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The math of time codes for isk

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Face Lifter	Posted - 2005.11.21 04:44:00 - [31] When I read about conversion rates of ISK to USD, it makes me wonder "I'm potentially wasting a lot of real money by PvPing.. I want to be a responsible person that earns income so I shouldn't be so carefree about buying Ravens, when I could be putting that money in the bank" heh As far as I know, people from poor countries who macromine don't get all the profit. They work the virtual worlds just like sweatshops in factory - they get paid very little with most of the profit going to their boss, who is usually pretty rich, likely to live in USA, and can easily afford buying all the necessary computers and internet access to expand his business. So if you see a macro miner, there's little sense in trying to convince him not to do it, cause he's just a low level worker and any questions should be addressed to his manager :-/
CmdrRat	Posted - 2005.11.21 04:57:00 - [32] Originally by: Two step You have a math error in your price for the standard missile 2 BPO, it should be $710. Basic rule of thumb (based on the 90 days for 300 mil) is $150 US per billion ISK. Thanks, I missed that. It has been fixed. Lord Zap is still cheap tho. _ ____ _______ _________________________________________________________
CmdrRat	Posted - 2005.11.21 04:58:00 - [33] Originally by: Face Lifter When I read about conversion rates of ISK to USD, it makes me wonder "I'm potentially wasting a lot of real money by PvPing.. I want to be a responsible person that earns income so I shouldn't be so carefree about buying Ravens, when I could be putting that money in the bank" heh As far as I know, people from poor countries who macromine don't get all the profit. They work the virtual worlds just like sweatshops in factory - they get paid very little with most of the profit going to their boss, who is usually pretty rich, likely to live in USA, and can easily afford buying all the necessary computers and internet access to expand his business. So if you see a macro miner, there's little sense in trying to convince him not to do it, cause he's just a low level worker and any questions should be addressed to his manager :-/ Very True about the workers, which is why I think it's a problem. If This was a good job for these people it woudlnt' be so bad. But the truth is it's not raising them out of trouble, it's built so they stay where they are and work 12 hour days for some sleaze bag. _ ____ _______ _________________________________________________________
Tekka	Posted - 2005.11.21 06:49:00 - [34] This IS a problem »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» I am the coolness of the century.
CmdrRat	Posted - 2005.11.21 06:59:00 - [35] Originally by: Tekka This IS a problem Glad to see your head is feeling better. _ ____ _______ _________________________________________________________
Katjia	Posted - 2005.11.21 07:27:00 - [36] Edited by: Katjia on 21/11/2005 07:29:06 Edited by: Katjia on 21/11/2005 07:28:31 welcome to the real world of supply and demand as long as ther is a demand to buy isk for $$ or anything like that then someone will supply. The only way to bust this is to have ccp or an officially recignised group to allow and sell these items for hard cash thus increasing supply ....alot possibly sparking oversupply and a sharp drop in prices making these "sweatshops" not profitable and then the homeless low payed third world worker can get out of the enclosed office they are working in and go out into a factory or feild and work for less or more. In the end it doesn't matter i get up i go to work get payed what i think is horrible pay(salary sucks especially for 24/7 coverage)then come home and live my life.. i put in 12 - 14 hour days ussually 10hrs it ain't great but i live my life and so do the macrominers.... What is the problem is not in this game,not isk being sold,nor is it items being ebayed ...the problem is world wide standard of living and ethnocentric *****s that can't see past ther own fat head..... edit: amendum to the 24/7 coverage...add getting shot at in a war the public doesn't back nor want to understand...just pictures on a screen to them.
Teles666	Posted - 2005.11.21 09:17:00 - [37] The idea that if your a filthy rich tech 2 producer you can play eve for free is an interesting one - I know EVE gets the money the same but, I dunno, makes me jealous I guess :) Buying ISK though isn't going to make you happy, it's like getting cheta codes for a single player game - it just means in 2 days you've finished it and had no fun getting there.
