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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.
A little lesson in PR for a company obviously challenged in this department:
Don't go on the defensive by playing the "victim" card. (Newsflash: No one cares.)
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. 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.
I didn't make up the rules. They've been etched in stone for a while now.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
First of all, its Goonswarm is the alliance and Goonfleet is the corp.
CCP, while whining about the posting of all this stuff to slashdot and digg, and then claiming that they've shown all the accusations to be false, is being rather misleading. They've completely ignored one of the very serious accusations (the one that said that players have the msn contact details of devs - sure they had a petition, but 5 minutes turn around on a petition resulting in the dismissal of a volunteer has to be a speed record in the world of MMORPGs), and actually more or less acknowledged the one about rigging story lines. Their defense to the rigging accusation that they didn't know how they were going to rig the ending yet. Uh, yeah, that certainly clears you of the accusations... (to their credit, they have thoroughly dismissed the accusation involving a dev infiltrating a player corp).
The funny thing is that they make a veiled threat of legal action against the somethingawful.com - that'll be quite a sight to see! I can't see CCP coming out on top of that battle. (regardless of whether their lawsuit has any legal merit)
it doesnt surprise me that this sort of thing happened- first players accuse each other of cheating then they accuse one of the biggest organizations in EVE of helping players cheat- then the accused declare a conspiracy.. neigher seems to have much evidence- but that isnt the point. the point is that a lot of players are taking the game to be something greater than what it is- way too seriously in fact. they need to remember that there is a world out there- everything doesnt revolve around EVE any more than it does any other game. if they really feel compelled to take action on it- fine get some evidence but what they should do is just move on... this sort of thing happened at least once before with EVE [in game scams etc.] but everyone moved on.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
as bad press. Somebody's looking for attention?
What?
What continues to confound me as this drama unfolds is why do people who disgruntled with Eve continuing to play Eve? If you so strongly believe CCP is rigging their sandbox, why continue to pay to play in it? Do you think that if you continue to saber rattle while cutting them a monthly check is going to fix anything? The real power is in the subscriptions. Lessen their cash intake and they will be forced to respond or at least figure out a more subtle way slink around and deal with bad press.
Otherwise stfu about threating to cancel your multiple subscriptions. The more you continue to pay, the more you continue to ask be fucked. They are more than willing to oblige so long as your checks clear.
Why would CCP cheat, you know, again? After the other incident why would they risk losing another 2 players? The thing that I hate about all this crap is that the Eve players will not leave. Ever. If you don't like what CCP is doing then quit paying them to do it. They don't want your appreciation; they want your money. Complain all you want. As long as you pay your 10 bucks (or whatever it is) a month they don't care. Until then they will do whatever they want and you still won't quit. So shut the fuck up. They shit in your bowl and you eat it with a smile then complain till the next serving. Get a damn backbone.
EVE is one of the few MMOGs where other players can legitimately destroy huge amounts of your hard work, if you've dared to step into the alliance warfare arena. People don't like to be beaten, it's far easier to accept that you've lost if you have something to pin it on. Traditional targets have been incompetent allies, the vague 'internal problems', people leaving EVE for other games (Lineage II was popular with the old Forsaken Empire - too popular), essentially anything which can deflect blame. The odd 'CCP is helping my enemies cheat' accusation cropped up, but that was relatively uncommon - up until about a year ago, that is. Since then, everything is a result of someone, anyone, with authority tilting the scales in favor of the other guy. If you're winning, its because someone is cheating for you. It's both incredibly sad and completely unsurprising that the human response to losing at even trivial games is to bitch and moan - a problem which is compounded on the internet, because you can make up whatever you want and noone will ever have the ability to tell you to stop being an ass. At least in organized sports, the "Fucking Refs" phenomenon only works for a limited time, until someone slaps the hell out of you and tells you to stop being an idiot.
Combative and derisive towards the accusations made. Yeah, that's what an "internal affairs" investigation should be. The tone is 100% supportive of CCP and 100% belligerant to the accusers, and because of that fact ALONE, I simply cannot believe anything the "investigator" says.
