I knew someone would latch on to that post and graph, and try to spin it.
So it’s only if someone is complaining that it is relevant to the discussion, am I getting that message from you ? What if the group that you zoom in on has no idea what the history is nor the foreseeable trend ? The fact is I nor anyone else have to prove anything via registered complaints for an analysis to be factual, no more than the analysis that dumping freons into the atmosphere would have an effect on an ozone layer was less true before it became a genuine concern, or plastics or pfas derivatives, lol. That’s what I believe debaters call a “strawman” argument, right, leading away from the subject ? The subject is “squeezing the lemon” via microtransactions, possibly with in game benefits. That’s the thread’s topic. Right ?
But to humor you, and because I don’t feel like scraping the free sp right now, let’s walk and talk a little about the PLEX graph, which “I didn’t fully understand”. Perhaps you will understand then that you didn’t see the context.
First off, the reasons of a changing value of PLEX are many. The available ISK pool is one thing. The drive by some players to optimize a number (profit) is another. For most non-traders that means they will eventually pay more for just about anything in game, since traders play to maximize their ROIC. The same is true for any item available on the regional markets. Then there is also the control factor by ccp, who ultimately decides how much PLEX is up for sale for real world currency. Deals do show up in the graph, and so do the (very) rare interventions by CCP when they feel PLEX is in a bad place.
Your graph on the ISK in the game is what it is. It’s the usual trend in an open system - there is no limitation to the ISK faucets. ISK is perpetually on offer via the in game resources, is also perpetually harvested, and balancing it out in function of total number of players/accounts/toons to keep prices more or less stable and “fair” is nigh impossible. What you get is inflation over time, that is the normal trend we know from the real world. Add some “shortage and redistribution” shenanigans to the mix and you might even fix it into an increased slope.
But is it also “devaluation” ? We’ll get to that later. What you also get is a population that gets more experienced and which will, inevitably, harvest more ISK/hr. And I’d say the speed at which these can harvest ISK increases the more experienced they become, until they hit the hard limit of their chosen ISK faucet (like carrier ratting). I assume we agree on that, since you say it’s vets in the game who have lots of ISK, and drive the prices because of “needs”.
Neither of those two graphs are “shockers”. They are expected, both the isk pool and the plex trends.
Let’s take two players, at two points in time, and with the same capabilities as players, the same skills, the same number of SP, the same ships, etc. Let’s also assume they are fairly recent in the game, 6 months old and run 1 account.
Let’s put player#1 in 2011, and the other one in 2024.
Let’s tell both of them that “plexing” an account is possible.
Which one would you rather be ? The 2011 or the 2024 ?
Player#1 in 2011 will have to scrape 300-350M together to plex the account.
Player#2 in 2024 will have to get his hands on 2500M to do the same.
The question is simply this: does the 2024 player create 8 times the same income in the same amount of time as it took the 2011 player to get his 350M ? In other words, did the ISK faucets accessible to our fairly recent player become fountains of ISK between 2011 and 2024 ? If they didn’t then time spent in the game has gone through a relative devaluation. If they did, then I’m overlooking something very special and generous, and perhaps you can show me what it is, unveiling hidden faucets for a 6-month old character with the knowledge one can expect from him/her.
That is what I assume is what new players see when they come into the game. Let’s assume the real world cash price for PLEX is similar, taking inflation for '11 to '24 into account. Once the PLEX is being converted inside the game, its buying power (via isk conversion) has decreased, at least when we look at the all important ship hulls to fly around with in a space game. Cash for PLEX deals make it harder to compare value in terms of plexing an account but I would assume that buying one month of omega for cash is still better than buying 500 plex for cash to convert into one month of omega, unless someone up there is desperate to cash in on deferred payments.
I don’t care what account age one has, but ISK and ships are key to playing the game. For newcomers that need is probably more acute. And now come the marketing lads and lasses with the tempting offers.
