hell, totally of topic: sold all my bitcoins and now i’m scared as hell that i made the wrong choice.
sure, i’d exit with a profit, but i actually (want to?) believe it’ll swing down aain by 100-200, so i can rebuy cheaper.
off topic. sorry. having a rush. holy ■■■■.
Bitcoin? Pfft.
PLEX is where the profit is at.
Speaking as someone that used to manipulate the plex market for fun and profit, let me tell you that nobody would ever dare manipulating the plex market. That’s all just rumor-mongering 
Id love to see figures of how much PLEX actually exists in EVE currently, and where it is concentrated.
My gut says its an absolutely mindbogglingly large figure that completely dwarfs the market and largely concentrated on a very small number of accounts.
I wouldnt be surprised if even a full 50% of all extant PLEX was held on ~50 accounts.~
As I said sometime ago, CCP lost control of the PLEX market.
Rationally, this would also, in part, explain CCPs direction of more services for PLEX, as well as fragmenting it, in an effort to reintroduce some of those masses of PLEX into the market to be sunk.
CCP has a vested interest in as much PLEX being consumed as possible. Huge player PLEX stockpiles are ultimately bad for their business.
Because you aren’t wrong in general. On an abstract level or when choosing the right variables, it is as you say.
Just not when considering the current situtation or a gruadal transition of the monetization model. It’s also not helping that we don’t have many solid numbers and are just guessing or assuming most of them.
The distribution might be similar to the distribution of liquid isk:
https://i.redd.it/eyqbtnq1qmvx.png
For the same reason you could also hold on to your Plex, because price is only going up further.
Exactly. Pretty shocking stats arent they, even though anyone in their right minds already knew it.
Yes, but since PLEX always ALWAYS increases in price, (in huge incremental jumps) PLEX magnates can grow their PLEX stockpiles indefinitely, at constant enormous profit from just selling a few. The problem is that that PLEX is withheld from the market.
They control the PLEX market, and as such, they defacto control EVE.
A magnificent, and EVE worthy achievement, but one which may inadvertently be killing the game, as well as forcing CCP to diversify/fragment PLEX usage inorder to incentivize further PLEX introduction and sinking.
why is this a problem
Because its not being sunk.
Withholding PLEX from the market drives up the demand by reducing supply, hence increasing price.
There comes a tipping point where if you have held x PLEX that you acquired earlier for y time, that by selling z PLEX you can buy more PLEX with the profits than you paid for the ones you sold.
Why this is bad, is its players controlling a key systemic resource upon which not only players depend, but EVE and CCP itself.
Its like owning oxygen in an environment with no oxygen. The more oxygen you withdraw from the market, the more people die without it and the higher the price rises.
this would be true if plex was a scarce resource only available in the game
its not though
witholding plex from the market drives up demand in the game market sure
but it also drives up demand in the real world market
and demand in the real world market equals supply in the game market
sure but by selling those plex you are putting them back on the market and increasing supply
which is bringing prices back down
if hoarders have been buying the majority of plex supply its the hoarders themselves who are creating the largest demand for plex
so when the hoarders want to sell they are no longer creating demand and they are supplying a saturated market instead
this brings the price of plex down which means demand for plex on the rl market decreases
which means less cash income for ccp
so essentially hoarders increase rl demand for plex which means more income for ccp
PLEX are scarce because they are bought up and stockpiled by magnates. Sunk PLEX are a separate figure. If there is a surge in PLEX introduction, the magnates are the first to skim the cheapest.
The more they stockpile, the higher rises the value of their stockpile, leading to the tipping point where they can sell a few PLEX bought previously, inorder to buy MORE PLEX than they had.
The more PLEX you have, and the longer you have it, the more PLEX you can buy i order to stockpile it, and increase its value even further.
