I’ve been playing Eve since the middle of November, and it’s a fascinating microcosm of a real world. A lot of people have told me, over and over, that everything in Eve revolves around PvP. That’s why the big ships get blown up, that’s where expensive resources go, and it is what funds the game. And I listened and pondered that, but I came away with a different view.
“If you want to make it as a capsuleer, you have to remember money is king.” Everyone who played through the introduction heard that line, but I don’t think too many of them actually realize how true it is.
No matter where I look in Eve Online, I feel like I end up looking at the market. Everything passes through the market. And, as I looked at that market, I saw something stunning and terrible: it was a true unregulated capitalist market. Stunning that an unregulated market has existed for nearly twenty years and no one looked at it and said, “For a very minimal investment of, say, a few hundred dollars, I could literally fix the minimum price on literally dozens of high value commodities for years to come.”
So, I did that. All by my lonesome, I set out and performed Operation Glacial Drift – Capital Edition. I bought over 1000 (I stopped counting after that, but the number is far above it) Glacial Drift SKINS for capital ships. How many 2 month old characters you know who have the same skin for every single capital ship, yet can’t even pilot one? I do. I can outfit just about any capital ship fleet in the game entirely in Glacial Drift SKINS. And have some to spare. Including a fleet of pirate capitals. And titans…
That went so well on such a small investment, and I’d ended up with such excess funds, that I ran around and performed Operation Santa’s Stockings, where I did the exact same thing with something that was far cheaper, and now will have a greater return on investment.
Then, today, Operation Glacial Grinch – Everything Else Edition. I recruited a number of other players, and together we did what took me a day in hours. Now, collectively we can outfit nearly any fleet in the game in the exact same skin. The group that did this is collectively known as the E7.
I’d like to take a moment to talk about this operation. The members of the operation were from three countries in four time zones. It included a conservative Jewish decorated former service member who is also a Rabbi, a socialist Muslim who debated going to jail over refusing to fill out a draft card, someone who started a corp to help people where everyone is welcome to do their own thing with a 0% corp tax rate, a successful businessman who tends to forget drones when drinking wine, a school bus driver who aspires to be Otto from the Simpsons to the children he drives, and some others who I did not know well before but performed admirably and is now an official member of our small collective. That I was able to bring together such a diverse group of people to perform something like this in secret, and that we would all perform together so well… in truth, I feel like that says something about what is possible if we all work together. It’s not that there haven’t been arguments between the Jewish and Muslim members of our group, but like someone once said of the Wright Brothers, “Boy did they get heated but they never got angry.”
The reason for this is because we are all rational adults who can think and accept the fact that sometimes we are wrong, because we live in an age of mass disinformation. Because we all remember things wrong. But any time they’ve shown each other documented facts, they’ve acknowledged that they had been in error and they move on. Again, like rational adults. Looking at what my small group of people which includes anti-vaccine believers and people who are firm believers in the efficacy of them, we have not let these differences come between us as both co-conspirators and I believe at this point as friends.
I feel like our world leaders could probably get more done if they acted like us instead of grand standing for political points so they can endlessly cling to power, the only thing that actually seems to matter to the vast majority of them that seek public office anywhere in the world. Seriously, no matter who you are or where you are right now, you’ve got to admit or world is pretty ■■■■■■ up right now. Apologies for the expletive, but I’m not sure of another word in English I can use that expresses the totality of where I feel like most of us on this blue marble are right now, whether we agree on the problems or not. We all agree there are problems.
Sorry for that digression away from Eve, I will now return to why most of you are here and step down from my soapbox.
To be clear, had all of this happened in the real world, monopoly laws could come into play, trading would have stopped because other real world traders would have noticed the run on the market and begun buying up what we were buying, criminal charges could have been filed… but because I did all of this in the Eve Online economy, it was 100% legal for me to engage in market manipulation and price fixing.
