exactly
one last time, and iāll try and put it in as simple a terms as possible.
the tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, is that ccp is intentionally driving the plex prices up, in order to make people who currently plex their accounts switch to subscriptions, in order to sell more skins.
if we have 200 long term players who, for the sake of this example, are not going to stop playing the game any time in the relevant future. 100 of which plex their accounts, and 100 who sub AND buy 500 plex each month to sell for isk.
from those 200 players, ccp is currently earning.
100 * 0 = 0
100 * (15+20) = 3500 dollars per month from those 100 accounts.
now, if the āplanā is successful, and those first 100 players can no longer afford the plex for their monthly subs, lets say a generous 3/4 of them switch to sub, and the rest go back to being alphas. those 3/4 though are not about to suddenly start buying plex if they didnāt even want to pay for the sub originally.
so now we are left with.
25 * 0 = 0
75 * 15 = 1125
100 * (15+20) = 3500
3500 + 1125 = 4625 dollars that month.
Looking pretty good for the theory right? well since none of those plex actually sold in game, the people who where buying an extra plex every month to fund their pvp habbit or what have you. arenāt going to buy ANOTHER 500 plex, when they still have the previous months just sitting around.
so the next month we now have.
25 * 0 = 0
175 * 15 = 2625
we now have a net loss of monthly revenue of 875 dollars, and that rate would continue unless ccp can find a way to pull those unused plex out of the market, so they release a skin, its a really nice skin, and it happens to cost 500 plex. so nice in fact that a full 1/4 of the people sitting on plex buy it (a generous number). and, because they have 0 plex now, they buy another 500 to try and sell. (to the people who arenāt buying since ccp has made plex too expensive)
so that month revenue looks like
25 * 0 = 0
150 * 15 = 2250
25 * (15 + 20) = 875
total 3125
so that month looked a little bit better, they managed to sell some skins, the plex market started moving again, but not as much as it was they are still making 375 dollars less than before. and even worse, the prices of plex are starting to crash, because no one is buying themā¦ well we canāt have that otherwise players might start GASP using plex for their accounts again!.
so the next month they release 4 skins, skins so nice that EVERYONE who was sitting on plex and is willing to buy more does, crisis averted and they are gonna be rolling in the dough now.
that month looks like.
25 * 0 = 0
75 * 15 = 1125
100 * (15+20) = 3500
3500 + 1125 = 4625
whew, crisis averted, and they are back to rolling in the cash making a healthy 1125 dollars per month more than they had been, but the server load is still the same, and now they need to do that AGAIN the next month, and AGAIN, the month after that. and each batch of skins needs to be so mind blowingly amazing that all of the players willing to buy plex for in game items will keep doing it, rather than try and sell them for isk. because if they start doing that again, the prices will drop and people might start buying them for their accounts.
yes, this is a massively simplified version, but it is, in essence, what the tinfoil theory is saying, that ccp is intentionally trying to drive out players who currently plex their accounts, in order to make more money selling skins.
There are quite a few flaws in your theoryā¦ But itās late and Iām tiredā¦ Iām sure someone else will manage to point them outā¦ Theyāre so big itās quite hard to miss themā¦
Read the CSM minutes.
Plex players are & always have been a significant minority of CCPās player base. Last time someone tried analysing the accounts they came up with an estimated 20% figure. And the amount of Plex reserves in game were growing also, though the growth was slowing a bit.
Now that might have changed a bit, but we know from CSM minutes plexed accounts even including SP farms are still a minority.
is that including those held by players
i assume it must be because it doesnt make sense otherwise
Yes, held by players, or rather accounted for by CCP in the delayed income section. Forget the technical accounting terms, Iām not an accountant but I can read a financial report someone else made.
Not quite.
The theory is that CCP is driving up Plex prices to increase the amount of Plex bought for real money.
And that they are trying to keep the in-game demand of Plex also increasing, but not with relying on players to sub with Plex, but rather on creating additional, attractive purposes for Plex consumption.
With the possible reasoning that consumption of vanity items has a better cost/gain relation than Plex for game time.
Sighā¦
Yes, but the problem is that it decreases the amount of PLEX bought in gameāi.e. the demand side in game slopes downward. As the price in game declines people buy more, conversely as the price increases they buy less. So a high in game price means people buy less in game.
CCP manipulating the market to drive up prices while at the same time stimulating supply simply cannot work. It cannot work because it creates what is known as excess supplyāi.e. a bunch of PLEX sitting there on the market not being sold. To sell that PLEX the price has to come down.
