PLEX, Omega, and EVE Online Sales: Stop Paying Full Price
EVE Online has been around for a very long time.
Over those years, a lot of different people, teams, and companies have had input into how the game is monetized. Somewhere along the way, EVE also became very good at gamifying the pricing of the game itself.
The result?
EVE Online seems to have more sales than a furniture or mattress store in the United States.
I’m not saying they make the price up just so they can mark it down and call it a sale...
But they do have a lot of sales.
If You Pay for Omega, Learn to Work the Sales
If you plan to keep an account on Omega, it is worth learning how EVE’s sales work.
The obvious option is simply buying Omega directly from Fenris Creations (FC).
But that is not always the cheapest way to do it.
Depending on the current promotion, it can sometimes be cheaper to:
- Buy PLEX during a PLEX sale.
- Move that PLEX into your PLEX Vault.
- Use the PLEX inside EVE to purchase Omega time.
Other times, the direct Omega sale is better.
And occasionally there are combinations of discounts, bundles, PLEX promotions, or account offers that make the math considerably less obvious than it should be.
The important point is this:
Do not automatically assume that the price shown on the Omega subscription page is the best available price.
Do the math first.
PLEX Changes the Math
PLEX is EVE Online's premium currency.
You can buy PLEX with real money, sell it to other players for ISK, use it for various services, or exchange it for Omega time.
That creates an interesting pricing system because there are effectively several different ways to pay for the same Omega subscription.
You might:
- Buy Omega directly with cash
- Buy discounted Omega during a sale
- Buy PLEX with cash and convert it into Omega
- Buy PLEX during a PLEX sale and wait for an Omega-for-PLEX sale
- Buy PLEX from other players with ISK you've earned in-game
Once you start stacking the right sales together, the effective monthly cost of Omega can be significantly different from the normal advertised price.
Of course, this requires patience.
Sometimes the best deal is simply not buying anything today.
Two Resources I Use
Fortunately, you don't have to build your own spreadsheet every time FC launches another sale.
There are two resources I use to help figure out whether a deal is actually good.
wckg.net
WCKG tracks PLEX and Omega pricing and breaks the different purchasing options down into comparable costs.
This is especially useful when you're trying to figure out whether you should buy Omega directly or purchase PLEX and convert it into game time.
theoz.space
The Oz maintains an excellent EVE deals page that tracks current promotions and helps put the various offers into perspective.
If you're considering spending real money on EVE, this is one of the first places I would check.
The Simple Rule
If you're going to play EVE for a long time:
Another sale will probably be along shortly.
After all, this is EVE Online.
There is always another market to trade.