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United States43468 Posts
On May 24 2013 05:34 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2013 05:18 KwarK wrote:
Having ruled out the economic argument for PLEX sales as a means to increase overall profit (based on these arbitrary numbers at least) What? If PLEX sales didn't increase their absolute real-money profit, as analyzed by their real numbers, they wouldn't offer them over and over again. There's exactly zero chance that they offer sales on PLEX to have an impact on the in-game market. They're doing it because PLEX are one of their ways of getting paid (real world) money by their player community. Stabilizing the in-game market is a secondary player experience concern that's a lot lower on their priority list than taking in money from customers who wish to pay them for things.
I disagree. There is a clear pattern between PLEX prices and when PLEX sales happen. When the fw PLEX spike happened CCP ran sales every 3 days for over a month until the price dropped 100m. That was about the same time that they directly intervened by selling PLEX on the market. There is no shortage of evidence that CCP actively try to control the PLEX price.
Furthermore making a loss on the PLEX sale compared to not running the PLEX sale doesn't mean that the loss isn't outweighed by the benefits of controlling the PLEX price such as rewarding multiboxing and character trading. In game PLEX prices impact CCP's bottom line too.
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On May 24 2013 05:39 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +Stabilizing the in-game market is a secondary player experience concern that's a lot lower on their priority list than taking in money from customers who wish to pay them for things. I disagree. There is a clear pattern between PLEX prices and when PLEX sales happen. When the fw PLEX spike happened CCP ran sales every 3 days for over a month until the price dropped 100m. That was about the same time that they directly intervened by selling PLEX on the market. There is no shortage of evidence that CCP actively try to control the PLEX price. Furthermore making a loss on the PLEX sale compared to not running the PLEX sale doesn't mean that the loss isn't outweighed by the benefits of controlling the PLEX price such as rewarding multiboxing and character trading. In game PLEX prices impact CCP's bottom line too.
I overstated it. It's certainly possible that their choices of when to run sales might be driven by such considerations.
I do think that they always will make a profit on each PLEX sold, even with a two-for-one deal, though. The lowest per-month price for game time is the 12-month prepaid rate, which is a little over $10, so their actual cost for a month of service is probably below that. An undiscounted single PLEX is $20. So, plenty of room for aggressive discounting before they actually lose money on a PLEX.
Whether there's an opportunity cost for such a sale we won't know without knowing their actual sales numbers in relation to the discounts offered. Good luck with that. 
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Hyrule19189 Posts
guys I do accounting stuff at work all day every day you are ruining my life
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On May 24 2013 05:49 tofucake wrote:
guys I do accounting stuff at work all day every day you are ruining my life
np, I have a feeling we're done.
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Hyrule19189 Posts
good I stopped reading a page ago because of the headache you gave me
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United States43468 Posts
You should solve this for us tofu.
Also 140 accounts with 50k SP on each adds up to 7m SP, not too shabby.
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Hyrule19189 Posts
I don't want to and you can't make me
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Also here's a trick question for you if you really want to bring legal stuff into this.
Let the purchase of the PLEX be an agreement, that in an unspecified point in the future, CCP will have to provide one month of game time, that is, one month of you being able to play the game. You sell the PLEX on the market to someone else. Then CCP goes boom. The person who bought the PLEX is sueing CCP for breach of contract.
You be the judge, cause I ain't solving that clusterfuck.
(Ok here are some hints, contracts have a relative working and a transaction on the ingame market doesn't have any terms and agreements that come with the transaction)
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On May 24 2013 06:08 Vipsanius wrote:
Also here's a trick question for you if you really want to bring legal stuff into this.
Let the purchase of the PLEX be an agreement, that in an unspecified point in the future, CCP will have to provide one month of game time, that is, one month of you being able to play the game. You sell the PLEX on the market to someone else. Then CCP goes boom. The person who bought the PLEX is sueing CCP for breach of contract.
You be the judge, cause I ain't solving that clusterfuck.
(Ok here are some hints, contracts have a relative working and a transaction on the ingame market doesn't have any terms and agreements that come with the transaction)
Obviously this guy didnt read the ToS as closely and clearly as I do.
Seriously, don't you guys read those things?
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On May 24 2013 05:25 Lysenko wrote:
The liability associated with PLEX is the cost to CCP of providing a month of service to a current or future player who redeems that PLEX. Paying in advance for services that are not yet rendered creates an accounting liability on the balance sheet (as well as an offsetting asset in the form of cash taken in.)
The reason they have to account for it this way is that as long as the PLEX exists, some customer, at some future point, will ultimately redeem that PLEX for services that cost CCP money. They're just not allowed to pretend that those services will cost them nothing to provide. Or, the PLEX can be destroyed in game, in which case they can just deduct that portion of the liability on their balance sheet and be done, since it can never be redeemed.
I think you're making a lot of assumptions that Occam's razor and practical business analysis would do away with. The existence of an in-game item owned by CCP does not in any way create a liability in a legal or accounting sense for them. Imagine they sold a separate kind of GTC that, when redeemed, gave the character it was used on a fancy hat. This is a service (USD --> hatGTC) that becomes an ingame item owned by CCP (hat) that is bound to a character (owned by CCP) on an account (mediated by CCP).
How is that different from adding gametime to a character? You can't equate the value of real time and game time even if they move at the same rate. You know what CCP's accounting looks like?
