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players and plex prices
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HandelsPharmi
Pharmi on CharBazaar
#21 - 2015-11-16 18:06:22 UTC  |  Edited by: HandelsPharmi
You cannot fix prices of PLEX :)

Imagine a PLEX would cost FIX 1B ISK.

And a container of Veldspar would cost 1B ISK

Why should you BUY a PLEX for real money, if you get one container Veldspar for it?
Bobb Bobbington
Rattini Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#22 - 2015-11-16 18:31:21 UTC
Serendipity Lost wrote:
Bobb Bobbington wrote:
Came expecting a rage post about how plex price is too high, so CCP should decrease cost and/or required usage while still magically maintaining income....

And was pleasantly surprised (although I do love arguing economics with people)

I agree that, if CCP wanted to decrease plex costs, the only way would be to increase the incentive to buy the item itself, not cut prices or add durability or such silly suggestions.


Anise Tig'res wrote:
How about we just sever the Character transfer for PLEX, Re-customization for plex and AURUM for PLEX connections, and have those services traded for Aurum we can buy and sell in the market?


But that wouldn't really fix anything, because they're mostly used for game time, plus it'd only trade plex inflation for aurum inflation.



They wouldn't have to increase incentive to decrease the costs. They could just flat out make a PLEX a fixed isk value.

There isn't an acutal requirement for PLEX to be fluid in value.

Being that PLEX is on the boundary between real money and ISK there are some very reasonable arguements for making PLEX a fixed value and being done with it. It's RL money value is fixed on the reality end, there is no reason CCP couldn't fix it on the fantasy end also.

You can argue all the econoimics hoo haw you want, but at the end of the day, none of it has to apply to the cost of a PLEX on either end of a PLEX transaction.

You want the real isk value of a PLEX? Take away the resale option. Once a PLEX is purchased for isk - bind it to that account. Add a simple rule that you can't sell a character that has unredeemed PLEX on the account.



Make plex fixed value? Not only would that literally destroy plex's free market economy, how would you plan on doing that? Create npc sell orders for x amount of money? Great, you just killed CCP's revenue because plex is being created out of thin air. Force people to create orders for x amount? Now you either just killed plex trading or buffed plex flipping to insane levels. Also, as isk inflation continues, plex becomes more and more worthless, discouraging players from using it to purchase isk. One day, there would be no more plex on the market because nobody is willing to drop 15$ for half a battleship hull.


The problem is that you want to get rid of the free market economy because you can't pay for your subscription through isk anymore. The plex price is set by its demand and supply, like any other free market economy. It's going up because people, like you, want to plex their account with isk, but not enough people are creating plex with real cash. Speculators are hoping that this trend will continue, and historically it has. Like I said, 2 trillion isk passes through Jita in plex every single day. Somebody said below "oh noes some rich speculator has 1000 plex", well that's a single day's worth of plex movement in Jita. If one speculator decided to start buying up plex for manipulations (remember, 2 trillion a day), other rich speculators would simply start selling their stock at the higher price, drive it down, and buy back more at the lower price for profit.

This is a signature.

It has a 25m signature.

No it's not a cosmic signature.

Probably.

Btw my corp's recruiting.
Zimmer Jones
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#23 - 2015-11-16 18:52:00 UTC
I haven't spewed out a bad idea in hours, cant hold it in anymore so here goes:

Make individual plex auction only items, with a ccp dictated minimum isk bid(yeah, work that economist!), based on auction duration.
Just 1 plex per auction, maximum 1 month duration, no buyout.

Ahhhh.... That feels so much better

Use the force without consent and the court wont acquit you even if you are a card carryin', robe wearin' Jedi.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#24 - 2015-11-16 20:25:03 UTC
Serendipity Lost wrote:
Bobb Bobbington wrote:
Came expecting a rage post about how plex price is too high, so CCP should decrease cost and/or required usage while still magically maintaining income....

And was pleasantly surprised (although I do love arguing economics with people)

I agree that, if CCP wanted to decrease plex costs, the only way would be to increase the incentive to buy the item itself, not cut prices or add durability or such silly suggestions.


Anise Tig'res wrote:
How about we just sever the Character transfer for PLEX, Re-customization for plex and AURUM for PLEX connections, and have those services traded for Aurum we can buy and sell in the market?


But that wouldn't really fix anything, because they're mostly used for game time, plus it'd only trade plex inflation for aurum inflation.



They wouldn't have to increase incentive to decrease the costs. They could just flat out make a PLEX a fixed isk value.

