Double Dip Recession?

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#1

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Sure looks like the game entered into a recession around March of 2019 and is heading for another downturn. Both production and mining are down. So is destruction despite a large null sec war. Question is, is this a side effect of Covid (perhaps a decline on the plex market) or is it a result of the somewhat massive gameplay changes CCP has made.

The decline in the money supply and decline in the velocity of money also suggests a recession.

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My immediate thought is that CCP has finally put too much pressure on high sec which is now collapsing.

#2

none of your charts show how the rest of the year for 2020 looked. So without going back and looking at the MER’s for this past year, i couldn’t tell ya what is going on.

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#3

CCP is highly effective at killing off the game.

#4

16+ years says hello. I wish, but this kind of garbage “eve is dying” crap is overdone.

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#5

Virtual economies aren’t exact analogues of their real world counterparts. For example, things like greater economic mobility, no need to meet basic needs, and the ability to just log off and stop playing influence actor behavior, and the devs have the ability to straight up change how the universe works (i.e. magic resources into existence, or change how fast you can harvest them). Of course, this is not to say that eve’s virtual economy in no way behaves like a real world economy, or that real world economic theories have no predictive or explanatory power, but you do need to keep in mind that things can work differently here.

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Now, with that in mind, are we in a recession? Well, people are making less, the future is still uncertain, and we can see metrics that seem indicative of a recession. So, yeah, probably. But it’s also not that big of a deal either. Like, aside from maybe some of the players that get paid directly by other players, no one is going to lose their job (and even those guys will be able to switch careers much more quickly and easily than they could in real life). So, we’re not going to see mass unemployment. Nor will we see businesses shutting down at an alarming rate, or anything like that.

Things might not be gravy right now, but neither should we be concerned that the economy is in danger of collapsing. The nature of Eve’s virtual economy is sufficiently different from real world economies, that those fundamental differences must be considered when trying to explain what is going on and/or what will happen. And once those differences are considered, I believe that we can assume that Eve’s economy is currently not so bad that it will not be able to bounce back when resource scarcity ends.

In short, no, neither HS, nor Eve’s economy is in danger of collapsing any time soon.

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#6

The bots in the game ensure that nothing collapses. Without the bots, the game would be dead.

#7

CCP have been trying to kill rampant inflation for awhile now, maybe they are succeeding.

Does not mean the game is dying it just means we will be able to save our money without worrying about it being worthless in a few months.

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#8

Much of my enjoyment comes from playing this part of the game, when it goes flat then so does the enjoyment, we need some stimulus!

#9

A recession is an undesirable financial event. The links you posted are desirable from CCP’s perpective & those who want eve to continue longterm so cannot be described as a recession.

The graphs are showing the effects of space austerity, space austerity is good. This is deliberate fear not friend.

I see no other option but austerity unless CCP implemented a PLEX buy back scheme or other bold move. A plex buy back scheme I think could tune the tq economy without space austerity. A new region, “server restart light” would be another easy fix. Both these are condemned by vocal minority so space poverty, is a go!

#10

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There seems to be a large spike in mineral costs associated with recent changes but inflation has been flat overall. Notably even with the price spike in minerals, we are seeing deflation, not inflation.

#11

With the exception of the recent titan massacre there is no further demands for minerals on any front so production costs are meh in regards to inflation.

Give it time, a very long time when stokpiles are exhausted but with reinburse rates over 80% it’ll be longer than you think.

#12

The inflation has been since start of game in 2003, yes only recently has CCP tackled inflation so you will be seing it level off and go down but it has a long way to go down before it reaches a good spot.

#13

There is no inflation. According to CCPs numbers prices have been flat for the last two years and are declining. The academics who have looked at the game have found deflation https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Monthly-inflation-rates-in-the-EVE-economy-The-observations-span-the-nearly-twoyear_fig8_47933354

As somebody who played the game years ago, there has been a moderate amount of inflation over a ten year period in certain goods, primarily ships, offset by deflation in faction and t2 rig prices with other modules remaining basically constant. The price of high end and advanced goods has declined. I expect the increased cost of ships owes more to spiking mineral prices than anything else.

