EVE General Discussion

I think new players come to eve wishing they could F2P the game not buy plex. EVE (and CCP) gains access to POTENTIAL customers with a lower barrier to start playing.

This game has the biggest "start" barrier ever. Lots of core skills, poor NPE, cant expect to plex in a reasonable amount of time. These factors have slowed new player growth.

This is not quite true.

Players that PLEX their account create a demand for PLEX, which is balanced against supply. More demand is good, because it drives inflation (as we are currently seeing) and encourages people to pay cash for PLEX to sell to those PLEXing their account.

They still contribute just as much to the game as people that pay cash for their subscription and in some ways it can be argued that they contribute more to the financial stability of CCP, since PLEX costs more than a subscription.

For every player using F2P by PLEXing their account, CCP still get paid.

Additionally, whether people buy their PLEX from CCP or an authorised seller doesn't matter either. CCP still make their money either way.

Reducing the PLEX price would only be reducing CCP's income from sales - less income means less they can reinvest to the game.

Would it reduce PLEX prices ? No, there's too many people with a lot of isk these days that can manipulate the market even if supply was increased.




In one sentence you're wanting to help the "poor people" who can't afford to sub, in another saying some PLEX users are paying for 2nd, 3rd, 4th accounts. More than one account doesn't really fit into the "poor" category.

Adding more PLEX to the market will just make it easier for people to increase their stockpiles, prices won't drop unless isk generation is nerfed a lot or more isk sinks get added.
However people don't want their isk generation nerfed so prices will continue to rise. Expect 2bil each and going even higher within a few months. (see serenity servers price history for an idea of what to expect).

The problem isn't just lack of supply to the market, it's that PLEX are the best thing to invest in - they're guaranteed game time.

In theory they could probably make it so any bought from CCP are able to be sold on the in-game market, but any bought from that market couldn't be relisted on it - only used. (I'd be against this idea as it breaks the whole player driven market formula).

Maybe CCP could add something like a timer to new PLEX bought, so if not used within a set time (say 180 days or so) they just expire or get turned into aurum. Reducing the incentive for people to hoard them to protect against in-game inflation might keep more of them on the market.

Its hard for me because that is how I started.

A friend said hey you can play for free if you get good. I did and I got to play. Never even would have considered the game otherwise at the time. And now over the years I have put hundreds of dollars in.

I went from a F2P to actually paying my own money. I think it could happen to others as well! Plex was 300 Mil when I started and a single 4/10 if lucky almost paid for it.