This is what I mean when I say that players have wrestled control of PLEX away from CCP. Players own vast stockpiles of PLEX that where never sunk, and exist in their stockpiles primarily to increase price by denying them from the market. Every PLEX you withhold from the market, raises the value of that PLEX.
theyre scarce in game because the supply is determined by people selling for rl cash
they are not scarce irl though because ccp can supply as many plex to as many customers as they need
ccp will never have a shortage of plex to sell
yeah but this is largely due to isk inflation
the isk used to buy plex is losing value therefore it takes more isk to buy plex
the supply of plex in game is not limited there is always a supply of plex coming from rl sellers
yeah but this also creates greater rl demand which increases in game supply
hoarders cant control the entire plex market when they dont control the plex supply
i think the plex prices are more closely related to isk inflation rather than hoarding
Can you elaborate? If you sell some PLEX then you cannot just buy more of it (market taxes work well). Unless you artificially make PLEX decline after you sold some…
But this is another story.
And how are your going to see that ship?
[Let me help, not your monitor, not your computer, not your internet connection…we aren’t talking about your costs here. Further, there is something that must be present aside from your monitor, computer and internet connection. That is, even with a monitor and computer and internet connection would not see your skin without this other “thing”.]
Why not shut down the server, save that money and just simply sell skins for greater profit?
I got your observation…thing is, it is wrong.
This is the part I am arguing is wrong,
I am arguing you have created an artificial distinction where none really exists. That is why I wrote,
So sell a skin you must incur those server costs for the foreseeable future.
Or yet another question: what do you think would happen to skin sales if CCP announced they were shutting everything down tomorrow? My guess would be:
But, according to your artificial distinction this should actually enhance CCP’s profitability.
okay… i follow you. “artificial distinction” actually got me here.
allow me a question.
i know i’ve listed reasons above, but they don’t answer this.
what’s their motivation for pushing the culture into a direction, where people don’t take it for granted to pay the sub with isk?
that’s definitely what they are doing. is it, because otherwise the system, with alphas, would become unstable? is it just for the perceived value, aka plex is expensive, therefore everything obtained with plex feels more luxurious? what is it?
ps: i’ll never get used to “500 plex”.
But, and correct me if i’m wrong, you basically made a lot of noise about PLEX prices until such time as there was a PLEX sale and are now claiming that PLEX sale as a victory for all the noise you made about PLEX prices?
PLEX sales have happened periodically throughout the history of PLEX rising from 200M to 3Billion isk and each time PLEX prices dropped a bit for a little while before continuing upward as normal.
i saw that as well. considering that he’s using alts to support his drivel (was caught him red handed), i see no reason not to wonder, if his mind isn’t bent even further than that.
I don’t know that that is what they are doing, at least intentionally.
Sure CCP could impose say a price cap, but then what happens is it is a wealth transfer from those buying PLEX for RL money to those buying the same PLEX for ISK. Great for the demand side in game, kinda shitty for the demand side OOG/supply side IG. This in turn will lead to a situation of excess demand–i.e. more demand in game than supply; a shortage.
The creation of additional uses for PLEX certainly pushes the price up which reduces the instance of people paying for subs with PLEX bought for ISK, but it increases people buying PLEX for other purposes. Could CCP be “harming” itself with this? Sure. Because nobody sees all of the relevant information/knowledge here. Nobody sees the demand functions and supply functions and knows the various relationships. Not even CCP, because the demand functions are dependent on the subjective value of CCPs customers and I am not convinced that all of that information can be articulated fully.
So CCP is kind of blundering around in the dark and doing the best it can…like the rest of us.
Not only that, but it is in CCP’s interest to see PLEX prices spike then have a sale. If PLEX prices have spiked and I buy a pile for RL money I can sell them during the spike and make even more ISK, especially if I am one of the first movers.
So, the whole premise of “Hey, look I saved the day with regards to PLEX with this thread!” is dubious.
[Note: I am not saying CCP created the spike in prices to benefit themselves via a PLEX sale, just noting that if such a spike were to occur, a natural response from CCP would be to put on a sale, because the high in game price would likely increase OOG demand.]
If you sat on it since before the last price jump, you can buy more PLEX than you had before from the profits of your PLEX sales.
We dont know how much PLEX is stockpiled.
Its anyones guess, but my sense is it some truly shocking figure and that a very substantial amount of that is held on a very small number of accounts.
I dont think anything can, or should, be done about it by CCP.
But I would suggest that CCPs move to diversifying PLEX services is an attempt to draw out more PLEX to be sunk from those stockpiles.
