A Look At EVE Online's Active ISK Delta In 2023

CCP released the final monthly economic report of 2023 for EVE Online yesterday. During the course of last year I concentrated on the Active ISK Delta, the measure of ISK entering and leaving New Eden based on players leaving or returning to the game. For today's post I thought I would look back in time at the Active ISK Delta during the alpha & omega period of EVE's existence.

For the first step, let's finish up the year 2023.

In December, the Active ISK Delta fell 68.8 trillion ISK. Not bad considering the money supply increased by 104.5 trillion ISK following the launch of the Havoc expansion in November. While ISK represents in-game wealth and not individual players, the fact the Active ISK Delta was positive for the 4th quarter is a sign that players were coming back to EVE. The question is whether Havoc is good enough to entice players to stay.

Looking back in time puts 2023's Active ISK Delta in perspective. Last month's -149.4 trillion ISK was the lowest since the beginning of the Alpha and Omega clone era back in late 2016. The next lowest amount, 2018's -226.3 trillion ISK, only includes 11 months of data due to the calculation of the metric changing. 

If low Active ISK Delta values represent dissatisfaction with the game, then 2019's figure of -361.5 was no surprise. The Chaos Era in general, and Hurricane Hilmar and the null sec communications blackout in particular, were not popular. During 2019, players fled the game removing an average of almost 1 trillion ISK a day from the economy with them. The losing streak extended into 2020, with the only month with a positive Active ISK Delta was April when the lockdowns initially impacted people's lives.

The third lowest year, 2022's 326.2 trillion ISK, fell just shy of 2020's 326.8 trillion ISK Active ISK Delta. The year saw another mass exodus of players as Web3/blockchain infatuation by CCP's leadership, followed by massive price hikes when a player rebellion seemingly succeeded, led to a 15-month stretch without a positive Active ISK Delta. The stretch was only broken with the launch of the Uprising expansion that November.

One final tidbit for those wondering just how many times a year does the EVE Online economy witnesses a positive Active ISK Delta:

• 2017 - 3
• 2018 - 2
• 2019 - 2
• 2020 - 1
• 2021 - 1
• 2022 - 1
• 2023 - 3

The longest stretch was 15 months, from May 2020 to July 2021. Yes, that incorporated the entire World War Bee 2/Beeitnam war. The next longest stretch, 14 months, occurred from September 2021 to October 2022. So for the 2 1/2 year period from May 2020 to October 2022, 29 out of 30 months had a negative Active ISK Delta.

That 2 1/2 year stretch makes the new expansion era, beginning with the Uprising expansion, notable. In the 14 months since the launch of Uprising, the monthly Active ISK Delta has exceeded zero four times. 

But perhaps a starker contrast is available. For the 14 months before Uprising (September 2021 to October 2022), the Active ISK Delta was -450.3 trillion ISK. For the first 14 month of the expansion era, the metric totaled -113.7 trillion ISK. A 74.7% reduction in the amount of ISK leaving the economy over a 14 month period due to players deciding to stick around and keep playing sounds pretty impressive to me.

By itself, the Active ISK Delta is suggestive of players not leaving EVE Online. Add in other things like players logged in at the same time and the number of ships players kill and lose and a suggestion becomes a likely trend. Now all we need to see is CCP convert in-game activity to revenue and matters will look up for the developers in Iceland in 2024.