Market Discussions

My thoughts

People will want to convert aurum to avoid loss. I have 300 free aurum. I will probably buy more aurum to put myself over the 1000 aurum minimum limit. If others do this too CCP may be suprised at how much aurum gets converted to miniplex.
I expect CCP to see quite a spike in aurum purchases before the change for this very reason.

CCP have said will also be running sales on items in the aurum store to help people to convert small aurum quantities to skins etc... so they don't lose out.

The 1000 minnimum conversion tells me CCP are actually concerned what would happen if all aurum in existence was converted into mini plex, otherwise why bother with a minimum? Just convert the lot. Less hassle, less player complaints. Inactive accounts with small aurum quantities will lose out heavily here.

I do feel that if CCP feels the need to limit the aurum conversion then in the short term after the change happens that they know so much aurum will get converted that it is going to impact the miniplex price, at least in the short term.

Trading in plex could become a lot less sexy when it's only worth around 2-3 million ISK.

Best read the CCP dev blog and video for that.
I am not proposing the miniplex myself. I am responding to the CCP announcement.
more info here

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/plex-changes-on-the-way/

A long overdue change imho.

Aurum was always an embuggerance. I'm glad to see the back of it.

PLEX price might dip temporarily, due to the one-time injection of extra PLEX converted from Aurum, but the increased functionality and usability of PLEX will counteract this.

Does anyone know if the Chinese server is getting miniplex too?

What does it matter which one they keep? Only the name is different.

Scenarios, correct me if im wrong.. add your owm:

1. Buying PLEX to sell for ISK
Buy Orders should never set Minimums so that they can catch some of the runovers of the items ahead of them. Top slot for Buys will get busy, eating into the Sells margin.
2. Transporting PLEX
Hmm so now gametime-grade PLEX is 5m3. I think suicide ganking them, even in small piles in cargoholds, will still happen alot because of the items' long history as a money maker.
3. Selling existing PLEX
Knowing that there are people who're sitting on mounds of 'em, its gonna be alot harder to control prices. It will be interesting what Sell Order item quantities will be. One item listings? I have 499 more, too slow. 500 item listings? Gonna be tied to that price for 5 minutes.
4. Alphas
Now Alpha accounts who want to granually buy PLEX for gametime can see more progress as they collect the lower priced PLEX slowly. They will definitely help with the PLEX turnover rates, good change for them. This might also help retention rates. Giving away PLEX to new players will be so much easier on the wallet.
5. PLEX as currency
Scams with PLEX will be the thing. Contracts with PLEX will skyrocket.

zzzz 5am, need coffffeee timeoutt

edit: Skill Injectors - huh.. never thought of that. I think PLEX still has still its gametime allure that will make traders stick with it.

Honrado all good points.

Skill extractors will be directly purchasable for miniplex now with no intermediate steps.
Their ISK values will be even more closely linked.

The volumes traded on miniplex are going to be staggering. Not just by the 500 factor, but much more than that because of expanded uses and lower thresholds - both to get hold of, and ease of spending.

The eve store is going to sink a ton more miniplex and by extension real life money for CCP.
Expect CCP to curate the eve store FAR more actively. Maybe branch into new types of object for sale e.g. unique ships than can only be purchased from the store.

All sorts of new way to sell stuff can be put into game with miniplex only worth a few million ISK. LP agents taking miniplex?
Also CCP has far more options with small miniplex payouts that they couldn't possibly do with PLEX before. e.g. citizen science rewards

The speed of movement of miniplex is going to resemble real life high speed trading.
Miniplex traders are going to make fortunes off tiny movements ( anything above fixed costs ) in the miniplex prices, both buy and sell price. High speed trading is coming to Eve :)

I'm super happy that CCP is doing this with PLEX, making a move towards a much more micro transaction system, i expect it to increase the player base due to you'll be able to spend a few dollars and get plenty of ISK as an alpha to just derp around for a few hours and get your PEW PEW, without grinding belts or anoms, i expect this change to help with player retention as a whole, and it's not going to screw any of us already playing, if anything it's going to introduce a whole lot more small gang/solo pvp which i'm super hyped for.

As for the market, i expect that immediately after the change goes live, that PLEX will drop, as the change will decentralize the selling location of PLEX, as it will be transferable between stations etc, no more Jita bears holding it hostage. I also do not think it will bounce back all too fast either, due to the increased supply of PLEX, thx to the increase in micro transactions from people that just want to PEW PEW, but up until now $40 per PLEX was just unjustifiable. I haven't had a good look at how this will flow into skins however, but i suspect that skins will be a safe investment, at least more so than PLEX.

That's my two cents at least, super hyped for this change, down with the whales!

I, too, think the price of plex will drop after implementation, because I expect it to rise beforehand.

I think many with orphan Aurum will just convert a plex instead of buying aurum for real $ to bring their balance above 1000 AUR, so demand for plex will rise, as many accounts older than mid-December have minimum 300 AUR in the bank, and will want to monetize this 100M or so of value.

After the conversion, even if the accounts consume the 500 plex for a month's time, they might well sell off the 42 derived from the 300 AUR Christmas gift, driving the price down.

Imagine someone coming back to the game after the PLEX change seeing some say they bought a skin for 1000 PLEX.