I know this is extremely hard to understand but amounts in foreign currencies have different values in different places and a subscription price in dollars or euros can be much costlier to someone who is otherwise living comfortably in such a place. More importantly for CCP, giving some players a way to subsidize others’ subscriptions while benefiting themselves increases their revenue and provides a larger player base for everyone to interact with, which improves the game for everyone.
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Official prices, no discounts, current exchange rates:
US price for one year: 131.4$
“European” price for one year: 131.4€ (~153.7$)
Russian price: 4900 RUB (~82$)
Uk price: 89.9 £ (~117$)
Someone could try to figure out the exchange rates from 2003 to see if we all were supposed to pay equally.
huh uk gets it real cheap
im guessing americans still have to pay tax on top of the sub cost so it probably works out about the same as europe
uk gets it cheaper because otherwise we can just smash up their hardware
which is in london
How does it go?
Was thinking about Alpha but i’m too attached to my characters, stuff and wealth… 
Thesis: The PLEX price is fine.
If the prices are high because people are actively consuming them for game time or skins then yes, I agree. If the prices are high because of speculation or because the concentration of wealth has led to trillionaires having nowhere else to put their isk, then the high prices could be a sign of bad things to come.
If the prices are high because of speculation, then those speculators will want to cash in at some point …
It would be interesting to see statistics on PLEX at some point, like we do for ISK how many PLEX enter the game, and how many get used. But that’s a statistic that would tell how much of a “financial buffer” CCP currently has in the game, and one doesn’t talk about money. Don’t think this is going to happen anytime soon.
I find it interesting in any case that you bring up wealth concentration, or the “divide between the wealthy and the poor” - that’s a red-hot real world topic, and with the Eve economy basically being a caricature of real world economy on steroids, it’s not surprising in any way that we can see some similarities.
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Like already said before, Plex prices are high because of structural changes in the game like carrier ratting efficiency and the introduction of skill injectors/sp farms.
Speculation is just one factor and is the only one that will correct itself out.
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No, in America we pay no taxes on any online game subscriptions. If it says $14.99, we pay $14.99.
Well, if theres no people buying the plex because it became to much effort to farm. Then why buy Plex to sell. The buyers will be gone. For a Plex month is paid 25% more then a normal sub. And the people whom Plex would have otherwise not played anyway.
.15 cents for the international transaction is what i pay extra. But im not complaining, Just pointing out the lil bit extra someone wants. Like how the bank wants to charge people for not using there money… Ass backwards this world we live in today is.
A lot of players, including myself, have been concerned about the direction CCP have been driving the game in for a while now.
Yes, skill extraction and injectors were a bad idea along with being able to purchase plex for isk, but it’s here now and we have to deal with it.
But I stand by what I said, if it’s reached a point for players who plex not being able to invest more and more time into the game, then maybe it’s time to move on, it’s not about the “poor” people. If subs got to a point where I thought they were too expensive I simply wouldn’t play. I’d go back to Dofus or something at £3.99 a month, yes it’s the polar opposite of EVE but still a decent game…
Correction: It’s time for CCP to fix the situation. Fewer people playing EVE = bad for everyone.
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Sarcasm aside…
There are people who have hobbies like travelling around the world for years. Some people do extreme sports with space-cost equipment. Some make and test heavy gaming PC platforms…
Most of these is not affordable by me. And i don’t consider myself poor. Actually i’m richer than many in my country. But i still know things which are out of reach for me.
The same with EvE. It’s a hobby and no one has rights to be able to have it as hobby. It is good if you can but no one is to blame if you cannot.
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Easy solution:
At the end of the month you check your savings for the next 30 days of playtime. If they are lacking, you just extract and sell one, two or three thirds of your SP you made last month. Once you get used to this, you will find that you aren’t earning Isk for your gametime anymore, but rather only for your skill progression (which might not even be very important, depending on how many SP you already have).
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Situation is bad no matter how you view it.
What has prompted so many threads is the rapid increase in PLEX price over such a short period of time.
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I am not sure, if they had earned more by fixing it. Sure, the amount of SP farms would have been much smaller, but selling extractors would probably still be profitable and the amount of Plex needed per farmable character per month would have been much higher.
It rather feels like they suck at it. The recent months felt like a field test in customer resilience: how much ■■■■ can they take before a noticable amount leaves. Maybe they want to prepare us mentally for some really unpopular stuff coming in the next months.</conspiracy theory>
You are talking about ‘they’, but they don’t seem to be a homogeneous group. Those devs and other CCP people we are in contact with, see on streams, read on the forums, don’t seem to be the same people that come up with “more firepower for 4.99$” ads. And even though some of them are responsible for quite controversial stuff, they all seem to have a better Eve experience in mind first.
This would leave the question: who or what over there in Iceland is making such decisions? Hilmar, some (former EA) marketing “expert”, the owners of CCP or the Church of Iceland?
There are many ways to operate a business. One I like is the way that Apple was on when they developed the first Iphone: just make the “best” product possible. Instead of trying to figure out what people want and give them as many options as possible, just build one really good product and make people want it.
(No, I’m not an Apple fan, I don’t want to discuss how overpriced they are and how their products are or were lacking).
This is a business philosophy I’d like to see implemented by CCP: “Make Eve the best Sandbox possible” instead of “Make Eve appeal to the widest audience possible”.
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Hi guys, unfortunately we had to remove some posts in this interesting discussion thread. Those posts were in violation of our forum rules, especially regarding personal attacks and off-topic posting.
To comment on this topic.
We monitor PLEX prices and have various tools at our disposal. Two name just two: we can offer discounts directly on PLEX, and we can offer reduced bundles containing PLEX (authorized third parties can do the same, e.g. currently GreenManGaming has a nice discount running). There is a variety of other tools available.
That said, in the end the price of PLEX is the result of supply and demand in-game. EVE has a player driven market and we want to keep our hands out of it.
The whole topic of PLEX prices is complex though. It cannot be reduced simply to “High PLEX prices are good for CCP” or “Low PLEX prices are good for CCP”.
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For those who complain about plex price, they aren’t going to spend real cash on those discounts. They just want to buy it via ISK.
However, they are forgetting a fact that buying via ISK is market PvP.
Me and my Bros have bought those $5-10 plex packages numerous times since they came out. It’s great bc we don’t have time to grind anymore but still want to hop on for a few hours a week and fly decent ships.