I mentioned in a previous thread I'd been undecided on joining EVE, this one blog post locks it down for me- this company will not see a dime of my money, ever.
What're you talking about? Their whining has literally doubled their free advertising over the past week.
A more cynical person than me would conclude that they manufactured the entire scandal specifically for the press.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The way I see it, even if you don't give a fuck about virtual money and such, it's still a rigged game. You don't have to take a game seriously to, nevertheless, expect it to be _fair_. Especially a game based on competition and PvP. The idea of a competition is basically, "may the best player win", not "may the drink buddies of the referee win."
I mean, I never took chess too seriously either, but if the games at a club were rigged so the same player always wins (e.g., he gets to ask for another queen any time he wishes), then, you know, why bother playing? Or let me use, say, World Of Warcraft as an example. I don't even do PvP myself, much less take it seriously, but imagine that one guild were pals of the devs and got to win the battle grounds every time via outright cheating and having some dev on call to bend the rules as needed. (Which Blizzard doesn't do, but just as a hypothetical example.) Wouldn't it, at the very least, leave a bad taste?
Fixing the outcome of RP events isn't any different either, or not fundamentally. It's still, in effect, a competition, even if an acting competition. It doesn't have to be taken too seriously or give much of a fuck to nevertheless leave a bad taste if it's rigged.
I mean, imagine I'm your DM at a D&D game and said something like "ok, guys, you get to plead your case before the genie, and I want you to RP it. Whoever makes the most compelling case of why he should get it, gets a wish." If all such events blatantly ended up won by the guy who bought me pizza, wouldn't you, at the very least, say, "yada, yada, just give Jack his wish and let's move on"? Why bother competing if you already know it's rigged and that anything you could say or do isn't going to make any difference at all?
Except in this case people have paid some money too, and are paying a monthly fee too. I can see how they'd be a bit more pissed off if all there is in the game is rigged so the devs' buddies win. If PvP is rigged _and_ RP events are rigged, and that pretty much covers all there is except mindless grind, then, you know, why bother playing that game at all?
On the lighter side, though, it does remind me of a Woody Allen quote: "I was watching a ballet at City Center, and I'm not a ballet fan at all, but they were doing the dying swan, and there was a rumour, that some bookmakers had drifted into town from upstate New York, and that they had fixed the ballet. Apparently there was a lot of money bet on the swan to live."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Suddenly, another EVE scandal is revealed and CCP tells people they're being framed? After months/years of various accusations? Its completely and utterly unbelievable.
Actually, it's not that hard a concept. Most games essentially let everyone have everything (suitable for their class), if they just put enough work into it. That's what "fair" means. If you do X units of work (not even do it _well_ or better than everyone else), you're guaranteed a promotion. That's what XP is for example.
It actually works pretty damn well, because you don't have to have a working pyramid. Unlike RL you don't need 1000 peons or more to have a millionaire. You can have half the MMO's population stuck at level 70 for example. (And take a census on WoW sometime if you don't believe me. The bar graph looks like lots of tiny little bars for all levels and a huge spike at level 70.)
It doesn't even have to be all about levels, you can give people lots of other rewards too.
Games are an easy case to make "fair", because you there isn't an actual need to make it "unfair". You don't actially need a privileged 1% minority of rich guys (for bonus points, whose only merit there was being the always drunk son of the guy who actually earned that money) creating employment for everyone else. The game can create any amount of employment or virtual money needed by itself. E.g., a single finite instance, can keep an infinite number of players "employed" hacking those monsters for xp and loot.
For that reason, you don't have to give anyone privileges over anyone else, much less tolerate (or worse: create) blatant nepotism, like the accusation here went. There is no, "see, Jack wins every time only because he's Richie McMoney's nephew, but, you see, we need rich robber-barons like McMoney to keep the economy going, so quit yer pinko commie whining and get back to work. You wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for people like McMoney." Again, here it's the game's responsibility to create the "jobs" and the rewards, you don't need to put some pricks in privileged positions for that.
