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Scammers Continue to Wreak Havoc in MMO's
eldavojohn writes "We're all well aware of the scams that sometimes happen in online games like Eve Online. But despite this looking primarily like a problem with Eve Online, the MIT Technology Review brings us stories from Second Life and the very real $700,000 (USD) in Linden Dollars that has recently disappeared in what is appearing to be a classic ponzi scheme by a company named Ginko Banking. Unbelievably high interest rates coupled with some shady withdrawal limits leads to classic epic losses to investors. Eve Online was merely virtual currency but Second Life has a real monetary value associated with Linden Dollars & therefore is certain to see more and more scams pop up like this. How can Linden Labs set up a safety net to catch things like this?"
Let people be stupid.
I don't play games such as this, but it seems obvious to me that these sorts of scams are going to happen whenever there is a real dollar value associated with in-game currency. This sort of thing wouldn't happen if the makers of Second Life would remove the exchange rate between Linden dollars and USD; and even if it did happen, it wouldn't really be news.
One more point: How can the makers of this game do this without running afoul of the banking regulations of various nations, especially if you can buy/sell Linden dollars directly from the company itself?
So, any anonymous Joe Schmoe can open a Bank in Second Life? And people are surprised when they give money to a stranger and something like this happens? Well shit, maybe I should start playing the game and create my own bank! You know you can trust me because I'm playing the same game you are! That makes us almost like kin!
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
How does second life still drum up this much publicity? Its nothing but over hyped marketing and furries looking for some sort of acceptance. If you don't talk about it, second life will disappear.
I have a real hard time feeling very sympathetic to most of these people being scammed. These types of scams typically rely on the victim allowing greed to shut down their brain. I am normally one to be pretty vicious towards the scammers in things like credit cards and predatory lending, because often enough it isn't exploiting greed and get rich quick schemes so much as it is a genuine fraud and manipulation. This subprime crap and scams like this are almost exclusively greed driven on the part of the victim. Listen to the radio and you will hear dozens of commercials per day on how to get rich quick in real estate, flipping houses, or whatever other genious plan being sold. I can't imagine why someone selling real estate would try to sell a system of how to get rich by buying real estate...
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
They're legal in the sense that SL has very few actual rules about player conduct and basically no enforcement of the few rules they do have. Unless you're crashing servers or spamming dicks it's pretty hard to get in trouble in SL, and even if you do it's just a temporary suspension. Even if your character were banned, the worst that would happen is you would lose whatever L$ you have not cashed out for real life bucks and would be forced to roll a new character.
I read the internet for the articles.
I'm sorry, Eve has real consequences for failure. It's wide-scale PvP, in a way that actually makes roleplaying make sense.
Compared to the endless grind of City of Heroes or World of Warcraft... well, finding a way to deal with scammers in Eve is what makes it the only MMO worth playing.
I would argue that the entire point of civilization is to protect the weak and/or stupid. I would also argue that at various times and places, we have all been the stupid one at some point. Lastly, I would point out that in this case, the loss of virtual currency is an actual material loss, since you can convert game dollars to USD.
People will also not improve just because you think you're better than they are.
(emphasis mine)
Uhmmmm, hello?
Eve Online is specifically designed to have a player-driven economy and market. As in real life, it is possible to scam people in such a market. This is not just allowed in Eve online, it has in fact been close to actively encouraged (as in, people have asked devs/GM's whether it's ok to do certain things, and got a reply that amounts to "if it's not obviously prohibited by the EULA, go right ahead". It has made for some nice stories as well, some people may remember the story about the Eve Intergalactic Bank piramid scam.
The devs consider this kind of thing to be exactly as intended and have even stated so in public forums. So yes, it's a harsh game. It is actually possible to lose the work of several months in a matter of minutes.
Of course, there are still rules/an EULA, for example it's not OK to phish for account details, to sell or buy in-game money for real-world money, etc. However, if you manage to convince hundreds of people that they should invest in your piramid scheme, you should absolutely go right ahead.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Oh, good Lord... Get a REAL life.
Keep the federal oversight out of our games, please.
You may not have had a choice in entering this world, but you certainly have a choice about playing a game. And putting real money into a game in the form of Linden Dollars is also a choice.
The glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is dirty and I don't do dishes!
Currency in SL is exchangable for currency in RL, supported by the game developer. These people were scammed out of real money. It's the same thing as stealing someones chips in a casino and cashing them in.
...nature's way of telling you that you're a dumbass.
It's financial Darwinism. And, as mentioned many times, the best cons take advantage of someone who "THINKS" that they are scamming someone else, to get something for nothing.
If you are SO gullible, that you think the widow of a Nigerian minister will out of the blue contact you to help claim $millions in aid money, then you, sir or madam, are a dumbass. I don't care if you're a blue-haired granny who makes wonderful cookies for your grandchildren and always is willing to help someone down on their luck.
Dumbass doesn't mean "bad", it just means stupid. And you can't legislate against stupidity. You can apparently ELECT it, but you can't legislate against it.
The moral of this of course, is that if granny gets taken to the cleaners, then perhaps her family shouldn't have let granny so loose on the financial leash, should they? And the upshot of that? Pay attention to the people you care about. Be interested in them and their lives, in what they're doing. If they're going off the rails and you care about them, get involved.
-Styopa