Using In-Game Money To Buy Real Video Cards?

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I've heard of spending real world cash on in-game items but this is the first time I've heard of in-game currency used to buy a GeForce 560 GTX.

CCP Games, the developer behind EVE Online, has struck a deal with Nvidia for players to use in-game currency -- PLEX -- to purchase GeForce 560 GTX graphics cards, which run almost $200 at retail. That's fake money for real items, folks. Nvidia and CCP will start by selling 100 graphics cards (limit one per EVE account) to test the demand.
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note that "PLEX" are just in-game equivalents of 30-days of gametime - so someone bought that plex for the equivalent of what a month's subscription would have cost..

the value of plex required to buy the card is more than the dollar value of a gtx 560, but if you're rich in game this doesn't really matter - what is really cool is that this is the first time CCP has taken this the OTHER way (ie: PLEX for real world value) outside of eve-online related things such as fanfest tickets etc.

cool stuff.
 
Interesting. Although, players have been doing this sort of thing among themselves for quite a while.
 
I wish I could get back in EVE Online.. But MMO's especially this one, is almost a full-time job.
 
I wonder between EVE and Bitcoin which is the larger virtual economy.

There is no question that EVE is a very serious game, perhaps the heaviest yet.
 
As an alliance director, you bet its a full time job. Hell i know people who are literally 'on call' as directors of other alliances. People have their cell numbers and everything.
 
Since time=money, the amount of time needed to be put in to get this graphics card far exceeds the monetary value. I don't see this program continuing long.
 
"Bagful of 560's tackled in belt, lighting cyno!" :D

Victory shall be determined by the number of 560's destroyed or unborn into this world. :cool:
 
ok 20 PLEX for 1 560 Ti and only one per account
soo at 200mil a plex thats what 20billion isk?
 
Yeah nevermind my last post, FiZuR got it already. I totally had that reply open and on my screen for about an hour before I submitted it :eek:
 
20 PLEX = 20 months of game time * $15/month = $300.

So it sounds like CCP will be buying the cards for ~$150 and selling them to players for $300.
 
I never really planned on playing again. But if they change that to something like 660 GTX's then I will totally resubscribe to grab one.
 
Skripka said:
That is capitalism for ya...or something.
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touche---would be good for teenagers, but even at that...better way to make money to buy your IRL things. On another point, when I was in high school I played online games selling In-game currency to purchase a new computer, then finally my first car .. no way I would had been able to make that money from a part time job where I live.
 
My thinking is you can get a GTX 560 for $150.

So if you take a part time job, lets say $7.50 and you keep 85% of your paycheck. You'd need to work about 24 hours.

In EVE, lets say you live in a nice WH with a C5 Static. You could probably nail down a plex per 4 hours of work. That is assuming you really know what your doing and have a good crew for rolling/scanning. It also assumes you don't run into hostiles or your POS gets bashed. That would be 40 hours (min) of work for a GTX 560.

So 24 hours of working a shitty job or 40 hours of playing a video that may be fun.
 
mrtheshaggy said:
My thinking is you can get a GTX 560 for $150.

So if you take a part time job, lets say $7.50 and you keep 85% of your paycheck. You'd need to work about 24 hours.

In EVE, lets say you live in a nice WH with a C5 Static. You could probably nail down a plex per 4 hours of work. That is assuming you really know what your doing and have a good crew for rolling/scanning. It also assumes you don't run into hostiles or your POS gets bashed. That would be 40 hours (min) of work for a GTX 560.

So 24 hours of working a shitty job or 40 hours of playing a video that may be fun.
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People already have the in game resources to get these video cards, that is who CCP is targeting. I doubt many people are going to sit down and go "Time to farm for that video card!".
 
It is also a good way to control inflation and also level the playing field "a bit". The "1%" group will always make ISK at a stupid rate which is why they capped it to one card per account.
 
Tried Eve, but quickly found out I couldn't play this casually because of time restraints, and as others have said, this is full time playing ( FTP, acronym?) so... Had to drop it, but it was fun.

CCP is trying what it can to get in on the while currency exchange I guess.
 
I have a substantial amount of experience in converting ISK (EVE in-game currency) back to RL cash and as such I can't recommend the gfx-card-for-cash method. It's pretty easy to sell PLEX for $12-$15 RL cash. Buying the card to sell it for RL cash isn't worth doing.

Also, those who have ISK didn't get it by running missions or wormholes. Most ISK is made in trading because it allows you to not spend time and still make ISK.
 
mrtheshaggy said:
20 PLEX = 20 months of game time * $15/month = $300.

So it sounds like CCP will be buying the cards for ~$150 and selling them to players for $300.
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Except for the fact that if you try to actually capitalize on the 10ish billion ISK to turn int into real currency, you risk losing your account. Which I suppose is ok if you don't plan on continuing with the game and want a graphics card, but most people that invest that much time into a character to acquire 10 billion ISK will probably want to hang on to their account.
 
grossebeaver said:
Except for the fact that if you try to actually capitalize on the 10ish billion ISK to turn int into real currency, you risk losing your account. Which I suppose is ok if you don't plan on continuing with the game and want a graphics card, but most people that invest that much time into a character to acquire 10 billion ISK will probably want to hang on to their account.
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I have been selling PLEX for RL cash for a long time. It's pretty simple to avoid getting caught. I used to put ads on Craigslist, only meet with locals at some public WiFi location, and only accept cash. Meanwhile I have enough repeat customers that I don't have to put up ads at all anymore. Still sticking to meeting in person and only dealing in cash.
 
Thuleman said:
I have been selling PLEX for RL cash for a long time. It's pretty simple to avoid getting caught. I used to put ads on Craigslist, only meet with locals at some public WiFi location, and only accept cash. Meanwhile I have enough repeat customers that I don't have to put up ads at all anymore. Still sticking to meeting in person and only dealing in cash.
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You should find someone in the adult classifieds to coordinate with.

Plex and a tug job, $50.
 
CCP's been looking for ways to fund their other projects aside from EVE for a rather long time now and they've gotten pretty creative about it despite last year's PR missteps.
 
Yakk said:
Tried Eve, but quickly found out I couldn't play this casually because of time restraints, and as others have said, this is full time playing ( FTP, acronym?) so... Had to drop it, but it was fun.

CCP is trying what it can to get in on the while currency exchange I guess.
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I like EVE for casual play, since everything trains in real time. If I can't play for a week or two, I am happy that my character keeps progressing through skills. When a skill finishes, it is no big deal for me to log in for two minutes and queue up another skill.
 
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