Thank you for making this better than I had intended.

Power of 2 special offer returns!
The Power of 2 special offer is back! From now and until November 28, 2011, you will be able to create a new account and get 180 days of game time for the price of either 49,95 or 3 PLEX on this new account. In addition to that, your character on the new account will receive a free Cerebral Accelerator.

To use the Power of 2 offer, please visit the EVE Online Account Management page.

this is ridiculous.

so i am going to let two of my accounts go unsubed.

do something CCP.

Am I missing something here (prices listed are just approximations for this example)?

1) Player buys Plex. Another player pays sub with RL money: $19 + $15 = +$34 to CCP revenue stream

or

2) Player buys Plex. Another player pays sub with Plex: $19 + $0 = +$19 to CCP revenue stream

+$34 definitely seems better for CCP than +$19.



You see, just because a Plex is bought does not mean it is immediately cancelled by someone using it to pay a sub. A player buying a Plex and another using it does pay a sub but it eliminates additional profit given to CCP had that second player paid his sub with RL money. The surplus Plex (supply > demand) is the Plex which is hoarded or seen on the game market for sale. That surplus Plex is free money to CCP. Already paid for but not yet sacrificed to pay someone's sub.

And another thing...

If more end up using Plex to pay subs than the number of players buying Plex, that Plex surplus goes away and then players will be forced to sub with RL money.

(Quantity of Plex bought for RL cash) / (Quantity of Plex used to pay subs ingame)
Greater than 1:1 works well... the higher the ratio the more the supply and lower the Plex cost ingame.
Closer to 1:1 then Plex demand rises and ingame Plex cost rises.
< 1:1 We have a problem

PLEX for gametime is negatively affecting CCP's cashflow.

Here's a simplistic scenario :-

I Spend $10 for a PLEX on the site.
You who have billions of ISK buy the PLEX for 400Million ISK
You buy more.
And more.
You use a PLEX to fund an account, however many you may have, 1 or 20, does not matter.
You do not pay $20 to sub for a couple of months, not ever.
Say 50,000 accounts on the system.
10,000 are paying hard cash for subs
5,000 are paying hard cash for PLEX
There's a defecit of real money, real money not going to CCP.
Funding an account by buying and using ingame PLEX is a loss for CCP.

CCP is bleeding badly because of PLEX for subs.

I dont understand the sandbox thing here, they are not player made items. All it takes is one person to stop being greedy sell them a bit cheaper and the prices will come down.

If you're grinding 10 hours to save 15$, you're working at 1/10 of minimum wage.

who are you again?

PLEX for gametime is negatively affecting CCP's cashflow.

Here's a simplistic scenario :-

I Spend $10 for a PLEX on the site.
You who have billions of ISK buy the PLEX for 400Million ISK
You buy more.
And more.
You use a PLEX to fund an account, however many you may have, 1 or 20, does not matter.
You do not pay $20 to sub for a couple of months, not ever.
Say 50,000 accounts on the system.
10,000 are paying hard cash for subs
5,000 are paying hard cash for PLEX
There's a defecit of real money, real money not going to CCP.
Funding an account by buying and using ingame PLEX is a loss for CCP.

CCP is bleeding badly because of PLEX for subs.

[

no they are not... plex has to be bought by other players......

pvp player buys a gtc converts to 2x plex.... adds 1x to his ac for 30 days time and sell other plex to pve player to buy new pew pew ships.
pvp repeats this every month


CCP still gets $34.99 per month (instead of $34.99 every 60 days) and two accounts stay active for 30 days instead of one for 60 days.

It balances itself out

CCP do not seed the market with plex.... only players do.

...
Here's an example of how it works:
- Plex are selling for 450M.
- Player A put a Plex on sale at 350M, since he's not "greedy".
- Player B see it, buy it, and put it for sale again at 450M.
- The plex is sold, player B has made 99M margin without effort, just because player A is an frigging idiot.
- Player C, seeing that one plex got sold at 450, put another plex to sale at 450M.
Did the price of plex came down? No.
...

PLEX for gametime is negatively affecting CCP's cashflow.