And it can get as lopsided as it wants to. You can basically have everyone be a CEO (don't laugh, there are games where everyone owns a company), without worrying that noone is a worker. Who cares? You can have millions of workers as NPCs or abstracted as "your company has 2500 workers, 500 clerks, and 100 researchers" numbers. Or you can have everyone be a king, and noone be a peasant, if you want to. Or whatever.
So "fair" is actually very easy. Most games are "fair" by default unless you actively screw that up. (Which is what CCP is accused of doing.)
And, frankly, it can be prevented. I've been on free MUDs which policed themselves against just this kind of thing. Everything a wizard/creator/builder/whatever gave a player or did to a player was logged and reviewed, and it was cause for immediate termination if you went and made the game unfair to reward your buddies. Can't a company do the same? How hard _can_ it be?
Now "balanced" is a more tricky proposition, and that one takes real skill and work. That much I'll admit. That's what separates good designers from wannabes. Kudos to those who can get that right. But "fair"? "Fair" is the default.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
A strange game, the only winning move is not to play.
Bah, I prefer to hear their impression of the story rather than a softened, skewed PR-speak version crafted for the "public". If they lied to the public in the way you propose, we would instead have had "they cover it up" comments here on Slashdot. Now we have stupid "they act like a victim and even if they are they shouldn't" stuff. :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I have always thought that all the constant high pitched noise on MMORPG fora were just spoiled kids and other immature people whining because the virtual world didn't revolve around them.
/.). This is so much more interesting.
It probably still is, but at least this article suggest that there can be more to it than that. Groups of people trying to create "events" by coordinated manipulation of the fora means that the in-game groups are trying to extend their actions to the real world, or at least a level of virtuality close to the real world (fora like
GASP! Those fine upstanding gentlemen at Something Awful? I can't imagine that those fine, upstanding gentlemen, the people who have defined the very word "Internet Troll", would ever, EVER do something as illegal as libel and fraud.
I mean, not to someone who would actually be big enough to fight back, that is.
Granted, these are the same fine upstanding gentlemen who constantly find things online that they don't like then encourage their horde of twits and retards at their forums to harrass people for shits and giggles.
But hey, it's funny when they're finding some kid's Guile fansite or bringing bomb threats to a furry con (and then bitching when the police have something to say about bomb threats right next to an airport), right? So it has to be fun when they're trying the same form of character assassination and harassment on as large a scale as to attack a multi-million dollar international company... right?
Right? Ha ha? So funny? Right?
So obviously, if EVE gets upset enough to actually sue them for this, they're just being bad sports. Ha. Haha. Right? Uh, guys?
Now, I wouldn't call it impossible with the Something Aweful crowd involved. They do have a record trying to destroy what others built. But, seriously, how could they if there wasn't already a reason to believe them?
If EvE was a fully credible game, with a CCP having a record of being straight, honest and upright towards its customers, with no favorism, remembered for being fair and unbiased, with no sensible allegations pending that there could remotely be some kind of intermingling between developers and player groups, the whole case would be laughed off.
The problem is, it's anything but that. There have been such allegations before, there have been shady deals, there have been cases where we've seen favorism.
Can this be a plot by some dissatisfied players to bring down the game? Sure. Could it succeed if there wasn't "prior art" of that kind? Certainly not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Come on guys. Goon Fleet. That's all that needs to be said.
EVE Online would appear to be the perfect example of what happens if Devs appear to be *too* involved in playing the game, yet as any MMO player will attest - forums are filled with people crying about Devs not having "real-World experience of the problems class x is having". Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
From a player perspective I can see how damaging it would be to even be seen to show bias one way or the other towards a class, guild, corp. or whatever the game terminology happens to be. From a developer perspective it must be quite frustrating not being able to enjoy the game in all its splendor (guild raiding, etc included) whilst simultaneously having to deal with legions of forum whiners moaning about how the Devs "dont know how the game works at the ground level".
