CCP's War On Bots: A Matter Of Scale

In his dev blog last week, CCP Sreegs stated he expected to seize 100 billion isk a day from botting accounts.  But how much money is that really?  Using the average sales price in The Forge in March 2012, it converts to 205 PLEX.  Over a month, that is 6,150 PLEX, or over $107,000.  That sounds like a lot, but is it in the context of Eve Online?  Here are some other figures that puts CCP Sreegs expectations into perspective.  The amounts have been converted to the PLEX value at the time of the event in order to account for inflation.

• The Mittani's Aeon scam - 26 PLEX (1)
• First major loss of PLEX in space - 74 PLEX
• Amount embezzled in EBank scandal - 666 PLEX (2)
• Guiding Hand Social Club assassination of Miral - 942 PLEX (3)
• Amount embezzled in Titans4U scandal - 2,575 PLEX
• Phaser Inc ponzi scheme - 2,953 PLEX
• Amount of RMT assets seized 30 March 2012 - 3,080 - 7,190 PLEX (4)
• Deposits in EBank, June 2009 - 6,570 PLEX (2)
• Number of PLEX on banned accounts - 10,000 (5a)
• Average ISK earned running incursions each month, Q4 2011 - 18,110 (1)(5b)
• Average net increase of ISK entering the economy each month, Q4 2011 - 54,300 PLEX (1)(5b)
• Number of PLEX sold in The Forge, December 2011 - 88,873 PLEX (6)

So how much money does CCP Sreegs think he will remove from the New Eden economy?  To keep up with CCP Sreegs, the Goons would need to scam the price of 8 carriers every day.  People would need to lose 3 PLEX-laden Kestrels in Jita every day.  On a grander scale, CCP Sreegs thinks he will seize assets equaling the combined values of the EBank & Titans4U scandals and the Phaser Inc ponzi scam every month.

How about at the macro-economic scale?  CCP Sreegs' operation would become the fourth largest isk sink in the game following skillbooks, blueprints and fees/taxes.  If he is right about the effectiveness of his team they will remove the equivalent of 34% of all isk made by players running incursions.  If everything stays the same the seizure of botters assets will reduce the growth of New Eden's money supply by 11%.

But everything is not staying the same.  As both Jester and Kirith Kodachi have noted, CCP plans to not only remove alloy drops from rogue drones but are removing meta 0 drops as well.  With this shift of obtaining minerals to miners, CCP Sreegs will face pressure as the incentive to run mining bots grows.  I wonder if this possibility is factored into CCP Sreegs' calculations on how many assets he expects to seize.


Notes:

1 - Average price of PLEX in The Forge, December 2011 (441,690,419 isk).  Eve Market UI, The Forge region.

2 - June 2009 price of PLEX (300 million isk).  Quarterly Economic Newsletter, Q4 2010, p 46.

3 - Calculated using the $16,500 value of the losses suffered by Ubiqua Seraph.  PLEX did not exist in 2005.

4 - Average price of PLEX in The Forge, March 2012 (486,879,049 isk).  Eve Market UI, The Forge region.

5a - State of the Economy presentation, Fanfest 2012. (32:45 minute mark)

5b - State of the Economy presentation, Fanfest 2012. (27 minute mark)

6 - Eve Market UI, The Forge region.