At Look At February 2024's Active ISK Delta

I'm a little late looking at EVE Online's Monthly Economic Report (MER) for February 2024. I can't totally blame a dying PC for wiping out all my work because apparently all my Excel spreadsheets saved to the cloud. But just like my dearly departed 6 month old computer, what happened to the Active ISK Delta wasn't pretty.

Showing the Active ISK Delta in the modern expansions era

The Active ISK Delta is the amount of ISK that departs the in-game economy due to players leaving the game (either voluntarily or through GM actions) plus the amount of ISK reentering the game due to players returning to play EVE. Since the Viridian expansion launched last summer, the amounts of fluctuation has increased considerably.

Three of the largest declines occurred in the last 6 months

In February, the Active ISK Delta was -75.3 trillion ISK, meaning that 75.3 trillion ISK, or 3.6% of New Eden's money supply, was removed from the economy due to players winning EVE, even if temporarily. In my records going back to the beginning of the free-to-play Alpha and Omega era, February's figure was the 4th largest decline in the money supply caused by players leaving the game since January 2017. In fact, the combined Active ISK Delta of 136.8 trillion ISK for the first two months of the game almost equals the entire Active ISK Delta (149.4 trillion ISK) for all of 2023.

Average Concurrent Users 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024

Part of the explanation for February's Active ISK Delta is undoubtedly the approximate decline of 1000 users logged on at any one time last month. But why did that happen? Are null sec players getting tired of low sec and want to play at home? The last three expansions were directed toward low security space, after all. Has CCP gone on a bot and illicit RMT banning spree? I've stopped monitoring the shady websites so can't address that angle anymore. Or is the introduction of testing a first-person shooter module making some players think EVE is no longer the game they loved to play? Since one cause is usually not the answer, perhaps all three apply.

I realize that the first hints about the next expansion only came out two weeks ago. I'm also fairly confident CCP will announce something on the first day of next month to get the player base excited for the future. I just wish CCP would start making some noise and letting the players know what is coming up next in EVE. I'd like to see the trend with the Active ISK Delta change to something a bit more positive.