But there appears to be no inflation. It’s a phantom menace. What I am seeing in the market right now is deflation. Markets are not clearing and prices are getting walked down.

#14

Plex for 1 month sub cost 300mil isk back in 2007 its now somewhere between 1b and 2b.

The worst time for inflation was when rorquals where initially buffed back in 2016 and CCP has been trying to fix things ever since.

Command ships where 200mil for the hull back in 2014 ish so its still almost 2.5x, as they are now close to 500mil. You are looking way too short term go look at much larger periods, there is a reason ccp is only showing last 3 years.

This post already shows that even at similar plex price to now people find it crazy high and that was back in 2017, it really show cases how destructive rorquals where in general to the economy and how much more eve players have to endure to get back to a more healthy state.

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#15

Plex is a very bad metric. First of all there was no Plex in 2007. GTC (game time cards) were traded on a forum. Owing to problems with scams involving real money game time then became an item called a Plex. Later Plex was changed to the currency like thing it is today. We are not talking about the same item on the same market.

Further Plex involves real money. The real world value of isk has steadily declined. This coincides with the rise of smart phone (and gaming on smart phone). EvE is PC only. PC is no longer the main form of gaming. Result is that isk and plex have lost value next to RL money.

As to your ships. Yes they are up (around 2006 levels actually). While doubling over a 10 year span would not be unexpected, the rise in cost seems to be recent due to mineral shortages. This is classic stagflation due to a supply shock, not demand driven inflation.

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#16

Fair but I would still equate it to 500 current plex, but obviously plex is still a bit different because it can buy more things and be bought in more ways and so on.

#17

Since one of those things is multi-character training, it would seem to be a very different animal.

Just looking at some of the manufacturing figures, it looks like we have a lot of t1 mineral using manufacturing that is underwater. I worked out with a corp mate last night that the Orca’s he was building were not underwater when he started the build, but are if he were starting the build today. He’s still making a trading profit off the minerals (buying low and selling into a higher market). It’s less than if the old 100% reprocess still existed - if he could get the minerals out it would make more sense to sell them.

CCP made low sec the sole source for several minerals in mid December. We are in mid January and the effects are starting to be felt in the market. I expect it will be another quarter, and battleships to 500m, before CCP reverses the change. We may also see shortages.

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#18

High sec is booming! At peak times im doing 300+ transactions per hour. Some days i do 5,000 market transactions. People are buying.

#19

Plex is not a bad metric it is the only stable metric in eve it being tied to a real world dollar price set by RMT’rs. 500 selling at something like 8 & buying at 5.5. RMT ISK changes all the time. You can check prices yourself on said sites.

Plex is the very best metric of wealth in eve, it was manipulated up by plexing walling however but only by a 1/4. The rest of eve’s assets have circled the drain for the last 10 years.

Basically anything that a bot can crab it does and is so worthless. Bots can’t make plex without isk trade only $ can.

People who bot in eve have loads of isk or are making $, plex is irrelevant to them beyond their need for 500 per account pcm.

ISK is a terrible metric, it being all over the shop since the departure of any ecconmic strategy in eve. Matarials are in the drain a $200 ship & fit in 2010 now selling at $20.

When “advanced” ecconmic players in eve talk about wealth they do not mentions isk, ie, we don’t say Delve makes so many billion we talk in $'s or plex, a plex unanimously meaning 500plex.

Talking in dollar/plex does not mean they rmt, it is just that ISK being so worthless the numbers become unwielding ie, “the TTT made how many trillion?” no, it is worth this much plex or $ pcm.

#20

I really have to wonder if anything useful can be derived from a fluctuating exchange rate. Since we are talking about declining economic output in EvE, and the question of inflation (which you just pointed out doesn’t seem to exist), I’m not sure how much Plex has to do with it.

BTW I seem to remember 30 pilots license (original plex) going for around a billion in 2010 or so.