Quick Thoughts On The Patch Notes Before Jumping Into Dawntrail Patch 7.3

Final Fantasy XIV's servers are ready but I have to work today. The complete patch notes for patch 7.3 are up on the Lodestone so I'll have to satisfy myself with YouTube videos until I can log off for the day and play the game. I do have a couple of thoughts until then.

The MSQ - The point 3 patch usually is the end of an expansion's story and reportedly Dawntrail is no exception. The final 10 quests should bring an end to the story of Wut Lamak (and the crying about her). I'm hoping that the expansion plays out like Heavensward. In that first expansion, the leader of Ishgard, Sir Aymeric, fades out of the story and his trusted friend Estinien becomes a central figure in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. I'm hoping Wut Lamak gets the Sir Aymeric treatment and Sphene is the new Estinien. If for no other reason that Sphene does have a nice sense of fashion.

From a game play standpoint I always stop on the 8-character trials and then take months to get back to the story. In the patch notes, both the new duty and new trail added in patch 7.3 are in the duty support system. That means once I finally complete Recollection I have a straight shot to finishing the MSQ.

Cosmic Exploration - While the first planet won't become available until patch 7.31 releases in September, Cosmic Exploration is receiving several quality of life updates ahead of time. Two of the biggest changes involve travel. First, players can now use the aetheryte in Bestways Burrow to travel to the moon. Perhaps more importantly, mounts are now allowed.

I won't complain if mounts are not allowed on a planet until the entire transportation network is built, but now that the facilities on the moon are complete, please let me ride around on my new mount I received from the content.

Also big changes come with the Cosmic Exploration user interface as well as adjustments to some of the degrees of difficulty of some of the missions. The changes probably deserve a separate post. Let's just say I was happy reading that rather long segment of the patch notes.

Emote updates - One of my frustrations in FFXIV is the inability to eat and drink while sitting in a chair. This was somewhat addressed with updates to emotes, many of them involving eating, to allow the emotes to work while sitting on the ground.

Chat bubbles - Ever wind up in an area where the chat just rolls through too quickly to read? I'm really looking forward to at least giving the new chat bubble feature a try. The feature is turned off by default, and given the number of settings to adjust I understand why. I definitely need to visit one of Eorzea's many nightclubs to test the feature in a crowded setting.

Hair updates - I play a Miqo'te so these changes aren't as big personally. But both Viera and Hrothgar are receiving new (for them) hairstyles. Anything to bring those two races to parity with the rest is a good thing. The one change that will affect me is showing bangs when wearing a hood. A change I've looked forward to.

To Dye For - The graphics and other glamour related upgrades continued. Over 200 items received a graphics upgrade. I honestly lost count of how many items received an update to have two color channels instead of one or even not be dyed at all. Let's just call it approximately 400 items.

White mage stays the same - I guess I should note that as a very non-combat focused player my main job, white mage, is not receiving any adjustments. Which is probably a good thing from the standpoint of completing content. I have a hard enough time now. Adding in changes would probably set me back a month.

I know, I know. I didn't include a lot of items and features, mostly concerning combat. But I don't engage in PvP or extreme dungeons or alliance raids. And I don't do things like deep dungeons or treasure hunts. Basically that content doesn't exist for me. But I have enough content to last a month or two until the next point patches are released over the next two months. Actually, given how far behind I currently am, I really don't have to worry about content for a long time.

EVE Online's Global PLEX Market - July 2025

The month of July is in the books. While not a full month of data, we can examine the first 25 days of sales on EVE Online's global PLEX market. In July a total of 27.7 million PLEX was exchanged in 82,640 transactions averaging 335 PLEX per transaction. The average price of a PLEX dropped 2.9%, from 6,011,000 down to 5,834,000. The PLEX were sold for a total of 163.5 trillion ISK, or 4621 years of Omega time, enough to allow over 55 thousand players to play EVE for 30 days without swiping a credit card.

Cash shop (gold) and NES (rust) sales events in dotted lines

The number of sell orders on the global market went from none in the beginning to 230 orders for 465,000 PLEX early on 1 August. Also, the number of contracts including PLEX declined from 600 to 510 when I looked late on 3 August. PLEX is still used for major transactions when players need to avoid rather large transaction and sales taxes.