There isn't an acutal requirement for PLEX to be fluid in value.

Being that PLEX is on the boundary between real money and ISK there are some very reasonable arguements for making PLEX a fixed value and being done with it. It's RL money value is fixed on the reality end, there is no reason CCP couldn't fix it on the fantasy end also.

You can argue all the econoimics hoo haw you want, but at the end of the day, none of it has to apply to the cost of a PLEX on either end of a PLEX transaction.

You want the real isk value of a PLEX? Take away the resale option. Once a PLEX is purchased for isk - bind it to that account. Add a simple rule that you can't sell a character that has unredeemed PLEX on the account.


Price controls have a very, very dubious history. There are instances where they can work, but those are limited.

And yes, economic theory can be used quite nicely to explain what is happening with PLEX prices. For example, the supply curve in the RL PLEX market is a horizontal line at the price $19.95. The reason for this is that producing more PLEX is nearly costless for CCP as it is for most digital items. So the only real constraint is the demand curve. And there is no reason to believe that the demand curve for PLEX is not downward sloping with respect to price. So, if CCP drops the price from $19.95 to say $17.95 then the amount of PLEX purchased will increase. We’d also expect the amount of PLEX in the IG market to increase as well and for the IG price to drop….which is exactly what happened with the last PLEX sale.

Everyone always says, “Game economies don’t work at all like RL economies…” but economists actually do study them and find that, yes, the work a lot like the RL economies. And amusingly, people often saying that economics does not apply to game economies will in turn make statements that implicitly assume things like downward sloping demand curves (relative to price), upward sloping demand curves (relative to price) and so forth, or often point out that concepts like opportunity costs apply in game.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#25 - 2015-11-16 20:26:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Zimmer Jones wrote:
I haven't spewed out a bad idea in hours, cant hold it in anymore so here goes:

Make individual plex auction only items, with a ccp dictated minimum isk bid(yeah, work that economist!), based on auction duration.
Just 1 plex per auction, maximum 1 month duration, no buyout.

Ahhhh.... That feels so much better


How many auctions could be going at one time? Could a bidder bid in more than one auction?

Edit: I'm assuming you are thinking of an English Auction where people can make consecutively higher bids and stop bidding when the price goes above what they are willing to pay?

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#26 - 2015-11-16 20:42:39 UTC
Bobb Bobbington wrote:



Make plex fixed value? Not only would that literally destroy plex's free market economy, how would you plan on doing that? Create npc sell orders for x amount of money? Great, you just killed CCP's revenue because plex is being created out of thin air. Force people to create orders for x amount? Now you either just killed plex trading or buffed plex flipping to insane levels. Also, as isk inflation continues, plex becomes more and more worthless, discouraging players from using it to purchase isk. One day, there would be no more plex on the market because nobody is willing to drop 15$ for half a battleship hull.


The problem is that you want to get rid of the free market economy because you can't pay for your subscription through isk anymore. The plex price is set by its demand and supply, like any other free market economy. It's going up because people, like you, want to plex their account with isk, but not enough people are creating plex with real cash. Speculators are hoping that this trend will continue, and historically it has. Like I said, 2 trillion isk passes through Jita in plex every single day. Somebody said below "oh noes some rich speculator has 1000 plex", well that's a single day's worth of plex movement in Jita. If one speculator decided to start buying up plex for manipulations (remember, 2 trillion a day), other rich speculators would simply start selling their stock at the higher price, drive it down, and buy back more at the lower price for profit.


I'm guessing that the solution would be that if one were to sell a PLEX that the price would be set by CCP. Say, 500 million ISK with no way to change it.

My guess is what would happen is that there would develop a market for PLEX that is outside the current IG market. For example, contracts. I'd contract the PLEX to you for an agreed upon price.

This of course, would severely limit the amount of PLEX that were traded.

To prevent this from happening, then CCP would have to make it impossible for a contract to have a PLEX in it.

All-in-all, I see this kind of a thing as completely antithetical to the very core philosophy of a game. It would be a CCP entering into the IG market in a very significant way when all along they've been touting the game as one where pretty much anything goes so long as it does not violate a fairly short list of rules.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Zimmer Jones
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#27 - 2015-11-16 21:03:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Zimmer Jones
Teckos Pech wrote:
Zimmer Jones wrote:
I haven't spewed out a bad idea in hours, cant hold it in anymore so here goes:

Make individual plex auction only items, with a ccp dictated minimum isk bid(yeah, work that economist!), based on auction duration.
Just 1 plex per auction, maximum 1 month duration, no buyout.

