EVE Online: The Economics of EVE

Dr. Eyjo Gudmundsson, the economist hired by CCP to oversee economic activities in EVE Online has penned his first developer blog, detailing the evolution of EVE's minerals market.

Introduction

This is the first Econ Dev blog on the economics of EVE. We are heading into unknown territory since there exists no standardized measures on how to describe and analyze an online universe, or if indeed there is a need to have new tools to describe virtual reality. Trade and industrial activities are an important part of EVE and therefore descriptive analysis of trend in quantity traded, price fluctuations and regional differences are always of interest to those participating in that business. In order to fulfill the expectations of pilots we need your comments on this dev blog and which parts are most interesting. Selected sections of this dev blog could be updated on a regular basis if the demand is there.

Minerals are the basis of everything in EVE. Most things built in EVE require one or more minerals; some easy to get, others not so much. Minerals provide income for professional miners and newbies alike and no war can be won without having a good supply with which to build and equip an armada. The constant demand for minerals makes the market one of the most effective in the EVE Universe with huge volumes and thousands of trades on a daily basis. That is why examining the mineral market in some depth has been chosen as the topic for the first Econ Dev Blog (EDB).

Historical overview

When referring to the mineral market we refer to all trade of minerals through the market system of EVE Online. This does not take into account trade through the contract system or direct transactions between pilots. On all commodities market throughout history only a fraction of the traded volume actually goes through central auction markets. The majority of trade in commodities and other goods is most often a transaction between two entities but the price is based on the price at the open exchange.

Read the full dev blog here.