CCP did not wait to determine a baseline for the new market, holding the first of three sales involving PLEX just 5 days after establishing the global marketplace. In the graph above, sales involving the cash shop are colored in gold, those with the New Eden Store in rust, and the Omega packages sold including PLEX in white. 

The multiple sales events does make analyzing the market complicated. For example, the cash shop and NES held sales events that overlapped on 24-26 July. Based on history the two events synergized to encourage increased PLEX sales. But CCP also began a new series of Omega sales including PLEX on the 24th as well.

Speaking of the Omega + PLEX packages. CCP wrote the following in a dev blog.

At the end of June, we tested bundling longer Omega subscriptions with PLEX. The design is inspired by one of the frequently requested features. The experiment was targeted, but we observed solid conversion and got good feedback, so now we’re scaling it up. New bundles will be available globally for two weeks (not through resellers, though), allowing us to gather more data and reactions. [emphasis mine]

I really have to question the data gathering part of the offer. During the 14 days of the offer CCP would have run at least one other sales even every day with the first two days having two. I want to highlight more of the description of the Omega + PLEX packages.

This marks another step in moving away from discount-chasing and FOMO cycles. We want to reward longer-term commitment with genuine value, and at the same time, ease pressure on the in-game PLEX float and trading. This will make more of it available to players who play for free, or for things like war funding, ship replacements, and, again, fun. 

Looking at the graph I see a lot of sales that encourage discount-chasing and FOMO cycles. But that was in July. Going into early August the trend remains. July basically was the implementation of the global PLEX market. The real question is when will CCP go full Walmart.

Cloud Imperium Cash Shop Sales Up 73.7% In July 2025

After a "slow" June, Cloud Imperium Games set another record with nearly $6.5 million in sales from player purchases in July. The figure represents a 73.7% increase over sales in July 2024 according to the CCU Game dashboard. Last month also set a new company high for the month of July, surpassing the previous best of $5.9 million in July 2022. For the first 7 months of 2025 CIG recorded $77.9 million in cash shop sales, a 34.1% ($19.8 million) increase over the same period in 2024.

Cash shop sales in July

The $851.9 million displayed on the Roberts Space Industries funding page at the end of July was not a comprehensive accounting for all of CIG's revenue since the project's Kickstarter in October 2012. Overall, the company has recorded $976.3 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2023 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $851.9 million (through 31 July 2025)
• Other cash shop revenue: $2.3 million (through 31 December 2023)
• Subscriptions: $39.5 million (through 31 December 2023)
• All other sources: $82.6 million (through 31 December 2023)

In addition, the company has received a total of $68.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2023 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020 and another $1.9 million in 2023. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $1.045 billion, or $1.038 billion when excluding the returned funds. An additional $12.6 million in loans issued in March 2025 and due for repayment on 31 December 2027 are not included in the total.

New Accounts - July brought a new referral program to Star Citizen that is paying dividends.

New account creation is way up

While not as high percentage-wise as June's increase, last month's 53,255 new accounts created represented a 42.9% year-over-year increase over July 2024's 37,257 accounts created. For the year, new account creation is up YoY by 6.5% to 319,239. The game is currently on pace to have a year-over-year increase in accounts created for the first time since 2022.

What to watch for - In 2023 CIG recorded a loss of $20.2 million. Cash shop income is well on its way to surpassing that amount. But despite cost cutting measures this year like closing the Los Angeles office and holding a digital CitizenCon I expect overall costs still increased over the last two years. So expect CIG to keep their feet on the pedal and continue to aggressively try to increase sales.

Happy EVE Is Dying Day - 2025 Edition

Today is a momentous day in the history of EVE Online. On this day in 2003 a user declared for the first time that EVE is dying on the official forums. And since the statement is still on the internet, it must be true.

The first EVE is dying post

In fact, the post was so important to the history of EVE that CCP included a copy of the post in the EVE Online 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition.

Indeed, just looking at the user counts shows the decline of EVE since I wrote my first post about EVE is Dying Day back in 2014. According to EVE-Offline.net the peak concurrent user mark for 2014 was 57,213 compared to the peak so far in 2025 of 38,150. Of course the weekly PCU still averages over 5 times 2003's peak logged in user mark of 6,301 set six weeks before that fateful forum post.

Before EVE finally succumbs to entropy and CCP is forced to shut down the servers I thought I'd pull up some interesting facts.

