Does anyone have any insight into the rising plex prices, they seem to have been going up steadily for sometime now from about 3.18m ppu in April this year up to 4.2m ppu now.
- Sub prices went up, which makes Plexing an account worth more.
- Plex prices (in real cash value, from CCP) went up, making Plex worth more.
- People switching from expensive subs to Plex for Omega time drives up demand.
- Fewer players in the game means fewer people putting Plex on the market to fund their goals.
- Some players are using these changes to drive manipulation of the Plex market as they did in 2019.
Iâd guess Plex will reach about 4.5 - 4.8 million ISK before stabilizing, but thereâs a lot of factors that go into that. It will likely slowly increase until either a Plex sale or if CCP makes significant game changes by wintertime.
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PLEX will be going up and up, untill you will realize that its better to pay sub than earn isk in game for omega. Only then you will not pay attention to the value of PLEX.
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Thereâs a 20% increase built in from the recent price hike, but if you want to know why the PLEX price is going up in general, these two charts make for a good summary:
Fundamentally, players are making more and more raw ISK, despite a decreasing player population.
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More room to make ISK? Less players hunting the farmers? Then more people are richer and then deicide to plex? Thus driving plex prices up due to demand. Thatâs what I thought from your statement.
Crazy first-time trig invasions made MORE isk than the incursion payouts. 
I canât be any more specific, because I donât have the data to be.
But if CCP wants to give me all that data and pay me a hundred grand, Iâm sure I could provide you with some additional answers after a few months.
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A lot of people struggle with properly interpreting charts.
What the MER charts are actually saying is that less ISK is being generated overall, but the patterns of where itâs being generated are shifting. Theyâre also saying that overall, players are spending and sinking (removing from the game) less ISK than they make - thus thereâs a gradual increase in the total amount of ISK available in the game.
The second observation has always been the case. Itâs a matter of degree, not of kind.
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Thanks all, well nearly all, no thanks @Nana_Skalski we dont want to hear that kind of negativity
What do you mean by negativity? That paying sub is better than PLEXing? Or that you dont have to buy PLEX at all?
If its about PLEX going up, it was always the case in longer run, because people make ISK in more efficient ways, and if there is lot more of it overall, it results in PLEX inflation.
I dont consider it negative, I want to explain it objectively.
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Hilmar watching plex pricesâŚ
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Seeing those sort of graphs to prove a valid point looks like some rookie mistake as you are using logic on this discussion of plex prices. @Destiny_Corrupted
Um, no, sorry, itâs not logic, but it was a rookie mistake. The graphs donât actually show what Destiny implied. And higher ISK income doesnât lead to rapidly rising Plex prices anyway, since weâve had that for years and Plex prices have gone up and down. ISK farming isnât the issue here.
Over time, having more ISK faucets than sinks does lead to gradual accumulation of ever higher levels of total ISK in the game, but this is not evenly distributed across players and has minimal effect on Plex prices.
Raising prices, and having a bunch of players cancel their subs and switch to Plexing, while wealthy players manipulate the market because they know the supply/demand ratio is changing, is whatâs happening here.
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Is this why it always shows âMultiple account dealâ? Wondering when this special will end.
I used plex always fr omega, no sub. My gameplay evolved and I can make a lot more than I used to, in part because of the pressure from rising plex prices. I am not alone I know. That contributes also in span of years. Sudden rises may be because of what you wrote about people abandoning sub and using more plex, but its additional thing on top.
So what will the inevitable PLEX for Taiwan do to PLEX prices?
Mr Epeen 
The tone of your reply was condescending at best, and not very helpful to answering OPâs question, which was âWHY was PLEX going upâ, as in what factors were in play driving the prices up.
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I done my sums months ago and put all of Frostpackerâs effects into Catalysts and the asumption it would be that the price of Plex would also increase the price of that particular ship class.
Also holding piles of material to produce after assuming the price of materials will also increase.
I had taken a rather large risk bet that this will happen and the outcome might swing in my gains if faction war is a win for highsec pvp/ganker pilots.
PLEX price goes up because of that old economic law: when demand goes up and supply goes down prices go up. Hereâs some data with The Forge (includes Jita as well as TTT) as reference, YTD from A4E - PLEX - Market details.
the 2nd chart (bottom half) is the informative one. The red line is âdemandâ (buy orders), the green line is âsupplyâ (sell orders). The blue line is âtotal amount sold and boughtâ, based on CCPâs API data (hence accurate).
An interesting thing happens on April 21st: demand shoots up from 1M outstanding buy orders to 2M.
Someâbodyâ or âpartyâ is behind this overnight doubling of demand. If someone knows who (a player, an alliance, a cartel, or even ccp), pray tell.
Prices follow suit in the next few days, ESI trade data go up. What does not follow, to this day, is the volume of PLEX available on the market (sell orders). The green line is (historically ?) low, with no upward trend noticeable.
Why isnât the market adjusting ? Supply is drying up (green), while trade (blue) is more or less dropping (itâs lower than before the April 21st incident). So why is supply not catching up ? Demand is clearly still up (buy volume), PLEX is in demand, if not increasing. The real money cost of PLEX ? Fewer players playing, so fewer buying PLEX with real money ? Or ⌠Letâs say that at this moment there is no need to put up sell orders at the current value for buy orders: simply sell to outstanding buy orders (evidenced in the blue line, the ESI ârealâ traded volume). That situation can still hold for quite a while. The graph to keep an eye on is the ESI traded volume, as it indicates players playing (the plex market).
The intriguing jolt that occurred on April 21st triggered the current situation of dried up sell orders (and increased plex prices). Two questions come to mind:
- Whoâs behind it ? (EDIT: no one in particular, see below).
- If there were a larger number of people playing, would the plex market adjust itself more swiftly ?
A final remark: in the past, when ccp deemed the plex price too high they would inject plex from reserves (it has happened on occasion), I assume plex reserves from banned accounts. High plex prices means fewer accounts plexed means fewer characters online etc etc which is bad for the game (their words from years ago).
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Wasnât that right around the time of the price hike?
I honestly canât remember. I donât plex (I pay for my sub in 12 month periods), so I rarely take notice of plex prices (and havenât dealt with the sub price hike either). But, whoever doubled the number of outstanding buy orders (at bloated normal! isk prices) was clearly manipulating having an effect on the plex market. Smoking gun sort of thing, but whoâs holding it ?
EDIT: a better look at the data makes the smoking gun aspect look like a coincidental increase in buy orders - for whatever reason - without even âbenefitingâ from the increased isk value (that will occur shortly afterwards).