Market Discussions

To my knowledge sale is over tmr.
Might see another on the final days of the PLEX4GOOD

I'm just wondering at which point will CCP **** a brick and try to depress the prices longterm.

They had sale after sale last year while prices were experiencing wild fluctuations. I don't think ccp aims to maintain a specific price, but rather, a specific rate of price increase. I've suspected that when prices increase by ~100mil within only a few days/weeks, ccp intervenes with a sale, and if prices continue rising, they begin selling off banned account plex to buy orders for less than the order is posted. I'm more concerned about ccp's long term promise of game time via purchased plex, and how they plan to handle it.

I foresee a LOT more uses of plex in the future that completely destroy the plex [releasing ccp from promised game time (releasing ccp from paying back a loan/bond purchased by a pilot)]. Whether or not this will make prices rise though is beyond my scope, I would guess prices would rise however if supply becomes limited. But with ever increasing ways to use plex, new players would have to continue coming into the game for supplies to remain high and isk values to remain low. Something I'd guess won't happen unless ccp does something like blizzard did with cataclysm and change their entire eve universe upside down (a path we seem to be on.)

Blah blah blah

A PLEX is a monthly subscription, and it's ISK price is irrelevant against subscription prices. Consider that a PLEX on Serenity is over 3b, there's no reason to assume they will ever intervene by pushing for a hard limit on price.

This. They intervene when prices rise or fall too quickly, and usually do so by trading PLEX which has been taken from botters and the like. To quote them directly:

I think it's pretty safe to say that PLEX for game time will continue as normal. As for other uses, I'm sure they will add more as time goes on, it's a pretty good way of running purchases. That PLEX will rise in prices is a certainty regardless. PLEX price generally goes up, it always will. I'll honestly be surprised if we don't see the 1b PLEX this year.

But why would they draw a line? If anything, they want prices to be higher, as someone is more likely to buy an extra PLEX to sell for 3b isk than they are to sell one for 800m. I honestly don't think CCP will ever intervene beyond what they currently do, which is to slow down rapid spikes and falls in price, which they purely do to keep the economy from crashing.

There's a bit of truth though to the manipulation in that a large number of PLEX are held by traders and a lot are actively traded, but the primary driver for the continuous uptick in price is what people are willing to pay for purchase and consumption.

As it stands PLEX are actually pretty cheap. You can PLEX an account with a highsec miner playing semi-AFK for 2.5 hours a day can PLEX every month. That's one of the lowest forms of income, and you can still PLEX an account in a relatively small amount of playtime. I think it will be a long time before PLEX hits any form of ceiling.

Could it be that the main reason for gradual price increase of plex is due to the very mechanic ccp uses to lower prices? Plex sales.

I wonder if plex price acts like fiat currency inflation, that to lower rates more plex is pumped into the system lowering prices for short time, and then elevating prices in long term because of speculative traders buying plex and holding them thus shortening the supply.

Either way, I foresee prices continually rising also. I'd guess that with more and more ways to use/destroy plex, we will see higher and higher prices of plex, resulting in more pilots subbing with cash, not plex. This will have a slowing effect on price increase.

I'm not sure how less speculative buying and a shrinking supply of pilots that buy plex for cash to pump into the economy will affect the price though. I imagine with everything turning to aurum, demand for plex might decrease, prices might fall, and eventually we may see an aurum dominated market just before ccp decides to get rid of plex and deal strictly with aurum. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Someone's needs to make a graph overlay of 1.plex prices, 2.new players, 3.overall population, 4.plex sale dates and duration, 5.amount of plex purchased/sold, 6. Aurum stuff

I'm too lazy or I'd make one and post it on MD forums. Share it with us! I'd like to see aurum prices, aurum sales, and even aurum token prices on it too, I think those would be good indicators.

Occasionally, however, the short in supply due to demand is driven by speculative investors, and that is not healthy for the economy, nor for ccp as a business.

Make sure and phone BP and Exxon-Mobil to inform them that speculators are bad for business.
Give us a detailed write-up of how long they spend laughing at you.