Market Discussions

Are there any big players controlling market in eve? just curious.

I don't know that there are anymore. As I remember, there were large groups that were able to control and corner certain areas of the market and dictate prices but ccp eventually broke that up through expansions and game play changes.

On the individual level, I'd say not. At least for any substantial length of time. The market is just too big and dynamic for an individual to actually control a market over long periods of time that is essentially open 24/7.

The commodity trade routes are still open are they not?

They are, but I heard it was much more lucrative a long time ago (like over 5 years ago). I wasn't around at that time so I don't know from first hand experience. So this is just my speculation from the information gathered from random sources, which I don't know if it's true.

But it seems like the NPC buy orders were much bigger, they were like around 250,000 quantity. If you look at the "Market Activity" section for some 0.0 NPC corps, you can still see the last transaction for some of those commodities, with 200,000+ quantity, and the transaction was dated a few years ago.

Also, you use to be able to put more stuff inside a Carrier corporate hangar bay. I am thinking maybe around that time, you could also put a loaded freighter inside a Carrier corporate hangar bay - but this is also just speculation.

It's a little trickier now with things like EVE Central to monitor prices across the Universe, but it can be done.

One of the strategies that can be used is to find a high demand product that is hard to acquire, or takes a long time to make. You then buy all the stock you can find of it, and then resell it at x times the price. The market will eventually catch up to you, but not before you made a few billion.

Here's a simple example. Back before we had SKINs, we had unique ships like InterBus shuttles and the like. They were in relatively limited quantity. One time I noticed that supply was running short on these, so I bought all of them at around 200m each. I then relisted them for around 500m each. I made about 6 billion in about a week after all the units were resold.

Economic warfare is a legitimate thing. If you know a rival corporation buys a lot of their minerals from a certain region, buy all the minerals you can from that region and drive the price up. Conversely, if you know they sell a lot of products in a certain region, flood the market with those products.

These are just simple examples. There are many, many more ways to control and exploit markets.

Market manipulation is one of the more fun activities I participate in of all the things I do on EVE. It can be very risky, but it can also be very rewarding as well.

Plus one of the things I love, is that you will learn a lot about economics in a hurry.

I control the market in Bumble Faction Moustachio Wax


I am God as far as this fiefdom is concerned

there are only a few products where a single player (or group) can effectively control the market for an extensive amount of time.

there are only very few basic ressources that are required to produce the vast majority of items in the game. as long as an item is made from these things, it can not effectively be controlled by one guy. eventually, making it will become so profitable that others will

if you want to control a market, find something that is very hard to farm.

and a quality product it is too.

yes

^^ This ^^

Items with fixed supply (loot drops / mission rewards) can be game-able only after extensive time/capital has been put in acquiring items at or below the long term average price. A large enough inventory is required to exhaust the risk capital of competitors that believe they can influence prices on an item you are attempting to manipulate.

It is an extremely long game to pull off, but when done successfully you can fill competing traders with 10s of billions worth of inflated items as over the years the long term average price sits 5 to 10x+ higher than your entry point.

Remember that most traders do not see price history past a year .