CCP Stop RMT - Let people buy ISK direct

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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PLEX prices are hugely inflated due to them being multifunctional. People are going to RMT because it cheaper if they just want isk.

Why cant CCP stop the RMT buy selling ISK like other ingame items direct to players. Surely this would help and gain more income for CCP? and lets not get into the play to win convo, you can already do that in game…

(an no I don’t buy RMT isk, but I also wont buy plex)

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These 2 sentences contradict each other: you are saying that PLEX prices are inflated (high) but then players should get more if they buy PLEX and sell for ISK. So introducing direct ISK purchase will achieve nothing (especially will do nothing against RMT) and on contrary can be quite harmful for the game if ISK/$ ratio is higher than players can get by selling plex on market:

direct ISK purchase > PLEX purchases plummet > PLEX prices will soar yet again > PLEX ISK/$ will equalize with direct ISK purchase.

So you end up with the same situation again, but with even more inflated PLEX price and an additional ISK faucet (the worst kind because it doesnt come from in-game activities) in the game.

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I think the point OP was making is that ISK is already being bought from out of game suppliers anyway and it will continue to do so. Therefore the mpact wouldn’t be any different as it is now. Perhaps less so. I agree. It would stop RMT because there would be no need for anyone to go there it could also lower botting activity. It is clear that RMT is not going to go away unless CCP tackle it head on and if that is generating more real money for CCP to invest in the game, well that’s only a good thing.

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(Some) Players go to RMT’ers because they sell for less than what CCP does. Whether it’s plex or isk, the only way CCP could stop the RMT’ers by going this route is to sell the plex/isk so cheaply that the RMT’ers would be better off gold farming in another game. This, however, would drastically hurt CCP’s financials and have serious ramifications for the in-game economy.

Also, as Ms Steak said, selling isk directly to players creates an isk faucet. Selling plex does not.

Finally, for anyone that might be thinking of buy stuff from an RMT’er, you stand a good chance of being caught, you ill-gotten gains will be seized, you will not be given a refund by the RMT’er, and you put yourself at increased risk for having your account hacked. And, if all of that wasn’t bad enough, you are hurting the game by doing this.

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  • The money-price for plex is and always has been 20 bucks.
  • The ISK-price for PLEX has increased significantly since their invention.
  • The money-price for ISK (!) has dropped accordingly.

higher ISK-price of plex → less money spent per ISK(!) → more people buy plex.

Fact of the matter is that nowadays we’re getting far more ISK per unit of currency than we did in 90% of the game’s past. The only thing CCP can do about RMTers is making sure the ISK-price for PLEX increases dramatically, so botters and RMTers have to put more and more work into it. If you want people to complain about too ISK-expensive plex, then that’s the way to go.

Bizzar.

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What do you mean by “hugely inflated”?

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@Scoots_Choco beat me to it with that graph :+1:. With respect, OP demonstrates a lack of understanding of fundamental economics principles. Not only have PLEX prices already been dropping for a long time now (that’s DEFLATION), but the introduction of relist fees will encourage further price dropping not just of PLEX but of all items (note the exceptionally rapid drop in price at the very end when relist fees were introduced).

Selling ISK turns EVE into a pay-to-win game, which is undesirable. There are many reasons why PLEX is better. Among them:

  • PLEX by itself doesn’t give you a competitive advantage in the game. Nothing you can redeem with PLEX in NES will make you stronger in battle or help you recoup your losses. SKINs and apparel and Body Resculpts aren’t going to make you stronger. Skill Extractors at best help you reallocate SP, but almost exclusively at a loss for most players. Daily Alpha Injectors don’t exactly give you an edge given their limitations (small SP boost at most once a day) and that they are restricted to inherently noncompetitive players (<20m SP Alphas). Omega doesn’t even fall into the “pay to win” category since it isn’t “enhanced” EVE but rather “normal” EVE (Alpha is “lite”).
  • The buying power of ISK changes over time - if CCP sold a fixed amount of ISK per $, then the ROI of players buying that ISK varies greatly at any given time. At some points you get a good deal, but at other points it is an awful deal. By contrast, the buying power of PLEX scales with the market, and has intrinsic value (ie. it can be directly redeemed for stuff available at fixed costs at NES) that ISK doesn’t have.
  • Introducing an unrestricted ISK faucet would devastate the EVE economy along the same lines of why governments don’t just print money to pay off existing debts.

Selling ISK directly is a simple but catastrophic solution. RMT is a byproduct of other inherent issues of the game such as botting and economy imbalances as a whole - as these issues are addressed, RMT is addressed as well.

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