ratking	Posted - 2005.11.21 09:19:00 - [38] Edited by: ratking on 21/11/2005 09:21:39 With the current ISK/$ exchange rate I think the future in Eve will bring us some ugly cases of cybercrime. I can easily imagine some dude having trouble in his real-life economics - can't pay the mortgage, electric bill is 3 months due, wife is screaming for child support. How long do you think it will take this guy to screw over his corp for all the Tech2 blueprints and a few billion ISK? He has nothing to loose at all - except maybe for his dignity. Real-life solution solved by screwing over someone you only know from teamspeak and corp chat - no biggie. /me shivers
jamesw	Posted - 2005.11.21 09:34:00 - [39] so he can strip 30 billion off his corp, and use that isk to buy 100 time cards - then what? I dont see how someone can convert a time card in their hand into cash - why would someone buy a timecard from me when they could just buy it from ccp? -- jamesw Rubra Libertas Militia NEW Vid: Bobbing for Xelas
Face Lifter	Posted - 2005.11.21 09:49:00 - [40] Originally by: jamesw so he can strip 30 billion off his corp, and use that isk to buy 100 time cards - then what? I dont see how someone can convert a time card in their hand into cash - why would someone buy a timecard from me when they could just buy it from ccp? Cause you sell it cheaper
ratking	Posted - 2005.11.21 10:00:00 - [41] Originally by: jamesw so he can strip 30 billion off his corp, and use that isk to buy 100 time cards - then what? I dont see how someone can convert a time card in their hand into cash - why would someone buy a timecard from me when they could just buy it from ccp? I am sure that lots of Tech2 blueprints could be sold for money om Ebay or other websites. And for the buyers it would be an investment much like a stocks/bonds in the real world. As we all know, the good Tech2 blueprints is like a license to print your own money.
Expert Newbie	Posted - 2005.11.21 10:07:00 - [42] A common misconception is that in-game money farmers from China come from all ranges of gamers when in fact this is not the case. Most of them are high school dropouts or students without a lot of education and couldn't find a job. Since there's no 'disposable' jobs there like fast food restaurants and janitorial work, they go to these so-called 'sweat shops' to earn money. Another misconception is the currency exchange. $600 RMB is on the low end of paying jobs in China, which converts to $75. Can you live here for a month on $75? I don't think $75 would even last you a week in the US. However, in China, $600 RMB is enough to live in a small apartment (albeit a junk one) and buy sustenance. Keep in mind that Chinese people don't pay taxes and almost everything is bargainable. So you can't compare it as just $1 to 1 RMB because their economy is not the same as it is here in the US. Another thing is how some people think China is a third world country. If you've taken any interest in economics, you would know that China is poised to be the next superpower in the world, surpassing even America. There are stories about how there are people starving in China and the government ignores them. This is all false. The west side of China is underdeveloped and consists mainly of rural farmers, but that's their lifestyle. You could shove all sorts of technology in their face and they're not interested in it at all. You can't just look at one part of a society and judge the entire society to be representative of the whole. That's like if I came here to America, took a look at the slums, heard about how people can sue for pretty much anything, and everybody I see seems to eat fast food. Is that representative of America as a whole? Hardly. So why would you do the same when you look at China? ---------- http://ranma13.no-ip.com/sig.jpg Maximum signature image filesize is 24000 bytes - Udat
Virida	Posted - 2005.11.21 10:28:00 - [43] The economics in eve at least can handle the farmers better than some other mmo's, anarchy online removed the top income "shop food" items since ebayers blew up economy, now economy is so borked what i got is worth so little i cant buy anything, and im one of their long term players. Do ebaying hurt eve? noobs in ebayed ravens get blown to pieces fast, i dont think the economics can be hurt so much, but i dont want ebaying in europe/american dominated game.
ratking	Posted - 2005.11.21 10:52:00 - [44] Originally by: Virida The economics in eve at least can handle the farmers better than some other mmo's I am not sure... as I see it, lots of our experiences long time players will be changing their subscriptions from credit card to gamecards bought with ISK. Lots of them will be having no problem paying the amount of ISK that is needed for their 2-3 accounts. What I fear is that when the exchange rate hits bottom because there is SO much farming being done, then these players will not want to change their subscription back to $$. It will be much easier for them to just quit the game. I fear that Eve will not be respected as a game if it has no monthly cost for that player. As another guy said, it will feel like a trainer++ in a single player game. You get tired of the game faster... I am not as clever as the original author of this subject, but I do know how I would feel myself. I have been close to quitting Eve a few times and have been on a few breaks. Every time I renewed and came back. I just think that if my subscription had no cost, i.e. was paid by ISK, then I would probably have quit for real at some point. I wouldnÆt have had to play 2 more months until my subscription ran out, witch means I wouldnÆt have re-discovered my interest for Eve. Make any sense?