And of course let's not forget that MMO communities are, without exception, always incredulous, accusatory, fickle and obstinate on the game forums. Everyone has their tinfoil hat on 24/7, expects (demands) the Earth for their $15 a month and despite having very little visibility of the organisational goals, objectives and constraints everyone purports to be "in the know", a programming expert and a visionary. It must be soul-destroying to have to deal with people with this mindset day-in, day-out. Being a Dev on a MMO must be like living life as a major politician: every word spoken about the game (especially on the forums) has to be carefully crafted so as to be totally unambigious and unemotional, since you can guarantee that the World and his dog will deconstruct and scrutinise every syllable, all the while presupposing a hidden agenda (again, tinfoil). It's no wonder Devs usually don't speak much on the forums.
(A slightly amusing anecdote: I was reading the Star Wars Galaxies forums recently as I used to play and a Dev made the heinous mistake of getting involved in an off-topic discussion about American Football teams. Naturally before long someone piped up saying "it's great that you're talking on here but shouldn't you be looking at the pressing issue of Spy DoT damage not being mitigated whilst wearing the Eye of Sauron ring? If you don't fix this I'm quitting and so is my entire family, friends & pet.". Ok I'm being facetious to prove a point, but it was still disheartening to read).
Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.
Goonfleet just gets grief because they're gutsy enough to play the extreme end of the game's rules -- things that are looked upon as "cheating" in other games, e.g. spying, doublecrossing etc is THE POINT OF THE FUCKING GAME!
If that's what keeps you entertained, you can even play russian roulette, as far as I'm concerned. But that still doesn't justify fixing it. If the gun is rigged so one of the players can't lose (it's actually possible nowadays), then wtf is the point of playing against them?
And comparisons to RL are emotional and all, but missing the point. Noone said they have to police against players who play better. I do, however, say that they should police their own fucking devs.
In most cases it doesn't even need active surveillance, but just making sure there are consequences and you fire the twits who can't stay honest. Same as casino employees, for example, if you want an example with real wins and losses and pulse racing. It doesn't mean you'll have three guys watching each other and the blackjack dealer, it means you make sure everyone knows they'll never work again in that town and possibly face prosecution too if they're caught cheating.
And, from what I understand, CCP already failed in that aspect once. "Uh, we moved the guy to another team" doesn't even start to give the right message to either party. It's like a casino saying "uh, it was only one crooked dealer, and we, erm, moved him to the roulette instead of the blackjack table" in a case like that. It doesn't give the right message to either the patrons or to the other employees.
And I don't think any casino there would go, "yeah, well, RL is corrupt too, we can't police it", by the way. It _is_ possible to build a whole business on the idea that it's fair and honest, and at least legal gambling went to great lengths to build and preserve that image. Especially _because_ everyone has seen movies about rigged roulette tables and money laundering via the blackjack table, and expects that kind of thing, they go to great lengths to distance themselves as far as possible from that kind of an image. They don't go and confirm it, since everyone was expecting it anyway.
So, well, I don't think a MMO company is absolutely unable to do the same thing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As an interested Eve player, I've encountered both the Goonswarm and CCP, although neither in contentious circumstances.
CCP has created a great game, but they need some adult supervision to operate it as a viable business. They are in danger of squandering a very well-made game by taking it too seriously. There are ways to stay "involved" in gameplay without having a stake in the outcome of large-scale battles. And you cannot, under any circumstances, get too "friendly" with certain players, no matter how dedicated the player. When the game "starts", those relationships have to end.
Do you know what happens when a pit boss in a casino gets too friendly with someone who tends to win a lot of money, regularly? And trust me, there's a reason both MMORPGs and Casinos are said to be part of the "gaming" industry.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If the complaint isn't true, though, the only one wronged would be the person you fired.
If your hobby was building little boats in bottles, and someone knocked your bottles off of the shelf, destroying or damaging them, you would be pissed.
His hobby is EVE, and they bumped his bottle, causing damage to his tiny ship.