Here's a simplistic scenario :-

I Spend $10 for a PLEX on the site.
You who have billions of ISK buy the PLEX for 400Million ISK
You buy more.
And more.
You use a PLEX to fund an account, however many you may have, 1 or 20, does not matter.
You do not pay $20 to sub for a couple of months, not ever.
Say 50,000 accounts on the system.
10,000 are paying hard cash for subs
5,000 are paying hard cash for PLEX
There's a defecit of real money, real money not going to CCP.
Funding an account by buying and using ingame PLEX is a loss for CCP.

CCP is bleeding badly because of PLEX for subs.

If CCP interfere they're ruining the so called sandbox.


It's just market forces at work, let them work.

this is ridiculous.

so i am going to let two of my accounts go unsubed.

do something CCP.

Subscriber X is handicapped and can't work therefore not having much left over cash. He does have time to grind missions or incursions with friends. Subscriber Y is a 45-60 hour a week worker who doesn't have much time to earn ISK to pay for his play style. Subscriber X purchases game time from Subscriber Y using ISK as the currency. Where does CCP not get money in this?

Also an amusing fact of PLEX; in North America it is not (legally) possible to earn an amount of money per hour at a job that would take more hours to put together a month of subscription in comparison to the hours it takes to farm for a PLEX for the average user. Before the mass manufacturers and station monkeys who "make a bil per week" chime in, you are not part of this group. These are the mission runners, the miners, the incursion runners, null sec ratters, etc. In Canada it takes less than two hours at minimum wage to pay for a month of subscription, it's not possible to earn 400 million isk in less than two hours on average from the typical sources of ISK. I'm aware this fact is painfully obvious, but I find it amusing anyway. People will slave away doing ISK farming missions for hours instead of not eating out a couple times a month.

Good for people with tight budgets who still want to play EVE though.

If CCP interfere they're ruining the so called sandbox.


It's just market forces at work, let them work.

Wow. Some of the math and logic in this thread is horrible.

First, the basic math: EVERY PLEX IN THE GAME was paid for with REAL money. Therefore, whether each player pays for their own sub, or player one pays for 2 subs and player two pays with the plex player 1 bought, ccp got paid for 2 subs that month. Stop saying that CCP loses loads of money because people pay with plex, as if plex are magically seeded into the game for free by CCP.

Plex increases the player base. The whole "plex increases player base, but with people who don't pay RL money so ccp loses out" is a load of crap. Yes, plex does increase player base with players who don't pay with RL money, but ccp makes money on it because someone else IS paying RL money for them. Just making up numbers, lets say with no plex system CCP has a subscription base of 200,000 subscribers. With a plex system, that base jumps to 250,000 subscribers, 50,000 of which pay only with plex. But CCP isn't giving out 50,000 free subscriptions. The original paying 200,000 subscribers are paying for an additional 50,000 subscriptions. CCP gets paid for an extra 50,000 subs because of this plex system (with these made up numbers). CCP doesn't care who pays the subs, as long as each sub is paid for by someone.

As far as the "losing money due to discounts"...

They do that as kind of a gamble that by lowering prices, they will get more subs. If they get enough extra subs, they more than make up for the discounted price, therefore making more money. It can be a gamble because if people don't buy more subs (plex), then they lose due to the discount. Basic example (not real figures): 10 players spend $15 each for 1 plex. CCP makes $150. CCP gambles and cuts prices to $10 / plex to try and sell more. If CCP is correct, say they end up selling 20 players plex for $10 each. That's $200 to CCP ($50 profit due to discount). If CCP is wrong, they may only sell 2 additional plex (12 total), giving them only $120, a $30 loss due to the discount. Keep in mind plex = 1 month subscription ($15 estimated value). So by giving a discount, CCP gambles that the discounted rate * new sub base > $15 * original sub base.

And lets not forget about someone who puts 10 billion worth of plex into a kestrel or other ship (idk, roughly 25 plex), then gets ganked or otherwise explodes somehow, and the plex do not drop (are destroyed). That's 25 plex * estimated $15 paid to CCP per plex = $375 paid to CCP for game time that will NEVER be redeemed, i.e. someone just donated 400 bucks to ccp by ganking some dumbass.