The first EVE Online quarterly economic newsletter has some interesting facts

The one world server in EVE Online is pivotal to the monstrous and dynamic economy that only enhances EVE Online's appeal. Players in nearly every system engage in a tug-of-war with different drains and faucets to get the most out of their investment, that being time, and look to increase their fortunes. With such a complex dynamic (player versus player) economy that is integral to the overall well being of EVE's universe, CCP needed an economy care-taker, and hired Dr. "Eyjo" Guðmundsson, formerly Dean of the Faculty of Business and Science at the University of Akureyri, Iceland, to lead up the Research and Statistics group. Dr. "Eyjo" Guðmundsson is more or less known as the "EVE Economist."

One of Dr. "Eyjo" Guðmundsson responsibilities is to evaluate, scrutinize, parse the EVE'economy and its inhabitants, and report back the team's findings in a quarterly economic newsletter. The overall purpose from this public data-mine is to inform pilots about the status of the in-game economy from a behind-the-scenes look and glean the information therein. The first in a series, dubbed the 3rd quarter 2007 economic newsletter, covers EVE demographics, macroeconomics, price levels, economic and market snap shots. [.PDF link] The graphs and charts alone make it worth downloading for any EVE player. There are a few glaring erroneous parameters that were used for some calculations such as including inactive accounts as pointed out in this discussion thread, but overall, this information is fantastic and with the right feedback will only get better. Some highlights from Q3 include:

• 195,000 active accounts; 430,000 characters; 2.2 character per account.

• Race Breakdown: 164,000 Caldari pilots, 116,000 Gallente pilots, 86,000 Minmatar pilots, 68,000 Amarr pilots
  

• 25% of the playerbase has between one and ten million skill points

• Average character life span is 7 months

• 90 trillion ISK in EVE currently stock-piled, an increase from 75 trillion point at the end of June 2007

• Third quarter average of 2.1 Trillion ISK daily transaction; gross faucets equated to 536 billion and gross sinks equated to 365 billion

• Mineral freaks will go nuts with all the infoz
  

Unfortunately, this is not a how-to get rich guide, (I'm still rattin' the hard way for my ISK) but it has some uses, it can confuse non-EVE players. Besides, not every EVE player can be a space joobie flying around in a fancy billion dollar ship. If you aren't into EVE's economy, but still play you might enjoy the glorious Trinity II pictures plastered throughout the newsletter. If you aren't an EVE player and still bear some interest in online game economies I recommend downloading it! As far as I know, CCP is the only MMOG company that is making this information so accessible they are basically shoving it down our throats. I say shove away, I like laughing at the Amarr players who have more skills in spaceship command than anything else.

Anyone have any tips to get rich tips beside the standard buy a bunch of GTC codes and trade them for ISK advice? How-to-profit: 1. Do not lose your ship. 2. Do not undock from the station. 3. Do not listen to me. 4. Read EVE Online's quarterly report and become jealous of all the players who have over 70 million skill points.