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Friday, August 23, 2013

CCP's War On Bots: The Burn Continues

Last week I posted about the beginnings of an anti-RMT campaign in EVE Online that began on 30 July.  But perhaps I shouldn't call the effort a new campaign as much as a shift in methods.


Now CCP Peligro has started tweeting a bit himself.  On Wednesday he sent out these two tweets...



That led me to begin looking at the prices on the RMT sites again.  Wow!  In the past 48 hours the median price charged by the 12 ISK sellers on my watch list rose from $23.07/billion ISK to $25.50/billion ISK.  That number would be higher if I counted AvatarBank, Koala Credits and In Game Delivery as three separate websites.  But I count them as one as they are controlled by the same company.  If I look at the 14 web sites, 7 have raised prices since Sunday.  Of those 7, six raised prices after CCP Peligro's tweets.

What about my canaries in the coal mine: AvatarBank, Koala Credits and In Game Delivery?  Here are the changes I've recorded from Sunday to yesterday.  I'm stating Sunday since I didn't write down the prices on Wednesday...
  • Avatar Bank: $29.07/billion --> $34.29/billion
  • In Game Delivery: $24/billion --> $30/billion
  • Koala Credits: $24.48/billion --> $34.29/billion
I haven't updated my spreadsheet with the price when converting PLEX bought from CCP to ISK in Jita, but on 11 August the rate was $32.23/billion ISK.

Other factors are probably contributing to the rising prices.  The Odyssey changes to ice mining and null sec ratting are probably impacting the RMTers efforts to refill their wallets with ISK.  The political changes in null sec are probably playing a factor as well.  After all, the Goons just announced their plans to rent space.  That indecision probably affected supply as well.

I don't know how many more targets are out there, or whether CCP found something that makes targeting botters and RMT operations easier.  But I can say I'm enjoying the effects of Team Security's efforts.

7 comments:

  1. What's a plex sell for in game? isn't $34 dollars a bill what you can get with Plex? Why would anyone buy isk outside of CCP if it costs the same or more? Its dumb anyway cause of all the risk you put yourself in but its double dumb for extra risk with no extra reward.

    Go team security.

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    1. It means they have nothing to sell.

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    2. So you're taking those more-expensive-than-PLEX prices to mean that they basically want to temporarily exit the market due to lack of ISK? Interesting! That's definitely a success for the anti-RMT campaign if so!

      Delete
  2. What's to stop some large in-game group from buying plexes with ISK, then selling those plexes to people via E-BAY, or if it is a trusted individual within their alliance, a direct deal?

    I have a really hard time believing that the trillions of ISK that some of these groups are acquiring is used strictly for in-game purposes.

    Or perhaps, CCP looks the other way when it comes to certain groups they feel "generate too much content", and world press, for CCP to piss them off.

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    Replies
    1. I think what is going on here is that CCP are positioning themselves to be the kings of the RMT market themselves while pushing out the competition.

      But you're right. What's to stop me from selling compromising pictures of myself for PLEX? Surely that is some sort of RMT as well, but good luck for CCP to catch me in the act. Maybe I can make it easier and pay them off to look the other way... Give them a cut of the plex, then they get some money too.

      Delete
    2. PLEX is not money. It's game time.

      And that game time was *legally* bought from CCP. It's a very important distinction. Trading in PLEX (gametime) is legal (inside EVE). Buying ISK for $ is not.

      So if Funkybacon trades me nudes (god please don't!) for a PLEX, he's not cutting into CCP's profits as CCP already (legally) got paid, all Funky would be getting is a token worth game time (that he can trade in game for whatever else he likes).

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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