Many thought they were going to get away with it, but CCP has finally decided to punish a group of Eve Online exploiters who racked up almost $200,000 worth of online currency.

The group discovered an exploit in the new faction warfare mechanics, and took advantage of it to amass $175,000 worth of ISK–Eve Online‘s currency–before reporting the glitch to CCP. The developer has since issued a statement saying that the group will not get suspended or banned as they reported the glitch, however they will have all items and currency gained via the exploit removed from their accounts.

“The people who sought to benefit from this exploit will receive no gain from this system. Because this was essentially a system where you could print LP, even if ISK was provided as an input, it is classified as an exploit,” said CCP. ”Because the players made efforts to inform us about the issue their accounts will remain in good standing. We have temporarily seized all LP points and store items from them. Once we’re done determining how much each person has benefitted we will remove the LP gained value in LP and items and return the ISK invested in the purchase of items to them. This essentially will set each of them back to the original point at which they began this activity.”

People have been banned/suspended from MMOs over a lot less, this group is lucky to still have accounts. But, the question is, does this show a sign of weakness on CCP’s part?