Market Discussions

Technically true, but the main distinction is who gets those extra ones initially.

"pushing on a string"

A monetary policy of CCP is waning in effectiveness.

The CCP board had some initial success expanding the supply of that special type of currency , PLEX (a hard currency backed by game time) through lower cost at the fed(ccp) to those that infused that type of currency in hopes of avoiding a deflation of active accounts.

The will need to result in a QE , quantitative easing using a direct infusion of the PLEX currency into the markets or let the ISK/PlEX price rise to a ration where players begin to change their demand behavior

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I might explore this model, albeit imperfect, later - it would be a useful exercise in terms of giving yet another angle of perception for those who aren't looking for a single answer but yearn for any clue of nuances and ability to make incrementally better educated guesses by the abilty of different models to set caps on an element used in a different model.

PLEX sales are not and never have been effective long term price controls, nor (I suspect) are they meant to be. Players just choose to assume they are and explain away their ineffectiveness in that regard by claiming EyjoG doesn't know what he's doing. As that's the case, this isn't a spike, merely the expected and rapid return to normal.

If they bought the PLEX, they'd be propping up the price by reducing supply. If they sold them later, they'd be keeping the cost down by increasing supply. That would put them on both sides of the equation and would imply that there is a price range that they're trying to maintain.

Dr. E (in the fanfest video linke by Bobby) says specifically that they aren't aiming for a specific price. However, he doesn't really explain how that jibes with the concept of intervening in the PLEX market. If they're bringing the price down, they may not be aiming for a number, but they're aiming for something. I'd love to know what that something is. He also states that they have ~10k PLEX. While it may not be common for people to hold on to PLEX, I know at least one person who bought ~100 when the price dipped to ~500mil a while back. He intended to use them for subscriptions, but held them so that he could liquidate at will during price spikes. Anyone trading in PLEX is likely to be doing the same, so it seems reasonable for there to be stacks sitting around in extraordinarily wealthy RMTers wallets (and those guys don't get warnings btw, just insta perma bans).

I don't know about a consensus, but I can try to restate my long-held theory. There is only one long-term price trend in Eve and that is the price of PLEX. It goes up year after year because of "mudflation" which is the incessant growth of of all forms of in-game items including isk. Call it inflation if you look at PLEX in terms of isk, or deflation if you look at it the other way around, the result is the same.

The real interesting question is why do PLEX prices ever go down? In that regard, I am a supply-sider. The influx of PLEX into the game from people that want to spend real-life cash to fly spaceships is the primary cause of short-term price movements. People come into and put money into the game around expansions. Some expansions are more popular than others. The influx of PLEX around the very popular Apocrypha expansion depressed the PLEX market for some months. Incursion combined with the removal of learning skills which caused a massive buying of capital ship skill books not only brought PLEX into the market but took trillions of isk out of the game and almost caused a PLEX price crash.

On the other hand, bad publicity causes PLEX prices to increase. Witness monocle-gate in the summer of 2011. So for the future, expect a small decline during November-December due to the ho-hum nature of the upcoming expansion followed by prices above 600 again early next year.

Offer and Demand.
The higher the demand the higher the offer goes on the market that is.
Auction trade are not related in the same way although also affected.

0.9 The Forge - Jita 5 587,687,667ISK Station < 5 minutes ago

The more people try to buy PLEX from ingame ISK the higher the price goes if there is less offer.

Less offer means that the number of PLEx is less than the number of PLEx in demand, to be purchased.

That means that lots of players made a lot of ISKs, from loot, war, FW or other .

Maybe a lot of production came to be and transfer of products were made into ISK which goes back to buying PLEX.

I could have bought 6 PLEx at $75 even if outside of USA although I'd needed a 'valid' contact there.
That gives the equivalent of about 1.5 -1.25 PLEX.

Back up to 591m + in Amarr VIII (x17) and Jita IV (x24+) from:
EVE Central 30 Day Pilot's License Extension (PLEX) - Market Browser

To 597m in Jita.
http://eve-marketdata.com/price_check.php?step=Show&type_id=29668&region_id=&solarsystem_id=&type=buy

It is not necessarily a bad thing that the PLEx price goes up (both for sale and the buy offer rate).
It can bring more money to the game.
It depends in part if new player want to buy CCP's PLEx in Exchange for finite amount of ISK.
I know I will try to get my hand on one of them before the rate plumets back.
It may go back towards 575m 550m and lower towards 500m.

PLEX seem to operate similarly to US Bonds....

Only one agency can create them (Fed or CCP)

They fluctuate in value, but appear to be increasing in value over time. (relative value, vs inflation or plex price)

the Fed/CCP buying or selling them seems to fluctuate the price up and down respectively.

They are backed by a standard, hard value (30 days time, the amount of the bond itself)


PLEX, of course, don't earn interest, unless you count the increase in plex price over time.

Buy Orders
Region = System - Station = Price = Qty = Expires = Reported Time
Domain [-] 1.0 Amarr VIII (Oris) - Emperor Family Academy (Station) = 606,000,000.03 = 1 = 2014-01-20 = 1 minutes ago
http://eve-central.com/home/quicklook.html?typeid=29668#buys

Because position and money management are as if not more important than knowing when to open a position.

A RL trader would not keep all his risk capital in the market till the end.
A RL trader is in for the long haul so he gradually secures his profits with progressive take profits.
A RL trader knows to buy low and sell high.

So, when price is high enough and profits are OK, the trader sells, well knowing that price swings. So the current higher high will become an higher low shortly after, where to re-purchase stock at lower price with expectation for the next higher swing to provide for a "sell high" further opportunity.

So, since I am a RL trader, I just do that in EvE too, and enjoy the results.