Plex prices are rising because CCP keeps increasing the flow of the ISK faucets (anomolies, highsec incursions) while decreasing the size of many of the ISK sinks (they are making highsec safer.) Thus people are earning more money without the risk. Earning more and losing less.

Mudflation. Inflation.

When prices rise there's one or two reasons:
1. More demand
2. Less supply

ad 1) more demand may be caused by:
- people earning less RL money because of the economical crises and wanting to pay with ISk instead of RL cash;
- people getting more ISK in-game because they find ways to earn more ISK/hour;
- people spending less ISK than before so they have a surplus;

ad 2) less supply may be caused by:
- less people buying plex because they have less RL money;
- NEX items may cause plexes to be removed from the market;

and so on.

OR...

Market manipulation by CCP because of too high of an "old plex" supply and not enough paying subs. When you buy a plex they get the money for a voucher to be used in the future. That money is already collected, reported and spent.

#1 CCP Buys up and destroys plex which cause prices to spike
#2 CCP offers bulk sale prices on plex
#3 Players that use them either grind out more money for shiny stuff and a plex or re-sub to keep their isk for shiny stuff without the grindage

Any legal issues with doing this is probably insanely hard to prove if it's illegal at all. Nice idea it's just as old as dirt and probably won't work considering all factors.

Plex prices are rising for two reasons.

1) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions are extending their game time by purchasing PLEX with isk from their game wallets. This has increased the demamnd for PLEX and thus increased price.

2) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions no longer buy PLEX with RL cash to sell PLEX for isk on the game market. This reduced PLEX supply on the market and thus increased PLEX price.

This will continue until the winter update is appraised by these players.... at which time the number of subscribers will either increase or plummet to new lows depending on update outcome.

My guess is "The Big Flush" is coming since I don't see CCP demonstrating any effort to correct what is killing this game.
Both my brother and I have put our acounts on PLEX until our isk runs out and then we will be gone after 6 years of subbing by cash.

This game was a lot more fun years ago when we didn't understand the level of meta-gaming-cheating that was going on.
The only way to compete in Eve today is to engage in the same sort of behavior... so why play?

This is also incorrect. It does not matter how much isk is in a closed system its all about flow.

wallofpoorlypuncuatedtext

There is NO WAY CCP is doing this. None.

As we have seen, there are more leaks at CCP than there are in my Jeep's radiator... and my radiator has a LOT of leaks.

If word of that got out they would be DONE as a company. I mean... forget ever publishing a game again done.

Take off your tin foil hat. It attracts mind control beams from space aliens.

Run Incursions for 4 hours. BAM, enough PLEX for a month, even with idiots in your gang.

ISKURSIONS are the way forward. If you don't run ISKURSIONS you're at a natural disadvantage to every other non botter.

This is because EVE is a very time consuming game.

Therefore it attracts unemployed people.

Unemployed people have lots of time but no money to buy subs or plexes.

They expect to be able to play enough to support their accounts with plexes.

When too many unemployed people think this way, this is what happens.

Get a goddamn job.

(redacted)
Tin foil hat is usually something people say to me when I...
(redacted)

Plex prices are rising for two reasons.

1) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions are extending their game time by purchasing PLEX with isk from their game wallets. This has increased the demand for PLEX and thus increased price.

2) Long time players that have cancelled their subscriptions no longer buy PLEX with RL cash to sell PLEX for isk on the game market. This reduced PLEX supply on the market and thus increased PLEX price.

(redacted tears)

When prices rise there's one or two reasons:
1. More demand
2. Less supply

ad 1) more demand may be caused by:
- people earning less RL money because of the economical crises and wanting to pay with ISk instead of RL cash;
- people getting more ISK in-game because they find ways to earn more ISK/hour;
- people spending less ISK than before so they have a surplus;

ad 2) less supply may be caused by:
- less people buying plex because they have less RL money;
- NEX items may cause plexes to be removed from the market;

and so on.

You have to wonder what affect the botters have on the PLEX market as we know they wouldn't be paying a sub. Also unless their whole group was banned then it would be far to easy with one or two accounts left to create another group of botting accounts and PLEX them.

Is botting still prolific in EVE and has CCP taken banning them back a few notches after losing so many subscribers? It would also be some interesting theorycrafting guessing what the PLEX price might be without the botters.

All I needed to know is that people talking about your 'tin foil hat' is a common occurrence...

I don't see any ducks. Are you seeing ducks? What are the ducks telling you?

CCP is not buying up plex or inflating prices. There have been several posters here now that have sound theorys, many of which are the contributing factors to PLEX prices. Martyr Theos had a good point from the player behavior angle:



I think this is a very sound assessment. Jennifer Starling explains the market behavior side of the equation as concisely and simply as I think is possible... if you can balance a checkbook you can follow her thinking here:



Pretty easy. And that is it. This is why PLEX is going up in price. Just this. No CCP conspiracy, no "unfairness", just economics.

You are not entitled to play eve. It is not a right. This is a game for paying customers. You can pay with cash, or you can play with ISK. The latter is an odd privilege imho, but it makes perfect sense and I think the system works really well. There are way too many pilots on these forums trying to get CCP to put an "easy" button in their CQ... if I come in and find an easy button in my station, the value of a plex or a subscription in my mind is going to crash. Playing this game has value because it is NOT easy.

It's simple, dedicated players, the people who play a lot and go where the isk is, have flocked to the isk faucet incursions, they're all subbing their accounts with said incursions (in a few hours per month of game time) driving down the supply of plex. At the same time incursions are pumping massive amounts of fresh isk into the game;
- which essentially amount to printing money,
- which has the obvious and predictable effect of causing inflation,
- which makes the isk price of plex rise,
- which creates an incentive for newer players to buy plex for real money as 35 dollars can now get you over 900million isk, as opposed to the 600 or 700mil it was not that long ago.

None of this is accidental, ccp created incursions with this exact outcome in mind. It's no coincidence that they came out at a time when ccp is openly stating they need to increase revenues through plex. This was supposed to all be tied in with aurum, (i.e. you take you fat stack of isk from incursion and buy shiny pants or whatever).

The problem is ccp overestimated the degree to which people would buy more plex for real money, now supplies are running out, as the price rises there will always be people who would buy plex for RM cause they need isk, and theres the people who would maybe buy a plex for RM cause their isk value is so high. But theres a limit to how much plex will be bought for RM, since this is affected by out of game circumstances.

I think ccp is holding their breath and waiting for it to fix itself, im honestly not trying to troll or be cynical but id stake my degree in econ on the fact that we're witnessing the beginning of a serious problem for plex

1. More people want to play for free

plex leeches don't matter
if they leave CCP does not lose a subscription
the worst consequence is fewer people for pew, but I suspect most plex leeches are not pvpers

First class post and so completely true. I know a lot of people doing this and i did this myself for a while. A lot of people are converting there wealth into plexes and just logging in to change skills.

plex leeches don't matter
if they leave CCP does not lose a subscription
the worst consequence is fewer people for pew, but I suspect most plex leeches are not pvpers

Its that whole supply and demand thing, drive up the plex price far enough people will just quit, demand goes to 0.