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Thoughts on Plex, accounts and RMT
Eleazaros
Member UncommonPosts: 206
I was looking at this stuff a bit recently and thought I'd drop this out here to see if others can check the logic I'm following on this to see if it fits.
First - "Everyone knows" CCP goes after RMT in the game - it's competition for Plex wich is legit.
Next - about half the accounts in EVE are alt accounts. For every one of us that plays 1 account, there's someone running more than 2 accounts.
Third - those buying GTC's to get plex to sell are not buying RMT. They're using the legitimate methods of getting isk in the game. I'll go with 2 plex per GTC, ignoring the longer GTC's for simplicity sake.
So let's work with some numbers a bit.
340,000 accounts. Half are alts to "real" players.
170,000 players, half of them supplying Plex to the other half.
85,000 players who buy plex so not "suspect" for buying isk via RMT.
So we have a baseline of 85,000 potential buyers of isk via RMT yet the bulk of these would be legitimate players and not RMT purchasers yet this is the number we'll use "baseline" for the rest of the post.
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You see it's the purchase side that bugs me. I hear all the time how RMT funds houses and computer systems, etc..
Who the hell is spending all that RL money and not getting busted for it? Also, how often are they spending that money?
Even using that 85k number of those who run multiple accounts, as all are coughing up $$$ to buy ISK to then buy plex, I really don't see a vast market that keeps hundreds of players making money each month and the real number is a fraction of this 85k.
If you assumed that every last multiple account holder is a customer, you're looking at no more than 425 "vendors" selling RMT and making $3000 us a month.
Reducing that down farther and it can support even less. I'd go with less than 1 in 10 multi-account holders being RMT customers, meaning no more than 43 people could come close to that $3000 a month level - every month...
Reason for the reduction: Most with multiple accounts via plex are too cheap to pay for their account so will grind time in EVE vs cough up the cash. It is a sub-set that would risk banning to buy isk from outside then buy plex with it to fund their account - a tiny fraction would try this knowing CCP's "hunt them" attitude and they nail some every month.
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Perhaps you can see why I'm looking at this. I hear all the time about vast numbers of players making their living through this game yet I'm coming up with less than 50 people who could make enough doing RMT.
Slightly different picture thus the reason for this post. Mind checking the above logic?
Comments
85 000 plex sold per month?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Im wondering how anyone can make a living since you cant make game time (plex) or Isk into Reallive cash.
players buy timecards , change them to plex, sell them for Isk the end. anything else (selling isk for money or selling plex for money) is a ilegal bussiness.
its a time -> timegame cash exchance nothing more. everyting goos into the game and nothing comes out of the game (unless done ilegal)
Ahhhhh yes you can. There is entire section on EVE Forums that is dedicated to people selling plexes to other players for cash.
Since Plex is pretty much a game time card there is no reason you can't sell it. CCP endources those types of sales and as a matter of fact made mutliple tools to make those types of transactions secure.
Please link one thread (or post) proving your statement that you can sell/buy for real life money in that forum.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
No, that forum is GTC's being bought for ISK. Bying the raw GTC (Game Time Code) vs buying the PLEX (Pilot License Extensions) that they are converted to.
For any "non-players" that may read this - Game Time Codes (GTC) are purchased for $$. You get a code that you can enter in the game which then lets you claim an in-game item called a PLEX (short for Pilot License EXtension) Which is a 1 month subscription.
The eve-online forums have an aread where you can sell GTC's for in-game currency (ISK) versus claiming the plex and selling them on the market. The "benefits" of this deal with how the PLEX is delivered.
IF you claim the PLEX from a GTC, it appears in the station YOUR character is at. You can move the plex to other stations to sell them but that isn't very bright being as your ship can be blown up carrying that plex.
As such, it can be more adventageous to buy a GTC and have the PLEX delivered to where the purchaser's char is at. Especially for a market trader in PLEX who can then begin to sell it on the market.
Yeah, looking at it all, I about crapped myself with the numbers but I keep running into mult-account alts. I know a good half dozen players with 4+ accounts and one guy has 12 he's been running for a year.
2 PLEX per GTC drops the quantity of buyers to half that yet look at how many players you'll bump into running alt accounts. FEW of those are paying for those accounts with $$ vs "PLEXing it".
That's a hell of a lot of plex that other players are buying and I don't see other players buying plex and NOT paying for an account with $$$.
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The part that gets to me though is the "sub 50 players". If you're looking at 85 000 players... that's a tiny fraction and, as you can see here, few find the idea of buying from a isk "gold seller" to be a viable option (IMO - nice to see).
As such, how the hell can people keep posting about all these players always RMT buying computers, paying for houses, so on and so forth by selling ISK to others in the game?
It doesn't add up yet persists... Kind of an urban legend gig. Few could do it and they do get busted.
I run three accounts right now. I pay $38 dollars each for a 3 month subscription to keep them going. I tried to support one of the accounts with PLEX but I just couldn't generate enough ISK. I play 2-3 hours every night but most of the time is spent losing ISK not making it. I'm probably going to drop back down to two accounts until I can get my class 4 operation running.
For reference I could probably make enough ISK to PLEX all my accounts with just PI alone in w-space if I was willing to devote 30-45 minutes a day to it.
Sorry for the dumb question, but are ISK called PLEX now? I haven't played in ages.
EDIT: Nvm....read the post above mine. Guess they're two different things.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
ISK = Inter Stellar Kredit (Currency)
PLEX = Pilots Licence Extension (Game Time)
I don't care.
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Played Eve for quite a long time and I must say that I have never come across a person making a living off of this game, not within the game rules at least. There is no section of the offical forums for selling items for real money. If people are selling ISK or PLEX for real money, I am pretty sure it is not endorsed by CCP.
I played eve since launch ( quit about a year back now ), But I ran most of the time 8-12 accounts buying and selling toons here and there. All of them were paid for by ganking or extortion of the isk farmers for me not to wipe them out every day so they could "work". I tried to report them left and right they just came right back to the same cans in space and similar names.
CCP allows botters 1-2 months before banning them to keep them wanting to sell in RMT, this is a fact. Allow them just enough time ot make a profit then ban the account so they make another and buy a new account. So instead of pissing with that corrupt system I forced them to rent my systems at a high price and required them to hand over any officer or faction loot as well. ( they did time to time try to hide stuff but I just scanned them down and made them hand it over).
Once I got bored with this I melted down all my assets and toons to a single account and sold well over 275b isk on the market to my friends and once they ran out of money to the websites via paypal. A few toons I sold out right for money, rest I sold for isk. At the end of playing for 5 years I netted $45-$55 usd per billion isk.
If you look at my time spent, in game playing over them years and figure it out it wasn't easy I was a hunter and stalker but it paid off. I never mined once, it was made by little ratting while baby-sitting my litle isk farmer buddies, ganking in 0.0 pipe lines and jita suicide popping for bp's.