Those are two things that are literally on my bucket list I never thought I’d get to do. So, CCP, thanks for creating the only true free capitalist market that has ever existed in history. And thank you ‘Invisible Hand of the Market’ for being so strangely absent during this time, for such a potent force could have risen up and prevented my designs from any capitalist market unless it fully approved of my actions with its ethereal nature.
Now, a word of warning to those of you who are now going to dig in and figure out who I am and figure out how I’ve done what I’ve done. I have a way to move the majority of my stock already. I had that in mind before I made my first purchase, and none of it involves the market. If you’re going to get into market manipulation and price fixing, be sure you’re not going to get stuck with a bunch of stock that you can’t even sell for what you paid.
Yes, there is a process to actually manipulating the numbers that can be easily replicated, but making something expensive does you no good unless you can unload them. An item going for 1 billion isk on the market but doesn’t sell is worth less than a 1m isk item you sell and make profit off of. Unless you just like collecting junk.
But please, figure out what I’ve done specifically, how I did it, and try to replicate it. I encourage you, because unless you understand economic principles, buying habits, long term market trends, scarcity, and long term investment strategies in commodities all you’re going to do is drive up the market for me and the six other people who read this and actually do their homework in depth before buying. And, since I’ve been recording all of the Eve market data for well over a month now, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who has accurate prices for everything in the market at this moment. If anyone else had the aggregate I did, they would have bought out at least one of the things I did. But no one did.
For you six who will do your homework, I advise Thomas Picketty’s ‘Capital in the 21st Century.’ When you get to his version of e=mc2 for economics, learn it, study it, understand it. If you do that, in an economy like the one we play in you’ll find money just sitting around. Right now there are many easy finds. But I predict the market in Eve will radically change over the next six months to a year, for better or for worse. Other people trying to replicate my results will make the market fall into turmoil.
But me, I understand that in every crisis there is profit to be made. And if I can manufacture a crisis and then profit off the methods I’ve manufactured it with… well that’s something interesting. And the more people who try to replicate my results without understanding the key parts I’ve failed to mention, the more isk I’ll make. Without those keys, I predict tens of trillions of isk are about to be spent with enormous negative returns on investment. Which I suspect will endear me to CCP, since that’s just money in their pocket.
Up to this point everyone I can find in market histories I’ve observed and record for the past few months has been speculating. I didn’t speculate, I fixed the market on dozens of valuable items while cornering those markets at the same time.
This was my first series of economic operations, which I did calmly and right in front of everyone to see if there was anyone monitoring the market for the kinds of manipulations I’ve conducted. For days these things were happening from the same account and not a single in-game email from any of the people I bought dozens, sometimes more than a hundred, of high ticket items off of. None of them even tried to sell me more. Now that it’s clear there are not people watching the market professionally in any way, I will publicly announce my next plan, Operation Meltdown.
My next op should reshape the entire Eve Online marketplace in under an hour, three at the most. And unlike this op, every player in the galaxy is going to feel what I’ve done. And I can do it from any account I start in under 3 hours with less than a $1000 investment in Plex, meaning I can do it from any browser in the new Eve play anywhere option. So I can do this anytime, anywhere I want to, basically anywhere in the world, even if I’m on vacation and just bored with a few hours to kill in the Caribbean. As a game developer, some months that’s not even my budget for studying games the way I am Eve right now… and I’m about to not even need that Plex investment to pull it off thanks to just Operation Santa’s Stockings… and I’ve got the spoils from two ops I’ve told you about and multiple that I’ve yet to mention.
Finally, let me explain to you why I’m so dangerous in Eve. I’ve just made a ton of money, at a future date (though based on some conversations maybe very soon), and all I’m going to do with it is just give it to NewBros and the people I’ve met who have been so great to me. I plan to repay every kindness I’ve been shown ten thousand fold, and pay it forward to every NewBro I meet going forward. See, I’ve cornered some markets, and very soon I’ll have no real use for offers of just isk.