Costs:
-Employee pay
-Server management (includes aggregate of all gametime additions)
-Utilities
-Software Licenses
-Random Expenses
Income
-GTC (service rendered immediately)
-Subs (service rendered immediately)
Any other form of accounting they do is for their own personal benefit and not out of any obligation. I refuse to entertain that tracking each PLEX is somehow legally required of them. As soon as someone buys GTC, the service is provided immediately. If I buy GTC and convert it into PLEX 2 years after the fact, what effect does it have on the accounting above? None. It might screw with their projections, but it has no actual effect on how their books work.
On May 24 2013 05:26 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +I don't believe that CCP creates PLEX independent of a USD transaction. This creates too many conceptual problems and is potentially a route full of economic hazards. Is there a meaningful difference between offering people 1.25 PLEX per $20 and offering people 1 PLEX per $20 and independently creating .25 PLEX for themselves every time someone buys one?
No, there is no difference. I don't think we disagree on this point. Unless creation of PLEX is tied to USD transaction (i.e. PLEX created are proportional to PLEX bought) then the currency (ISK) is going to experience some weird shit, and it could compromise (in a practical sense) their business prospects. It makes more sense for them imo to use recovered assets to manipulate the price of PLEX rather than creating Y PLEX per X bought.
Utilizing recovered assets is basically just CCP acting as if they were the owner of the banned account. That account owner had the capability to manipulate the price of PLEX anyway. Creating PLEX directly devalues GTC and makes it more painful in a business sense to keep track of profit projections because the profit per GTC will have this additional parameter tacked onto it.
On May 24 2013 05:28 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2013 05:07 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
CCP could create 100,000 PLEX per day out of thin air without the need for complicated accounting. No. In most countries, creating tokens for future services out of thin air without creating a balance sheet liability would be a violation of accounting rules and probably treated as fraudulent if done intentionally (i.e. not because of a mistake or misunderstanding.)
Just so I'm crystal clear - PLEX is not a service token.
Also, on the matter of GTC sales, CCP 100% uses GTC sales to control the flow of PLEX. Lysenko is right that they make good profit from these sales, but that's just short-term profit. The value and value rate of PLEX is so essential to CCP's long-term survival as a business that they would forego a GTC sale in order to maintain the value and rate of PLEX if they thought it was where it should be. If this wasn't true, CCP would be a dead company right now.
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ToS is nullable because there isn't a download button at the page:
http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/eve-tos/
But lets take a closer look at it:
1. You may not abuse, harass or threaten another player or authorized representative of CCP, including customer service personnel and volunteers. This includes, but is not limited to: petitioning with false information in an attempt to gain from it or have someone else suffer from it; sending excessive e-mails, EVE-mails or petitions; obstructing CCP Employees from doing their jobs; refusal to follow the instructions of a CCP Employee; or implying favoritism by a CCP Employee.
Last one got kugutsumen banned, and half of it is regular law anyway.
2. You may not use any abusive, defamatory, ethnically or racially offensive, harassing, harmful, hateful, obscene, offensive, sexually explicit, threatening or vulgar language. (Alternate spelling or partial masking of such words will be reprimanded in the same manner as the actual use of such words.)
If this were strictly enforced almost all of the playerbase would be banned.
3. You may not organize nor be a member of any corporation or group within EVE Online that is based on or advocates any anti-ethnic, anti-gay, anti-religious, racist, sexist or other hate-mongering philosophies
They don't mention nationalsocialist, so I guess xxpizzaxx is safe.
4. You may not use “role-playing” as an excuse to violate these rules. While EVE Online is a persistent world, fantasy role-playing game, the claim of role-playing is not an acceptable defense for anti-social behavior. Role-playing is encouraged, but not at the expense of other player. You may not create or participate in a corporation or group that habitually violates this policy.
Implying I can use other excuses to violate these rules, but vOv, perhaps some people just don't get it.
going to skip some as they are completely retarded
7. You may not violate any local, state, national or international laws or regulations.
haha, so some law that is valid in some backwater territory in the united states I am not allowed to violate them even if that is legal in the Netherlands? thats beyond retarded
26. We reserve the right to ban any user from the game without refund or compensation.
This may be in a ToS, but may not hold before a court of law, because they limit compensation, and the judge can rule otherwise, i.e. a banned player has to be compensated.
The ToS is mostly common sense, and if you could actually download it it would be a legal binding agreement, except for number 26.
Also PLEX is not mentioned anywhere at all, and when buying plex there is no agreement. So the entire discussion about CCP having an obligation to players is totally useless, but a funny waste of time anyway.
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Lalalaland34500 Posts
This thread exploded and I was excited but then it was all really boring. 
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Hyrule19189 Posts
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Tofu start banning them I want a bodygif and funny killmails for causal forum browsing at work :>
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Hey at least I didn't quote the entire ToS. Anyway this boring talk can no longer keep me awake. You can discuss how TEST alliance is going to adapt and survive or die trying.
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nm, Tofu doesn't want to see it.
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United States43468 Posts
![[image loading]](http://cdn1.tmcdn.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline_stopgap/public/GnosisFit2.png?itok=Lclsg1Zm)
That mittani dot com man. What is stacking penalty? Seriously though, with tri (more like tryhard) links, 2 bcs, 2 nano, lowslot eccm, dcu, same mids and highs, triple extender rig could be pretty legit. Also has more than enough grid to do a 100mn AB with the align time to make it work. Definitely an interesting hull.
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On May 24 2013 06:56 Vipsanius wrote:
Hey at least I didn't quote the entire ToS. Anyway this boring talk can no longer keep me awake. You can discuss how TEST alliance is going to adapt and survive or die trying.
TEST won't die unless... DOTA
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United States43468 Posts
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When the hell did they add a new battlecruiser?
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EPT