Just because it's not real events doesn't mean it's not a real hobby.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
To be honest, having played Eve for over a year now, nearly all of this drama is played out on the forum. The ingame atmosphere is unlike any other, mostly due to the fact that you are putting your efforts on the line nearly every time you logon. This fosters a spirit ive yet to encounter anywhere else. Just ignore the forums.
"Take everything you read about these events with a grain of salt."
I'll do one better and just not care at all.
I wouldn't count on that. A lot of Eve players are pretty upset at this because it's the third accusation. The first accusation turned out to be true, and rather than see a strong position of integrity from CCP, we saw:
- T20 remain on the job
- BoB continuing to reap the benefits of the corruption of the game rules
- CCP banning and smearing players who complained about it
- CCP acting as if the whole thing was no big deal and nobody had any right to complain about it
The second accusation turned out to be a pretty obvious and meaningless misunderstanding and they handled it fairly well. Not great, but not bad.
Then this.
Again, what do we see? Do we see an honest, strong value position from CCP? No, we see them screeching about conspiracies to coordinate attacks on them. We see them not releasing facts, we see them pretending it's all a fake issue, making excuses, and blaming their own customers for the dustup.
Forget it. I cancelled last night. The game was brutal, often unfair, and wildly fun. But that's only if everyone is playing by the same rules. The draw of Eve was that their was no hand holding so lazy or stupid people would fail on their own merits and people who worked hard and were clever about their gameplay would succeed.
But it looks increasingly like Eve is just a mirror of the real world. We have these rules, but certain people don't have to play by them all the time. Certain people get special handouts from the powers that be because they're close to the powers that be.
Well, in the real world when the government gives a huge tax cut or bailout to someone who's already obscenely rich while I'm working an 80 hour week there's not much I can do about it except grin and bear it. In the gameworld, though, I can: I can leave. And I did, and I hope plenty of other people will too.
I intend to keep an eye on CCP's progress. If it seems like they turn things around and start acting more like adults I'll consider returning, but if this childish blamegame keeps up, forget it.
If these allegations had come out of nowhere from GoonSwarm, no one would have believed them.
Unfortunately for CCP, they have already been caught trying to cover up allegations that turned out in the end to be true, and a large portion of the playerbase does not believe that CCP handled the initial incident properly at all.
Most of us were willing to give them a second chance, but so far, they're blowing it.
An insightful poster in the EVE Online forums said, "You know you're in trouble when the majority of your playerbase is more inclined to believe an organization that was responsible for the term Photoshop Friday than they are inclined to believe you." Honestly, while the Something Awful/GoonSwarm crew may be assholes, they make NO effort to hide that fact. They're blatant about it, and a lot of people will prefer an open blatant asshole (you know what to expect from them) to a backstabbing sleazebag (They're acting nice, but what are they REALLY up to?)
After the t20 incident, CCP destroyed any trust the playerbase had in them. They tried to cover up the t20 scandal for as long as they could (including banning anyone who discussed or linked to the allegations), and in the end it turned out that the allegations were true. At that point, t20 got a small slap on the wrist and the BPOs were removed from the game, but not the ingame money they generated (and hence the damage they caused). By the time CCP addressed the issue, the ingame balance of power had already been permanently altered. t20 is still with the company, and no effort was made to repair the damage he did. In any other MMO, the damage a rogue developer could have done is far less, and despite that, it's known that other MMO companies (Blizzard, Mythic) are FAR stricter about dev/GM misconduct - at any other company, t20 would be LONG gone, but the fact is that as long as he is still with the company and the playerbase continues to fail to see heads roll, they will never trust CCP again.
The funniest thing is the fact that they say "trust us, we'll do what's right" when so far they have an established track record of not doing so.
Yes, I am now actively looking for another game to play. I was passively waiting for something better to be released, but now I think I can find something better from the list of what is already out there.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The faceless entity that is an mmorpg and the parent company wouldn't want to favor certain players. However, the individual developers and people working with the internals of the game could easily favor their friends and people who had become their friends through the game. This is the reason that people working on the game should never be allowed, ever, under any circumstances, to personally get invested in the game or its players.
