More people in space doing more things.
More people willing to buy plex and be happy about what it sells for.
Nothing saying it’s a good thing, just saying that from a game pov it’s not actually a bad thing.
Also
That’s a mindset of envious and mistrusting (because they themselves are schemers and thus they assume everyone else is that way too) people.
Which is precisely my point. Imagine if the PLEX price was so low that everyone could simply PLEX their account via grind. CCP would then make no money at all. PLEX price has to be at the very least be at a level that discourages this nightmare scenario.
CCP’s problem is that they want people to buy plex but also want people to spend plex, because unspent plex is a massive issue for them accounting wise.
If the plex prices are low then people are less willing to buy plex from the website but more willing to spend it in game, if plex prices are high then people are more willing to buy it from the website but less willing to spend it in game. Somewhere there’s a happy medium.
I agree, it’s a tricky balancing act: how much to encourage grind (which inflates player numbers) vs. how much to encourage Plex conversion (which brings in $$ but also creates more P2W complaints).
However one point:
This is an incorrect assumption a lot of people make, for several reasons. First, more “free” players inflate the player count, which makes the game look more active, and also creates larger and more active markets for “paid” players. (Most heavy industry and trade is conducted by Omega accounts.) So “free” players ‘provide content’, benefit EVE and paid accounts in many ways.
Second, anyone who is “paying for the game” by converting Plex to ISK, obviously needs buyers for it. The buyer providing that ISK for his game-time is just as valuable to CCP as the seller who’s trading Plex for his work-income.
Last, an odd accounting issue: it’s fairly standard for companies who use “redeemable tokens” (like Plex or gift certificates) to keep sales of tokens on the books as a liability until they are redeemed. Only when they’re redeemed can they be added to the books as income. So in fact, someone buying Plex for ISK and cashing it in for Omega time actually impacts the bottom line more than the initial ‘sale’ of the Plex does.
as i said you just dont get it…
who creates the PLEX?
who sets the RL world price (value) of said PLEX?
who gets the money from PLEX if it isn’t CCP / PA?
what causes PLEX prices to rise and fall?
are people being encouraged to actually not play the game to get isk instead being led by the nose to goto cash shop to buy PLEX?
as i said i dont have the patience to handhold anyone to explain this anymore than i have already… if you can answer the questions in your own head… congratz you have now sussed out why PLEX prices are the way they are.
if you see that as totally healthy and no drama … great i am delighted for anyone who thinks this.
so best not to misquote me what i said cos as i said some have it all back to front and will never ever get it… not going to sit for hours explaining it bit by bit … you should be able to do that yourself.
Nobody’s arguing that its all just fine. It’s being pointed out to you that there are two sides to it and you are getting them confused. The real ‘Visa warriors’ are not the people PLEXing via grind and who dread the PLEX price rising. On the contrary, the Visa warriors want the PLEX price high because then they get more ISK ! It’s the grinders ( i.e not the Visa warriors ) who care about high PLEX prices.
Clearly, anything that benefits one side disadvantages the other. That is inevitable. And I’d agree it does need to be balanced, precisely so that grinders can log in and raise the concurrency. But I’d also make the point that grinders will always argue that the PLEX price is too high.
Correct in a way, but that’s also the feedback loop (grinding for plexing + multi-accounts/multiboxing) in full view.
In the end, it does add to ccp coffers, simply via the plex demand in game. Someone needs to buy that plex first with cash (PLEX is made available by CCP in some way, it’s extra income), then put it on the in game market for isk, where it can be picked up again for plexing. And as CCP is the PLEX printer (they now give free plex every month to all characters who make a tiny effort even), they “could” inject more plex - which would be gobbled up asap into that feedback loop, like putting more wood on the fire.
Another question is the volume of the free monthly plex. Should be a handsome pile by now. Imagine that hitting the in game market.
Yes, and the funny thing is, it’s the grinders themselves driving the higher prices. Grinders want their ISK buys to go through, so they bid a little higher than the next guy. Then the next next guy bids a little higher than them. Then the first guy goes back and refines his grinding game to grind faster, so he can afford to outbid all the other grinders.
And so the grinders get grindier and the ISK piles up in game and everything gets ISKflation.
People assume this but it’s not actually the case. Since Plex is an accounting item, if they simply ‘magically inject’ more Plex into the system it buggers up the accounting. From what I’ve gathered, the few times CCP has considered “adding Plex” to the market, they’re doing so from stores of Plex gained from the confiscation of (mostly RMT) accounts. It’s not actually in CCP’s interest in any way to simply create Plex from thin air and add it into the game markets.
It’s only 5 Plex per month, and only for Omega accounts that do the Air Daily rewards. So I don’t really think it’s adding up to a significant factor in the markets. If it was, it would tend to push Plex prices downward.
you have this half right… CCP do create PLEX out of thin air … people buying the PLEX from cash shop put it into the ingame economy.
this is FIAT currency… this IS the main driver of inflation ingame, the principle is exactly the same in virtual economy as it is in real world economy. just like what is happening in real world for many years now… its called Quantitative Easing … literally chinese for printing money / creating money out of thin air
Accountants are miners 
It would still be extra income.
I’ve heard similar things, but also seem to remember one real intervention that Dr. Eyjo talked about during a FF a decade ago.
All active omega accounts, theoretically for each toon on them, times 5 every month. Gimme, lol ! But you’re right. Much of that must be dormant plex on so many accounts (it is on my account, i’m saving for cat ears or a cowboy hat, whichever comes first).
One would expect that at first glance. But the volumes per player are small and widely scattered, easy to be gobbled up by the speculator/traders who really control the in game prices, for those brave souls going to Jita to cash in on their monthly plex coupons. Plus, there are the extra isk sinks (primarily skinr).
That’s got nothing to do with it.
CCP made recently changes that reduce the value of isogen and increase other (mexalon, pyerite) so items that cost X to produce yesterday can cost more today . Yet those on the market were produced with mats that cost X, no point in increasing the price.
The day someone ganks my skiff is the day I get to see a LOT of fireworks! It’s going to take a large fleet of cats and that’ll look pretty epic when Concord shows up! I have my recording software ready to go!
The PLEX sink is surely where the grinders convert the PLEX into Omega time and the PLEX presumably disappears from the game.
That’s one of the primary reasons for the increase in Plex prices… Plex is continuously removed from the game, but the ISK supply just keeps piling up and recirculating.
Starbelt Stacy keeps providing links to irrelevant topics (fiat money etc.) which they’ve apparently misunderstood. Real world economies and game economies don’t operate on the quite the same principles.
No, you have isk sinks too.
industry, market, LP store being a few ones.
So the economy has reached a 2.2 Pisk volume, as written with a volume inflation of 2205/2198.6 = 1.00704 = +7/1000 this month
so 1.00704^12 = 1.0877 = 8.77% per year.
Meanwhile plex went from 4850 to 5860 in a year, that is +20.82% of price inflation.
Now if we compare to 1y ago… we went from -27.7T from tax to -18.7, the difference between the two being half of the volume inflation.
However other sinks like manufacturing should have overcome that.
Don’t forget Taxes.
That’s market.
I can guarantee you that the Plex sinks in game are far more effective at permanently removing Plex than the ISK sinks are. Just take a look at the Money Supply chart - player base keeps dropping but the ISK in the system keeps growing regardless.
Stop yapping.
You want PLEX prices to drop? It’s easy.
