Delve – Did the Million Dollar Battle Make a Dent?

CCP Quant was quick again to get up the Monthly Economic Report so we can see what happened in New Eden in January.  The new community page layout changed the way you interact with the report a bit.  You can no longer just click on a chart to see it full size.  Instead you have to right click on the charts and select the option to open them up in another tab.

Not a huge deal… unless you use Firefox… but annoying and pointless.  CCP could have done better.  Also, the sorting of charts was odd this time around, and a couple of the interesting bar charts got dropped.  Again, not huge but annoying.

The huge deal, for me at least, is that CCP seems to have killed off the RSS feeds for their community sites.  CCP seems to only care about Facebook and Twitter these days, both of which monkey with what you even see in your feed, so are completely unreliable.  RSS isn’t new and sexy, but it is solid and reliable… and so CCP has abandoned it.  Another metaphor in that I am sure.

CCP has yet to respond to any questions about RSS.  They probably expect that nobody uses it and that nobody will notice it is gone.  And who knows, they might be right, but so far it is just silence.

Anyway, the million dollar battle that wasn’t happened during the latter half of January as the Imperium mobilized and headed north with their big toys to shoot a Keepstar in Cloud Ring, so this month’s question is whether or not that had any impact on the report.

First up is mining value, where Delve continues to dominate.

January 2018 – Mining Value by Region

You can click on that chart, or any chart in this post, to see a larger version.  No need to muck about opening new tabs… or another browser if you use Firefox.  It isn’t hard.

The bar chart shows Delve relative to other regions.

January 2018 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph

The value of ore mined mined however was down to 8.1 trillion ISK in value from 11.5 trillion ISK in December.

But as I mentioned last month, that value is based on the market value of minerals in New Eden, so a drop in that price lowers the ISK amount mined, even if the total volume remains the same.  So what happened to mineral prices in January?

January 2018 – Economic Indices

Mineral prices actually bounced a bit and went up.  So I think we can see a palpable reduction in mining in Delve in January.  Now, did the battle cause it or did everybody just have to go back to work in the new year?  I don’t know, but something did have an impact.

The next indicator is everybody’s favorite to love or hate, NPC bounties, the one that shows actual ISK being brought into the economy of New Eden.

January 2018 – NPC Bounties by Region

Last month bounties in Delve were just shy of ten trillion ISK, this month they are just over 9 trillion ISK.  That is still a lot, and Delve remains at the top by a fair margin… Branch, the next highest number, is just past half of Delve… but still a bit of a decline.

CCP opted not to include the bar charts associated with bounties, so we’ll skip right to the sink and faucets graph.

January 2018 – Top 8 ISK Sinks and Faucets

That chart shows a clear dip around the third week of January when a lot of null sec was suddenly pulled into this battle.  Not that big of a dip though, and it spiked back up and continued its ongoing ascent, leading once again to the musical question, “Is CCP going to do something about this?”  Certainly nothing has been discussed in public.  Soon we’ll all be able to afford titans… unless inflation kills us.

On the trade value by region front, the bar chart that excludes The Forge region, with Jita and Perimeter, shows the Delve market continues to boom.

January 2018 – Trade Value by Region – Bar Graph, The Forge Excluded

Though the battle might have sparked some sales to get into doctrine ships, only those who produce fighters will have likely seen a boom in the post-battle market.  So many fighters sacrificed.

In production Delve again remains second to The Forge, the economic heart of New Eden.

January 2018 – Production Values by Region – Bar Graph

Again, lots being built in Delve… fighters especially I imagine… but not much of it was consumed by the battle, so the build up in the region continues.  You think I am joking about titans, but there is a push to get more of the Imperium into the big ships via the “make ISK, but skill injectors, skill up to a titan, make more ISK, buy a titan” path.

Finally, there is the overall summary graph that I like to include each month.

January 2018 – Regional Summary Stats

In summary, while the million dollar battle had some visible impact on the economic activities in New Eden, it wasn’t that much.  You can see where it was on one of the additional graphs.

January 2018 – Peak Concurrent Players by system

There were lots of players in and about the Cloud Ring region.  However, the wheels of industry continued to turn all the same.

Anyway, another month and another economic report.  You can look at the full report which includes additional charts and all of the raw data if you are interested in the New Eden economy.  Just mind the horrible new site that is hosting it.