Flying Solo In EVE: The Lunar New Year

Heading into the last week of February I don't think EVE Online has done that poorly. In today's posts the graphs are on a downward trajectory, which can mean both good and bad things. Let's take a look.

Average concurrent users from 16-22 February

First for the bad. The average number of accounts logged onto Tranquility fell again, to 24,000 +/- 500 accounts. Yes, the shard experienced two hiccups during the week but the average line descended before the server instability. I hoped that the holiday last Monday in the U.S. would keep the ACU for the week at 25,000 but that didn't happen.

Prices on the global PLEX market continue to decline

Now for the good. The average price of PLEX on the global market fell another 2.3% last week, down to 4.16 million ISK. I have the feeling that volumes on the market go down the third full week of a month as the amount of PLEX sold last week would only fund 16,859 months of Omega game time. Over 1400 years of game time sounds like a lot, but represents a week-over-week decline of 18.1%. Add in the price decline and the amount of ISK spent on global PLEX market fell 21% last week. Below are the weekly stats so far in 2026.

Selected weekly stats so far for 2026

Today's EVE topic is Lunar New Year. Except for Japan, most of East and South-East Asia celebrates the Lunar New Year instead of the Gregorian New Year. Needless to say, once Pearl Abyss acquired CCP Games the game started featuring a celebration of the holiday in order to reach out to new or underserved markets in Asia.

The free gifts from the New Eden Store

Needless to say, the devs lead players to the New Eden Store in the hopes of getting players to engage in some impromptu shopping. But the 8 PLEX is nice. Of course, the devs aren't stupid and in order to prevent thousands of alt accounts from spinning up, only accounts who played from 29 January 2025 – 16 February 2026 and had over 8 hours of playtime throughout the year are eligible for the gift.

For $88 a little too rich for me

Of course the cash shop is offering a special called The Noble Steed pack. But at $88 the price isn't for me, especially since I don't fly any of the ships mentioned in the offer.

I do wish CCP would come up with something in-game like Final Fantasy XIV does for holidays. Something I could engage with that doesn't require opening up my wallet, either in-game or in real life. Who knows, maybe next year if things go well financially for CCP and Pearl Abyss in 2026.