Number of systems: Back in 2003 EVE launched with approximately 5000 systems in 26 regions. That I believe included Jove space. Today New Eden consists of 7805 reachable systems: 5,431 in known space and 2,604 in wormhole space. Known space consists of 60 regions, 61 if Pochven is included.

Number of ships: In 2003, by my research EVE had 29 ships, including rookie ships/corvettes, divided amongst the four empires. Flash forward to 2025. According to the in-game ship tree (which doesn't include specialty ships like Alliance Tournament prizes), each empire now has 65 flyable ships. The developers have added an additional 81 ships belonging to 13 new NPC factions bringing the total up to 341 ships.

The mysterious other race; Back in 2003 the Jove were the mysterious, technologically superior race. But the Jove left their interests to the Society of Conscious Thought back in 2016. In its place the lore team added the Triglavian Collective, who lives in Pochven.

Somehow EVE has lasted 11 years after I first wrote about the topic. May it last 11 more.

The UK's Online Safety Act Marches Forward

I've spent some time writing about upcoming legislation affecting online video games lately. But a Bellular video reminded me that not all legislation originates in the European Union. Last week the U.K.'s Online Safety Act passed another regulatory milestone on its way to going into full effect sometime in early 2026.

The U.K. government put out an explainer on what the Online Safety Act entails.

The Online Safety Act 2023 (the Act) is a new set of laws that protects children and adults online. It puts a range of new duties on social media companies and search services, making them more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms. The Act will give providers new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce risks their services are used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content when it does appear. 

The strongest protections in the Act have been designed for children. Platforms will be required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise. 

The Act will also protect adult users, ensuring that major platforms will need to be more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow, and give people more control over the types of content they want to see. 

Ofcom is the independent regulator of Online Safety. It will set out steps providers can take to fulfil their safety duties in codes of practice. It has a broad range of powers to assess and enforce providers’ compliance with the framework. 

Providers’ safety duties are proportionate to factors including the risk of harm to individuals, and the size and capacity of each provider. This makes sure that while safety measures will need to be put in place across the board, we aren’t requiring small services with limited functionality to take the same actions as the largest corporations. Ofcom is required to take users’ rights into account when setting out steps to take. And providers have simultaneous duties to pay particular regard to users’ rights when fulfilling their safety duties.

According to an article on Eurogamer, the law definitely affects online games and gaming platforms. Among those interviewed was George Osborn, editor of Video Games Industry Memo who was head of campaign and communications at Ukie during the time of bill negotiations.

From today [25 July 2025], any game with user-to-user communication (such as voice or text chat) that's available in the UK will need to follow the law. Broadly, Osborn explains, studios will need moderation tools to remove harmful content, better reporting processes, and measures in place to protect children if a game is accessible to them.

"That's the bare-bones version of the law," Osborn warns. "The reality is that a lawyer will likely tell you that you've got to do a hell of a lot more to meet the provisions of the 300-page act and the many volumes of guidance put out by Ofcom. And given that the regulator can dish out fines of up to £18m or 10 percent of your global turnover, and in some rare cases bang up a senior exec, it is something that you really need good advice on quickly."

He adds: "The only crumb of comfort is that Ofcom is still rolling out the final bits of the act and has said it'll take its time to fully enforce. But with games having historically been a target for moral panics and policymaker madness, you don't want to bet too closely on not being picked up."

As part of my research for this piece Copilot put together a grid summarizing the OSA based on the above mentioned Eurogamer article and an article about Microsoft's upcoming age verification requirements for Xbox users.

A quick summary of video games and the OSA

Despite any original intentions, the OSA apparently will place small indie developers at a disadvantage versus Triple-AAA studios.

However, Osborn states the Act is "far too big for indies who have chat functions to comply with easily".

"Back when it was being passed," he says, "the bill was constantly referred to as a 'Christmas tree' because people kept whacking baubles onto it while it took years and years and years to pass.

"And the result of that is it empowered Big Tech and social media companies, rather than putting a muzzle on them. Yes, there are loads of ways they can be collared now. But because they have big legal teams, great external counsel and policy pros and public affairs agencies lobbying for them, the biggest businesses have been able to pay up for the right advice to adapt their services to meet the rules in advance."

