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Massive Bank Fraud In EVE Online
djconrad was one of several readers to point out the latest major scandal in EVE Online, the space MMO notable for its large, player-driven economy and the entertaining stories it often generates. A player named Ricdic, chairman of a large in-game bank, decided to embezzle roughly 200 billion ISK (the game's currency). Ricdic exchanged the ISK for about $5,000 to pay off real-life debts. Massively has an in-depth write-up about how the theft affects the game and its players. Since the scandal became public, there's been a run on the virtual bank, and its executives are doing what they can to reassure people that it will continue to exist. Ricdic was banned, not for the embezzlement, but for trading 200 billion ISK for real currency, which is forbidden by EVE's EULA.
It happened early June already, though it apparently took quite a while for it to propagate to the mainstream news.
He probably has a job lined up now as a normal bank exec or a job in government.
https://www.speakservers.com/
Oh yeah! That'll work. And just how many accounts you think the guy has that's doing the very same thing right now? His new name? Likdik... Life - Art... which is more real?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
EVE continues to be an interesting study in politics and intrigue but I will forever fail to understand its appeal as an MMO. I've tried playing it - it totally does not appeal to me in any way, what-so-ever. It was about as dreadfully boring as a game could possibly be without being nothing at all. In my opinion. But, its political backstabbings and manipulations of its systems sure as hell generate some interesting stories... Intensely interesting and dreadfully boring at the same time.
How... how does that even bring anything to the story at all? Not that its a non-story for anyone not invested/interested in EVE. They don't want people selling in game currency for real world money. Thats how they want to do things. Your comment, at best, is throwaway.
I bid you good morrow sir.
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
You might think I'm being sarcastic but really. Each time I read one of these stories about an Eve problem I only want to play the game more. I've played other MMOs and having full banking institutions, investments, and companies exist is within its self very rare.
I mean all games have some kind of monetary system and by extension a way to trade money for goods. But very few are able to recreate the real world so closely.
Take for example World of Warcraft, you have gold, and you can trade. But you'd never have real businesses exist because the game just doesn't work that way, let alone banks.
CCP already has something like that in place in EVE Online.
You can buy a GTC (Game Time Code) and directly sell it to other players for ISK (ingame money) through a secured official system on the website or convert it into a in-game tradeable item called Pilot License EXtension (PLEX).
Kneejerk response #1: This jerk is why we're all going to have to pay income taxes on our MMO loot someday.
Kneejerk response #2: Finally! The solution to the health care crisis...Gold Sellers!
Kneejerk response #3: You're only jealous you didn't think of it first.
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My Final Conclusion: I just hope his kid is getting better.
I thought EVE already allowed you to convert ISK into USD through them at a fixed exchange rate...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I thought EVE already allowed you to convert ISK into USD through them at a fixed exchange rate...
Nope. Second Life does that, AFAIK.
There are already games that let you do that. They're called NYSE, NASDAQ and FOREX.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
I'd like to take a minute to address concerns over EBANK's solvency, that is, it's ability to pay out withdraws. As I mentioned before, EBANK moved a large portion of it's assets into cash and we've been merrily burning through it today as people have drawn their money out in concern. We also haven't had deposits coming in - so the money is only flowing in one direction....out.
That's ok.
We still have enough cash to handle withdraws and as of the time I write this; withdraws have been actioned. I would also like to point out a few other things; we have had many persons asking when they can deposit money again, as a show of support and to provide EBANK with an infusion of cash. On top of this, we have had private loans offered to us totaling 100 billion and if we really have to....we still have the ability to issue a Bond or if really required, we may finally launch an IPO.
Why am I pointing this out? I want to provide assurances to our customers that your money is safe with EBANK. We are solvent and continue to build liquidity even in this challenging environment. Even if we have a solvency issue, we have many options at hand to address that should it arise.
Again, thank you to those who have expressed support.
I don't play Eve anymore (purely out of regard for personal time management), but I've read many statements like the above of business dealings in the game (not necessarily about scams, just straight business). What I'm always struck by is that if you're capable of finagling all these things in the game, what's stopping you from doing it in real life?
When this thought first struck me, I was making plans to run an in game POS as a business, and had produced a full business plan and profit analysis spreadsheet. Which is exactly what you'd expect to need at the start of a real business.
Supply and demand, buy low/sell high, and negotiations are all key skills in running a business in the game, but no more or less than they are in real life. Real life has a lot more government regulation (CCP takes a largely hands-off policy as long as you're not trading ISK for real money), but as long as you can navigate that, you'll have the skills you need for a real business, too.
Not a typewriter
EVE Deposit Insurance Corporation. Banks pay a small premium to EDIC, in turn it insures everybody's deposits.
Of course, to keep it from going broke immediately, there would have to be some kind of in-game sanctions against cheaters and embezzlers! Does EVE have a "jail"???
Wow, I didn't realize that federal inmates were allowed to play Eve!
I once shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly.
Remember the big flap with Second Life banks when Ginko Financial failed? They had a real bank run in Second Life, with avatars crowding branches demanding their money.
Linden Labs then banned all "banks" in Second Life unless operated by a regulated real-world financial institution. A few real banks established a presence in Second Life, but most (maybe all) have given it up by now.
