A slightly sinister email in the inbox the other day, from CCP, who are doing their best to remove any excuse I might have about why I am not currently playing EVE Online:

"Our records indicate that the above character has a balance of 300 Million ISK or more. As part of our sixth anniversary celebration, we would like to extend a one-day reactivation offer to you so that you may have the opportunity to turn that ISK into game time using the ingame PLEX system. Simply log into Account Management and claim your 24 hour reactivation time."

And above that was my character name and what I presume to be my current ISK balance. I wouldn't know, having not been in there a while, but if CCP are to be believed, I have enough ISK lying around to play for free for two months, as long as I'm prepared to fritter away my virtual-savings that I'd put aside for...er...

I think that was one of the main reasons I'd stopped playing actually. The only thing I was saving up for was replacement Battleships in case I lost one in the process of earning money for replacement Battleships, a somewhat cyclical bit of logic that the astute among you will quickly realise can be broken out of by simply not undocking again. In terms of future goals and ambitions, I never really had any. Certainly there were a whole heap of Tech 2 toys I could of gone out and bought, but none of them would have improved my ability to play the existing game, which to me, was mostly about grinding out Level 4 Agent Missions. Distinct lack of impetus, which I will need to address if I ever want to go back. I think I may have been idly considering a Maurauder for Missioning, but really didn't feel like I needed one, to be honest, the basic Megathron being up to most of the missions.

One reason that isn't keeping me away form the game however, is an inability to afford the monthly sub, and I'm both faintly amused and vaguely insulted by the whole notion. Its time thats the decider for me, and if I wasn't so stubborn about the whole concept, I'd probably be more of a currency buyer than seller.

A month of game-time, under current PLEX rates, would work out at something like ten to twenty Agent 4 missions, which I'm almost certain I wouldn't get done in a month at the rate of play I could spare for the thing. Turns out that the time that ISK represents, is far more valuable to me than the price of two months admission.

Objectively though, it is a very clever marketing ploy and is likely to get more than a few ex-players with large ISK balances sitting about and doing nothing, back into the game. Also impressed with the plan to let players pay for Fan Fest tickets using EVE-Money: Wilhelm explains in more detail.