Not all analysts are sold on free-to-play. Jim Yin, equity analyst with Standard & Poor's, points out that it's difficult for game developers to target multiple audiences -- in this case, hard-core and casual gamers -- with the same title.

"The constituents have different tastes and willingness to pay," Yin says.

Also, free-to-play doesn't address another major problem in the MMO genre: saturation.

There are dozens of games available now, many with similar fantasy or role-playing themes. All of them vying for the same limited amount of time a player has each week.

"None of these games are substantially different from one another, and I don't know if free-to-play is really going to solve that problem," Yin says.

I really, honestly hope to god that Eve Online doesn't go FTP just because of the influx of new players who will inevitably just use it as an Economy Simulator.

Null-sec comprises of only 18% of the masses - so imagine what would happen if a bunch of new guys got into a free game and started screwing around with the industry/manufacturing and NOTHING BUT THAT.

We're already having issues finding reasons to go to war with each other - everyone's complacent. There's no more reason to fight when we're already sitting on massive piles of money that will never go away. Allowing -more- people to come in isn't going to help anything.

Then be thankful that Goonswarm, Hulkageddon, and even high-sec dwellers like me are keeping things interesting in high-sec by kicking sand into the eyes of the innocent players.

I've been actively mining with my alt waiting for someone to kill me - marking the days in which I have gone undeterred.

4 Months, 12 days. Haven't been fired upon once.

Do your job better mate, seriously - way too much money in game right now.

ALTERNATIVELY they need to remove the PLEX market entirely. Then people can't use real money to get in-game money, and have to -work- for their investments.