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Sci-Fi The Almighty Buck Games

EVE Online's Space Economy Currently Worth $18 Million 88

Posted by Soulskill from the where-can-i-go-to-invest-in-imaginary-spaceships dept.
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.'"
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EVE Online's Space Economy Currently Worth $18 Million More

EVE Online's Space Economy Currently Worth $18 Million

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  • Thrill over the idea at least (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @12:16AM (#46936521)

    People were willing to spend that money [in the Battle of B-R5RB] to get this thrill of participating in this battle.'"

    Well the thrill of the "idea" of participating. The actual battle wasn't much to look at or be a part of.

    • People were willing to spend that money [in the Battle of B-R5RB] to get this thrill of participating in this battle.'"

      Well the thrill of the "idea" of participating. The actual battle wasn't much to look at or be a part of.

      Any battle where supercaps explode is a thrill. death2allsupercaps

      • Re:Thrill over the idea at least (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @12:28AM (#46936569)

        Any battle where supercaps explode is a thrill. death2allsupercaps

        See "explode" conjures images of force violent and sudden -- when it happens in agnonizing slo-motion time dilation with high latency and framerates in the single digits the "explosion"...like the participation itself are more abstract ideas than visceral.

        • Any battle where supercaps explode is a thrill. death2allsupercaps

          See "explode" conjures images of force violent and sudden -- when it happens in agnonizing slo-motion time dilation with high latency and framerates in the single digits the "explosion"...like the participation itself are more abstract ideas than visceral.

          I shall correct myself then.

          Any battle where supercaps are removed from the game is a thrill. death2allsupercaps

          (Time dilation is WAAAAAAAY better than what existed (didn't exist?) previously, by the way.)

          • Re:Thrill over the idea at least (Score:5, Insightful)

            by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @01:39AM (#46936797)

            (Time dilation is WAAAAAAAY better than what existed (didn't exist?) previously, by the way.)

            Just as much as wiping your ass with your hand is waaaaaay better than not wiping it at all.
            Incurable optimists would say it's an improvement, realists would say it's still shitty (even literally, in my example above).

            Disclaimer: I play EVE Online.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Mashiki ( 184564 )

              Well it comes down to one of two things right? Either you get TD, or you don't get TD. And without it, you're in crash central with everyone who isn't crashing out getting a chance to pop you off and lewt your stuff hard. I personally prefer it now that TD works, and more or less works perfectly. Though I haven't played in almost 2 years, I was in a active corp before that for 3 years. I do miss it at times.

              I'm wondering what new stuff they've got down the pipe though. I did like the Prophecy fanfest [youtube.com]

              • Of course it comes down to choice, and I choose not to participate to large angagements. Not that anyone would miss me, since thousands of people flock there anyway.
                Small skirmishes which are fast-paced, with no TiDi and end within minutes are my thing.

        • Abstract ideas can be thrilling too.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by vux984 ( 928602 )

            I never said they couldn't be. I merely said that if playing Eve thrills you, its the abstract ideas doing it, because the actual game itself is tedious and boring, even in the middle of the biggest space battle in the history of the game.

            Nothing wrong with getting wrapped up in the excitement and tension of the Eve metagame -- but its unfortunate that anyone has to suffer with playing Eve to enjoy it. And really, when I last played it, or other games where all the real excitement is in the metagame... Trav

    • So in Eve the shopkeeper gets the thrill of having someone break his window so he can pay for the thrill of having it replaced? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Boronx ( 228853 )

        Yeah, except there's no window.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by delt0r ( 999393 )
        How do you measure utility in a video game? Fun? Tears? Rage? All of the above?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zynder ( 2773551 )
          I measure my enjoyment of a video game by the amount of broken mice and keyboards laying around my desk. Less is better of course. Reminds me, I need to buy a new Naga....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HnT ( 306652 )

      This is generally true for EVE as a whole. It has a fantastic game concept, it is a really great game and CCP is one of the few companies actually trying to sell new ideas. Actually playing the game can be extremely dull and much too real and serious for its own good and many actually cool things are happening outside the game with EVE being a platform for the results.

  • Second Life anyone? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Second Life has them beat, reporting a us$567 million economy [wikipedia.org] back in 2009.

    Love it or loathe it, virtual currency is already real and will eventually break into the mainstream. Whether it will be centrally regulated (ISK, Linden Dollars) or decentralized (BTC) remains to be seen. I suspect we shall always have both, as they each have their own advantages. Personally I hope we never lose tangible cash, but I suspect we'll see it at least start to fade within the next 100 years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )

      The bread market is likely even bigger.

      Currency or good?

    • Re:Second Life anyone? (Score:5, Informative)

      by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @01:00AM (#46936697) Homepage

      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.

      • "against CCP's rules for any exchange of ingame goods/currency for real world money"

        That's certainly true now, but it's changing. First of all (to anyone who doesn't know), you can buy subscription time with ingame currency at a supply/demand driven rate. That certainly gives the Eve currency at least some meaningful value.

