I have to admit sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Take for example the latest "price" change in EVE Online. When I first read the article, I thought CCP had decided to bow to the crowd and lower the price of subscriptions to the game. Instead, the South Korean-owned game company reduced the amount of work players needed to perform in New Eden to gain the same benefits as subscribers.
Economical Capsuleers,
The New Eden Store now offers a wider range of Omega than ever before, allowing you to get Omega for less PLEX.
As well as the existing 1-month and 12-month Omega packs already available, pilots that swing by the New Eden Store will now find 3, 6 and 24-month options. To account for the new Omega amounts, the PLEX pricing of Omega has been adjusted.
The introduction of the new Omega options and the new pricing means a wider range of per-month savings are available. In short, the more you spend in PLEX, the more you save off the full monthly cost of Omega. The discounts are as follows:
- 1-month: Full price
- 3-month: 20% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 6-month: 30% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 12-month: 40% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 24-month: 45% off the full monthly cost of Omega
Upgrading to Omega lets you unlock your full potential through new skills, faster training, and access to 350+ ships. So, make sure that next time you play EVE Online, you check out what the New Eden Store has to offer!
I found the announcement rather strange. Why not put the amounts of PLEX in the announcement? Was the CCP marketing team trying to lead people who didn't carefully read the article into believing the price change also involved paying with real world currency? For those used to working for their Omega time by playing the game, the post was probably obvious. I've never PLEX'd1 my account, though, so the wording threw me off. I didn't realize the amount of PLEX required to buy Omega time was changing and not the real world price.
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| The new prices in the New Eden Store |
For those who don't want to do math before purchasing Omega time with PLEX, the breakdown is:
- 1-month: 500 PLEX
- 3-months: 1200 PLEX
- 6-months: 2100 PLEX
- 12-months: 3600 PLEX
- 24-months: 6600 PLEX
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| The price of Omega time, in USD |
Since the marketing team gave the percentage discounts for purchasing Omega time in USD.
- 1-month: Full price
- 3-month: 20% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 6-month: 25% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 12-month: 37.5% off the full monthly cost of Omega
- 24-month: 43.5% off the full monthly cost of Omega
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| The decline of the Interstellar Kredit against the US Dollar |
Now, if I were the cynical type, I would suspect the change in the exchange rate between PLEX and Omega time is an attempt to shore up the value of ISK. Despite CCP raising the U.S. dollar price of PLEX by 25% on 17 May, the price of ISK versus the USD has declined by 23.4% since the beginning of 2022. Thus, someone buying 5 billion ISK through the approved PLEX process paid an average of $65.75 on 1 January but only $50.35 on Saturday.
Given the poor financial news from the second quarter of 2022, CCP probably would like to see the price to purchase ISK rise the rest of the year, not fall. I see the reduction in the PLEX price of Omega time as an effort to reduce the ISK price of PLEX. The lower the ISK price of PLEX, the more real life currency EVE's wallet warriors will need to pay CCP to buy ISK to replace their losses. The company has tried rising prices directly to temporarily keep prices higher. Perhaps an indirect approach benefiting the work-to-play segment of the player base will have more success.
Footnotes:
1. "PLEX'ing your account" is what players call working in the game for subscription benefits instead of paying real life currency.
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