He adds: "But for small businesses including indie game developers who have the misfortune to have things like text and voice chat in their games, following all the rules is really hard." Even with the likes of Modulate and k-ID to assist, it remains hard for small businesses to comply in the short and long term, says Osborn.

The law is not fully in effect. Below is the timeline for passage and enforcement of the act:

• October 2023: Online Safety Act becomes law (Royal Assent). Ofcom begins developing codes; companies start preparing compliance plans.
  
  
• Jan 2024: New individual offenses (cyberflashing, etc.) come into effect.
  
  
• Late 2024: Initial codes of practice (Illegal Content code) laid before Parliament and guidance on illegal content risk assessment published. Ofcom also sets category thresholds via secondary legislation (defining Category 1, 2A, 2B by user numbers).
  
  
• March 2025: Illegal content duties fully in force. By 17 March, all in-scope services must have completed illegal content risk assessments and start implementing measures to mitigate those risks. Ofcom gains enforcement powers on illegal content duties.
  
  
• January 2025 – July 2025: Focus on children’s safety duties. Ofcom issued guidance on age assurance for pornography and on conducting “children’s access assessments” (to determine if a service is likely accessed by children). By April 2025, services had to assess if their platform is likely used by under-18s. Child protection codes of practice were laid in Parliament in April, and by 24 July 2025, any service deemed likely accessed by kids must have completed a detailed child risk assessment. Summer 2025 marks the point at which the child safety regime is in effect, with requirements like age verification for adult content kicking in.
  
  
• Late 2025 – 2026: Ofcom will publish the register of which services fall into Category 1, 2A, 2B (expected in late 2025) and develop further codes for those additional Category 1 duties. By early 2026, we expect new rules on transparency reports and adult user empowerment tools to become operational for the largest platforms. Enforcement activity will ramp up accordingly as all phases of the Act come into play.

So last Friday was just when the aspects of the law affecting children went into effect. "Just" in this case is a bit of an understatement as the measures are rather comprehensive. When all regulations kick in, the U.K.'s effort to regulate the Internet is probably out of reach of reality. In which case the regulators will get to pick and choose who to concentrate their efforts into monitoring. Given history, expect a spotlight to shine on the gaming industry.

The Space Walmart - EVE Online Price Changes in July 2025

Perhaps working nearly 30 years at market research companies has warped my perspective just a bit. But when I read the latest dev blog about the pricing in EVE Online's cash and premium currency stores, my first thought was, "Walmart?"

Omega time and PLEX prices - 30 June 2025

Walmart is known for its "Everyday Low Price" pricing strategy.

EDLP is a pricing strategy where retailers promise consistently low prices without requiring customers to wait for sales or discounts. This strategy simplifies the shopping experience, as consumers can trust that they are receiving a fair price at all times, eliminating the need for comparison shopping or waiting for promotional events. 

The significance of EDLP lies in its ability to foster customer loyalty and streamline operations, as retailers do not need to frequently adjust prices or run elaborate marketing campaigns for sales events.

The EDLP strategy also helps comply with the EU's Digital Fairness Act, an important consideration. The below chart summarizes some of the compliance benefits.

EDLP and the Digital Fairness Act

I will take the points out of order from the presentation in the dev blog and begin with multiple character training. Used to allow training on more than one character on an account, the prices have gone down between 33% to 56% depending on the quantity purchased.

The price drop for multiple character training

A benefit to CCP having removed MCT certificates from the market years ago is the company can offer volume discounts without having to worry much about complying with the DFA. The rounding of prices to the nearest whole dollar (or euro) helps with compliance.

PLEX prices in the cash shop

In contrast, the only change to PLEX prices was to round each package to the nearest dollar. In effect, that raised the price of each package by 1 cent ($0.01). A small change that makes the math easier as a player can buy 20 PLEX for $1. Those who dive deeper into the subject will still want to take the discounted price (in the form of free PLEX) into account, but a price of 5 cents per PLEX makes some of the math later on in this post easier to understand.

