EVE Online's Space Economy Currently Worth $18 Million 88
DavidGilbert99 writes: "According to Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, the lead economist of CCP Games, developer of EVE Online, the total amount of ISK (InterStellar Kredits) in the system at the moment is 600 trillion, which equates to about $18 million in real world money — and the economist believes we could learn a lot from how the economy works in the game. There was a massive battle within the game earlier this year, which CCP estimated destroyed between $300,000 and $330,000 worth of game materials. Guðmundsson said, 'In economics there is a big difference between consumption and loss. In EVE, the war is the consumption of the economy. Even though they are giving money away they are not losing value, they are gaining something instead. People were willing to spend that money [in the Battle of B-R5RB] to get this thrill of participating in this battle.'"
Re:Second Life anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Not really a fair comparison. EVE is a 'real world' money sink. Money goes in and never comes out (for the players.) Second Life is completely different, money is exchangeable for real world currencies, much like any other real currency. If you buy USD$20 worth of Linden Dollars, you can turn around and sell those Linden Dollars right back for USD$20. EVE's ISK stays in game and in fact its highly against CCP's rules for any exchange of ingame goods/currency for real world money.