ISK
Interstellar Kredit
The Interstellar Kredit (ISK), whose ISO code is ISK is the single currency unit in EVE Online world.
Players can use it to barter (buy and sell) between themselves for items, use the in-game market system for ISK-based transactions and place and accept contracts between players for assets, services and characters.
Etymology
According to different sources and logic, Interstellar Kredit is an alteration of Icelandic króna (íslensk króna in Icelandic language) the actual currency of Iceland, which ISO code is also ISK. The word króna is related to the Latin word corona ("crown") and derives from Latin aura, gold, historically 100 gold pieces to a crown.
Most people believe that CCP Games chose this name since it's a video game developer and publisher from Iceland, altough this was never confirmed by them.
EVE Economy
EVE Online has a really complex and detailed economy, more so than any other MMO or RPG. A large proportion of the in-game economy is player driven; non-player character (NPC) merchants supply some basic blueprints, items and trade goods. Players, through the use of blueprints and in-game skills, can gain the ability to build items ranging from basic ammunition to cutting-edge capital ship hulls and space stations, and manufacture them for personal use or for sale. Pricing and availability of goods varies from region to region within the EVE universe. These aspects contribute to an economic environment influenced by factors like scarcity of resources, specialization of labor and supply/demand dynamics. The economy is closely tied with the (also player driven) political aspect of the game. Player corporations (the EVE equivalent of guilds) rise and fall as they struggle for market dominance as well as territorial control.
Trivia
- Lot of people used to joke about the real name of ISK, concerning this as "In Search (of) Kash".
- On 27 June 2007, in a first for a gaming company, CCP announced that an economist had been employed to assist in the development of the economic side of the game. Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, who was previously dean of the faculty of business and science at the University of Akureyri, is responsible for compiling quarterly economic reports for the community and providing ongoing analysis of the economic facets of EVE, along with coordinating research with other interested parties. Information from Dr. Guðmundsson's reports has been used to make some development decisions regarding the economy. For example, in his second dev blog post he observed that availability of shuttles for a fixed price from NPC merchants, which could then be recycled into tritanium (a saleable mineral), placed an artificial cap on the price of tritanium, indirectly impacting the price of every good manufactured using tritanium (which is almost all of them). This eventually led to a decision to remove NPC sell orders for shuttles.