The one month subscription package

Next comes the subject of subscriptions, often referred to as Omega time. On approximately 13-14 June CCP added items to the one month subscription package. Players for the past six weeks have received the following items along with their one month of premium game time:

• 100,000 Skill Points 
• Advanced 'Boost' Cerebral Accelerator 
• Basic Glamourex Booster 
• 2 Agency Support Drops 

For the price changes, the $19.99 price of the package was rounded up to $20. For the package I wanted to determine the exact amount of money I paid for game time versus the items. The Advanced 'Boost' Cerebral Accelerator sells for 45 PLEX in the New Eden Store, which is $2.25. While skill points are included in many packages (including for free every week in the NES), no set real world value exists. Finally, the boosters found in the agency support drops are not sold for cash. So for a cautious analysis, one month of game time costs $17.75.

Next up come the multi-month subscription packages. At first glance the pricing seemed absurd. Keeping the pricing for each package the same or slightly lower as well as adding PLEX? Before presenting my thoughts let's look at what CCP had to say in the dev blog.

At the end of June, we tested bundling longer Omega subscriptions with PLEX. The design is inspired by one of the frequently requested features. The experiment was targeted, but we observed solid conversion and got good feedback, so now we’re scaling it up. New bundles will be available globally for two weeks (not through resellers, though), allowing us to gather more data and reactions. 

This is how it compares to the existing Omega options:

Old versus new subscription packages - July 2025

Yes, you read that right — this is not a typo! The prices of new bundles are lower than the old packs, and they also contain PLEX.

This marks another step in moving away from discount-chasing and FOMO cycles. We want to reward longer-term commitment with genuine value, and at the same time, ease pressure on the in-game PLEX float and trading. This will make more of it available to players who play for free, or for things like war funding, ship replacements, and, again, fun. 

The new prices are a result of the continued rounding of  monthly prices to the nearest dollar.

Advanced subscription information

As was noted in the dev blog, the pricing for multi-month subscription packages is undergoing a two-week trial. What happens in two weeks time is anyone's guess. But I was left with one final question. Is making people purchase PLEX in order to enjoy the Omega benefits of a subscription really the solution to the developers issues with the PLEX economy? Players having PLEX is just one element of the equation. Another is actually caring enough to use it.

Quick Thoughts On Final Fantasy XIV's Upcoming Patch 7.3

I'm an unusual type of MMORPG player. I don't really get excited for major patches. Because I spend so little time playing compared to a lot of other players. Also, not having a lot of real life combat skill leads me in different directions than the majority of the player base. Final Fantasy XIV's patch 7.3 for the Dawntrail expansion is just the latest example.

The above trailer almost inspires me to finish the last trial in patch 7.2, Recollection. But honesty compels me to admit patch 7.3 finishes the Dawntrail story. Admittedly I'm really hoping the story will place Wut Lamak in the rear view mirror and make Sphene a regular member of the rotating Scions cast. Yes, I really do want to have the ability to choose both Graha T'ia and Sphene as Trust characters in future expansions.

One bit of content I am excited about is the next installment in Cosmic Explorations, Phaenna. The screenshots on the special site look pretty good. I'm hoping we can earn a hoverboard mount on the first planet we explore. Also, the idea of upgrading all my crafting and gathering tools fills me with a lot of happy thoughts.

I know a lot of players are excited by the new deep dungeon, Pilgrim's Traverse, coming in patch 7.35. But I never got into deep dungeons, possibly because I only played white mage seriously for my first few years playing FFXIV. If I have to run through Palace of the Dead to get to content, I'm not doing the content. 

What I am excited about coming in patch 7.35 is the new alliance society, the Yok Huy. I liked that section of the main story questline and look forward to revisiting Urqopacha and learning more about the tribe. Some of the tribe's beliefs influenced the main story and I'd like to explore more of the difference of the Yok Huy and Alexandrians.

I have two other things I'm looking forward to. The first is the next installment of the adventures of Hildibrand. When doing the quests my character runs around in a cosplay of Nashu. I'd really like the detective outfit but I know that probably won't become available until the end of the questline in patch 7.5.

The other thing I'm looking forward to is chat bubbles. That's right, the developers have finally cut through all the spaghetti code and have unlocked chat bubbles. Just remember, Yoshi-P decided the feature should be turned off by default, so the first thing I may do is adjust my settings.

On top of all of the above I still have so much to do. But for the next couple of weeks I'll have to prepare for the coming of patch 7.3 on the fifth of August.

A Second PLEX-Related Sale Pops Up In EVE Online

I woke up Thursday morning to news in EVE Online of another sale involving PLEX that will affect the new global PLEX market. The new sale comes not from the cash shop but the New Eden Store which uses PLEX as its currency.

