September 12th, 2007

EvE Online analyzed by expert economist

EvE Online is the kind of game where fortunes can be made overnight and lost just as fast, all part of a great player run economy based on offer and demand. CCP is the Icelandic company that developed the game and a few months back welcomed to its ranks Dr. Eyjo Gudmundsson, an analyst turned fan which was supposed to give better insight on both players and devs concerning the ingame economy. After some pondering on the subject and having access to a lot of confidential material from the EvE master server, our good doctor came up with his first report, explaining the root of some well known facts along with some surprise results and theories concerning the future.

The in world analysis was published last week and can be read in full on the official site. It seems the EvE Online population witnessed a steady growth since its four years ago launch, roughly 0.9% each week raising the number of active accounts to 190000. Tranquility is EvE Online unique server supporting the same world for each of its players, unlike other MMO models where you play on similar yet different realms. Strangely enough, there have always been an abundance of trial accounts active on the server and they’re capped to 40000. Gudmundsson says they do not actively influence the game’s ISK flow. I can add they’re being used mostly for piracy and experimentation by veteran players, along with the true blue first time EvE players.

Over the years the EvE Online population grew along with the demand for basic minerals, but character evolution and better tactical mining consistently lowered prices for pyerite and tritanium to half. That was until the New Eden patch when capital ships became available and the heavy demand ruled the marked into raising prices again. The brilliance of the EvE economy lies in its quality as a real world simulation. You can hire haulers to get your materials to a desired location and prices will vary according to the time and the risk degree involved. You can also bid and post auctions for everything starting from basic need to commodities impossible to get, making smuggling a viable choice of ingame profession.

Gudmundsson promised a second look on the facts at Econ Dev Blog in September and even an economical newsletter release until the November 2007 EvE Online fan fest. So if you’re planning to make a difference in the ISK flow and grab yourself a big profit in the process, you’d better listen to what he has to say: “Doing a wide scale comparison of prices in different regions, calculating implied travel costs and risk premiums for individual regions would be interesting for the professional trader who wishes to maximize his profits when margins are dropping. It will also be interesting to further examine exactly how the demand for capital ships affects the mineral market and to look into inventory numbers of minerals in order to see if traders are trying to manipulate the market by stockpiling and dumping minerals.”

If you haven’t played the game you can’t tell if this is a joke or not, but trust me when I say that EvE Online has one of the most developed economies in online gaming, many players being known for making a real life profit by selling ISK and running ingame corporations to their own agenda. It even went that far that two player-run banks were instituted, promising good revenues if one were to deposit his ISK surplus there for a while. Those initiatives looked good on paper and even functioned properly for a while, until months later when they both turned into equally great scams. In fact, the latest guy to try this one year ago was credited to have stolen ISK which could have been transformed into about 100000E. No, there is no extra zero in there. CCP developers didn’t ban the players since it wasn't an impairment of the EvE Online terms of agreement. After all, every second EvE player has dreams of ISK greatness and a plan to make it all happen, be it by mining, bounty hunting, trading or other alternative means. It’s a rough world out there and like in real life, EvE Online hosts ambiguous concepts of good and evil. You never know what lies beneath the surface. Maybe this is one of the reasons CCP decided to bring a professional aboard the team, to better control and police an economy they have little control of.