There was an interesting thread on the EVE forums recently relating to the purchase of ready made characters.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/in…p?a=topic&threadID=993479
Before CCP introduced a legitimate way to exchange real life cash for in game ISK, like many MMOs, characters, goods, ships and ISK was being sold in places like ebay for real cash.
Although this still happens, CCP introduced a secure way to exchange real life cash for virtual dollars.
So the headline here COULD be - "Not only play EVE for free but make real cash as you play!!"
Some guys buy a whole bunch of GTCs for about 35$ each and then sell them on the forums. This will allow them to instantly purchase a great character or a new ship or fund their pvp activities. Everynow and again you see someone offering to sell 10 GTCs and such.
Some months ago I purchased a character for 5.5Bill ISK and recently I sold on that same guy for 12.5Bill ISK - a profit of 7 Bill in just a few months. A few weeks ago I purchased a new character for 22 Bill ISK - going by this guys data - this could be worth $1232 to someone!!
Going by todays prices, 22 Bill could have paid my subscription to EVE for the next 5 years!!
Now we understand why the culmination of ISK in EVE is so important - it's a way to pay your subscription to the game and to advance yourself in terms of abilities and assets. Why is it such a struggle? The concept of an ISK SINK
One of the biggest difference between EVE and Crossfire is the ISK Sink - does that make the game better or worse?
The main sink in EVE is pvp - although the purchase of equipment and ships is also a sink.
Every 1% improvement in anything in EVE is priced like an exponentional function.
For those Crossfire citizens amongst us, it would mean, for example, the Hull Armours costings would instead of being thus:
Hull Armour 1 1mill
Hull Armour 2 2mill
Hull Armour 3 3mill
Hull Armour 4 4mill
Hull Armour 5 5mill
Would be like this:
Hull Armour 1 1mill
Hull Armour 2 2mill
Hull Armour 3 4mill
Hull Armour 4 16mill
Hull Armour 5 256mill
The main sink in Crossfire I think are the cost of hi level missiles and torps.
When you die in EVE you respwan in your birthday suit with little equipment around you to hide your equipment - you are newborn, go back to Old Kent Road - do not pass GO.
Imagine losing a fully equipped VHF in Crossifre everytime you got killed in pvp - that would mean losing maybe 80mill every fight!!!
That's why some of us enjoy EVE, the risk and danger of flying and always knowing, at any time, and I mean at any time, you could be a dead man with no ship screaming in space - and the losses of your ship and equipment can easily reach over 250mill - 500mill
That's also why a lot of people dont like EVE 
