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In Isk We Trust: the EVE Online IskBank Exposed

Posted by Soulskill on from the massively-multiplayer-black-market dept.

riverni writes "Eve News 24 is running a couple of articles uncovering the lucrative 'black-market' existing in EVE Online, a sci-fi themed single-server MMORPG. The overall scale of the operation is breathtaking. While there exist legal ways to exchange real world currency for in-game currency, the black market, primarily driven by botters (users who utilize automated macros to perform rewardable tasks in game), remains strong. One article reports on how Iskbank.com made approximately $290,000 in sales during a 10.5-month period. These figures do not include any sales made through their sister site, Eveisk.ru and yes, those are US dollars."

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Currency conversion and a reference of the value. by feedayeen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    CCP's attempt to combat real world traders is called the PLEX system. You purchase a 30 day time card using $20 and you can sell it in game to other players for the equivalent of ~350,000,000 ISK (the in game currency). This produces a base exchange rate of about 17.5 million ISK to one USD. The black market does not directly deal in PLEX's, but it is safe to assume that the conversion ratio is at least as high, if not higher in order for it to be profitable for other players to take this route. Because of this, and the company's transactions of $290,000, it is safe to assume that the real world market trading has a value on the approximately of 5 trillion ISK. The second link reports that the company holds an estimated 4 trillion in virtual assets making the total value of this to be 9 trillion. Because the population in EVE is ~300,000 active accounts, this sums to be nearly 30 million ISK per user, the total wealth which based on their most recent economic reports (yes, CCP hired an economist to write these), shows the average subscriber has 300 million ISK. While this is not an insignificant sum of wealth, it is only about 10% of the games GDP.

  2. Re:Currency conversion and a reference of the valu by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just to give you all some idea.

    US$30 = 350,000.000 ISK.
    One battleship, unfit = 65,000,000 ISK
    One battleship, moderate kick-ass fit = 150,000,000 ISK.

    So it's roughly $15 to buy a battleship. Not the best around, but decent enough to be a potent weapon in a fleet.