EVE Online Scandal Deliberate Frame-Job?

Last Friday, we discussed serious allegations leveled against CCP by players of the game. The comments on the discussion were lively, and pointed. Perhaps a bit too pointed, as CCP's internal affairs investigation claims that a plot to smear the company with false accusations over the long holiday weekend was behind the flurry of online activity. "The objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community. In this particular case, instead of receiving notification of a possible problem and sufficient time to examine and address it, we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot, and other outlets at the beginning of a three-day weekend. We believe this speaks volumes of the intention of the person(s) responsible for orchestrating this scheme. Verification of this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible--or at least could, the last time we looked." Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys points the finger at the Goon Fleet corporation, an organization based out of the Something Awful forums. As I noted in the original post, the evidence presented on both sides is challenging to verify independently. Take everything you read about these events with a grain of salt.

Comments

Re:You're making it worse

[Mentorix]

Good question, are those the issues?

It's not that easy to distill those from the unhinged open letter you know.

Your 4th point is moot for at least three reasons:

1. Anyone can log in to the right IRC server and open a private chat with the developers there.
2. Disallowing private chats between devs and players is unenforceable and possibly illegal.
3. Even if private chats lead to actions, those actions are registered and logged.

So let's stop the stupid witchhunting and play the game ok?

Re:Stairs and Protection

[Zutroi_Zatatakowsky]

Well, we are not "better" than the rest of the internet, it's just the rest of the internet that is worse than us. Thus allowing us to make fun of it.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[stun]

@popo

Here's what skilled PR departments do: Make strong statements of integrity. Fire someone. Institute a new policy or two. Devise a system of compensating those wronged. Spend money on public relations, advertising and technological improvements. George Bush, is that you?

Claim (regardless of truth) that the problem has been solved and that (wait for it...) the reason people hate you is because your products are so damn good. This has GOTTA be Bush.

Typical CCP FUD and Spin

[Plekto]

CCP has a long history of in-game censorship, banning, cheating, helping "friends", deleting petitions and emails, covering their tracks, and so on - and the press releases they do are purely FUD and Spin. If you read their replies, you get things like "we will deactivate employee characters if they are discovered" - well, that's charming - it's not fixing the problem so much as taking a more KGB-esque "get rid of agents who have their covers blown" approach.

And it is pervasive. They even have employees posting on Ebay selling credits that then take your money and claim it's legal to do so since you are breaking the rules(and being in Iceland, Ebay's laws don't cover them in any case). How messed up is that? Their bylaws may say whatever they wish - but that's ingame/illegal to *use* - real cash was stolen.

It's a hopelessly corrupt company from the top to the bottom. Worse, in fact, than any gaming company that I can honestly remember in the last 30 years(been gaming that long, yes)

This /. piece is a bunch of PR to make them look like the victim and should be removed - don't put up corporate FUD and/or Spin on the main page. Don't buy into their lies.

And, yes, I play EVE. I know people in-game and the accusations are 100% true - and they have the logs and screencaptures to prove it. I'll believe the players and numerous in-game witnesses against the corporate response anyday.