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Latest EVE Quarterly Economic Newsletter highlights Tyrannis insurance changes

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, MMO industry

EVE Online is a game with complex economic activity that often mirrors real-world economic systems. The similarity is so pronounced that CCP even hired its own Lead Economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, to examine the in-game markets in detail. Each quarter, the economist and his team of researchers publish the EVE Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN). The report provides a timeline of market indices and major economic changes over the past several months. This quarter's report focuses on the effect of the insurance changes that came with the Tyrannis expansion. It also has a special segment on ISK sinks and faucets, and their changes following the release of planetary interaction.

New EVE Quarterly Economic Newsletter talks wormholes and tech 3

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, MMO industry

Four times per year, CCP Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson and his team of researchers publish the Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN). In addition to providing trackable statistics on EVE Online's in-game market, each issue focuses heavily on analysing one particular topic. This quarter's report focuses on wormhole systems and the state of the tech 3 market. Updated player demographics show more and more players entering wormhole space, with a drop in the number of characters in high-security space. Statistics for the number of jumps in wormhole space over the past year show a similar trend of growing activity.

This QEN provides some enlightening graphs on the popularity of various tech 3 offensive subsystems and how tech 3 material costs have changed in EVE over the past year. Perhaps most illuminating is the sharp rise in the use of tech 3 strategic cruisers in locations that put them at risk. While the majority are being flown in mission hubs and market systems, over 35% were found outside the safety of high-security space. In addition to this quarter's focus on wormholes, the report contains the usual graphs tracking in-game prices, trade volumes, ships in use and other useful metrics.

Latest EVE Quarterly Economic Newsletter shows effect of Hulkageddon

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, MMO industry

EVE Online is a game that's often lauded for its sandbox style and realistic economic structures. Every quarter, CCP Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson and his team of researchers wade through mountains of EVE usage logs to find some interesting economic statistics. In their Quarterly Economic Newsletters (QEN), CCP deliver graphs tracking in-game prices, trade volumes, ships in use and a whole host of other useful metrics.

Read on for an overview of this QEN's main highlights.

EVE's Quarterly Economic Newsletter focuses on impact of anti-RMT operation

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, MMO industry


One of the strengths of the sandbox game EVE Online is its player-driven economy, which developer CCP Games monitors through a small team of researchers headed up by Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (aka CCP Dr.EyjoG). They observe all manner of player interactions and sift through a tremendous amount of data to track how EVE Online's economy changes over time. Their findings are presented to the playerbase (or to anyone curious about virtual economies) in the form of Quarterly Economic Newsletters (QEN). CCP released the 3rd Quarter 2009 report this week, which gives us a look at player demographics and the most popular ships flown by those players. (It's interesting to note that the most popular ship in the game is now the Hulk, a mining vessel which has usurped the Raven battleship as EVE's most flown ship, while Black Ops battleships are EVE's least flown ships.)

This latest QEN also gives various price indices and Market Snapshots, which chart the volumes of a number of popular items traded on the open market. CCP also shows the impact "Operation: Unholy Rage" -- their anti-RMT initiative -- has had on EVE Online's economy with over 18,000 (paying) accounts banned to date. Dr.EyjoG writes, "Unholy Rage taught us a great deal about RMT operations in EVE. We now have a much clearer picture of the extent of operations and the tools and methods they use."

EVE quarterly economic newsletter highlights various facets of player activity

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, MMO industry, Crafting


With all the info about the DUST 514 console MMO set in the EVE Online universe, and player-run banks in the game mirroring the financial meltdowns we read about in real world headlines, we didn't have much time to look over something that's quite unique to the game. EVE's developer CCP Games releases "Quarterly Economic Newsletters" (QEN) which show the various ways in which player actions affect the game universe, given its player-driven economy. The QEN for the second quarter of 2009 has been released and gives us a snapshot of player activity in EVE's single-shard world.

When you PvP in EVE, someone's going to win while other ships are obliterated. Someone manufactured the ship, modules, and ammunition you used to take down your opponents, likewise the ships and modules you destroyed were also created by other player characters somewhere in the New Eden galaxy -- players who have mined and refined, bought and sold materials needed to build the various items put to use by EVE's pilots every day.

Quarterly Economic Newsletter for EVE Online released

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Forums, MMO industry, Crafting, Professions, PvP, News items, PvE


EVE Online is unique among MMOs in that its economy is so complex and dynamic that CCP Games hired an economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, to keep track of how the market evolves. One would imagine this is no easy task, with an overall trade value of all EVE markets ranging between 2 and 2.5 trillion isk per day. Lead Economist CCP Dr. EyjoG released a Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN) for EVE Online today, which is 18 pages full of data which should keep EVE's market and industry-oriented players happy (and hopefully make up for the delayed QEN, which Dr. EyjoG addresses in his announcement).

The Q1 2008 QEN kicks off with an editorial, and here are some brief highlights of what follows:
  • Demographics (number of accounts, most and least populated regions)
  • Price Level Changes (Mineral prices, Primary Producer Price Index, Secondary Producer Price Index, and Consumer Price Index)
  • Mining ship production and losses (with the venerable "Hulk" exhumer losses accounting for a staggering 6 trillion isk in destroyed property in Q1 2008)
  • Market Snapshots
  • Five years of EVE Market history
If you're interested in reading the Q1 2008 economic newsletter, you'll find the download link to the PDF in Dr. EyjoG's dev blog. A discussion of his findings is already underway on the EVE forums.

CCP Games video interview on the Council of Stellar Management

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, Economy, Events, real-world, Interviews, MMO industry, News items


MMORPG.com's video scoop from the Leipzig Games Convention wasn't limited to info on EVE Online's upcoming expansions. They also got some face time with Lead Economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson of CCP Games, who discusses some of CCP's projects and initiatives, namely the Council of Stellar Management (CSM).

Dr. Eyjólfur shares his point of view on the process of having players interact with the developers on affecting the development pipeline. He also addresses the poor voter turnout in the CSM election, which was not surprising given the general apathy many people have about real-life elections, he comments. The interview largely focuses on Dr. Eyjólfur's experiences with the CSM, but given his role in the company, he also mentioned the economic impact of factional warfare on the market in EVE. More information on this aspect of EVE should be covered in one of his forthcoming Quarterly Economic Newsletters, he says. Be sure to see the video at MMORPG.com if you're interested in seeing more about the Council of Stellar Management and the economics of EVE Online.

CCP releases EVE QEN, says 250k subs by Q2, and plans Gross User Product report

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, PvP, Making money, PvE


CCP has released their Quarterly Economic Newsletter for the 4th quarter of last year in EVE Online, and the word is "growth." They saw big increases in trade volume and value all over the place on the market. Which isn't surprising, considering how much their population surged late last year, thanks in large part to the well-received Trinity expansion. And the growth isn't done -- CCP expects to see 250,000 subscribers by the end of Q2 2008.

There are lots of great numbers in here -- apparently only 9% of players are out in low sec space (much lower than I'd thought). Jita is still a madhouse (no duh -- you'll already know that if you've ever tried to go in there on a weekend). Finally, they've introduced a new tracking variable, called Gross User Product, that is the value of all services and goods produced in a period of time, minus the amount of goods and services consumed. In other words, a GDP, but for a virtual world. They don't have a figure yet (because it has to be tracked over a period of time), but the next QEN should have some even more interesting information on how we might track virtual economies in MMO games.

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