EVE Online

It is worth noting that professional isk sellers can not make money out of the system. They can only get more gametime, which can not be resold.

In all alliances i have seen there were a few weekend warriors who used gtc to be able to keep pvping in their rare spare time, and a few alliance members buying those to be able to play the game. It's actually a great way, people who have a busy work day pay for the subs of people with less money..especially students who are usually out of cash.

Example from the market. This shows buyorders and sellorders on GTC, or PLEX, this is made from players of the game not CCP.

For Elsabolts....

As for GTCs, I don't really agree with letting people use out-of-game resources to purchase in-game resources, but given that gold sellers are a fact of life in any MMO that has a functional economy I think CCP has made the best choice by giving people a sanctioned method of doing it that cuts the resellers / farmers out of the loop.

There are a few purists who might look down on players who buy/sell GTC, but for the most part the practice is accepted by the EVE community.  Why? Because he who has the most ISK does not always win. 

In fact, I've never lost a fight where my thoughts were, "crap, that guy must have purchased his ISK, so that's why he beat me".   No, I'm flying a ship just as good as anyone elses, and my character skills are good so in the end, I lose fights for the most part due to "operator error" or plain jujst being outfought.

There are a few poeple who think that buying their way to the top in EVE will mean they are untouchable. That mostly results in comedy killmails though.

As far as EVE GTC's go...they are a necessary evil. RMT companies will always be in MMO's, it's a given they are impossible to get rid of. What CCP has done by providing a controlled outlet for GTC sales is not only protect the ingame markets from mudflation, but actually reduce the market for illegal RMT isk sales.

Seriously anyone who thinks there is a way to eliminate all RMT from a MMO is delusional. Expect other MMO's to follow CCP's lead in the future.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Well, somebody got to pay for my alts.

Necessary evil. Thats why everyone sells it with their alts instead of mains.

Truthfully, I have no problems with GTC sellers, reason why? I love playing a quality game for free! I mean honestly, you're always going to have people who sell game currency, and overall I like the way that CCP handles EVE in general. Free updates, no need to buy extra expansions, free gaming if you can make the ISK.

I don't buy or sell GTC's, my RL cashflow does not get affected by my subscription fees but at the same time my ingame cashflow (and needs) do not warrant selling GTC's to make it work. On the other hand, while I could sell my isk I can't be bothered to swap ingame effort for a little RL cash. I'm quite neutral on the whole affair.

While I don't appreciate people bringing in RL cash to make up for  their ingame inadequacies to me it doesn't change the game much since (as stated above) having isk doesn't neccesarily mean winning. Besides, IHAVE isk, more than I need. I CAN understand people who have limited free time and a good job to not want to bother with making cash ingame, if they need to work 30 minutes to buy isk that would take them 3 days to make then I completely understand that decision.

However, i don't see a difference between people buying isk from farmers or via GTC. They amount to the same thing regardless of what kind of moral value you want to put on it. Without GTC sellling there'd be less accounts for sure so CCP is happy, but at the same time those extra accounts will be mostly alts which means there's less interaction between players going on since you can do it all solo.

GTC's are the best answer  to an evil that shouldn't exist.

I am a fairly new EVE player, I have never bought or sold GTCs, but I like the idea of them being in the game:
For one, and I am surprised no one has mentioned it yet, they are an awesome way of taking ISK out of the game economy which helps preventing inflation.
Second: time is very important in EVE - especially now that ghost training has been removed: if you for some reason cannot pay for your next month of game time, you are loosing skill training time (which is a permanent loss as it is impossible to make up for it), so giving people an option to pay with in game currency for more playing time is great.

To sum it up, I see no problem with trading ISK for gaming time, or vice versa, if you do it the CCP way you know you are making a safe transaction, and you are not destroying the game... Plus if you are real good at making in game money you can actually play for free, how perfect is that?