Kerosene	Posted - 2005.11.21 10:57:00 - [45] To put the 600RMB into perspective. I live in a fairly small city in china. The staff here are pretty much at the bottom of the national pay scale. Incidentally I run a software company specialising in outsourcing and software development. I pay my guys between 1500-2000RMB a month and that's a decent wage for my area. They are definately in the top 25% earners and quite happy. Accomodation costs between 200-300RMB for a 1 bedroomed apartment. Meals cost between 5-15RMB a day depending on what you want. In essence 600RMB is a livable wage for those between jobs. __
Larshus Magrus	Posted - 2005.11.21 14:31:00 - [46] Originally by: Saeris Tal'Urduar People need to stop assuming our macro'rs are from China. Saying that can be construed as bigoted. And I find it slightly offensive. Sadly enough however, its true. In Wow, EQ, and Eve, the majority of macoers ARE Chinese simply because its economically profitable for them to be. If it offends your fragile sensabilities, I suggest you either stop playing EvE, or better yet, join an activisim group that looks to better the Chinese population as a whole.
Summersnow	Posted - 2005.11.21 16:12:00 - [47] Originally by: Teles666 Buying ISK though isn't going to make you happy, it's like getting cheta codes for a single player game - it just means in 2 days you've finished it and had no fun getting there. I would disagree with this because the wait time is on training the skills and CCP is ensuring that there will always be more skills to train. Buying isk for cash is a good way for newer players to experience the game there paying to play but can't enjoy to its fullest extent because t2 producers are getting stupid with prices ( 220 mil for a deimos? ) As long as CCP can't figure out more players = more demand = more prints and spread the wealth out to combat inflation AND make BOTH HAC's from every race playable to even out demand, etc, macro's & isk sellers will exist.
Valrandir	Posted - 2005.11.21 17:20:00 - [48] Originally by: Azaeren Edited by: Azaeren on 21/11/2005 04:03:25 Originally by: Saeris Tal'Urduar But can we please stop pointing fingers at a groups of people because of the country they come from. I dont like it when we do that to the French/American/English/Russian/Asian players like they fall into some kind of category, they dont. I guess we can throw the law of statstics out the window. Everyone here knows that 90% or more of the macrominers are asian. So saying "those asian macrominers" would be a pretty correct statement most of the time. I seriously can not do a rolleyes smiley to show how moronic your posts are. Quoted For Truth --------------------------------
Threefisted Olie	Posted - 2005.11.21 20:59:00 - [49] Originally by: ratking Originally by: jamesw so he can strip 30 billion off his corp, and use that isk to buy 100 time cards - then what? I dont see how someone can convert a time card in their hand into cash - why would someone buy a timecard from me when they could just buy it from ccp? I am sure that lots of Tech2 blueprints could be sold for money om Ebay or other websites. And for the buyers it would be an investment much like a stocks/bonds in the real world. As we all know, the good Tech2 blueprints is like a license to print your own money. If CCP kracks down on ebay and other $ for items trades, and if selling timecard for isk is legal, smart players wouldn't by tech 2 blueprints for cash. CCP needs to start shopping ebay and banning, forcing people with rl cash into the timecard market. An increase in supply in the timecard market will lower the isk price of timecards. A lower isk price for timecards mean more people that can't afford subscriptions with cash can play, and even buy thier friends subscriptions. Timecards for ingame cash is the best way I've seen to get some sort of handle on the rlcash->ingame cash trade. CCP needs to hunt down the the people selling items for rl cash, and drive them so far underground that the average player cannot find them. Sure, people are still getting ingame rich by selling timecodes, but as unfair as that is, it would mean more subscriptions for CCP, and more pilots for us to shoot at.
Malthros Zenobia	Posted - 2005.11.21 21:34:00 - [50] Originally by: ratking Edited by: ratking on 21/11/2005 09:21:39 With the current ISK/$ exchange rate I think the future in Eve will bring us some ugly cases of cybercrime. I can easily imagine some dude having trouble in his real-life economics - can't pay the mortgage, electric bill is 3 months due, wife is screaming for child support. How long do you think it will take this guy to screw over his corp for all the Tech2 blueprints and a few billion ISK? He has nothing to loose at all - except maybe for his dignity. Real-life solution solved by screwing over someone you only know from teamspeak and corp chat - no biggie. /me shivers And after losing the little dignity he might have lef,t he offs himself... After the GHSC incident(and others), I can't imagine many Corps have t2 BPOS in a hangar that can be accessed by anyone they can't physically reach IRL. ------------------------------------ Your Civilian Gatling Railgun perfectly strikes Choke Slam [CAIN], wrecking for 6.0 damage.