The problem with banks in a virtual world is that what banks really do is sell loans. It's hard to collect from an avatar. So a loan business is tough to make work. A deposit and transfer business is quite workable, but it's expensive to run well. Among other things, it has all the fraud-prevention problems and costs of, say, PayPal.
This is rather very old news, and the "run" is also over already; my ISKs are sitting safely at the bank, and earning too! Heck, people were even making deposits to help out while others were reacting.
What I thought was interesting, was the talk of how perhaps the bank needs to increase returns to reflect the greater resulting/perceived risk.
What I'm always struck by is that if you're capable of finagling all these things in the game, what's stopping you from doing it in real life?
Body odor.
paintball
figured out how to win the ever elusive mmo endgame
Yeah, but their graphics sure sucks and blows at the same time. At best you get some vector graphics... pfff, get with the times, morons!
'sides, last time I went for PvP I got pummeled by GMs and locked outta the server. Effing carebears.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most MMO's are boring, after all, you can play any game for so long. SWG is not fondly remembered for its battles or storyline, but for the sandbox that allowed some of us to create an alternate world were we could play... well star wars.
EVE does it even better. People don't play it to fly a starship, they play it for the economy model. It is amazing and allows you to pull of stuff that would take a lifetime in the realworld and sometimes gets you killed.
You can look at the D&D rulebook and see nothing but stats and rules for manipulating numbers, an accountants manual perhaps, OR you can see it as the spreadsheet gateway to a fantasy world of your own making. Of course, you could do it without the D&D rulebook, but for most of us, it helps to have a tool (the game) to build the fantasy around.
One or two of the very few married EVE Online players in the world spent $100 of their household's real life cash to buy a freighter in-game only to have it stolen from them and then some other real life bill didn't get paid and then they faced their wives' wrath and as Porky Pig once said... badebadebadethatsallfolks!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
CCP already has something like that in place in EVE Online.
You can buy a GTC (Game Time Code) and directly sell it to other players for ISK (ingame money)
Yes, but there's no official mechanism for converting your ISK back to real money. For that, you'd basically have to sell it externally, presumably to an ISK trader.
Banning Ricdic for making $5,000 in real money from the game will probably result in him making more real money, from real work, in the real world. He might even meet a real girl and have a real relationship and real children. Hardly seems like much of a punishment, if you ask me. If the developers of EVE wanted to punish Ricdic, they'd have given him two more accounts....for free.
In real life, a reputation follows a person. No one will invest in Madoff anymore. In the game, a reputation follows the username. If the game does not allow username changes, then being dishonest would adversely affect the cheater's game play, which means cheating/punishment is _a part of_ the game. People probably were no longer willing to play with Ridic anymore. In games like Counter-Strike, if a person does not cover you in one round, then you remember the name, and no longer trust him to cover you in the next round. It may not seem to be as big of a deal in Counter-Strike because almost everything resets in the next round, but nothing resets in Eve and people lost hard-earned money. So in summary, in Ridic's case, the cheater lost even if he did not get banned, because no one would be willing to play with him again.
Not sure who the bigger fool is, the guy that embezzled all the in-game money or the schmuck that paid $5000 of real money for it.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
It's this very fact that pisses game theorists off to no end -- agents in the system continue to act completely irrationally (ie, to trust) when the rules clearly indicate every advantage for the "cheater" and next to no consequences.
I work using game theory to model international relations. This is not at all a problem for game theory; in fact, game theory tends to presuppose that trust is the default choice and treachery is the abnormality. Your hypothesis of some inherent human altruism as being more explicative of human behavior than game theory is bunk.
Your problem is that you only understand game theory in its most basic form: a single round game with four possible outcomes. In this configuration, it is true that it is best to cheat, but this does not model anything in the real world and game theorists don't use it; this is just the introductory version that we give to students who are unlikely to ever actually use it.
What is more realistic is to suppose games of many rounds between the same players. In this case, players will not cheat because they know that if they do that, their partner will also cheat in the next round and it costs more in the long run. This conception works out pretty well in empirical testing: experiments show that students playing multi-round versions of the prisoner's dilemma for cash rewards will not cheat until the last round, when they tend to cheat. If they play a single round, whether they cheat seems to vary depending on the environment that the experiment is conducted in. If they don't know how many rounds they will play, they almost never cheat.
As part of my master's thesis, I ran that last situation: in over 400 rounds of the game between 80 participants, I had exactly one cheater, which was perfectly in line with what the theory predicted.
Today, game theorists mostly work on how cycles of trust work. For example, as I mentioned above, if one player cheats once, then his partner will cheat the next round. Both players will move into the mindset of minimizing damage and cheat consistently. To break out of this, you need to introduce communication and small stake games to rebuild the trust cycle.
The problem with game theory is not some inherent human tendency to honesty as you claim, but that it supposes that the players have perfect knowledge, which people don't in the real world. Ambiguity leads to less risk taking, which leads people to avoid cheating, even in single round situations. Another shortcoming is that it is very difficult to build games that are complex enough to model the real world, but again, this has nothing to do with your hypothesis.