A Quick Look At The Active ISK Delta

CCP published the monthly economic report for June 2023 for EVE Online on Monday. I haven't really paid much attention lately but June was special. The Viridian expansion launched in June so one might expect a much lower amount of ISK leaving the game due to players leaving the game. The technical term for this phenomenon is the Active ISK Delta. If the number is negative, players leaving the game left with more ISK in their wallets than those returning to the game. In rare cases in which players mass return to the game, the number is positive. I decided to take a look back over the last 18 months to see how the traditional largest currency sink in any MMORPG looked in EVE.

Though the first six months of 2023, the total Active ISK Delta was 40 trillion ISK. The number sounds like a lot until compared to 2022. In the first half of last year, a net amount of 201.4 trillion ISK left the New Eden economy from players exiting EVE. Compared to the previous year, last month's loss of 34.2 trillion ISK was 35.7% less than June 2022's Active ISK Delta of 53.2 trillion.

Looking back over the last 18 months, only two months recording a positive Active ISK Delta. The first, November 2022, witnessed the launch of the Uprising expansion. The second, May 2023, was the 20th anniversary of the launch of EVE Online. As part of the celebration, players who were subscribed at any point in May would have their main character's names placed on the EVE monument in Reykjavik. Those whose names were already on the monument would have a chevron placed next to their names.

In comparison, last month's loss of 34.2 trillion from the economy indicates the Viridian expansion wasn't quite as well received as Uprising. At the very least, the expansion was unable to keep players who came back to place their names on the monument around and playing. But on the plus side, the expansion did keep about half the money that came back to New Eden in the economy. That's something, right?