Admiral IceBlock	Posted - 2005.11.21 21:48:00 - [51] so your also saying that selling characters for isk is also wrong? becouse rich people can buy a lot of accounts and start training? maybe that isnt that important since no one is whining about that even tho its the same thing... "We brake for nobody"
smashsmash	Posted - 2005.11.21 22:26:00 - [52] I'm going to sue you for spying on me! Clearly you have been studying me through hidden cameras in my room. Originally by: Expert Newbie You can't just look at one part of a society and judge the entire society to be representative of the whole. That's like if I came here to America, took a look at the slums, heard about how people can sue for pretty much anything, and everybody I see seems to eat fast food. Is that representative of America as a whole? Hardly. So why would you do the same when you look at China? ---- Would you like some cries with your whaaamburger?
Emsigma	Posted - 2005.11.21 23:44:00 - [53] Edited by: Emsigma on 21/11/2005 23:49:43 Pft.. you have all missed the big issue here. Since Time Cards for iskies is not against the EULA (even though it is), let's play with this though. I open my webshop. Then you can go buy a tier2 BS for 1/3 TC or you can buy 1B isk for 3,3x TC and so on. When you made your buy at this webshop you buy a TC from me that i then buy from you for xxxM iskies and then I sell it back to you again and so on. Eventual fractions I just let you have in the webshop and remeber them as a part ownership in that specific time card. All legal, tidy and approved by CCP themself. What, me? I ain't selling in game things for real life money. I am trading in game items for part ownership in one TC who I then buy for iskies. So... who will host my webshop? I feel like going out mining again building battleships. ---------- // emsigma
Expert Newbie	Posted - 2005.11.22 06:15:00 - [54] You guys claim that most macro miners are from Asia and that might be true. However, saying asian macro miners is a racist comment. 80% of our jail inmates are black. Is it right for me to say black criminals? ---------- http://ranma13.no-ip.com/sig.jpg Maximum signature image filesize is 24000 bytes - Udat
Face Lifter	Posted - 2005.11.22 06:41:00 - [55] Originally by: Expert Newbie You guys claim that most macro miners are from Asia and that might be true. However, saying asian macro miners is a racist comment. 80% of our jail inmates are black. Is it right for me to say black criminals? There's nothing wrong with expression "black criminals" - it refers to a specific case. It would be racist to say "blacks are criminals" - because it refers to a race
Nyphur	Posted - 2005.11.22 06:45:00 - [56] You're not seeing a vital vital part. In economics, liquidity is based on how easy it is to trade for something, right? That means that if something is hard to sell, it is less liquid. In determining if something is hard to sell, you have to check supply, demand and market throughput. You didn't do that and consequently your model assumes that demand is infinite, supply is infinite and throughput is infinite. Let's take the case of buying time cards for money and selling them for isk, what you would call "buying isk": Supply is infinite in this case since there's no limit to the purchase of time codes for real money from CCP. Demand, however, is limited to the number of people with enough ISK in-game who want to purchase a code. This also limits the market throughput and makes this a buyer's market once it reaches dynamic equilibrium. That means the buyer sets the price since he is the limited resource - sellers, who are an unlimited resource, will reduce prices until it is no longer proitable to sell the cards. The level at which it becomes unprofitable is decied based on other out-of-game payment for ISK mechanisms such as owning more than one account or raising characters on an alt account for sale. This equates to roughly 100-150mil/month. What we are currently seeing is the price creaming caused by lack of competition so prices will be a bit out of whack until we have enough sellers to stabalise that and meet demand. With fixed demand, this isn't going to generate a terribly good cashflow. It's not a perfectly liquid asset. Now let's take the situation of "selling isk". Supply is limited since you have to find a game time card seller in-game. Demand is ALSO extremely limited since it will take quite a feat to find a large number of people wanting to buy their game time cards from you. The only thing you could do is have an asymmetric conversion rate by lowering the sale-price of the game time cards for real money, thereby increasing demand. You'd also need some method of letting people know you're selling them and that you're trustworthy. Also, should word get back to CCP that you're selling their property without being a licensed reseller, expect to have the codes cancelled and your account permanantly banned. With demand being so very limited, converting ISK to money is little more than fantasy with the game time card system. The inability to effectively switch this in-game asset to an out of game one limits the liquidity of this asset to a very low amount. You can't set a conversion rate knowing fine well that conversion one way is easier than the other and that conversion is not going to be easy. Conversion rates between two liquid assets (ISK and actual money) are only accurate so long as the conversion method maintains the liquidity. Don't kid yourself that this is a free market. Ebay, on the other hand, is a free market. You can directly trade the ISK for cash and vice versa, eliminating the need for an obfuscated mechanism to trade through like game time cards which, while legitimate, are not an uncapped resource or one which is easy to trade across.