As much fun as Eve is (and I've heard it's easily the best MMO for people who want seriously fun pvp and pve action), the parent company consistently handles issues in a non-professional way (ie immature, not thinking clearly, looking for a break and the benefit of the doubt). Their original scandle is what convinced me that I'd never play the game. When dealing with something as large and lucrative as an MMO, the devs shouldn't have been in the position to cheat in the first place, much less been able to pull it off and have the company cover for them.
Hey, I got an idea... Why doesn't everybody take a break, watch the news in the real world, and then come back and examine the flame wars in the virtual world. I bet there are a bunch of folks overseas that would be glad to flame the issue for you while you go on patrol...
Actually, if you do it right, you can be at level 60 in under 5 days of /played. There's a guide out there of someone who does speed runs from 1-60 (and now 70). I'm not sure about their time from 1-70, but their fastest 1-60 is like 4 days 20 hours of played time.
But you are right. If instead of WoW, I had done something else with that time I'd be able to speak a second language or play the guitar. But I played WoW and I enjoyed playing it. I've made some friends and had some lulz, and isn't that the goal of life?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Let's say for a minute that CCP is actually right on the first count(the other two they mention in their official response are easy to disprove - a common tactic, actually - front loading the stuff they can't deny with stuff they can).
All of the other problems that plague the company and the outright hostile manner in which they treat problems and players adds up to a very disturbing picture.
This previous evidence as well as their general demeanor towards cheating and squashing players and so on over the last few YEARS... It all weighs into the decision as to whether they are actually victims or they are whitewashing.
"Oh we're the victim(please ignore all the other mountains of junk)" - I'm not going to tend to believe them on the two other points they contest.
Point 1: Dev twiddling with the station - appears legitimate, though astonishingly quick. 15 minutes.
Point 2: Aurora Event arc cheating. This has been blown into little bits. It really did happen and CCP can't get away with denying it.
quote:
"Nothing new has been presented that merits re-opening the investigation into the events following the actions taken against the player/volunteer who violated a Non-Disclosure Agreement in regards to the 'Cult of Tetrimon' event arc."
So they basically re-iterated their previous BS. Nothing new was added, so this fails a basic validity test, since the original point was already more than adequately made by the players.
Point 3: The player in question was removed almost instantly. What you read is basically typical boilerplate like the U.S. govt said about the attorneys it fired. "We had previous complaints... yada yada..." Funny how a decision of such importance was made almost instantly. This is easy to see as the Spin it is, though.
Point 4: CCP then goes on:
"Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. " It's their server - that it would be unknown isn't possible - and even then, having several hundred or more players in a revolt(considering that the forum is the ONLY place in EVE to address even the tiniest problem) isn't illegal - or immoral.
Claiming that they were victims of a DOS attack is absurd. They pissed off a group of several hundred players all at once and they got hammered by disgruntled customers as a result.
"More specifically, 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"
No, this has been proven in the past. Whining doesn't change the fact that you DID favor BOB for three years or more.
"we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot,"
And this is extremely laughable as well. Almost all of the posts on their forums at the time were from active PAYING members. Not from people who frequent digg, wiki, or slashdot(though getting their entry on wiki altered surely was what prompted this response by them to do damage control I bet)
Point 5: Their response to the past incident? Well, the simple fact is that there have been HUNDREDS of cases in the past of devs manipulating the game or favoring their friends. That one was caught is all. If you look at CCP's original FUD and PR response to the incident, it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident - as they are now trying to paint it.
(see the last point at the bottom of this post for the PROOF that they are lying - in their own words!)
Point 6:
"It is worth restating here that there is absolutely no categorical CCP preference towards anything that transpires in the EVE political landscape." Their actions in the past have proven this beyond any doubt that they ARE biased in the extreme. They just have to appear as if they aren't because it really hit the fan hard this time.
"That's why if you are not happy with how things are transpiring in game, the game is built so there are ample opportuni