Ahhhh.... That feels so much better


How many auctions could be going at one time? Could a bidder bid in more than one auction?

Edit: I'm assuming you are thinking of an English Auction where people can make consecutively higher bids and stop bidding when the price goes above what they are willing to pay?


Cruel, making me think through a flippant bad idea, may have to come back and elaborate further, but for now:

A single bid double blind silent auction. That is no one, not even the seller sees what the current bid is, and only one bid per auction item(per character of course, but what would be the point?). The isk for the bid is put into escrow, with no skill mods, just the isk of the full bid. As long as you have the isk, you can bid on as many auctions as you want.

At the moment that's what I can throw together as a starting point. Have some stuff I'm busy with, but will return to do something I try not to: save the phenomena. might be fun.

Quick Ed* instead of buy orders could have a reversal, you put up the isk with a wtb auction, sellers under bid each other.

Use the force without consent and the court wont acquit you even if you are a card carryin', robe wearin' Jedi.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#28 - 2015-11-16 21:32:15 UTC
Zimmer Jones wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Zimmer Jones wrote:
I haven't spewed out a bad idea in hours, cant hold it in anymore so here goes:

Make individual plex auction only items, with a ccp dictated minimum isk bid(yeah, work that economist!), based on auction duration.
Just 1 plex per auction, maximum 1 month duration, no buyout.

Ahhhh.... That feels so much better


How many auctions could be going at one time? Could a bidder bid in more than one auction?

Edit: I'm assuming you are thinking of an English Auction where people can make consecutively higher bids and stop bidding when the price goes above what they are willing to pay?


Cruel, making me think through a flippant bad idea, may have to come back and elaborate further, but for now:

A single bid double blind silent auction. That is no one, not even the seller sees what the current bid is, and only one bid per auction item(per character of course, but what would be the point?). The isk for the bid is put into escrow, with no skill mods, just the isk of the full bid. As long as you have the isk, you can bid on as many auctions as you want.

At the moment that's what I can throw together as a starting point. Have some stuff I'm busy with, but will return to do something I try not to: save the phenomena. might be fun.

Quick Ed* instead of buy orders could have a reversal, you put up the isk with a wtb auction, sellers under bid each other.


Heh, sorry…was actually taking your idea seriously.

Would the winning bidder (the highest bidder) pay the highest bid or the second highest bid?

As for your edit: A Dutch auction….interesting.

Frankly, I’d like to see it implemented just to see what happens.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Zimmer Jones
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#29 - 2015-11-17 22:26:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Zimmer Jones
Tl;dr I'm looking for a way to shake the plex market up a bit, make it cheaper for the buyer, more profitable for the seller provided they are more "proactive" and sly with their selling strategy.

The problem is how to work it with the current market. Can't take away the immediate plex selling markets, Hours for plex is just that, not enough time to bid and win, unless there were auctions about to end immediately. Even with that it is a shot in the dark with committed isk where you might not win.

All I could come up with for immediate need is a punitive "capital gains" surcharge on both ends, or very short "by the candle" options lasting a few hours or less with much higher minimum bids(Minimum bids would be tied to the maximum duration of the auction, the longer it goes the lower the minimum bid [rewards people planning ahead]). The real problem is incentive. A straight up sell/buy order system is much more attractive to market players, so leaving in that option untouched gives no incentive to sell via auction and the limitations, high maintenance, and uncertainty are certainly detractions.

Then there is a gaming aspect of those options which would be helped by the suggestion of the vickrey auction, that being the second highest bid, and the blind silent auction on both ends. Adding in a seller set bidding price(a cost for every bid is placed) could help pique interest, meaning a lower initial price might actually garner a better final sum paid to the seller, even if the winning bid seems low. More bids= more isk when the auction closes and lowballed plex auctions could get alot of bidders even if EVERYONE bids the minimum.

Add an option for a minimum # of bidders, or the auction is anulled and all bid and fees including the listing price are refunded. Another option for the seller is to pull out of the auction, losing the listing fee, just in case the initial price is not attracting enough interest.

Much more thought has to go into making selling by auction more attractive, but for the low volume sellers this could be a boon.

The buy orders by comparison seem to be alot more simple, but I'm out of rum, and my inspiration for this bad idea is running low.

disclaimer: not an auctioneer, and not in the plex market, just think the entire system is a bit stale and exclusive.

Use the force without consent and the court wont acquit you even if you are a card carryin', robe wearin' Jedi.
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