        As of last week though, you can actually buy a collectors edition box with isk. CCP has stated they want to continue expanding uses for isk (in the form of PLEX, to any players who know t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

          Redoing your character graphics costs a PLEX.

          I didn't know that I'd be stuck with it, so when I started I modeled my character after a Pakled from ST:TNG ("We look for things, things to make us go.") ...

          • They added the Pakleds as an available PC race in STO in "Season 5" If I had one I'd make log entries like: "I went looking for upgrade equipment at HQ, equipment to make us go"

        • You can buy tickets to fanfest with PLEX too, that doesn't mean you can actually take your ISK and pay your rent with it.

          • It's EVE (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Somewhere out there is a Russian slumlord offering people a place to stay, as long as they mine veldspar six hours a day.

        • CCP has gone to great lengths to set up a system where players are welcomed to 'pay in' CASH to get in game money (the PLEX system basically.) Where they frown on and will throw you out of the game for is YOU circumventing their PLEX system to trade RL cash for ingame anything. As I said, it's a money sink, RL money only goes in, never comes out.

  • Yes, you can learn a lot from EVE, but does that mean that we should? I'm not sure if massive, destructive battles are something to strive for.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Even in EVE it isn't something to strive for. It's only epic when you read about it. If you've been in such a mess a few times you will want to avoid it the next time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The thing that I have taken away from EVE.

      The market are unregulated, in fact scamming and market manipulation is encouraged.
      Everyone on the market knows that the market can and will be manipulated.
      Everyone takes extra care when doing things on the market
      The market is extremely stable even compared to real world markets.

      I think the real world can learn from this.

  • It seems ridiculously small.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DingerX ( 847589 )
      I got from it that he was just referring to liquidity, not to the total value of assets.

    • Assets are probably easily 5x the value of isk, so it's no stretch to believe that the total value of the economy is $100M or more. However, the cash value of isk is strongly depressed by CCP and external (read: Chinese) factors, and $15 currently exchanges for 700M isk. I could liquidate my characters and assets for over $5,000, and I'm a medium sized fish at best.

    • According to Wikipedia, you've got 500k subscribers, or an average of $36 in assets per subscriber.

      For a game that sounds about right to me. What did you think people were making millions off this thing?

  • With full time dilation in effect, they're clicking once every half hour or so for their move right?

    Ooh. Thrilling.

    *Waggles a finger in the air*

  • ...says the human is wrong

  • I played it for a few hours and it was anything but thrilling . Maybe if your idea of thrilling is shopping for life insurance..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abies ( 607076 )

      I had the same thing with cave diving. I tried it - by driving towards closest diving site, but after 2 hours I gave up on the idea - how people can claim that sitting in traffic jam on the exit road for few hour is 'thrilling'.
      So, based on my experience with cave diving I announce it boring and not really dangerous, unless you are afraid of normal road traffic.
      And BTW, why do you need a scuba suit for that in first place?

  • Stupidest stat ever (Score:4, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @07:40AM (#46937995) Journal

    Economists can generate numbers however they want, but the true 'value' of something is what someone would actually pay for it.

    For example, if we 'value' someone's free time playing (ie the entertainment value) at $20/hour, then the purported 10,000 players in EVE are 'generating' at least $200,000 'value' per hour. To suggest that after 10 years of crafting, they've only created 90 'hours' worth of virtual durable goods (there's an oxymoron) would suggest that the EVE economy is staggeringly unproductive.

    As a famous economist opined: "Put 10 economists in a room and you'll probably get 12 opinions".

  • Factual Error in Article (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ISK is NOT created by mining or manufacturing. In fact manufacturing removes ISK from the game in the form of fees. Mining creates minerals, and manufacturing turns those into ships, etc., which players pay existing ISK to buy. But no new ISK is actually created by mining or manufacturing.

    ISK is created by running combat missions, killing NPC ships for bounties (ratting) and some infinitesimal amount is created buying and selling NPC trade goods between NPC stations. To my knowledge there is no other way to

    • ISK is created by running combat missions, killing NPC ships for bounties (ratting) and some infinitesimal amount is created buying and selling NPC trade goods between NPC stations.

      In other words, there is nothing economist can learn from EVE online for real world usage, is there?

    • What you say is true, but to throw a small wrench into that, even though mining and manufacturing don't create ISK, they do create value, increasing the value of every ISK in existence. Without that sort of thing happening, the value of ISK would not-so-gradually inflate into valuelessness.

      IANAE (I am not an economist)

  • >> equates to about $18 million in real world money

    Yessir, Eve Online is just a like a business - creating real value from spreadsheet jockeying since 2003!

  • So yes, money can go into EVE, as you can use real money to buy PLEX which you can then sell for ingame money (think it usually fluctuates between 400-600 million ISK per plex) but once that money is in the EVE economy, it doesn't come back out. The only way you can get money out is with RMT (Real Money Trading), which is against the rules in the game and involves selling ISK, ships, etc for real money. And even then the money coming out is not coming from inside the game economy, it is still an external

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