Officially Sanctioned RMT

A recent article on The Nosy Gamer got me thinking again about something I've often wondered about in the past.

What would happen if an MMO allowed players to sell in game currency (or other in game assets) for real money?

For example imagine an officially sanctioned auction/market type system, monitored and policed by the game company where players can buy and sell in game currency for real money.

The game company would act as banker taking a percentage of the real money proceeds off every sale and players would have a legal (legal isn't quite the right word but it's close), much safer and more secure option to make some real life money playing a game.

Of course the bots and boxers would be all over something like that, but that really isn't very different than how it is now.

One thing that would need to change is the game company would have to start making real efforts to find and stop cheaters instead of just going through the motions and pretending they care about it. They'd have to become much quicker at catching cheaters and be far more effective (probably ruthless too) in dealing with them.

Jita PLEX Sales

This is to show that despite claims to the contrary by a very confused troll, I actually do make ISK buying and selling PLEX. Even in this downward trending market.

In fact I sort of specialize in working downward trending markets, that's where I make many of my largest overall profits. In several of my very best markets I'll even intentionally push the price down, buy in bulk while the price is low, hold stock until the price goes back up and then sell for nice profits.

The following is a screenshot of my most recent PLEX transactions in The Forge region only. For PLEX purchases in The Forge I use full regional range buy orders placed on Jita.

Only transactions in The Forge are shown here. I choose to use The Forge because it has by far the largest sales volume of any region and usually the tightest margins too.

I'm not going to say exactly how much of a spread I need for it be profitable for me (no sense giving my competitors too much intel) but I will say it's closer to 10 million ISK than it is to 18 million (roughly what I'd need to break even with maxed skills and 0 standings).

Transactions aren't FIFO (First In First Out) either. They don't necessarily sell in the same order they were bought in so comparing buy and sell price to each other in order doesn't always work, especially not when the buy and sell orders aren't even in the same region.

I do however usually resell PLEX within 24 hours and usually in the same region they were bought in. Comparing what I paid for PLEX one week to what I sold PLEX for a week later really doesn't mean much.

When I do transport PLEX to another region it's because I have more stock than I can move quickly in one region, little or no stock in the other and sell prices are higher in the region with low/no stock.

But for this screenshot the PLEX were all in the same region and I didn't transport any large numbers of PLEX in or out of The Forge so considering these buy and sell orders to be in FIFO order does give a fairly accurate indication of profitability.

Doing so, one can see there are exactly 4 bought on the 23rd and sold on the 24th that are cutting the margin pretty thin. With a spread of just 10.9 mil those transactions would represent about a 7 mil loss with 0 standings and about 1.3 mil profit with perfect standings.

The rest of the transactions were all more profitable than those 4, most of the other transactions would have been profitable even with 0 standings.

Why did I cut the screenshot off at 14:21 on the 19th and not go back even further?

Simple, not to hide anything, it's just because that's all that would fit in one screenshot.

Moderated Comments

I don't really like having moderated comments. However a certain obnoxious troll who is obsessed with me has made things unpleasant here lately.

As a result this blog is once again moderated only with a whitelist now.

That means regular posters making intelligent sane comments will be put on a list enabling their comments to bypass moderation and be published without delay.

Unfortunately it also means new readers will experience some delay before their comments can be published and anonymous comments cannot be made at all.

New Year's Eve PLEX

Some recent sales data I should have put in the last post showing not only is the price of PLEX still going down but PLEX can be bought for quite a bit less than Eve's modified market "history" would have us believe.

The subtle pun in the title was not intentional, it just happened.

And here are the rest of my PLEX transactions on the 29th as mentioned in comments below. None of these transactions are listed in the screenshot above, they are in addition to the ones in the first shot.

In case anyone is wondering why I referred to a comment below as a troll, this is why.

https://disqus.com/by/disqus_nmqcSixYqa/

And before he deletes that Disqus account, heres a screenshot of his comment history.

Exactly 2 comments, both very recent, both in reply to me, one here and one on another blog. How nice, my biggest, craziest fan is following me around to other blogs now.

Happy New Year!

T'was the day before New Years and PLEX prices were falling...

PLEX prices are still dropping with today's Jita prices at 787 million in sell orders and 777 million in buy orders. That's only a 10 million ISK spread, less than the minimum possible combined taxes + broker fees to buy and sell one PLEX at those prices, which is an indication of a market still trending downwards.

Some others insist it's just a temporary effect caused by a bursting bubble, Christsmas PLEX sales or the recent influx of new players on trail accounts and prices will soon go back up again.

