Otellus
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Posted - 2006.10.23 11:59:00 -
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The whole inflation/no inflation debate hinges on your basket of goods you determine inflation with. Its true that in the real world, ferraris are not part of the basket of goods that determines the consumper price index (CPI=a measurement of inflation).
In Eve, if you limit the basket of goods to base mineral prices, then there is indeed no significant inflation. However, in my opinion, the price of base minerals is not a CPI, its a producer price index. Of course in a perfect market with ample supply, that should be the same as the CPI, but for the T2 market, that is not the case. So as far as T2 goods are part of the basket of goods to determine inflation with, there is indeed inflation. Now I doubt that this is inflation driven by monetary causes (i.e. excessive money supply). I think its inflation driven by a difference between supply and demand, though of course I can't prove it.
The real question behind it is this: what does CCP want? Its obvious they want T2 goods to remain relatively 'rare', but do they also want tiny cartels or individual players gaining insane levels of wealth for no risk and virtually no work?
If CCP wanted to keep T2 rare, but not keep the massive redistribution of wealth to BPO owners, they have a few options.
They could make T2 BPOs buyable on the market, for a high price. Say 3b for a ceptor/AF BPO, 5b for a Dictor, 10b for a HAC BPO. Normally this would lead to a strong decrease in prices, and a big increase in numbers, which CCP probably don't want. However, if CCP at the same time decides to increase the material use of T2 BPOs by say a factor of 4, while keeping insurance payout at the current level, then prices would drop significantly, but the loss on insurance would still make T2 a bit rare. Alternatively, CCP could remove all insurance on T2 ships to keep it rare.
Advantage would be that T2 ships would still be relatively rare, but the advantage of BPO holding individuals/corps over others would be removed.
In this example with 4 times the manufacturing cost, I'd estimate for example a wolf to still cost 8-10m, and a HAC somewhere around 40-50m (quick glance, but I think I remember Wolf base price to be in the range of 2m currently, so with 4 times mineral costs, 8m).
So while T2 prices would not drop hugely, and the individual player buying HACs would not be that much better off except for those T2 ships/items which have a monopoly or hugely inflated prices due to high demand, the advantage of current BPO holders would effectively be broken, and still keeping T2 ships relatively rare.
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