We're moving ever closer to the contentious release of skill point
injectors, due with the February 9th release. Allow me to say how interesting I
find it that with the capital rebalance and citadels looming on the horizon,
the thing the community is focused on is these little options. And boy, what a
focus it has been.
I certainly see the source of everyone's
fears about the injectors, although I don't share them. While folks look at the
monetizing aspect of skill injectors, I tend not to look at it from that
perspective. After all, skill injectors don't allow players to earn anything
beyond what they can earn naturally over time. I've long been against the need
for newer players to spend upwards of two years being terrible at Eve while
they train up essential skills; I'd much rather that they be able to excel as
their player skills (not character skills) increase.
NoizyGamer has a great article predicting the price of final, loaded skill injectors. It's
a good analysis and worth the read.
I predict we're going to see a huge glut
on Day One, with a high number of skill injectors on the market. We'll likely
see a high starting price that quickly diminishes and hits a bottom over the
course of the first two days as the USTZ is able to log in and begin extracting
sp from their characters. We'll will likely see the lowest prices for
extractors ever during that period - we'll have a great number of players who
have sp surpluses to convert and move quickly.
On the buying side, while I think players
are going to want these, I think demand is going to be a secondary priority to
supply for most players. After all, pure-sellers are going to want to extract
quickly so they can pick their moment to list their injectors. As more and more
players log in - particularly around mid-USTZ, we're going to see peak volume
and the price will drop, drop, drop. That's all going to put pressure on
sellers to list sooner as they watch the prices plummet. All the while, pure-buyers
are going to watch and buy at a level that seems to make sense to them. An
injector speculator could do very well by picking up units at low prices on
launch day and reselling a month or so after launch.
But you'll also have your mixed buyers/sellers.
Those players will ultimately want to train up a second or third character, but
will also be looking to pull some SP from their existing characters. In the
desire to not purchase more than they need, they'll almost certainly extract sp
before they start to buy injectors on the market. All in all, they'll
contribute to a delayed demand likely to see prices drop.
But once that initial "dumping"
period is gone, you'll see those injectors go quickly. After all, I suspect
we'll see players remove perhaps a half-dozen or dozen injectors' worth of sp
from their characters, but buyers will be looking to buy dozens and dozens. Soon,
I think we'll see those prices increase again.
But, buying injectors is a one-time thing
- you buy the SP then you have it - whereas selling can become a routine event
for sp farmers (those who try to sell their month's training to pay for their
account). Where it all washes out will depend on the final ratios of buyers to
sellers, and how willing players are to absorb the 40% waste to continue
injecting after 50 million sp. I suspect we'll see a glut, then not much
activity as time goes on.
I honestly don't believe it will be
possible to finance your account by selling your sp. I agree with Noizy Gamer
that this whole thing is going to push PLEX prices even higher - PLEX will fuel
most of the purchase behind skill injectors, and we're going to see a very
sharp upward pressure on PLEX in the weeks after launch. So plexing your
account with any means is going to become more difficult.
Plus, CCP is going to get a cut out of
this transaction - and that price will be pushed on to the buyers. Lets say the
aurum for an extractor costs 200 mil... Noizy identified about 1.9 million sp
as the absolute maximum sp a player could earn in a month, but in reality no
one is going to hit that maximum; it presumes no switching of training for
gaining specific needed skills, +5
implants, and no further skills released by CCP needing to be trained. That's
not really feasible, I think. So, let's go with 1.75 million a month. That's
3.75 injectors' worth. To pay for a PLEX at current prices, they'd need to
generate a profit of 320 million each. That's about 520 million if the aurum
costs 200. It's certainly in line with Noizy's estimates, But that's a cost to
the buyer of 1.95 billion - a premium of 750 million for the sp gain.
So, if the aurum for the extractors costs
200 mil, a buy is effectively paying 2 billion for a month's training. Four
months - 7.5 millon sp - would cost 8 bil; that's a far cry worse than buying a
new character on the bazaar. For an entire year's training, you're looking at
an extra 9 billion isk.
And that's assuming all of these several
transactions spread across all the participants in this market has no effect on
the price of PLEX. I believe the only thing that will exert downward pressure
on PLEX is the influx of a great number of new players, and I don't see that
happening. 1.5 bil per plex isn't unreasonable. And that only exacerbates the
calculations in favor of patience or the character bazaar.
So, I think those who would prefer to pay
for their account by selling their sp are going to have to accept that it'll
only get them part of the way there. And that may be okay for most people.
For my part, I've identified perhaps 2-3
injectors' worth of sp I'm going to be removing from Talvorian focused on - you
guessed it - mining and industry. Valeria is almost completely a focused
character, and while I'm expanding her role, I don't think I'll be pulling
anything out of her. All I do remove is going to my alt, who I'm training to
replace Valeria on her cosmic signature duty. That should free her up to be a
second perma-PvP character. I'll need about 13-14 million sp to make that new
alt a perfect Tengu pilot, so I'll be in the market for about 25-30 injectors,
taking into account the waste.
Because my extractions are going to be so
low, I'll probably be watching the market to buy before I extract; I'm sure
I'll stop short of topping that alt off entirely (maybe stop 3-4 mil before
maxed skills), but I'm definitely going to want to make him effective and
sufficient within the first few days.
And if I overbuy? I think I'll be okay in
waiting to sell. Market pressure is on my side, I believe.
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