Ambitious capsuleers,

Now’s your chance to upgrade to Omega for less. Until 31 July, grab 1 month of Omega at 15% off (425 PLEX) or 3 months at 10% off (360 PLEX/month) available for a limited time, only in the New Eden Store.

Of course my first thought was, "Did CCP open the door for a pay for two months of game time, get one month free?" Not quite.

The PLEX sale - 19-26 July 2025

In a nice piece of FOMO marketing, between downtime on Thursday and downtime on Saturday players have a chance to save $7 on three months of Omega time by purchasing the 1000 PLEX package on sale for 20% off and then buying the 100 PLEX package for an additional $4.99, leaving an extra 20 PLEX in the player's PLEX wallet. Or if the player already has 80 PLEX on the account, then spending $35.99 results in three months of premium game time.

I find the situation a bit ironic that one of the stated reasons for instituting the global PLEX market is to reduce friction in using PLEX.

PLEX plays a foundational role in this system. But over time, as discussed in a previous blog, its function has drifted. It’s increasingly treated as a long-term investment or speculative asset, rather than a flexible, fluid currency meant to empower player choice. That dynamic distorts pricing, limits access, and creates artificial scarcity that benefits a few at the expense of many. 

We’re committed to fixing that, without resorting to harsh measures like inventory taxes, price hikes, or product removals. Instead, we're focused on system-level changes that move us closer to a healthy, fair market equilibrium. 

Yet, if sales practices like the current one continue, players will have an incentive to buy PLEX during sales and keep 100-200 PLEX around in case an opportunity like the one open on Thursday and Friday pops up.

The current set of sales began on 19 July

The global PLEX market does help evaluate the effect of CCP's sales on the market. For this wave, first CCP holds a sale that results in cheap PLEX entering the market. From 18 July to early this morning the number of sell orders on the market increased from 131 orders containing 194, 000 PLEX to 213 orders containing 390,000 PLEX. That looks more like people unable to sell PLEX rather than hoarding the RMT tokens.

The new sale that started today will drain PLEX off the market. By how much? That's why I have to keep developing tools. So I can answer questions like that without too much manual effort.

A Quick Look At The Second Week Of EVE Online's Global PLEX Market

With two weeks in the books, I decided to work on my tools and take another look at EVE Online's new global PLEX market. I think seeing an official RMT market in the game is of interest to some folks. But last weekend CCP Games threw in a twist: a 20% off PLEX sale. What did that do to the market?

First, a new combo chart displaying the average price of one PLEX each day since the market opened and the volume of PLEX sold each day. The chart shows both the decline in the price of PLEX over the weekend as well as the increased volume. Prior to the sale, the ISK cost per PLEX was already drifting downward from a little over 6 million ISK on the day the market launched. A summary of each day's trading.

• July 19: price per PLEX drops about 2.5% to ~5.85 million ISK as discounted PLEX floods the market.
• July 20: hits its low near 5.82 million ISK amid peak volume of 1.8 million PLEX.
• July 21: rises to around 5.9 M ISK, indicating sustained supply pressure.

The sale emphasized a natural dip in price that occurs on the weekends with higher player numbers logged onto Tranquility. One can see a much smaller decline on 12-13 July. Since the sale runs for a full week I'll be interested to see what the market activity looks like both the weeks before and after the sale.

The above chart shows the effects on the real world value of one billion ISK. The value peaked on Sunday at $7.72 per billion ISK. Of course, due to the sale, those with freshly purchased PLEX were actually paying an effective rate of $6.18 per billion ISK. A much lese expensive purchase than the average price of $7.56 per billion ISK on Friday.

An interesting statistic to possibly look at in the next week or two is the amount of PLEX up for sale in sell orders. The developers are attempting to get players to use their PLEX so looking for increases might help determine if CCP is achieving that objective. I have created files with the information from the market interface manually so far, but I would really like to generate the data automatically, or at least with a couple of mouse clicks without having to log into the game. But for now, I hopefully have given a useful glimpse into CCP's latest initiative.