Teblin	Posted - 2005.11.22 07:02:00 - [57] Thread cleaned. Can we please keep this clean, stick to the topic and not post racist remarks or racially-inclined blanket statements? It is an interesting topic. forum rules \| [email protected]
NSA DAKILLA	Posted - 2005.11.22 07:56:00 - [58] this game is starting to scuk ... i say we do us all a favour and stop playing the game :) for real :)
Ralitge boyter	Posted - 2005.11.22 08:03:00 - [59] Intresring indeed, look at: Project entropia They do the ingame curency to real money and back again as a game service. The biggest problem is that they cannot have PvP as this would mean people looting real monney of other people. This would be real stealing and thus would be punisable by al kinds of laws. The main reason by not wanting to setup a ISK -> $$ -> ISK kind of service is exactly that this would make priates and looting a thing of the past. Then again there is clearly a market for it people do pay real money to play the game and judging by the ever increasing number of sites offering ISK for $$$ I would say people are paying for in game money and items as well. However to stop a game from being overrun by rich guys buying the best and beating the rest... CCP made the chooice not to let this happen. Now I have been doing the math a few times before and looking at the wages in my current country of recidence and just further of towards rusia... I do see why a person would want to make in game ISK and sell it and quite posibly do much better playing games than he would working in a factory or at the local fastfood chain with teh well known golden M. As an example with in this country (Czech republic) in the capital people are making about 10000Kc ~ 334 Euro a month net salary as a low end. But moving into the country side and the smaller towns you are looking at 7000Kc ~ 234 Euro. So they will not be able to spend a lot on computers or computer games but lets say they have a decent computer and or a local internet cafe offering EVE. No have them playing EVE for 8 hours a day making $1.36 ~ 1.15 Euro * 8 = 9.2 Euro a day = 46 Euro a week which makes about 151.8 Euro a month. (assuming a 5 day working week 7 days would be 212.52 Euro) Not a very good deal but we are talking about bounties on rat hunting in low sec space now make this into a mining op with some friends in the local internet cafe or framing of a few decent complexes and we quite easily get to a decent enough amount to make case against working at behind the fatsheds counter. Of course we are talking about a relativly rich country... Take a trip a bit further west or towards the south and quite quickly you get into a reasonable proposal even against working at a decent IT job. So in theory working a internet cafe and having the local kids play for free as long as they hand over half of the proceeds to you will make for a sound buisness plan in quite a few countries. ------------------------------------------- Should you disagree with me, well I guess that is because I disagree with you. If you have a problem with that please feel free not to tell me.
Ralitge boyter	Posted - 2005.11.22 08:20:00 - [60] Now lets continue this and lets try and think what would happen if we could all buy the ingame items. 50% of the players would be angry enough to say the will quite 30% will quite 10 % will come back because they miss it to much. New players will join because they can now buy it all only to find that they will still need to train for ever and ever before they can use that dreadnaught with any effect. Prices will start to change, CCP will ***** down on macroers even harder as they are now costing them real life $$$. Less ISK will become available prices will go up as less and less minerals and so on will become available due to the abcense of macro miners. In the end the whole landscape within EVE as we know it will change. Players will not be ganking, pirating or anythig like that because that will now not be posible due to most countries outlawing stealing a long time ago. (and thus CCP aletering the code so players can not attack players) So why play EVE anymore, no more battles no more reason to have a corp as this will only set you up for conflict and so on. No more people buying an outpost due to the fact that they cannot be maintained by any single player. EVE would stop to exist as we know it. So I think the current way of doing things is the best if not only solution. Even though most hate to hear this but macro miners are a part of EVE and they have an important role to play. Keep the mineral prices low get people to be able to build the big ships and outposts and so on due to the availability of the minerals. Of course they should be banned and shot on sight but then again who know what would happen if CCP would be able to stop the selling of in game items completely? Would minerals still be so available, and would there still be so many players playing if they could not buy a BS or a set of implants from time to time just to give them the feeling of getting ahead in the world? All in all I think the topic is right and the discussion is valid and I think that the current cat and mouse game between CCP and macro miners is a very intresting one... CCP cannot ever catch them all and most likely will not really want to despite their claims of how dispicable the act of automated playing might be. CCP as programers will find it facinating to see how people take their creation and make such creative solutions for it. Websites with kill boards, database extractions, 3D movies and yes also macros that can do more than they would have expected to see them do in their wildest dreams. ------------------------------------------- Should you disagree with me, well I guess that is because I disagree with you. If you have a problem with that please feel free not to tell me.

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