CCP gains the monetary benefit of having a demand for PLEX, thus earning more money than if the same account was kept active through subscriptions.

Oh, and PLEXed accounts are paid for.

Then there is the question of that isk price for a PLEX maximizes CCP profit. You would think a higher PLEX would increase PLEX purchaces. But if I want a 1 billion isk item, have cash but no isk, and the PLEX is 500 million, I buy 2. If the PLEX is 333 million I buy 3. For this case a higher PLEX reduces supply. But I think on average a higher PLEX increases supply.

[I'll well aware of that, which should have been clear from the part of my post you snipped. But my post was in response to someone saying "hey watch out, if the price goes much higher I will stop buying PLEX and CCP will lose out". Except if enough people *do* stop buying them, the price will just drop back again to an equilibrium point.

This will change the game.

You see, there is a lot to drive people away from this game. It's usually other players, but those who stay have to have multiple accounts to be effective - I refer to those players who would not be considered "casual".


But who has the money to pay for all those accounts? People are using PLEX.

Now what we see is the possibility that this "Moss Isley" of MMOs never really had 300K subs, but perhaps a small minority of MMO players - of a certain type - feeding off a rotating pool of trial accounts, sci-fi fans, and people who like space ships that get griefed out of the game or are die-hards who eventually just get bored.

When they start to become less able to PLEX all those other accounts, subs will drop.

Hence when you allow "certain" things to go on in a game that individual players will simply decide not to put up with (RL has enough problems why pay for a second job that does not pay?) , and rely on multiple-account players to comprise the whole of the player base or community, you have a very big liability on your hands.

300K INDIVIDUAL subs is more secure in income and a future. But CCP cannot maintain enough interest in the game for that, because of the usual reasons - basically the "Great wall of carebear" and eventually boredom that comes.

It's not just bitter vets with the 10 subs each getting mad at something and leaving that is risky, it's those who are bitter or not simply not having the money to maintain so many subs (the world economy is falling apart, BTW) while at the same time, the great ISK pump keeps on churning out the ISK so those who can find the time can still buy PLEX.

CCP is going to have to do things that will be appealing to people who not only try out the game, but stay - meaning that some means of breaking down the Great Wall of Carebear - the very thing that has created what might be no more than 50k players having multiple subs - and getting more individuals playing one or two subs and hence building a stronger community.

Let's consider that an MMO company, in need of capital, might actually have it's future determined in the strength of the community. When it's a niche game relying on multiple sub accounts, with a very steep wall around new players who will get bored or griefed out of the game (or both). Were I a capital investor I would pause before investing or lending to CCP just on this alone.

EvE does not have a large strong community. It has a small community that relishes in being asshats to new players and driving them off if not by PVP or "gank", then by being poor representatives of the playerbase at large. Most people, when given a choice, will not put up with semi-autistic sociopaths on their spare time, and therefore will not stick around when the mechanics of the game make it difficult to avoid them. The game relies on that small community to have multiple accounts, which are becoming too expensive because people are broke more so these days. Thus the demand for PLEX goes up.

Things are going to have to change.

Really? No one has figured this out yet?

PLEX activate an account, recieve implant set, profit.

How many implant sets do you want? Do you think that implant set will be >500m in a few months?

There is a ceiling on what these things will be worth.. and it's not much. Pirate implant sets are much better than these. The reason the Apotheosis and Echelon have any value is pretty much just collectors, or people who just want to cruise around in a new model for a bit... you can't even fly implants, so they end up just being sill items. I still have a big stack of melted snowballs MMV and MMVIII... not to mention launchers. The only reason I haven't sold them is because they are silly to have and not worth a whole lot. I would say look to the gift Quaffe booster prices in contracts as an indicator of what these implants will be worth.

Really? No one has figured this out yet?

PLEX activate an account, recieve implant set, profit.

How many implant sets do you want? Do you think that implant set will be >500m in a few months?

It means someone or some group has pretty much cornered the market and is price fixing.

Quafe boosters are slowly increasing in price.

I think many people underestimate the effect they can have in small gang pvp.

Intelligence? On the FORUMS?!? GET OUT!

The reason CCP have been struggling financially has nothing to do with performance of Eve Online. It is because they took out a loan to purchase another game company with the hope of releasing another game concept. Simultaneously they began developing an Eve add on/integration.

The in-ability to deliver the additional game concept without impacting on the current Eve Online player base is what is holding them back. The decisions made and jobs lost are more to do with the simple fact CCP were trying to produce three products on the back of the profits of one product.

Your attempt to try and link everything (plex prices, WIS, Game Mechanics) back to the limited appeal of Eve Online to a certain demographic and then insinuate that Eve is dying, by referencing recent developments, because people don't like the environment created by the target demographic is opaquely obtuse at best.

If you are implying that TEST is somehow contributing to this, than color me not-surprised. Gotta tell you though, you guys are playing a dangerous and potentially expensive game my messing with that market... heh... but it is funny if you are. ... guaranteed future lulz one way or the other!

At the going growth rate of prices, I believe PLEX will hit 700 mil by christmas time.

It was 488mil 15 hrs ago. A 100 mil spike in that time is pretty obvious manipulation.

This just shows how much isk is out there and needs to be a bigger isk sink. Who ever is playing market games with plex is starting to tick me off.

Well I just spent a couple billion on buying BPO's from NPCs if that makes you happy :)

Look at the volume. Volumes have dropped significantly over the past week. It's very easy to push the price either way with low volume, both in real life as on the EVE market. That's why you never trade stocks between Christmas and New Year's...

I wouldn't scream manipulation by CCP yet. It's much more likely that the only people buying PLEX are people who are then selling the same PLEX at a higher price since there's not a lot of people actually playing EVE thanks to Skyrim and the other games just released. Once people come back and start buying new PLEX from CCP and dropping it on the market you'll see it come down very fast as the speculators try to dump their PLEX quickly to avoid huge losses.

looks like its time to consolidate the toons I want onto one account and sell the rest... I remember when a 90 day GTC cost 380 million isk

You need to get out of 0.0 and start running Incursions in Hisec like everybody else.

Someone needs to lower plex prices back down.