There are no Market Bloggers in EVE, so says Jester

In total, I’ve profited from speculating on EVE expansions, just not by very much. I’m an industry guy, not a market guy. To my knowledge, there isn’t a blog out there written by a market guy. Jester/Ripard Teg

That’s an interesting statement above made by non other than EVE Blogosphere most prolific blogger Jester. And to tell you the truth this blog post didn’t even had a title until I roughly finished it as well as I forgot to think of one writing it. So I thought of maybe something sensational like what Rixx Javix would quite often do with some his blog posts serving a purpose. But maybe even you yourself read that and thought a thing about that as well reading Jester’s blog recently in the comment section as he was responding to a reader’s comment. I had a few thoughts as well on that which makes for coming up with a blog post out of the blue today.

To tell you the truth let me phrase it this way. I don’t know of many MMO Bloggers who play EVE and rather EVE Bloggers who are “ACTIVE Blogging” Market Guys/Gals or Market Traders/Industrial Traders who blogs about it. EVE has a heck of a lot of active bloggers. You don’t think so, try counting all them EVE Blogs! There are many active Null Sec/Low Sec/WH Pirates or PVP oriented player blogs of varying shades and that make up the vast bulk of EVE Blogs that cover those areas. Players who choose to write a Trade & Market Blog are damn few if rare.

There are far less blogs that cover Trade and Industry sector side of EVE or even the general PvE side of EVE. And for the EVE Bloggers in the community that somewhat generally blogs about Market & Trade as well Industry which can affect Market and Trade they are even only a relative few of those bloggers that you can name in the known EVE Blogosphere. So naming an “ACTIVE” EVE Blogger that’s a Market Guy there aren’t many.

My character is a Market Trader/Industrialist but overall I’m a Market Trader. Actually both my characters are Traders by usual login activity mostly. If there are only a few Market Guys/Gals that  also blogs about EVE no one is likely more aware of that than myself since they area so few of us in the EVE Blogosphere.

That was one the reason I think it was sometime last year I wrote a blog piece here on the blog about Why so few Non Pirate, Low/Nullsec and WH EVE Blogs. You know that’s the single most reader commented blog post on the entire blog here as well. I was also only recently reminded of it with a reader commenting on that same blog post a few days ago which shows up in the side bar.

It was my idea some long time ago looking around that in a sea of PvP oriented blogs in the EVE Community, very few blogs are by players that spend full-time doing Industry and there are some very good blogs out there written by Industry players. And even fewer blogs are written by players that spend their full-time doing Market & Trade stuff. EVE has a diverse amount of careers that anyone can engage in. EVE has one the most robust if not best Economic System of any game out there. But few are the blogs written by any real Market Traders in EVE… its rare. You may even wonder why?

My blog, this very blog is not considered by me as a pure “EVE Blog” nor in Title and I’ve said that quite a few times. And the reason for that is this blog was born many years before way back in the golden age of playing WoW when even blogging as a hobby was even a rare thing to do. I used to Tank in WoW thus the blog name and played the Economic game there as well.

I eventually later moved on picked up playing EVE Online blogging about my experience playing or whatever I was focused on doing in EVE. I happen to be parked at the EVE Train Station for the most part as far as MMO’s go. As a EVE player of almost 3 years I spend my time doing Market Trade and Industry in EVE and it’s what I generally write about from my experience point in EVE in how I play EVE. Market & Trade is also not the topic of most blog posts here for various reasons also, nor do I spent my time writing How to posts or Guides.

I am not sure how to put this nicely, but generally a carebear who takes a safe approach to EVE is unlikely to generate as much interesting and blog worthy game content as someone who is in Low or Null Sec. EVE Hermit

There have been many industrial/mining/building/carebear focused blogs that have popped up over that time… but very, very few make it long. They often start strong but eventually they stutter and eventually stop.Rixx Javix

When I started playing EVE I already had a blog and just kept at it. Back in the beginning they were very few Industrial based EVE Blogs I can remember, K162space and Letrange’s EVE Blog to name a few more prominent ones that was already around at the time. There was one actual EVE Trader blog I remember by the name Dense Veldspar, but he removed his blog and has of a few years no longer blogs, though still plays the game. I learned from those blogs and learned the market just reading the EVE Wiki reading everything on just the basics about how the market worked. When I would ask in my first player Corp how to Market Trade no one had any real clue, they were all Missioners and Miners and some High Sec PvP players.

Being a Trader is a very Solo game in EVE for the most part and quite lonely career. I had no one to teach me how to play the markets but from what I read of other Industrialist in their endeavors. Even reading the forums in EVE in Market Discussion sub forums, new players always ask how do I learn to Trade & What should I trade and where to Trade it? And most Traders try to be helpful to answer the OP being somewhat helpful but vague almost always. You think they do that for a reason? Of course they do! Well most do anyway.

