For those of you who haven’t been following the EVE EIB (EVE Investment Bank) scandal over the last few weeks here’s the gist of the story so far. A user named Cally founded an in-game bank and got fellow users to invest money in the bank. After a bit he folds the bank and takes everyone’s money. CCP held a virtual press conference today to discuss what went down and to clear up a few misunderstandings about what went happened. Here are my notes from the press conference:
- The actual amount taken is in doubt, CCP can't confirm the exact account and some of it might have been laundered in the game to other accounts
- EIB is completely user created and not part of the game, this kind of scandal is possible because of the freedom the game provides to it’s players
- The developers are upset that this happened as the money taken represent real hours of work and effort by its players but it is a hostile world so these things can happen
- Just another case of the virtual world being like the real one...scams happen all the time
- The size of the amount taken is what is really interesting and is probably because EVE Online is not “sharded” (i.e. everyone is on one server)
- It is sad for the developers but interesting that it was possible
- The staff does not want to put boundaries on people in the game, EVE will not interfere unless someone is abusing the game mechanic (i.e. sell the ISK offline)
- CCP has not found traces of the money yet but may be impossible if they move it out with a lot of small transactions and the money could be moved through secondary accounts
- They are keeping an eye on it to make sure the money is not sold as the potential value is around $170,000 if the person stole 800B ISK
- The EVE GM's watching him diligently right now, and if he goes and tries to sell it they will go after him
- EVE is against ISK selling
- There have been no major player defections since the scandal and they are actually seeing an increase in membership
- This isn’t the care bears online and this isn’t the first major scam for the game.
- CCP became aware when the story hit and had no idea before it hit. Some had not even hard of EIB before the scandal hit.
- No expected hit to the in-game economy given the size of the player base right now.
- The only recourse from CCP is to ban him from the game, no real legal recourse
- CCP is looking at doing something that will make ISK sellers obsolete - new approach to the issue but they won’t reveal any details right now
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