It was an announcement not without its detractors, as Massively OP’s EVE columnist Brendan Drain explained over the weekend: Some players were miffed that PLEX will be transportable without the risk of ship-to-ship movement, while others grumbled about the short-term effect on the market and poor conversion rates for the secondary currency, Aurum, and the lack of conversion for players with fewer than 1000 Aurum. And as is common with such in-game economies, still others are up in arms over apparent market corruption, as it appears that players with insider information began trading ahead of the announcement to manipulate the economy — as Brendan suggests, likely a CSM (player council) member privy to information ahead of the embargo lift.
Today, CCP posted an update meant to assuage some of the concerns about the new program.
For starters, the studio will indeed grant conversions for players whose Aurum balances fall below 1000 — three months after other Aurum is converted — to “mitigate impact on the PLEX market.” It further suggests that players may prefer to simply spend down those balances in the cash shop before the conversions occur.
CCP has also clarified that it currently does not have plans to sell gametime in smaller than 30-day chunks as previously assumed.
The studio does not address the alleged market manipulation.
