EVE General Discussion

Cause CCP already has the cash for the PLEX. They've made their profit. By making the CE buyable via PLEX it's basicly reducing the profit on the sale of the PLEX in the first place. They're much better off selling it seperate for cash.

Example:
1 - Person buys PLEX, CCP gets cash, someone buys for isk.
2 - Person buys PLEX, CCP gets cash, someone buys for isk - uses to get CE, CCP loses cash.

Example 1 gets them cash from PLEX and CE. Example 2 just loses them cash from the sales of the CE, as they already have the cash for the PLEXs.

Like i've already said, its not like people are going to suddenly start buying more PLEX to help out randoms that want to get the CE via PLEX.

So, in your face!

Allow me to take you through it, step by step, with a nice hypothetical.

Introducting Mark. He's a big shot CEO of some global corporation. He makes cash, hand over fist, but is far too busy outsourcing jobs to China to have time to grind isk. He decides to spend his cash on 12 PLEX, CCP makes £179. He sells these in game for isk.

Introducing Luke. He's an overweight jobless middle-aged man still living in his parents basement. He's also the leader of a grand nullsec alliance, making isk hand over fist from moon-goo.

Now, assuming Luke wants to buy the CE, two things can happen.

1- If things remain as they are now, he's forced to buy it using cash, likely scrounged from his parents. So CCP has made £150! This is in addition to their PLEX sales. Mark didn't care where or what those PLEX were bought for, he just wanted the isk.

2 -If things were changed to that the CE could be bought via PLEX, thats no issue for isk-rich Luke. He gives Mark the isk for the PLEX he put on the market. So CCP effectively loses £150 they could have earned if the CE was exclusively available via cash.

In the first instance CCP gets £179 AND £150.
In the second CCP gets £179 MINUS £150.

It's not exactly rocket science.

nobody has made the aurgemeant of how the real money of the plex is spend out? the server and staff costs, for them to make the same profit form using plexs will be in the masses, and not forgetting witch exchange rate to use (149.99€ or $ 149.99) some numbler but not the same value.

not for getting the ingame market will crash, well depending if demand is spend over a short time
a huge demand + short time = huge price + short time = poor player who have to pay in game can't add ford it = low demand = people who bought lots of plex at the time of the high will have lots left over = even lower prices then befor = people upset for two diffence resons.....

So your counter-arguement boils down to that CCP will make this money anyways over the long-term subscription on our theoretical Luke, assuming he doesn't rage-quit of course. But you're forgetting that the PLEX has already been bought. CCP has already made their profit there. It makes them more profit to make the CE only buyable with cash. This isn't even taking into account the production costs of the CE itself. It's impossible for them to make a 100% profit.

I'll give it one final shot before giving up. There's only so many times i can facepalm.

Lets assume it costs them like £50 to produce the CE, so that would be £100 per unit sold.
Lets assume they are only selling 50 of them. Lets also assume that it takes about 12 PLEX to buy one CE. (12 = £179)

Now this is the important part. 50 CE could be bought with 600 PLEX. These PLEX are already on the market. CCP has already made £8950 from these PLEX. Now if we take our previous scenario, two outcomes can occur.

1 - CCP makes the CE only buyable via cash. They sell all 50 units making them £5000, in addition to their normal PLEX sales. They couldn't give a damn about the PLEX already on the market, they've already banked the cash. £8950 + £5000 = £13,950

2 - CCP makes the CE buyable via PLEX. 50 players with super-fast internet and faster mouse-clicking speeds immediately buy them all up for PLEX. CCP has already got the cash in the bank from these PLEX. They don't make £5000, it all comes straight out of their pre-existing profits from the PLEX they already sold. They'd also lose the £50 production cost per unit.
£8950 - £5000 - £2500 = £1450.

I'm not sure i can make this any clearer. From a pure-profit perspective, it makes much more sense to sell them for cash only. Your arguements about it boosting PLEX sales, and peoples continued subscription making up the differences doesn't work.

Worst of all, you're really, really making me want to buy the CE now!

Edit: Actually the point was that Luke paid for his CE with game time. CCP made their profit here this very moment through the sale of Plex which is no longer going towards game time and instead something physical.

So if the CE was 12 plex, Luke essentially bought the CE for 360 days game time, so £180 (assuming 30 days = £15 each)



I highly doubt your assumptions.



I already stated that I believe 15 PLEX was more of an adequate/probable cost. And they are only selling 50 copies to a player base of (supposedly) 50k? Please. Already this assumption is irrelevant. I will have to ignore the "important" part as it uses terrible assumptions to try and base facts.



No the point is with your previous argument, under the two instances you gave you failed to see one significant flaw you made.

The fact is, if the sale of the CE totally ignores PLEX as a method of payment then you shouldn't include it in the profits made by CCP because that's now irrelevent as PLEX is only being used for Game Time.

Whereas if you include PLEX as a payment for the CE you NEED to include it otherwise the system wouldn't work. Because PLEX going the CE isn't going to someone elses game time.

The simple fact of the matter is, CCP will earn more money with the addition of PLEX sales than a credit card only approach.

It boils down to:

CE with credit card only = £150

CE with (12) PLEX = £180 at the end of the day regardless of who bought the PLEX from CCP (though I believe 15 PLEX would be more appropriate)

Seriously, that's it.

Edit: I've edited post #45 as I didn't explain myself well enough.

Major 'Revolver' Ocelot,

While I agree with you completely and your opponent has pitiful understanding of economics, I should point out this old saying:

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. – Mark Twain

You've already done what I was about to do (correct some ignorance), so thanks for taking that bullet. Now people are going to have to sort it out for themselves. Some can rub two brain cells together and realize that you're right. Others... they'll continue to be against anything that doesn't leave them feeling like special little snowflakes, reality of economics be damned.

So... what?

The government hands out internet access stamps with the food stamps now?

And if you don't have the $150, you don't get the CE. Just like you don't get the Ferrari that's on sale or the Rolex. It sucks, but that's life in a capitalist society.

Mr Epeen

except that it takes money to buy plexes

So what if it's not coming from our pocket, as long as it is coming from someone else's (with permission of course) it's fine. If CCP had this approach they would be against PLEX in the first place because other people are paying for our game time.

I fail to see the difference in someone paying CCP money, to acquire items to sell for in game currency. And someone then buying those items in exchange for CCP's service. (letting us log on and play) Compared to buying those items for a product from CCP. (which offers little to no in-game advantages whatsoever)

I think it's a little too late to be drawing lines for such similar exchanges.

but cant we just convert plex to aur