Predicting The Future Of EVE Online's Global PLEX Market

When I first started looking into regulations surrounding online games I actually thought about EVE Frontier. I figure a non-zero chance exists that government regulations concerning crypto-currencies will prevent the game from ever seeing a commercial launch. Then, an unusual event occurred: the creation of a global PLEX market. While CCP Games has publicly stated the EVE Online and EVE Frontier development teams are kept completely separate, I pretty sure the same corporate lawyers serve both games. So when the global PLEX market was announced, I decided to see if some of the proposed regulations that would affect Frontier would also apply to Online.

The result of the research was a 2600 word report from Copilot that I edited, added a couple of things to, and published last week. But where the New Eden economy is concerned looking backward is only valuable if the history accurately informs predictions for future developments. Today's post is an effort to look forward 12-18 months to predict what a more finished form of the global PLEX market will look like, keeping in mind upcoming governmental regulations like the European Union's Digital Fairness Act.

First, I needed to come up with a description describing the purpose of the global PLEX market. I found one in an EU working paper published in October 2024: the mixed pot.  The mixed pot model involves a single in-game currency like ISK that players can either earn through gameplay or buy outright with real money. Under this design, no technical distinction exists between "earned" and "purchased" units of currency once they’ve entered a player’s balance—hence all tokens sit in one shared "pot."

The mixed pot model has three key characteristics I think most EVE players would consider features:

• Uniform utility: Whether a token was earned or bought, it grants the same access—to items, boosts, entry fees, etc.
  
  
• Dual accrual paths: Players who invest time can accumulate currency via quests, achievements, or play-to-earn loops, while others may skip the gameplay via direct purchase with real world currency.
  
  
• Seamless interchange: Games often allow conversion between earned/purchased tokens at a fixed or dynamic rate, or simply don’t distinguish them at redemption.

As expected, though, the EU regulators who put the document together have different ideas. Here are four areas of concern.

• Value opacity: Players can’t easily tell how much “free” play is actually worth. If this seems weird, I think so too. I believe the regulators would like CCP to change the wallet UI to hold how much ISK a player has earned in-game verses that purchased on the market.
  
  
• Fairness concerns: If paid tokens speed progression or confer exclusive perks, it risks turning skill-based systems into pay-to-win scenarios—running afoul of “fairness by design” principles.
  
  
• Refund complexity: When consumers request refunds, providers struggle to identify which tokens originated from purchases versus gameplay, complicating chargebacks and consumer rights enforcement. This goes back to the split of in-game money mentioned in the first point.
  
  
• Financial safeguards: If mixed-pot tokens fuel chance-based mechanics such as Hyper cores or Abyssal Mutaplasmids, they may trigger gambling or e-money regulations in some jurisdictions.

Next comes the predictions. Some of these don't require trying to adhere to regulations coming out of Brussels.

The NPC operator of the market - As the rules of the global PLEX market differ from all other markets, the market needs additional lore. The obvious operators? InterBus. I'm sure the developers can come up with a name with a slick acronym.

Direct link from the New Eden Store - Just as the New Eden Store has a direct link from the Paragon Hub, so too will the global PLEX market.

Button on the NeoCom - As a revenue source, the global PLEX market will have its own button on the NeoCom to make access easier. Also to differentiate the market from the rest of the markets that only exchange in-game items.

Elimination of all taxes and fees - I believe the introductory dev blog alluded to the possibility, but in the interest of making all transactions involving PLEX as simple as possible, all taxes and fees will be removed.

Removal of PLEX from all contracts - With no taxes or fees and a single market, the only other way to vary the price of PLEX is in contracts. Removing the ability to trade PLEX via contract makes the transactions as easy and transparent as possible.

Display of real world currency equivalents - Reading the proposed regulations I see no way that the developers do not at least display a dollar/euro/pound/yen conversion of the price of 1 billion ISK. I see a minimum of three places the real world value will be displayed. First is the value of the cheapest buy order. Next is the value of the cheapest sell order. And finally on the confirmation box when asked "Are you sure you want to make this transaction?"

Keeping track of PLEX for ISK transactions - Honestly, I don't see a way of enforcing refunds for trades between players. But I do think a requirement to show players how much real money they spend will be met.

I think in the next year or so regulations out of the EU will affect the online video game industry. From lootboxes to virtual currency sales a lot of companies will need to alter their business practices. But EVE Online and CCP Games won't walk away unscathed. The only question is what EVE will look like once the fallout settles down. Hopefully my predictions are not totally off-base.