Let’s say you play the part of the game that you enjoy. You play every day for 1-x hours. What would you consider to be a “good daily income” (ISK)?
Plex Price (whatever it is at the moment)/30 ?
(right now that would be around 50M a day).
Less?
Or more?
I am not talking about afk multiboxers mining in Rorquals, or elite PvP-ers ganking a titan. But about newbros playing the game and enjoying it?
Is this with or without effort?
Last I checked gaming was about fun, an escape, not “work”, though I imagine in the near future it will become that.
A good income would match my expenses in-game, leaving me with a net positive, albeit near-zero daily increment.
This is very relative to your needs- but I’ve always considered, if you can consistently earn the cost of your ship in under 2 hours, that is a pretty good income.
Just as in real life you have to weight expenses too.
Say you make 1bil. Sounds good. (And it is)
If you live and play mainly in hisec you’re doing very well.
But if you live and play deep in one of the nullsec blocks you’re middle class/upper middle class at best.
As a RL comparison, someone who lives and works their career in the heart of a major city like New York or LA probably makes an extremely good income. But the cost to live in a place like NYC or LA is astronomical (not to mention the taxes, but that’s a side point not really part of the game) so they really don’t have that much economic advantage as you might think on first glance.
Could you elaborate on that?
If you live deep in null it’s not like you can just pop over to Jita or Amarr or Dodix etc when you need something. (not easily/safely at least whenever you want) You have to either make it all yourself (and either find or buy the materials to make it), or pay for a service to haul it down from hisec for you, or buy it locally at much inflated prices for the same reason.
Fun is far more important than isk. People should play to find fun for themselves not grind to PLEX their accounts so they can grind again. As said, what your needs are dictate your needed isk. There are many people who enjoy flying cheaper ships and have fun, there are people who fly blingy ships and have fun - fun should be the goal not stacking a virtual game currency.
Players easily fall into the trap of trying to grind up to pay for their accounts with ingame currency because that is possible in this game…but just pay for a subscription and use your time to learn the game and see what you might like in the game. The isk will come when you learn how the game world operates.
A “good” daily income is if you enjoyed your gaming that day.
Honestly unless you’re buying really bulky stuff that no one makes shipping isn’t that bad. Jita → R1O shipping is around 700 ISK/m3 + 1% collateral. Like you don’t want to be shipping P1 planetary materials at those rates but it won’t bankrupt you to ship a HAC hull.
You don’t need a daily income, EvE isn’t a job. There is rarely something in EvE which you can’t make pay. Even PvP losses can be mitigated by loot from the wins, or combining it with PvE/exploration. If you are in a big null alliance you get SRP.
My recommendation, look for opportunities to make some quick bucks (market, and events are always good for this), and else figure out what you like to do, and then think about how you can monetize it.
Alright, I have to give this long preamble because otherwise people will get mad at me for leading your astray. So, let me be clear, I am by no means advocating that you allow the pursuit of money to suck the fun out of eve. Instead, I’m trying to say that, if you’re going to isk grind, you should make sure that you’re not toiling away for garbage money.
So, yes, you should prioritize having fun -whatever that means for you. Some people hate isk grinding, and try to avoid it as much as possible. If you fit into this category, you should probably do the same. For others, “the grind” is what they enjoy. They enjoy mining, fc’ing incursion fleets, multiboxing the abyss, or whatnot. So, for them, there is nothing wrong with spending your play sessions doing such things. For others still, they might like a certain amount of grinding, but find doing too much of it to be draining. So, the key here is to figure out what is fun for you, and not to overdo it because you think you have to (you don’t). Moreover, don’t let anyone else tell you that you’re playing the game wrong, if the way you’re playing brings you enjoyment.
Second, don’t turn eve into a job (unless you enjoy treating it like a job). Many people think they need a lot of money to PvP or to be competitive -you don’t. Don’t get me wrong, having more money does provide an advantage, but it is not a prerequisite for fun or for winning fights. So, don’t burn yourself out chasing money you don’t actually need.
