The reasoning is the same as here.
Do auto makers care what you are going to do with your auto? That you use to commute to work or that it is used for your work? No, probably not.
Does the person who sold you a couch care if you are going to put it in your house or you own business? Probably not.
I’m going to guess CCP is probably the same.
i don’t understand this thought.
sinking plex into gametime means that this (these 
) sunk plex equals 30 days of running server costs. 30 days of service CCP provides for one (500 ) plex.
compare that to a skin. the player buys it once. the running cost for skins is virtually zero (bugs aren’t the norm) and the cost for creation only applies once. every time someone buys that skin, it pushes towards break-even for this skin.
Maybe it’s an accounting thing. i don’t know, i’m not an accountant.
i would definitely prefer if people sunk plex into skins, because skins are a one time thing without running costs. they contribute more to profits, than sinking them into gametime, because gametime continuously costs me money. skins, though, don’t. the money from plex sunken into skins is money that will stay put, instead of getting spent on server upkeep.
damn, am i an accountant? 
Because you are going to have those server costs no matter what. I am not going to buy a skin and put it on my car. I am going to put it on my ship, and I am going to want to see it in game.
i don’t understand this “argument”. it changes nothing about the fact that it matters where the plex is being sunk into. if it didn’t, it’d also mean they don’t keep track which skins are profitable. as that’s nknsense, it makes sense to assume that it does matter, that they do track which plex goes where and that there must be differences.
and here i hook in and claim that CCP is off worst, when people sink plex into gametime.
now please tell me what’s wrong here, or what i am missing. you know more about this, though i do admit it feels like i’m going into the realms of accounting.
thank you!
facts
figures
believability
some other stuff
Buying a skin without a server is pointless.
Not sure how I can explain it any differently. Unless you incur the server costs you will sell exactly zero skins.
yes they probably do track where plex goes, and yes they will keep track of which skins are profitable or not.
that does not automatically mean that they would RATHER people use plex for skins than for game time.
an alpha character puts exactly as much load on the servers as an omega player does. the difference is that an alpha player contributes 0 dollars, while an omega player contributes 15 dollars, or consumes 500 plex (20 dollars worth)
the server costs remain the exact same month after month, and people who plex their accounts consume the same number of plex month after month. yes, if they sell a skin they will make a profit, otherwise they wouldn’t sell them. but that profit needs to be equal or greater than the monthly plex consumed for omegas in order to be worth it. and they need to sell that number of skins EVERY month.
most players only fly a fairly small number of ships, and you can only sell a limited amount of skins for those ships before the player decides that they have enough of them.
for example I already have the skins i want for all the ships that I fly regularly, unless something truly mind blowing comes out, I am unlikely to ever buy any more skins. I have reached peak skin saturation. this means ccp is going to have to work extra hard to get any extra money or plex out of me for skins, and they certainly won’t be doing it every month.
I also plex 8 accounts, and multi-train for a total of 11 characters. for a total of ~5400 plex every month. to get me to use those plex, they don’t have to spend any more money or do anything more than they are already doing to maintain and improve the game and its servers. are you seriously suggesting that ccp would be better off if I let those characters lapse, and they somehow had to sell me 5400 plex worth of skins every single month?
Thank you all for your input. i’ll try to figure out where i’m wrong, or rather, what drives me to the wrong conclusion.
How dare you make a reasonable post! I am wounded to the core…
I don’t know, maybe i’m dumb.
Sorry. 
I say we burn Yellow at the stake as a heretic, for he knows not the ways of these forums, the foremost of which is “never EVER admit you don’t have god-like powers of observation and knowledge”.
You are aiming at more income per player with significantly less players online. If the number of players would reach an amount where you could actually downgrade the server (and probably more important: customer support and other employee related costs) with losing less income than you are saving, then you would be right.
Or in simple, made up numbers:
Earning 200k with 50k players and 100k costs is worse than earning 180k with 25k players and 70k costs.
But I’m not sure that you want to actively reduce player numbers ever as they are some kind of health indicator for the game.
If you wanted to increase your winnings, you would most likely start with getting rid of employees. I have no idea what the server costs are, but compared to employee costs (including office space, equipment, power and all the other stuff) there are most likely not a decisive economic factor for CCP.
Let me try one more time…
Peronsally, I don’t buy skins. To me a ship is like a wrench or a hammer…it is a tool. I am a front line grunt in the Imperium. My job, get in a combat ship and shoot whomever the FC says to shoot…
But, if I were into skins, I would imagine that I’d only value them because I can see them on my ships in game. To be in game, there has to be a server–i.e. CCP has to incur those costs so that I’ll buy a skin.
So either way, Sub or Skin, CCP has to incur those server costs. Drawing a distinction of:
Sub => server costs, and
Skin /=> server costs.
Is not correct. If there were no server, no way for me to see that spiffy skin on my ship, I wouldn’t buy it. So in reality we have,
Sub => server costs, and
Skin => server costs.
thank you for the attempt. i haven’t yet found out, why my thoughts go the wrong way. i don’t want to drag this further in this thread, though. eventually it’ll make click. was there any other topic left to talk about?
Don’t think anything will happen about plex price 
Also this comment isn’t spark a negative response. Im in a laughing mood.
If you are struggling to get your head around costs think of it this way.
Servers are a fixed cost, imagine server sapce as swimming pools, if 1 person paddles around you need to fill the pool with water. This is the cost, the amount of water in the pool.
If another person or 2 enters the pool the amount of water to fill it, the cost,remains the same.
Now obviously when 100 people enter the paddling pool it gets overcrowded and you have to get a bigger pool.The cost to fill it becomes the new fixed cost, we have invested to expand capacity.
It does not matter if 20 or 100 are in the pool we still need to keep it full of water.
Server space (to an extent) is a fixed cost. If 30k or 40k people are online it does not matter. the servers are on, the cost is the same. There are ways of reducing this cost with clever engineering like not loading unused star systems for example, but in the context of cost it stays a fixed number.
Enjoy your swim !!
Hi, CCP does not care about plex prices.
Thank.
So glad I bought 250 plexes about 2 years ago for around 800 mill a piece 
Just to add to this helpful post, fixed costs are a short run phenomenon. In the long run, all costs are essentially variable. There is no clear demarcation between short and long run though as it varies from industry to industry.
So in the short run server costs are a fixed cost. You are going to incur those costs if you have 1 player of 30,000 players logged in.
Thus, the point about server costs are not really relevant to the discussion as…you’ll pay those costs whether the player is subbing with PLEX or using PLEX for skins…because server costs are fixed (in the short run).
i can’t get my head to accept this. sorry, but the reason is unknown yet and your explanations aren’t making things clearer. as i don’t understand my problem, and as no one asks the right questions (i don’t know them either), i’ll just leave it at that.
i absolutely understood your posts, but honestly, i don’t recognize them as relevant. you all keep saying the same thing about how server cost is fixed, but i don’t see at all how that changes anything about what i said. of course the costs are always the same, more or less. i’d still rather sell a plex for a skin, than for subscription.
now i wonder, what makes me think that. apparently my own explanation does not suffice to understand why i think so. the simplest and most obvious thing is, as i said, that selling a skin increases relative (i didn’t use relative before and i’m actually wondering if it fits) profit more than selling subscription. there’s no point in going on, because apparently the error in my logic isn’t obvious (even to me), but thanks for trying.