So your story does not match theory nor does it match real world evidence. It is a bad story in this case. Time to work on a new one.
Oh, and I would also suggest reading up on Ockhamās Razor. If you feel you should come back with an even more convoluted explanation for high prices despite there already being an explanation that fits what we observe that is bad too.
And once again, what CCP has done is increase the uses for PLEX in the game. They are not just an alternative for subbing oneās account. This makes them more usefulā¦and more valuable. Not because CCP wants in the in-game price high for the sake of the price being high. The price is high because PLEX have become more usefulāi.e. more valuable.
Simply increasing the price of something is not usually going to increase itās demand, in fact theory and observations say exactly the opposite.
The claim that ccpās end goal was to drive out people who plex their accounts in favor of people buying skins was made several times earlier in this threat.
no it is not the only theory, but it is by far the most tinfoil chewing one.
Funny, I have a friend who just started playing 2 days ago, and has already worked out that with his alpha account, he can mine for ~15 days in his venture, 20 at most, and buy enough PLEX at current market value to hit Omega. Then he gets into a mining barge, and the time needed is smaller. Soā¦ iām not seeing the issue with current prices. Available isk is up, so plex prices increase. Just because you can MAKE more isk, doesnāt mean PLEX prices should stay down. Just as PLEX supply/demand can change PLEX prices, the same happens with the available ISK in the market.
My Godā¦that poor soulā¦where is he mining. I think we need to do an intervention. 
I wonāt fault someone for their preferred playstyle, and funnily enough heās mining in highsec.
its not that simple because plex is traded on two separate markets and they affect eachother
No need to sigh. I wasnāt even stating my opinion, just explaining āthe theoryā (or if you like āone of the theroiesā), again not my theory.
Isnāt that the most fun one?
Just moving Plex subscribers just over to money subscribers wonāt achieve anything, as you explained before. Of course there may be some other factors, like Plex users having maybe less subscription coverage over a year or just being less loyal in general.
Take this:
and this:
and put it together. The conclusion can only be that CCP at least doesnāt mind that Plex prices are rising. Why? Maybe because they think that the sweet spot between supply and demand hasnāt been met yet. Or they do and their measures to mitigate this just donāt work.
Arguably CCP has removed uses for plex in the game, they simply took out the middle step of aurum.
before the change you had.
Plex > game time
Plex > character transfers
plex > Aurum > Aurum services/items
The plex was still being used for the same services and items, it just had an unnecessary intermediate step.
now all you have is
Plex > Game time
Plex > old aurum services.
on top of that the plex vault has made destruction of plex practically non-existant.
removing that annoying middles step did make the uses for plex more accessible, and breaking them down into microplex did drive up demand, I donāt think anyone in their right mind would try and argue otherwise.
I agree that they probably foresaw this as a likely consequence of the changes (and with the removal of services and plex destruction it seems like they tried to mitigate it).
but thats a very far cry from the claims that they are INTENTIONALLY trying to drive the prices higher, with the express purpose of pricing out plexxed accounts.
if that was their end goal, there is one very simple solution for thatā¦ increase the plex cost of 1 months game time, just crank it up from 500 to 600 per month and watch the accounts start to drop like flies. it would have the extra added benefit of making skins etc seem more valuable since the cost of a plex wouldnāt be skyrocketing, in fact it would be crashing, so more people could buy them to spend on pretty space pixels.
It is a bizarre theoryā¦
Okay, for the sake of this discussion some simplification just to make things easier.
Suppose the price of PLex is $0.04/PLEX. This works out to $20 for 500. Further, lets just pick an IG price for PLEX as well, lets say it is 500 ISK. The magnitude of this price is irrelevant, the point is to show what happens when CCP introduces a new use for PLEX.
So at 500 ISK you can use your PLEX to sub your account. Thatās it. Everything is awesome and fine. People are buying PLEX for ISK and subbing their accounts. People are buying PLEX for RL money and selling it for ISKā¦everyone is happy with this arrangement (more or less, there might be some still whining because they canāt or wonāt part with 500 ISK for a PLEX, but so what they can HTFU).
Now CCP comes along and says, āOh guys look we added a new feature, X, you can activate via PLEX.ā Everyone looks at it and either says, āGreat, I want that!ā or āMeh, donāt care.ā
Now, those who want to do X will do one of two things:
- They will buy PLEX with RL money.
- They will buy PLEX with ISK.
Okay, let us look at scenario 1. In this case, some of these people might have bought PLEX to sell for ISKā¦now they arenāt. Theyād rather have X. So now we have less PLEX being sold for ISK and that means an inwards shift in the supply curve. This means that the price of PLEX will go up.