While most PVP players like to talk about their kills and brag about what they do most Traders to me fully into what they are Trading don’t care to talk about what they Trade for the most part to anyone. That seem to be the general take from my point of view. And funny enough as a Trader myself, I don’t even like to talk about what I trade either on the markets in EVE. And it’s as perplexing a choice to consider what to write about always engaging in Trading Activities. The less said about it the better it stays for what I do to make a living in EVE. Though to me Traders may talk among themselves I don’t find they just generally talk about Trade or what they Trade to everyone in general unless in a very tight trusted group of friends or collaborators like the Goon Economic Cabal maybe. Let alone spend time writing an EVE Blog about it. Blogging about Trade and Market activities can be tough. But its easier to write a how to guide.

But you hit a point where you are either going to become an information source, a blog how-to guide on the about the topic, or move on to something new or more interesting. Wilhelm Arcturus aka TAGN

When I started making full time in Trade & Market activities and to a lesser degree Manufacturing that supported my Market and Trading I did always find it a bit hard to have the time to blog about it as well write a blog about what I was Trading in any capacity in any region. It’s time consuming. Most of my readers are EVE players they play the very same game I do on the very same server I play on. Anyone that reads my blog has the ability to affect anything I mention I trade wherever I may trade it or in a specific region or system. Why risk putting that kind of information out there. At best I give as much details about it, yet still be somewhat vague to some degree. Not all Traders trade the same thing, some players may operate in niche markets for their own reason for their own profits and don’t want anyone aware of what they trade to protect their profits in the markets.

If it came down to a choice between playing EvE or talking about it, I know which one I’d much rather do. Helena Khan

They are many Market Traders in EVE and big Tycoons way bigger than me and best I can tell, none of them appear to blog about it. The only one I know that write anything in ink in any capacity is Mynnna or better know as Corestwo. A well known Trader and Market player I know somewhat as he is often in the Trade Channel in EVE sometime discussing things. He’s also a Goon and part of the Goons Economic Cabal and writes some posts for the Mittani.com website. You don’t see him writing a personal EVE Blog, I rather think he wont waste the time. Few other Traders don’t seem to want to waste their time writing a blog about anything they do or what they may think usually. And given the option they rather spend the time actually making profits than likely writing a blog about making profits and how you can learn to cut into making part of their profits so they can make less.

Then you have to factor in the mentality that the rest of EVE is out to kill them, so why make it easy on the guys trying to fuck em over by making a lot of information public? Letrange

At the end of it is Business Security. And of all the thoughts I’ve had about why few Industrialist in EVE blogs let alone Market Traders blog can be one of Business Security also. The less you talk about your business, the better it is for you and you keep things below the radar. Someone in EVE is always out to try to get you whether you actually believe it or not. Answering a player question in fairly easy on a given topic though.

The second is that I’ll be passing info to competitors. If, say. I make a billion margin trading Guidance Systems at Jita and blog about it that margin will get closed. Stabs

Not very good writing material and what novelties there maybe I don’t want to talk about as I don’t want the competition to pick up on it… Kaeda Maxwell

The other thing is Market Traders like to protect their Trade Secrets if possible. Trade Secrets are valuable to Traders and high profit Traders. The more vague you are the better in talking about it. The less people actually know about your business the better. The less many actually know how you make profits and your secrets the better. Why tell everyone your secrets to making lots of profits, if you do you will very soon have competition everywhere around and why risk that as well. I don’t usually talk about current business, I often talk about it after its happened so not to potentially affect my business.

There’s also the fact that (in my personal opinion) people who only take safer approaches to gameplay are less likely to feel inclined to blog about their ongoings. Tgl3

Being a Market Trader things can at times seem boring to most other players. Things don’t always happen fast or instant like a PvP fight for feedback. Spending time looking at graphs, playing with spreadsheets, buying materials for a manufacturing project and planning what to do, all considered boring stuff to most blog readers. Unless you like to do fancy graphs and charts and awesome screenshots like Blake over at K162space does in his blog posts, it may not always be interesting talking about Trade or Industry.

Talking about Market and Trade stuff don’t necessarily make great awesome blog posts most the time to most readers unless they clearly into the same thing you are or well written with flashy charts. To most PvP players by far the bulk of EVE Blog Readers it’s generally considered the boring part of EVE and your likely not going to get a large audience following your blog writing about that kind of stuff generally if your just starting out blogging let alone write a Market Blog. I personally don’t care about having a large blog audience, nor do I seek great attention, so I’m not likely to quit over not having it. I’m far beyond that. I choose to write about Trade & Market stuff and whatever else I choose to write about or for fun. How many time you going to want to do a blog posts saying you made X profit or Y or loss A on B trade? It would get boring after a while.

These are my opinions mostly, in the end its some the reasons you see much less EVE Industrialist who blogs and even less full time Market Traders in EVE who care to blog about it as well. Some may choose to start out as Market Trading for the newbie Trader maybe. Lots of new players looking to Trade in EVE.

So when Jester says, To my knowledge, there isn’t a blog out there written by a market guy. I’m not really sure to say there. Bu there are so few of us, it’s barely even noticed in the EVE Blogging Community and that’s quite sad. I can only really blame that on the nature of EVE Online itself.

Player Quotes

*All Player Quotes were taken from a previous blog post here on this blog: Why so few Non Pirate, Low/Nullsec, WH EVE Blogs.