So, if you want a bulk order of Glacial Drift SKINS, maybe even enough for an entire fleet of all ships of every size, I might know a guy. But you’d better have something more valuable than just isk (which will also be necessary) to offer, and you’d better have the reputation to back up that offer coming into the deal.
I will never again engage in major market manipulations with the account that led these endeavors. From here on out, I will use alts or outsource my work to trusted compatriots within the newly formed E7, of which I am the leader.
Thank you all for being such a great player base to engage with (even the gankers and pirates, I respect your hustle even from out here in High Sec). I look forward to playing this game even more once people have figured out who I am and the enormous target that will place on me both in space and the market.
Be glad that I approach the world through the lens of a scientist and a creator. If I were destructive, I’d have already ruined this game for anyone who uses the market for months, possibly even years to come, but I’m actually a really nice guy in person.
I’m told there’s an economist professor on staff, but if so they’ve been asleep at the wheel during specific times that if I were in charge, I would have been monitoring every single transaction happening live and studying trends looking for someone like me. Maybe they’ll have spent some money on safeguards before Operation Meltdown.
But the truth is I don’t think they have ever even conceived of the absurdity that is Operation Meltdown. Like, why would anyone ever do anything so insane? Who would even bother to price out such a monumental economic effort, then what would you do with what you have? Anyone who would look at what I’m going to do would only see a giant economic loss. I’ll answer the first question I posed, and it’s the same reasons most people do anything: money and power. And what I’m going to do with it I’ll make public immediately after Operation Meltdown, so you can all judge the results of my work, since by then it’s going to involve the entire community, and I know that a lot of people are going to lose their ■■■■, if you’ll forgive that expletive.
Like these operations I pulled leading up to today’s post, Operation Meltdown will hurt those with the most to lose and leave NewBros and Alphas largely untouched, possibly even in a better place.
If you contact me directly in game with my main account trying to buy any of my stock, or asking me my methodology or for help, I’m going to ignore you and black list you and your corp from all of my potential sales. I have my targets picked out to sell to because I prefer to sell to people I like and respect, but if you think you can offer me a deal I can’t refuse, comment in this thread with your corp name (or personal name if you really think you can afford and turn a profit on what I have at my prices) on your bid. If I’m interested, I’ll make direct contact with you in game from my main account and negotiations will begin.
I’ve already got plenty of great friends in the game. But political contacts can always be of use, assuming they have influence in any of the spheres I value…
I believe I have moved on from NewBro to MarketBro. Maybe I should start another YouTube channel about this. I could do way more damage than Elon Musk ever does and there’s no FEC to take away my companies. Truly, Eve is a golden land of freedom!
o7 from the E7
“Looking at the earth from above you realize that it’s too big for conflict and just big enough for cooperation.” - Yuri Gagarin
p.s. Incidentally, I’m still negotiating for an enormous number of red/black male/female outfits top, pants, hat, and combat suit with no logo. Good looking, I’ve got enough to outfit most corps in the game with one for each toon. One person I’ve been talking to is trying to tell me that there’s not another Corp in Eve who can afford my ask, but I actually know how much money is in Eve which means I know there are many corps who could meet my asking price and probably at least one that would like to corner the market on a uniform for their corp. If anyone knows such a corp, maybe send them my way.
p.p.s. The experimental potential of this market for real world theories is endless… why CCP is not funding a group of grad students to publish papers on this game’s economy every six months I don’t understand, the cheap permanent advertising that would generate for such a low buy in… seriously, I know people, you give me a grant total I’ll have grad students and a chair of a department coming to you with a proposal within a week of that contact from a top ten economics department. A group of graduate students monitoring the market would have caught me, and could have made me eat my entire investment if they chose to. If you need to justify such a year’s expenditure, just think of them as your market security and regulators. I love your market, but it’s not in a healthy place right now. Also, I can’t help but notice a lot of people talking about how odd the Plex market is acting right now…