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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.
The reason eve fails is BECAUSE it replicates the real world too well. When you "play" Eve, one gets the distinct feeling that one is actually not playing a game but doing work. The feeling of the drudgery of work.
Maybe CCP will learn from the financial crisis that a utopian hypercapitalist world is not only a fantasy world, it's not all that fun.
I have to disagree on that one. EVE is what you make out of it. You can do tedious and boring stuff like run an industrial enterprise (aka Spreadsheets Online), mine asteroids (mindnumbingly boring), do PVE (which is admittedly terrible in EVE) combat or you can go the PVP route (be it as a pirate, mercenary, grunt in one of the major power blocks or declaring war on carebear corps for "protection money") and blow up other people's pixels leading to tasty bitter tears for your drinking pleasure (complete loss of whatever you're flying when you get blown up can lead to amusing smack talk).
Or you could do something completely different and do the social engineering and scamming (completely accepted by the TOS as long as you stay within game mechanics) that keeps EVE in the mainstream news.
It's a sandbox, there should be something in it for you to have fun with as long as you can befriend the general gameplay, setting and the UI (which is constantly improving) surrounding it.
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
Loans are EBANK's bread and butter. The loans are mostly collateralized (there are in game mechanisms for locking resources so they can still be used by a third party but can't be moved) or guaranteed by a trusted party (effectively using their reputation as collateral).
Added to the compartmentalized capital management they have, and no one person can kill the bank, take 200bn? Sure, but that isn't death, just a really big chunk of profit...
Realities just a bunch of bits.
And of course, people always tell the truth on web registration forms
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.
Try as I might, I can't find a single thing the embezzler did that makes him a fool. He ditched a real-life time and money sink of a habit (EVE Online) and managed to trade it for real-life money and pay some bills. Might qualify slightly as "jerk", but not even a little as "fool".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.