I disagree, I fully expect the downward to trend to continue. If the existing trend continues at the same rate PLEX will be selling for around 650 million each in another month.

But nobody knows for sure what's going to happen next, we're all just going to have to wait and see.

Starting tomorrow (Jan 1st, New Year's Day) the new multi-boxing input policy goes into effect and that's the main factor behind the drop in PLEX prices since around Nov 24.

Depending on how various holders of PLEX stockpiles react, the price might just continue going down slowly until it eventually stabilizes at a new lower level or it could crash hard.

If CCP isn't very strict about enforcing the new policy  prices will start going back up again before long. The multi-boxers certainly will test how effective CCP is in enforcing it.

Have a Happy New Year!

Immortal Bot

The Malma bot is still there, undercutting within seconds or minutes like always. Today I logged in and immediately updated a buy order for PLEX. 30 seconds later the bot had cut my order again.

Yeah, yeah I know, his defenders are going to swear it's just a coincidence. He just happened to be online updating orders when I logged in. For the umpteenth consecutive time over the last several months since I've been watching him more closely and much longer than that before I started paying closer attention to market bot activity in Genesis.

Reporting him for botting once didn't do anything so I started reporting him about once a week for a while.

That didn't work either, CCP remained blissfully oblivious to the most blatantly obvious bot I've ever run across in Eve. So I started reporting him once per day when possible and of course always waiting for him to cut me first (usually within 1-2 minutes).

That didn't do anything either (what does it take for CCP to wake up and ban a bot?), so the last few days I've just been reporting him every time he cuts even if it means multiple reports just 5 minutes apart on the same day.

That probably won't help either, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it gets *ME a warning. But WTH, maybe eventually someone at CCP who actually gives a damn about stopping even just the most blatantly obvious cheaters will finally notice and do something about it.

I also noticed something in buy orders today. Notice the name below?

It's not the bot character, nor is it in the same corps as the bot but the first name is the same as a blog troll who repeatedly spammed aggressive, argumentative, abusive and overly defensive comments here insisting ad nauseam the bot is not a bot.

It seems likely Belgarion the troll is Belgarion the Genesis resident. I have to wonder whether or not he's connected to the bot in any way. Is he an alt, friend, family, business partner or w/e or is he just some random player who reads my blog and for some reason thought I was talking about him?

Addendum: So the next day I log in and to my amazement the bot is not online. But not for long, within 3 minute he's online and already starting to cut the orders I've updated. In my WoW days when a bot started doing that it usually meant he was starting to feel pressure and beginning to worry about getting caught so he started logging off whenever his competitors weren't online to make it seem like he isn't botting. Monitor the market from another character with known competitors watchlisted, if a watchlist competitor logins it either automatically logs the bot in to start cutting or sets off an audible alarm alerting the botter to login manually.

The most obsessive botters are often no-lifers making a fulltime job of botting. They run literal armies of bots on dozens or even hundreds of accounts. Those guys are usually nearby monitoring the bots and ready to respond to alarms within a few minutes 16+ hours a day. Log the correct character in, turn on the bot and walk away laughing about how "smart" they are.

A bit later (more than 5 minutes) I cut again. It only took him 16 seconds to cut me again.

Ten minutes after that it only took him 10 seconds to respond. He'll keep that up all day long until I log off. Even if I go afk for hours without logging out, he'll be there waiting with machine like patience to immediately respond whenever I modify an order.

Anyone who thinks that isn't a bot is dreaming... Or bots themselves.

It doesn't matter what time of the day, night, week, month or year it is. No matter when it is or how long it's been since the last time he'll cut within a few minutes at the most.

Christmas PLEX - part II

Just a little addition to what's happening in the PLEX market over the holidays. It's not quite Christmas yet, but here's a screenshot of prices in Dodixie as of right now.

Dodixie is one of the major hubs, the 3rd largest in fact. PLEX there right now are about 810 million each in sell orders and only 771 million each in buy orders. Prices are down around the same levels in many other regions too.

And here's a screenshot of the PLEX I've bought over just the last few days.

That's 41 more PLEX, nearly doubling my existing stock. If prices continue falling, I'll burn 100+ on subscriptions and wind up with all 12 of my accounts subbed for at least a full year.

Note those purchases were all guard orders priced well under the then going price of 1-3 weeks ago and for the most part just left to sit without modification until they got filled. The orders were in many different regions, most of them were for either 2 or 5 and have been completely filled.

Of course the real market rush is going to start on Christmas Day and probably last for 2-3 days. Then on Jan 1 we'll start seeing the effects of the new multi-boxing policy.

Things are about to get very interesting.