Third, if you are the type of person that hates isk grinding, and want to do as little of it as possible, you should either (1) try to make money through PvP or (2) raise your isk efficiency to a respectable level in order to minimize your grinding. In other words, don’t waste your time toiling away for garbage money. Others might disagree with me, but I’m of the opinion that if you make less that 100mil isk/hour, you’re making garbage money, and should be actively working towards improving your isk efficiency. I mean, there are just way too many ways that you can make 100mil+ isk/hour without too much risk, investment, or effort. So, to me, that’s like the floor.
Whether or not you want actively work towards making more than that is up to you, and will depend on a zillion different factors such as your spending habits, your tolerance for grinding, and whether your prefer a greater isk efficiency or less effort/attention. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try to shoot for around the 250mil isk/hr range. It’s not terribly difficult to achieve, and that kind of money makes life easy (i.e. it would only take 5-6 hours to plex your account, and it makes subcaps quite affordable).
So, in order to answer your question, I consider 100-250mil isk an hour to be a “good” income.
Hopefully, I answered your question (and that all made sense).
Probably what they actually enjoy is watching netflix and chatting while mining instead of mining itself. 
Sweeping a belt is kinda satisfying, just like sorting a deck of cards. It’s no great income in Highsec, though. No Risk, no ISK.
I guess there are some exceptions but not finding it likely they are the majority, though maybe am too limited by my own perception of this (imo) boring activity. After all tastes differ so whatever playstyle floats one’s internet spaceships the more power to them doing their thing and having fun.
There are people who enjoy playing driving simulators like bus / truck / train / whatever ones. I think I even read a guy who is a real-life truck driver and still finds a truck simulator satisfying to play. Myself would see aircraft simulators (even commercial aviation ones) as something of a unique experience and fun to play though am more into space combat sims instead but not finding the appeal in the land based ones. Of course this all comes down to personal preference so whatever is fun for one they should play that and have fun doing so.
It seems @Aiko_Danuja is not doing a good enough job. 
There’s some microing with two or more chars and a survey scanner, so it’s not just a boring waiting session. Optimizing logistics (transport, storage, yield, percentage of yield if the roid is in the last circle) is also part of the computer game.
From time to time I like it.
Oh I see, was more in the thought process of as a solo activity in a fleet rather than multiboxing. Sounds like transport tycoon deluxe or other such transportation managers. Also nowadays those factory chain simulators like Factorio are popular as well those are also similar to the activity you describe. So I can see the appeal more in such a case though personally I rather play one of the aforementioned dedicated games rather than do it in EVE, same goes for PI, I rather play a dedicated industry manager game or business sim or something like that than do it in EVE. Of course just my personal preference.
Jumping in with everyone else here saying “income isn’t the point”. More income feels like “progress” but actually isn’t.
Income is a means to an end. Far too many players focus on income, build up hundreds of millions of ISK or hundreds of billions or whatever, and then quit the game in boredom because they’re not doing anything interesting with that ISK.
ISK needs vary by activity. People look at EVE and go “oh yeah I need 100 billion ISK so I can fly Supercarriers because Supers are super!”. But actually you might find it way more interesting to fly cheap frigates around Faction Warfare and engage in every fight you see, whether it’s a win or a loss. It doesn’t take much ISK (relatively) to afford a near-endless supply of cheap combat frigs.
So find what you enjoy doing, don’t worry too much about the ‘risk’. Find what’s fun or interesting or rewarding for you as an activity in itself, figure out how much it costs to do so, and then figure out how to make that much ISK without interfering with your favorite activity too much.
Back when I was a newbie (about 1 yr old and living in low sec) I was hunting explorers a lot (I still do!) and running exploration sites (both combat and hacking).
I considered a good day to be a day when I:
It’s a form of sustainable farming, take 100m out of the economy but also put 100m back into the economy.
I agree with Xu, eve is a game not a work
So fun and enjoyable was the top priority in eve.
I never care how much i earned doing something as long as i have spare isk in my wallet. If its depleted and reaching zero then i do explor to fill the wallet again, rinse and repeat.