EVE Search - How do we tackle inflation.

Natsett Amuinn wrote:

Touval Lysander wrote:

Correct. No isk is removed from the game, it simply transfers ownership.

Ultimately, the thing often mistaken here is where people say earning too much isk generates inflation. It does not.

The more people that shoot NPCs, and do missions, the more ISK enters the economy.

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Spending the isk does. You can make people poorer as much as you like but spending patterns don't neccessarily change because people probably need the stuff they actually buy.

I've said only recently that the best sink to "use up money" (if we even have to) is to put a cost on using stuff - such as maintenance costs, depreciation etc. Like we actually have in RL - it is it's own market driver and modifier without the need for PvP as the ONLY method to drive the economy.

PvP drives the economy, along with PvE. Shooting ships, and getting ships blown up is what allows the economy to work.

"Taxes", which your idea is really no different than, isn't about how the economy is driven. "Taxing" in a video game is how currency or money -EVE has money, WoW has currency- is removed.

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If we want to compare RL economic theory in Eve we must first accept that we have to use RL economic practise - in it's entirety - not the bits that suit and call it a VR economy in isolation.

Comparing real economic theory to EVE is perfectly viable, it's modelled after a real world economy and some things translate. Blizzard doesn't have economists working on WoW, CCP does with EVE.

Nothing you wrote about really had anything to do with economics though, they were just things that involve money, and how to spend it. They would indeed help to reduce inflation in EVE, but that doesn't really mean you're talking economics though.

EVEs economy is an exceptional thing, and the guys at CCP really know what they're doing. I don't think many people really grasp the significance of PLEX and how It's used to combat inflation in EVE.

Because CCP went on a "gold standard" you don't just worry about "how much" ISK is in the system, but "what is it worth". Taking to much out can be as bad as putting to much in, possibly even worse.

It's ok for people to have lots of ISK in EVE, as long as it's being distributated. The only way to distribute wealth in EVE is to blow **** up. As long as enough things blow up the enocomy thrives, regardless of how much isk is available.

Less **** blowing up means more **** being mined that is used to make more **** that people aren't buying. ISK is worthless when things don't get blown up.

There is always a bottom that money works it's way to without things like stock markets. EVE doesn't really have any means of distributing wealth from the bottom, back to the top again. Things like PoS fuel aren't large enough distributors, and sinse there's a system of generating money it's cool, as long as the "gold standard" is controlled properly to ensure that the money doesn't sink in value to fast.

CCP is our federal reserve, and they trade gold -PLEX- as the economy demands it, at least they hope to. They're doing the same thing the US use to do prior to 1971, when the dollar was based on the value of gold and the dollar was the standard by which all other money was valued against. The Federal Reserve would, and still does, manipulate gold to ensure that the dollar held a certian value, and they could do it esier.

The big difference being that PLEX isn't a limitted resource that requires actual labor to obtain, and can be physically traded in large quantities. That and we can't really turn around and demand to trade in all of our ISK for PLEX, and crash the value of PLEX.

I'm also aware that PLEX is based on the value of the dollar as well. The economic depth of EVE is very deep indeed.
Making suggestions is easy, understanding how those suggestion would actually impact the economy in EVE is beyond most of us, myself included.

Just blow **** up.