Golden PLEX

Oh wow, how did PLEX prices get so crazy? Could it be some combination of resculpting faces for PLEX combined with bidding an uncertain number of PLEXs to enter a tournament? I have no idea if this is actually the reason but it seems plausible enough. Certainly the prices are high enough for me to decide not to PLEX one of my accounts this month.

When I first started playing EVE I made a rule to myself that I wasn't going to buy PLEX to turn into ISK. That would be too easy and ruin some of the challenge of building myself up. It didn't take too long before inexperience and foolishness lead me to be a bit short of ISK. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose, especially to a lowsec mission or during a wardec. As a result I decided to buy a GTC, turn it into two PLEX and sell one while using the other to keep my account running. I did this two months in a row and had more ISK that I knew what to do with. Each PLEX sold for a little over 300 Million ISK.

As a result I was able to continue running L3 missions without worrying too much about a ship loss. To fulfil my previous desire to not buy ISK I bought two PLEX some time later when I was flush for ISK and applied them to my account. It was a loan with a really high interest rate. By the time I paid it back PLEX were up to 350 Million ISK.

Today a corpmate told me PLEX have broken 600 Million. That's one hell of an increase from the prices I had paid. My memories are from mid to late 2010. Amusingly I can also remember Orca prices from back then as my corp bought one just after I joined and I helped scout it home. It cost 350 Mil. (As a random point of interest, today Orcas are just under 700 Mil. - Orcas and PLEX seem to be inflating together).

Part of my original plans to not sell PLEX for ISK was also to not turn ISK into PLEX. I have a Monday to Friday job and I didn't want to turn EVE into another job. Some people I've met are constantly working to earn their next PLEX to play for another month (to earn another PLEX, ad nauseum). In contrast to those plans, around the start of this year I decided to create another account with a pure PvP character on it. I would only keep that account running as long as I could afford to buy a PLEX for it. While I am still able to fulfil that decision, I'm not sure I'm willing to pay 615 Million ISK for a PLEX. I'm going to go back on that decision and use real money to run that account. At least until PLEX prices drop back to 500 Mil. Then I can refund my gametime in a perfect mirror of the initial loan scenario.

Prices are going to drop back aren't they?