Virtual Markets, Part Six: An Introduction to Jita

In the past five articles, we took a deep-dive into the economy of the MMORPG Old School Runescape. Using market data provided by a public API, we developed and published various reporting workflows through the application of data analytics techniques.

In the next few articles, we will build-upon what we have learned and apply our knowledge toward a different beast: EvE Online.

EvE Online, published by CCP Games is a space-based MMORPG. To say that EvE Online has a bit of a reputation amongst online games is a bit of an understatement; the game features unparalleled player freedom and scope of interactions contained within a single persistent universe. EvE Online boasts daily player counts in the 90K-100K range and has been running continuously for 21 years.

Before we can get started jumping into data modeling, we’ll start by addressing the same three core questions we asked in our first article concerning OSRS:

  • Do market conditions facilitate and encourage trade between players?
  • Which modes of trade are available and actively-utilized by players?
  • Can transaction data be collected?

As we address each question, we’ll draw comparisons between the markets of EvE Online and OSRS, highlighting their similarities and differences. Prior knowledge or experience playing EvE Online can be helpful but is not necessary to engage in this series; as we work through this and future articles, we’ll explain relevant game mechanics in as much detail as necessary to cover each market topic.

EvE Online Macroeconomics 101

If we compare the core macroeconomic structures of OSRS and EvE Online, we will find that, for the most part, they’re identical. Like OSRS, there are commodities and goods, faucets and sinks, and an in-game currency called Interstellar Units (shortened to ISK). Players are permitted to engage in largely unrestricted free trade of ~17,000 unique commodities.

The result is that players unquestionably have every incentive to engage in trade, to the extent that the game publishers release a monthly report on in-game economic activity. While there are many details we will need to cover as part of our future analysis, this simplified break-down adequately fulfills our first requirement.

How do players trade?

Like OSRS, players in EvE Online have a variety of modes available for trade which we first need to understand before we can attempt to collect data:

Contracts and Player-to-Player Trade

Like OSRS, EvE Online features a player-to-player trading interface. There is also a mechanism for creating and accepting contracts which allow the facilitation of more complicated transactions.

For the sake of our analysis, these modes of trade can be ignored for now. Unlike most MMORPGs, conducting scams or other fraudulent schemes is a legitimate form of gameplay, and they almost always involve the use of direct trade or contracts. While we will explore some legitimate uses of contracts in a future article, in the broader context of the game economy these modes serve niche use-cases which will not service our desire to conduct data modeling and analytics.

Market Trading

EvE Online features a market trading system which functions similarly to the Grand Exchange of OSRS, with some key differences:

  • While the Grand Exchange of OSRS functions as a singular monolithic market, there are thousands of mutually-distinct markets in EvE Online, delineated in their visibility by dozens of regions in space.
  • Markets are created and provided by both NPCs and players. While player-owned structures provide niche market uses, due to game mechanics concerning asset security, NPC-controlled public stations facilitate the vast majority of in-game market transactions.
  • Public markets in EvE Online feature full transparency of open Buy (bid) and Sell (ask) orders. This is in-contrast to the Grand Exchange of OSRS which features zero transparency of open orders. As a result, public markets in EvE Online are functionally equivalent to securities exchanges, with the Grand Exchange being more functionally equivalent to a dark pool.
  • Public markets in EvE Online are subject to an esoteric set of taxation calculations, resulting in a minimum effective tax rate of 4.6% for all transactions made on NPC markets, with a rate as high as 11% for completely unskilled players. This is in-contrast to the Grand Exchange of OSRS which levies a maximum tax of 1% on all transactions made by all players. Like in OSRS, taxes are primarily levied against the seller of a good, however a small proportion of the fee total referred to as “brokerage fees” can be levied against either the buying or selling party when an order is originated.
  • The total quantity of concurrent open Buy and Sell orders which a single character can place ranges from as few as 5 to as many as 305 and is governed by a set of skills, which can be tripled to 915 open orders if a player asynchronously uses all three of their available characters to trade. This is in-contrast to the Grand Exchange of OSRS which limits all members to a flat maximum of 8 concurrent orders.
  • Trade activity is concentrated around trade hubs with the vast majority of trade occurring at a single NPC station, Jita IV – Moon 4 – Caldari Navy Assembly Plant, colloquially shortened to Jita.

Because Jita and its associated region “The Forge” possess such a dominant trade position within EvE Online, obtaining data for this market is integral to understanding the broader economy of EvE Online in much the same way that data for the Grand Exchange is integral to understanding the market of OSRS.

So, what kind of data do we have access to?

So Much Data!

There are probably no game publishers who provide as much data for a game as CCP does for EvE Online.

Currently, CCP provides data through the EVE Swagger Interface (ESI). This platform provides a huge quantity of endpoints which can be used for a variety of purposes. Private endpoints requiring authentication can allow players to collect data about their own characters while public endpoints can be used to collect more general data, including price, volume and order history from public markets.

While there are many third-party websites which provide their own APIs and other services for players to use, most of these are dependent on ESI. As a result, accessing data directly from ESI will generally provide the most recent and granular data and it is primarily how we will be obtaining data for our upcoming exercises. That said, resources offered by third parties can be extremely useful and convenient; Adam4EVE provides a rich set of reporting and search functionality while FuzzySteve provides invaluable static data exports and tools.

Setting Our Agenda

With all three of our required conditions met, we can get to work building a comprehensive set of reporting workflows for EvE Online. The following articles will walk us through the entire process step-by-step:

  • Populating our Database: All data analytics workflows start with data. For our first exercise, we’ll assess different ESI endpoints, identify the data that we wish to collect, and build a comprehensive data collection script which builds and maintains a robust local database to service all of our data analytics needs.
  • Station Trading and Reprocessing: For our first reporting workflows, we’ll apply what we’ve already learned from OSRS and determine how well our old techniques translate to the market of EvE Online. As we test and refactor our code, we’ll introduce data modeling techniques leveraging linear regression to permit predictive market analysis.
  • Interregional Trade Dynamics: Jita is supreme, but unlike the Grand Exchange it does not exist in a vacuum. Markets are delineated by regions and New Eden is a large place. In this article, we’ll investigate trade dynamics between regions at a macroeconomic level and assess market potential for interregional trade.
  • Interregional Trade: With a foundation for interregional trade set, we can re-utilize our existing code base to develop a reporting strategy focused on exporting and importing goods between regions, accounting for freight costs and duration.

All reports generated as part of these workflows are published on the Projects page, which are automatically refreshed with new data usually once every hour.

For any questions, suggestions, inquiries, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to reach-out via the Contact page. Thank you for reading!