it's automatically called "market crash", "direct damage to the economy" and so on.

In reality, no damage to the economy has been done, because PLEX does not generate ISK and its final value is 30 days of game time. The only damaged party here is CCP, because they lost money with every PLEX sold in this incident. The winner in this situation is a regular Joe who buys PLEX for game time.


Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.
Claire Voyant
#125 - 2013-10-28 12:01:04 UTC
Baaldor wrote:
Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.

Amazon is Amazon. If you think they are just going to hand over a pile of money to CCP you have probably never had business dealings with Amazon.
Baaldor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#126 - 2013-10-28 12:10:48 UTC
Claire Voyant wrote:
Baaldor wrote:
Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.

Amazon is Amazon. If you think they are just going to hand over a pile of money to CCP you have probably never had business dealings with Amazon.


In order to sell the product they have to have paid for it first.

It is the very basic principals of selling crap.

CCP and Amazon are two separate entities,

Amazon the re-seller sends CCP a purchase order for 'x' units of crap, for a predetermined cost per unit.

CCP fulfills order as agreed to predetermined cost per unit.

Amazon's button monkey key's in pricing.

Amazon sells unit expecting profit.

"Whelp" and button monkey is sent to the soup line.

Amazon corrects pricing and puts in place new button monkey.

BobFenner
Black Hole Runners
#127 - 2013-10-28 12:25:06 UTC
Baaldor wrote:
Claire Voyant wrote:
Baaldor wrote:
Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.

Amazon is Amazon. If you think they are just going to hand over a pile of money to CCP you have probably never had business dealings with Amazon.


In order to sell the product they have to have paid for it first.

It is the very basic principals of selling crap.

CCP and Amazon are two separate entities,

Amazon the re-seller sends CCP a purchase order for 'x' units of crap, for a predetermined cost per unit.

CCP fulfills order as agreed to predetermined cost per unit.

Amazon's button monkey key's in pricing.

Amazon sells unit expecting profit.

"Whelp" and button monkey is sent to the soup line.

Amazon corrects pricing and puts in place new button monkey.



Loving the idea of a Button Monkey, may have to get me one of them......
My missus thinks of EvE as 'the other woman'. :)
Muad 'dib
State War Academy
Caldari State
#128 - 2013-10-28 12:39:28 UTC
This makes me sad.

Lucky people who all got enough plexes to play for years for basically nothing :(

Cosmic signature detected. . . . http://i.imgur.com/Z7NfIS6.jpg I got 99 likes, and this post aint one.
Captain StringfellowHawk
Forsaken Reavers
#129 - 2013-10-28 12:41:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Captain StringfellowHawk
As an American I didn't get a chance to get in on this :/ BUT OMG I can't believe the amount of Tears coming from over the sea. Get over it. It was Amazon that did it not CCP. Stated Multiple Times. Instead of Ragging on CCP about the Event, Go hound Amazon or Migrate to the U.S. We could always use more people complaining about things over here. Never enough things here being complained about. Next time jump on the ship with the rest of us, or go bug one of your local re-sellers to Screw up Like Amazon did.
Mercas Alderau
Wholesale Merchants
#130 - 2013-10-28 12:42:49 UTC
Baaldor wrote:
Claire Voyant wrote:
Baaldor wrote:
Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.

Amazon is Amazon. If you think they are just going to hand over a pile of money to CCP you have probably never had business dealings with Amazon.


In order to sell the product they have to have paid for it first.

It is the very basic principals of selling crap.

CCP and Amazon are two separate entities,

Amazon the re-seller sends CCP a purchase order for 'x' units of crap, for a predetermined cost per unit.

CCP fulfills order as agreed to predetermined cost per unit.

....



That is one way of doing it. But it often isn't done that way, nowadays.
A lot of times the manufacturer of goods hands them over physically - retaining property rights (for the case of bancrupty/insolvency - and no money yet changes hands.

The manufacturer only gets paid once the item sells. If it doesn't sell, it is at some point returned to the manufacturer.

This happens in retail even. It happens even more often when the seller/marketplace is a particular powerful player (as amazon is). But as CCP has no competition for the item in question (PLEX), they might insist on being paid upfront.

But really, do you think your newspaper stand buys the newspapers first, then tries to sell them? No. If they don't sell, the New York Times or the Guardian or whatever don't see a dime. In essence, retailers sometimes don't actually trade, they provide a service (for a fee) of selling goods for a third party. They get a commission if sth. sells.

So amazon very well might be selling you stuff that they haven't paid for at that point. Quite common.
Claire Voyant
#131 - 2013-10-28 12:44:28 UTC
It says right there in the fine print "Amazon is not responsible for acts of God or button monkeys."
mynnna
State War Academy
Caldari State
#132 - 2013-10-28 12:48:00 UTC
Lipbite wrote:
I wonder - what will be the next lucky "accident" which will help CCP to lower raising PLEX prices during next weekend?


Except for the part where PLEX are already back to their previous price?

Stop being dumb please.

Member of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal
ElQuirko
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#133 - 2013-10-28 13:17:10 UTC
Claire Voyant wrote:
Baaldor wrote:
Actually Amazon lost money, CCP gets their money no matter how low a third party sells it.

Amazon is a distributor, they agree to pay 'x' for allotment of GTC's/plexes.

Amazon is Amazon. If you think they are just going to hand over a pile of money to CCP you have probably never had business dealings with Amazon.

