An ugly thought

Hypothetically: Imagine CCP hires an economist (yes, I know they really do have one)and said to them look at the impact of RMT and tell us what it is doing to the game. So the economist needs some numbers to work with. CCP runs a query against its logs, give me all the players who are on for over say 20 hours a day and never leave system. Ok, it’s not 100% but it’s only theoretical. It maps them against systems and hey presto lots of pretty lights showing where the bots are working. Pick a few from each area, check more detailed logs to get what kind of activity (mining or ratting) and work out how much on average the bots are making across the board. Not an unreasonable way or demanding task to run.

Ok, now the economist has some numbers that are a reasonable reflection of what’s happening. Then look at changes over time and compare it to the impact of what is going on in game. Look at sovereignty loss, and namely ships build numbers and losses. Building a super cap requires a lot of minerals, sovereignty, and ISK spent. This can drive the economy to perform certain acts, where to be based, what resources you need. Then look at the crunch, big ships cost big money ($1000USD + for a super carrier), and does RMT actually support or inhibit super caps and caps?

What if the answer was it supports so much other in game events that the financial impact is to actually drive the EVE in game economy more than if it didn’t exist? What if CCP doesn’t do much about bots because it’s not in their interest to do so? It’s a sand box right, and as long as the profit margins increase it’s a winner.

They want smaller PVP in null sec, which means breaking up the big alliances. Bust them for RMT? Seems they are all doing it. There’s the null sec remap in a flash if you want it. Bit harsh? How about Jove incursions: have killer Jove fleets warp in to where confirmed bots are running, blow them away, and the POS they use. Any fleet that turns up to protect them also gets wacked. It would work, but is it in CCP’s best interest to actually stop the bots and RMT or does it help drive the economy?

Oh well, all a great conspiracy theory, would be interesting to know the truth. Would love to be able to run some queries against CCP’s servers and see what drops out. Otherwise it’s all just dark thoughts late at night (yeah, couldn’t sleep, brain went off on strange tangents).