Now for scenario 2. This introduces a new source of demand. People wanting PLEX for X, but who would not have bought them to sub their account. This will cause the demand curve. This will also result in a price increase for PLEX.
Granted this increase in price in game will increase the demand out of gameāthat is, some people who would not have bought PLEX to sell for ISK will now do so. This will shift the supply curve outwards and will have an effect of lowering the price.
All of these things are going on at once. Nothing says that they have to cancel each other out either. That last one is an empirical question and so far the behavior of the price of PLEX strongly suggests that the first two effects of X (price increases when introducing a new feature related to PLEX) out weigh the third effect. Which is intuitively appealing as we have two price increasing effects and only one price decreasing effect.
Now, CCPās intent was not to increase the in game price. In fact, CCP may not really care all that much about it, or the extent that they do care about it, it is a complicated thing and not just āDurrr higher prices be good to CCP.ā What CCP does care about is selling more PLEX. What people use them for is less of their concern.
So, now the in game price of PLEX is, just making up a number, 1,000 ISK. Now X has also become more expensive in game. Now to do X with a PLEX I have to give up 1,000 ISK instead of 500. This will reduce the demand for X. This is true if you are buying PLEX with ISK and it is true if you are buying PLEX with RL money because to do X means you have to forego the 1,000 ISKāi.e. opportunity cost. This is why CCPās view of the in game price is probably not a simple one. On the one hand making PLEX more valuable means more people will want them, but that has a limit as that increased value will push up the price in game decreasing the demand for PLEX in game.
If I am selling pizzas and selling 100 at $15/eachā¦and suddenly people get into a strange sex fetish where they also use pizza during sex and now Iām selling 200ā¦I really donāt give a ā ā ā ā . All I care about is now Iām selling 200 pizzas, and I might even consider raising my prices. If I sell 170 pizzas at $20 each I am clearly better off than selling 200 for $15. Fortunately for the players here, CCP has not done this (maybe they think the price elasticity of PLEX is in the elastic region). The RL cost of a sub and a PLEX has been pretty stable, in fact, after factoring in inflation the prices have gone down in real terms.
Seriously, this is simply a thread about people wanting to play the game at a discount. Thatās it. Nothing more.
There are several others things that play a role:
- Plex is not a single purpose item, different people buy it for different things. Add an attractive purpose that is only valuable to a certain target group that is not Plex subscibers and you may easily counter a loss on that side.
- One of the usual purposes for Plex is just market speculation. The new, smaller Plex make this much easier, especially when it comes to the entry barrier, and as long as everyone thinks Plex prices will keep rising, this wonāt stop.
We still donāt know any numbers about how many Plex enter and leave the game or how many are consumed for what reason. We only know a few facts:
- Plex prices keep rising (although it seems this has stopped for now)
- CCP is adding more and new stuff to the NES, leading to the assumption that this pays off somehow and that they will continue adding things that can be bought fpr Plex.
- Plex for subbing is not an issue an CCP side (at least I havenāt seen or heard anything about this), but the price development seem to be one for many players (which has been the case for years now).
Actually, looking at the data graphically we see that PLEX prices will rise, then stabilize. Then rise again and stabilize. There are periods where the price will rise dramatically for a brief period. This usually results in one of these threads. Then CCP Has a sale, and that ābubbleā collapses and stability returns.
My guess is if/when CCP reintroduces PLEX for character transfers weāll see another bump up in PLEX prices. There will be a new thread with much hand wringing and hair pulling about how awful it all is.
My response to all that is, Please contract your stuff to me, kā thanks bye.
That would be too obvious and definitely result in forum rage. However, increasing Plex prices are rather ānormalā and therefore somehow acceptable.
I have no idea how char transfers contributed to Plex consumption, but most likely not a lot. I also heard that CCP is planning to bring it back (which shouldnāt change too much in the extractor/injector era and the adjusted char prices).
By the way, my favorite measure of mitigation was ignoring Ghost Training for months. Driving down the injector prices and making SP farming less worthwhile. (No, donāt take this seriously)
This is what usually happens, but Iām not sure it worked the last time they had one - unless you contribute the most recent drop to exactly that, although there were a few weeks in between (as far as I recall, not really certain about the time span) .
Why?
iād say, when players sink a plex into 30 days, CCP is off worse compared to the player sinking it into a SKIN. I can skip explaining the reasoning, as i believe you understand it. so why would they not care?