First, blackout had a positive effect on me economically because it slowed inflation and caused prices of things like MPTC’s to drop.
Now, based upon longitudinal data from the MER, it may have had a negative impact on production, but it’s impossible to say so without doing any sort of statistical analysis. After all, production had fallen during the same time period during the previous two years, and it had already been falling since well before the blackout was announced.
Moreover, it seemed to have a negligible impact on the consumer price index.
Now, this is not to say that the Blackout was necessarily a good thing, or that it didn’t have an effect on players or the economy. Indeed, if this chart is any indication, it had a huge impact on some players.
But to say that people are economic idiots in the face of what appears to be mixed evidence from the MER means that either you know even less about economics than I do, or this economic disaster talk is a bad faith argument.
Blackout wasn’t an “unmitigated economic disaster.” What it was an increase in risk for some players, and they threw a fit about it as a result.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. We all say we want Eve to be more dangerous, and that we want more content drivers. That CCP should take botting seriously, and deal with with inflation. But the moment they adjust our risk or income, we throw a fit. Because the truth of the matter is that we don’t want Eve to be more dangerous, we want it to be more dangerous for the other guy.
In fact, here’s a video of CCP Rise on TiS saying that players are quite risk adverse when it comes to their PvE. Which is a rather tactful way of saying that players are actually a bunch of hypocritical bitches.
Now, this is not meant to put anyone down. I’ve been in the same boat. I am quite risk adverse in my PvE, and I’ve gotten mad at CCP for negatively impacting my income. But I’m starting to realize that the problem is not that CCP is destroying the game. The problem is that we a significant problem with NIMBY and horse blinders when it comes to CCP fixing problems, and our knee jerk reaction is to complain rather than adapt.
