The following two pointers tickled me with how similar they are and yet at the same time how opposite they are.
This, which I’ve reproduced here for those who aren’t able to access Dropbox, is purported to be Pandemic Legion’s 2012 spending audit. It was passed around fairly widely (but with little fanfare) early last month and seems to be legitimate. While not a full budget as such, it does lay out the amount of income and expenses of a null-sec alliance with no sov costs, including an “Esoteria Project” that takes place in November. So I’m going to assume that it’s the real deal.
As I said, it’s not a full budget. All it includes is a summary of expenditures — some 3.76 trillion ISK of them — as well as a total income — 3.79 trillion — and a breakdown of that income by month. About 1.25 trillion ISK of the money goes to PL corporations but there’s no detail provided on what that ISK is spent on. There’s a separate line item for sub-cap reimbursements, but it’s relatively paltry, about 315 billion ISK. 851 billion was spent on “acquisitions and assistance” for titans (485B), super-carriers (74.5B), and carriers/dreads (291.6B). The next biggest expense is “Tournament”, presumably Alliance Tournament 10, on which 806 billion ISK(!) was spent.
After that, smaller amounts of ISK are spent on various expenses including 153 billion in awards, four(?) super-carrier reimbursements and one titan reimbursement. 22.5 billion was spent on the Esoteria Project, presumably on various structures like SBUs and staging POSes.
The most interesting thing to me about the audit isn’t so much what the ISK is being spent on but where it’s coming from. That isn’t specified, only that it’s monthly and that it varies wildly from 258 billion to 424 billion per month. It’s likely mostly moon income.
In the A Song of Ice and Fire books on which Game of Thrones is based, each of the major Houses has “words” that are sort of a family motto. The words of House Greyjoy are “We do not sow”, meaning that house has no farmers and that House Greyjoy members pride themselves on stealing what they need from those they conquer. Kind of reminds one of Pandemic Legion, doesn’t it? When and if CCP does put an end to passive moon income, it will be interesting to see where PL gets the trillions of ISK they’ll need to maintain the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to.
Maybe they can buy Red Frog Freight and operate it as a wholly-owned subsidiary. 
I’ve expressed my admiration for Red Frog and its various services a number of times on this blog, but never really thought that much about the finances behind the operation.
Red Frog also put out their annual report recently. And it’s the total opposite of PL’s audit. In this case, Red Frog laid out where their income came from: some 139,000 courier contracts worth a total of just over 1.9 trillion ISK. Their report is just as detailed in its way, providing information on everything from volume to total number of jumps — some 1.25 million of those — and where the contracts were coming from and where they were going. The last involves “Jita” quite a lot, as you might expect. More than a third of their contracts either originated in The Forge or ended there, or both.
They even keep track of their customers, and who of them are new customers and who are returning customers. Can targeted advertising be far behind? And Red Frog’s report shows that they can boast a nearly ever-increasing volume of contracts for all of their services.
In the case of Red Frog though, while the sources of income are laid out in a great deal of detail (right down to a spreadsheet with all of the individual contracts listed), what they don’t talk about are their expenses. Where does all the ISK go? The report doesn’t have a word to say about the matter.
That’s what tickled me about the dichotomy of these two reports: one has nothing to say about income, the other has nothing to say about expenditures. It’s funny what corps in EVE want to keep secret sometimes, isn’t it?
Anyway, if you’re interested in this topic, have a look at both reports. There’s a good bit of detail to be gleaned from them, and they do reflect the ever-increasing maturity of EVE Online alliances, as well as their ever-growing budgets. It’s not just Goons and TEST making their finances public any more, and it’s not just null-sec corps raking in trillions of ISK. Thank you to those of you who sent me these two pointers!
If you would like to read more we invite you to visit his blog here.
Considering they bill 10 billion ISK per day for mercenary contracts, and people pay it, I'm confident PL will always have a steady supply of income.
I am in no way saying you are wrong but do people still hire PL? I mean last I heard of that was when they went agianst Solar maybe a year ago or more.
Even if PL doesnt ask money for their support now (which I doubt), it is a very valid opportuniny for them "when and if" CCP nerf moons.
Also, you may be unfamiliar with "racket". It's when a tough guy comes to you and say: "It's a dangerous place, ya know. I will protect you, no worries. Will cost you some bribes. If you refuse, it may hurt." – and shows you his baseball bat.
I think they're pretty much just extorting Test and Goons for Tech now. Merc contracts require work – usually sov grinding.
I thought i read somewhere PL was 'hired' by N3 for solar war? Someone know?
PL hasn't be a merc alliance for years.
Alliance Tournament 10: 806 BILLION?!?!?!
What part of that was bribes for glass jaws?
None, it's simply code for RMT fund.
You know PL is now goin in the renting buissnes
Theres a massive grey area between extorting rent and enjoying a relationship with a mercenary army.
However, there is now a fairly short list of Nullsec entities that would have a reason to hire PL.
Red Frog Expenses are obvious: Replacing freighters that died to ganks and paying collateral for failed contracts. Other than that I'd like to believe it's a business and they actually get a solid income out of it.
Yea in case of Frog the money rather goes to the people that do the individual contracts, and not to the organization like in case of PL
Yep, Although we (the independent contractors) did start paying a 1% tax to White Frog for a freighter gank insurance scheme…yeah, The Frog self-insures.
Actually it's 5% (right now, it varies depending on ganking that months) and the rest of the money goes to the pilot, who decide how to spend those earning.
In Black Frog there's the cyno and liquid ozone for the cyno ship, and the fuel for the JF that arn't taken into account here, since it's hard to track, but it's safe to assume a 10-15% expense on those revenues.
In the A Song of Ice and Fire books on which Game of Thrones is based….
What the FUCK ? Why is everyone comparing EVE with something else.
We had WOW, RIFT, many FPS, many sci-fi-games, WOT, LOL and now fantasy books as comparison to EVE.
It´s time to understand that EVE is unique.
The success of EVE is based on not comparing it to other games and try to make it even.
Try to point out your statement without this stupid comparison or shut the fuck up.
EVE dose not exists in a vacuum, you know…
You really are rather a stupid and unimaginative little troll. In future please try and make comments that in some way actually connects to the meat of the article rather than to a sentence or two you managed to understand.
Its quite easy. If moon goo ever disappears, PL will failcascade within 6 months.
I said it first!
The Pandemic Legion moto is "We fuck the Game"
PL will do like every other smart Null Sec alliance and invest, although in sure they already have, in Bpo's.. Goonswarm has been doing it for years. With a good team behind it T2 Bpos and produce billions of isk a month and with alliance coffers you can bid as high as you want for them. This is the future of alliance based income, Hundreds of billions of isk in T2 Bpo's.
Alot of holes in that report…. RMT much?
A number of PL pilots fly JF alts in frog.
We are nice guys creating in game content in a war near you.
“When and if CCP does put an end to passive moon income”
That is a big IF, i think CCP only stated they would change moon mining to justify hurting the little bloke (making RP worthless).
CCP wont impose moon mining untill big rich alliances have another easy source of income to replace it with.
Its would never hurt its precious…