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EVE Bans Exploiters; Dropping 2% of Users Cuts Average CPU Usage 30%
Earthquake Retrofit writes "Ars has a story about EVE Online banning thousands of accounts for real-world trading of in-game money for profit. From the article: 'Those who buy and sell ISK, the game's currency, are not only exploiting the game, but unbalancing play. That's why the company decided to go drastic: a program they called "Unholy Rage." For weeks they studied the behavior and effects these real-money traders had on the game, and then they struck. During scheduled maintenance, over 6,000 accounts were banned. [Einar Hreiðarsson, EVE's lead GM,] assures us that the methods were sound, and the bannings went off with surgical precision. ... While the number of accounts banned in the opening phase of the operation constituted around 2 percent of the total active registered accounts, the CPU per user usage was cut by a good 30 percent.' Looks like they got the right 6,000.' Further information and more graphs are available from the EVE dev blog."
Where's the insult? Confusing revenues and profits is sloppy.
If you really are the mod who chucked in a Flamebait, you should have commented from a browser where you weren't logged in, it were undone.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Because I said "might have been". I'm encouraging clear language use, not making any assertions about how the 2% drop in revenues will impact their profits.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This is simply not true, as there is no such thing as this "gold" you speak of in EVE. Also, math fail.
Maybe just maybe if you didn't create a game that cries out to be exploited in this manner in the first place then you might not have all of these problems. To create the opportunity for the otherwise smart or unemployed to make money in your game -- and then expect them not to because you said just don't do it -- indicates great stupidity on your part.
After you've made this mistake you end up having to go in on a massive cleanup operation that you hope won't bury you in bad press and collateral damage.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Sorry, but EVE has been one of those train-wreck scenarios from the get-go (why I've avoided it). Everyone, including the devs, have been participating in the whole RMT/botting/etc debacle.
What's really happened here is that the developers of EVE have cornered the market for RMT in their game in a way only they could.
For anyone still playing the game. Other than having lost the money-holders in your cartel (and being out millions or billions of ISK), there's nothing to see here. Business as usual.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!