Massive Price Drop! Exploits Responsible?

I was away most of this week, but still managed to keep tabs on the insanity surrounding the credit exploit news that was circulating this week. The community is in an uproar, although a lot of seems blown out of proportion, but that's to be expected with a MMO community.

Let's skip the drama and the call for re-denomination of credits (the recently deceased Dear Leader would be proud of the people calling for that), and look at how this is affecting the economy from a pure currency exchange standpoint.

In a word, the impact is drastic. Here's a chart I just came across:

See the 1000K line? That's the VIP Wristband right there. It's dropped more than $350 in the last week - an absolutely astronomical drop!

Another thing to notice are the higher amounts of credits are being offered now. Before, 1 Million was the ceiling, but now, we're seeing 10 Million offered for a hefty fee, but offered nonetheless.

It's pretty clear that the farmers have not only been tuned into these exploits, but are using them. One can envision groups of farmers working around the clock using the (now patched) Alderaan commendation exploit, working in shifts, and getting tens of millions of credits in that time, filling their coffers for future orders.

What is the impact of this? I don't think it has destroyed the economy. Yes, some people have fancy mounts and others may have cornered the market on some sort of crafting supply only they can make (Magenta Crystals anyone?), but I don't think its all that devastating. The credits that were "created" will normalize over time, inflation will happen naturally once "everyone" is 50, and this will be a footnote in an interesting launch story someone at BioWare will tell over drinks.

Later this week, I plan to post an in-depth analysis on credit sinks, and why things such as this exploit won't really matter at this point in time. Stay tuned, you may learn something, and may even feel better about these exploits!

Finally, what remains to be seen is what BioWare will do about farming in general. So far, their policy seems to be patch and forget it happened, which won't work well for the economy in the long run. I'm curious to see if they'll take any action against farmers, and how they plan on doing it. If and when it does happen, I'll be sure to cover it!