Market Discussions

Too much peyote and he's gone off the reservation again.

So you got nothing but a rant. Good to know.

When pumping the price, is in the best interests of plex holders, speculators and traders, why would they not? We might call it manipulation, as it is. It is not cornering the market, nor most of the time is there any advantage in doing that,
It is more a voluntary,widespread, uncoordinated cartel. Desire and resultant.
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Acting in this way however, is manipulation, you may not describe it as that, you may feel an ever increasing price is for the greater good? You would be wrong.

Dismissing manipulation using cases where manipulation is counterproductive, ignores the primary form of manipulation.
This, is what prices Plex out of the reach of average players, with a resonable and achievable expenditure of effort

Plex is a commodity that is the only legal way of transferring in game effort into gametime.
When the effort required exceeds the reward.
Then the commodity as a tool is dysfunctional

Any downward pressure is immidiately manipulated through the placing of buy,sell,and stop orders. Each one being replaced with a higher and higher one, whether end users are purchasing or not. It is now so embedded that minor price modification attempts such as Fridays , are swiftly countered as soon as they stop.

This is why we are where we are, a disfunctional market in a dysfunctional commodity.
And the one commodity where that has severe consequences for player retention. Whether through mains, loss of training, or alts.

This is Not due to natural supply or over demand, but purely through deliberately restricting availability on the market combined with rampant price manipulation.
There is absolutely no natural counterbalance in the game, pressures from interest groups will always drive it higher without any relation to the natural economic value of Plex. It currently is nothing more than a chew toy for the market.

It will be interesting to see when CCP, cease minor attempts to pop the bubble, they are futile and soon countered. As it stands the bubble is multi layered, and soon patched up and reinflated. This will require more than a pinprick, to deflate, It needs committed action, but they themselves will need to put in a support level as when they succeed the pop will be quite extreme. The only effective action is to pop it in such a manner that it becomes part of the history of EVE, never to be forgotten.

Possibly, the time may have come for the ability to manufacture Plex in game, using in game WIDELY available purchasable NPC commodities. Blueprints could be made widely available in Station, and sourced through existing methods, or alternatively, where CCP feels the game needs a little help and encouragement. They should not have availability so restricted that they can be bought up, and the manipulation just switches product. The Main price driver would need to be the cost of materials that go into it. Not the scarcity of the blueprints. These can also be player produced commodities, but if so would need to be a highly active, high volume item on the market, to prevent the same situation occuring where minor actions can have a strong manipulative effect on the price.

Should this be desired, A storyline can be created where a pirate faction has been counterfeiting, Plex,a highly engineered token using specialist electronics, and capsuleers during military action, have found the process, This will Force Concord, to find a way of handling and issuing these Blueprints, and bringing them back under their control, and also releasing and potentially selling the materials at a price of their choosing, Before capsuleers flood the market with forgeries.

This would be a true anti inflationary Isk sink when the Plex are redeemed, and if well costed, one that would have a phenomenal effect on player retentions. It will be a great motivator. Player effort can once again be turned into pilots services.

It would also provide a much more stable market for Plex after the initial shock.

There is a great need To provide a counterbalance. The method is not the important thing, I do not care if you hate this idea, what is important is to provide a balancing function to prevent bubbles and excesses in a strategic item.


Tldr:- Plex is a rare commodity in that not only is it a strategically important item, there is no balancing mechanism for overinflation.
One cannot, if the price goes up, choose to build, explore, mine, or fight to create more, to bring the price back down.

Proposal:- for CCP to provide a balancing mechanism that allows player action and effort to bring this stabilisation about.

Okay, I'll be nice here on this one.

This will never happen and is stupid beyond belief (trust me this is the nice response). PLEX are a revenue source for CCP. Allowing them to be "made" in game will do absolutely nothing but reduce CCP's revenue.

It will stabilize again...then start going up again. With brief periods of decreases. There are probably two factors, the huge amounts of ISK entering the New Eden economy, the huge amounts of ISK in many player's wallets.

I was referring to the tendency for prices to increase over time. You are right, there are lots of factors influencing PLEX prices. For example, the higher price in game will likely have a positive effect on the RL sales of PLEX. A sale on PLEX in RL will decrease IG prices, etc....so yeah, I kinda did over simplify.

True, but one has to wonder for example how much does the Fanfest effect determine prices now and so forth. As for seasonal factors, my analysis indicates: none.

Lots of information in the previous post, hard to tell to be honest, whether it is an attempt to provide disinformation through obscuration, or genuinely felt. I will assume it is genuine, as I can be nice too.

Lets address just this one post in isolation.

Firstly do you REALLY believe that the customers who wish to grind plex are the same customers who would purchase plex outside of the game to buy isk. They HAVE the isk already and wish to turn it into Pilot services. No one in their right mind would buy plex out of game and exchange it, where they could buy gametime at a far cheaper rate.
The very definition of someone who Buys Plex to exchange for isk, is that they have insufficient ISK. They Need isk and Are the ones who sell them for ISK.

Grinding ISk to buy (or make) Plex in game to reexchange for Isk Is stupid action, and is not going to happen. There is No benefit to a player.

Therefore They are not Buying Plex in real life cash, THEY are not a loss or going to be, to CCP sales of Plex.
The ability to turn player effort and isk into Plex, by building them, Is going to have no effect on the income to CCP, other than the price of plex will have greater stability. CCP will determine the inputs/materials. Price going forward would be set by supply and demand and whether it is less effort/value to make or buy the finished form.

The only End users are those who wish to use it for It's intended purposes. Those purposes sterilise the product, removing them from the game, and sterilising their inputs. ie permenantly Removed from the economy.

It does not automatically mean cheaper prices. But it does mean balanced.

Secondly, as I repeatedly tried to explain (but is conviniently ignored) I stated I was not in favour of ANY particular mechanism, I suggest a Balancing mechanism, such as exists for every other item, to allow player actions to influence supply. ie maxallon goes up, miners decide it is worth mining more, supply increases, price balances, the same mechanisms exist for manufacturing, exploration, missioning, and every other activity and commodity.

No stabilisation is possible by player action of a strategic asset like plex other than letting one's account expire.
Only on the demand side do we have an influence, and only in a way that is self destructive.

I do however find it hard to believe that any player would see this as a positive and desireable situation unless they have a vested interest that is stronger than the desire for a healthy game.

Of course in the interests of being nice, I could imagine one becomes so distracted by the pretty graphs, one might seek enlightenment in them, Leading to them not seeing the underlying structure and reality of the situation.

Note when there is the smell of sulphur in the air, and the ground rumbles underfoot, looking for auguries in chicken entrails, whilst making one look like an oracle, and wise, does not really ensure survival.

The same mechanism exist for PLEX too. When PLEX prices go up, people have more reason to sell them, people have more reason to produce them, people have a reason to find alternatives to them, it's the same thing.

That's simply not true. Players have control over supply and demand. They also have control over the stockpiles.

You have a narrow view of what is healthy for the game. It appears to revolve around your own personal agenda which isn't in line with what is healthy for the game.

Yes there is. Just because it serves your agenda to pretend there is not, doesn't make it so.

It does, regardless of your opinion.

Any balancing action will involve it moving owner. Supply, demand and stockpiles are all controlled by the player.

Not true. They can reduce demand by unsubbing alts, by paying a subscription, by reducing their non-gametime uses of PLEX.

Some call it winning eve.