I got a refund on P&P once from Amazon. It was incredible.

Dodixie > Hek
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#134 - 2013-10-28 13:34:37 UTC
Cristl wrote:
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?


You genuinely can't see the problem with a small group of players (Americans who saw the deal) being offered 3 plex for $5, while the rest of us pay $17.50 for each one? In a competitive game? Offering one group of players super-cheap playtime / ISK over others is pretty bad mate.

The only saving grace in this situation is that the error was spotted quite quickly. I.e., while the harm is self-evident in my opinion, at least it wasn't too extensive.


I'm sorry, I should have phrased the question more clearly: what harm does this do to the game economy?

As for the harm you discuss, you're still talking as if this was some planned, deliberate anti-EU move on CCP's part when it was a straight up administrative error by Amazon that they fixed as quickly as possible. Regardless, what harm has been sufferred? If I get 3 PLEX for $5, how has that harmed you in any way?

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Aiden Terona
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#135 - 2013-10-28 13:37:04 UTC
Malcanis wrote:
Cristl wrote:
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?


You genuinely can't see the problem with a small group of players (Americans who saw the deal) being offered 3 plex for $5, while the rest of us pay $17.50 for each one? In a competitive game? Offering one group of players super-cheap playtime / ISK over others is pretty bad mate.

The only saving grace in this situation is that the error was spotted quite quickly. I.e., while the harm is self-evident in my opinion, at least it wasn't too extensive.


I'm sorry, I should have phrased the question more clearly: what harm does this do to the game economy?

As for the harm you discuss, you're still talking as if this was some planned, deliberate anti-EU move on CCP's part when it was a straight up administrative error by Amazon that they fixed as quickly as possible. Regardless, what harm has been sufferred? If I get 3 PLEX for $5, how has that harmed you in any way?

Won't be voting for you next year, lost your common sense?
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#136 - 2013-10-28 13:39:56 UTC
Antihrist Pripravnik wrote:
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?

The "damage" is, like in many other cases even in RL, done to market speculators only who sit on larger piles of PLEXes. That don't have to be individual players, but can also be investments made by corporations or alliances (so the piles can be quite big). If one thing is certain lately, it's the steady rise of PLEX prices so they make quite neat investment (especially during pre-expansion period). Individual players who bought a couple of PLEXes to fill the hole in their in-game wallets (outside of the Amazon offer), haven't lost much because 400mil drop for 10 PLEXes is not that much after all and the price of PLEX is still good enough as it is.

It's like the Ishukone Scorpion incident, where no actual harm was done, but the outrage was fueled mainly by speculators who "lost" a good amount of ISK due to bad investment. And if the wallets of market speculators are affected then it's automatically called "market crash", "direct damage to the economy" and so on.

In reality, no damage to the economy has been done, because PLEX does not generate ISK and its final value is 30 days of game time. The only damaged party here is CCP, because they lost money with every PLEX sold in this incident. The winner in this situation is a regular Joe who buys PLEX for game time.


I feel that I can easily endure a substantial amount of anguish from PLEX speculators.

But surely Amazon are taking the hit for this, not CCP? CCP sold Amazon a bunch of PLEX. Amazon can resell them for whatever price they think best. If they want to drop a few thousand PLEX at 10% of the usual market rate, then how is that CCP's problem? Or ours, come to that?

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#137 - 2013-10-28 13:42:52 UTC
Aiden Terona wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Cristl wrote:
Malcanis wrote:

OK. So what harm does that do? Except for transaction fees, no ISK is created or destroyed, no new ships, modules or items are created, and lots of players have some cheap game time subsidised by Amazon.

What's the damage?


You genuinely can't see the problem with a small group of players (Americans who saw the deal) being offered 3 plex for $5, while the rest of us pay $17.50 for each one? In a competitive game? Offering one group of players super-cheap playtime / ISK over others is pretty bad mate.

The only saving grace in this situation is that the error was spotted quite quickly. I.e., while the harm is self-evident in my opinion, at least it wasn't too extensive.


I'm sorry, I should have phrased the question more clearly: what harm does this do to the game economy?

As for the harm you discuss, you're still talking as if this was some planned, deliberate anti-EU move on CCP's part when it was a straight up administrative error by Amazon that they fixed as quickly as possible. Regardless, what harm has been sufferred? If I get 3 PLEX for $5, how has that harmed you in any way?

Won't be voting for you next year, lost your common sense?


You won't be voting for me next year regardless of your opinion of my sense. But how is asking what harm has actually been sufferred here "losing common sense"?

Are we calling "I am buttmad because when Amazon briefly screwed up, someone else got a lucky deal on cheap PLEX and I didn't" 'harm' here? Or is there some other harm? If so, can you explain what it actually is?

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Benny Ohu
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#138 - 2013-10-28 13:45:50 UTC
a slight dent in the plex market does harm some people slightly

but considering it was an accident, no fault of ccp and one that's not going to happen again, not a big deal
Sephira Galamore
Inner Beard Society
Kvitravn.
#139 - 2013-10-28 13:59:43 UTC
BobFenner wrote:
Loving the idea of a Button Monkey, may have to get me one of them......

Or maybe a former A.O.L. popup ad designer?
SKINE DMZ
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#140 - 2013-10-28 14:00:59 UTC
I was about 15 minutes to late! Some people got ridiculous amounts, instant rich. I am butt hurt and jealous Cry

I disagree