http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/03/science-online-bank-heist.html Makes me wonder how long it will be until we get taxed for the money we make within the games.
just think of all the asian mouths going hungry now from where they would have sold those credits themselves...
Well, ever since that woman wrote a book on how she made $1Mil US buying and selling properties on Second Life, the US Internal Revenue Service has been eyeing the online game industry as a possible tax source. Unfortuately, until one actually cashes in the game money for real money, it is not counted as income. The problem is that there is no real value of online money until it becomes real money. With that, I would not be surprised if any form of online gaming eventually ends up having an entertainment tax. Thus even F2P games have to charge something for playing. However, the problem is that online gaming is one of the purest form of Globalization that one can find. So I would assume that only the government where the gaming companies are actually located, could a tax like this be put in place. I guess the government would just assume that the companies would just pass the costs off to their customers. Then all the companies will move to countries that do not have the tax... like the luxury cruise lines do. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I have played EVE Online for 1 year and I find it a very interesting game. By far it is the most complicated game I have ever played online. The economy is actually designed by a Professor of Economics. Monthly reports of how the EVE Online economy is fairing can be read online... and they do track everything. The EVE Online banking system works very much like a normal private bank works in real life. As soon as the above story was released, there was a run on the bank by the investors. The bank managers that were left assured everyone that their money was safe and there was no need to withdraw their funds. The bank in question is still in business, from what I understand. The big problem with EVE Online banks are they unregulated and works basically on trust... like in the old days [grins].
Wow, this is dumb, imho. Did you say "trust" in the biggest pvp game out? So they emulate the economy of the 1800's? Wow. Super. What is the "business" of eve player run banks anyway? (Besides scamming people out of isk) I don't play anymore, so I can't really have a solid opinion. But it sounds to me like the whole game encourages scams like this. EDIT: To qualify my opinion: "The player made off with about 200 billion interstellar credits, CCP says, and traded the currency to players who preferred to purchase credits (as opposed to earning them by accomplishing tasks in the game) for the equivalent of about $5,800 Canadian. The heist represents about 8 per cent of the total deposits EBank holds, CCP says." $5800 = 8% of their holdings? So the only thing keeping these players from running off with $72,500 is having their accounts frozen? It's like the game is BEGGING people to sell and buy gold.
The EVE Banks, based on what I know, operate just like regular banks would. You give them money and they give you interest on your deposits. The Banks, in turn, invest the money in loans. Even though the word 'trust' is involved, to stay in business and make money, they have to be trustworthy. The 'hands-off' policy by the EVE Dev's seems to work most of the time. But then, EVE Online is known for the griefing and scams... the latest being Corp spys. Corp/Guild leaders run off with all the Corp's assets all the time... that is part of the game. Again, going back to the word, 'trust'. The idea is to find a good group and stick with them... and hope someone in the group does not sell out. If one thinks about it... ~$72k US is alot of cash. One must really love the game inorder not to be tempted. However, I would assume that most of that cash is out working, and so that is why the guy only got away with 8% of the ISK in the bank.
For that to be working without regulation of any kind or any backing by CCR is a miracle of the modern mmo world hehe. Anyways, I suppose there's not much they can do about it. If people want to borrow and loan money in game, it's their risk. I was under the impression there was more to it than that, like some kind of stupid game mechanics or something CCR actually had control of. Still, pretty damn funny any way you look at it. I wonder if pretty soon these in game companies will become so big that they will be 'too big to fail' and need 'bailout money' from the devs, lol.
I believe that CCP's policy is one of 'hands off' when it comes to Player interaction... meaning the Players run the game. Hell, if CCP was going to intervene, they would have done so when one of the largest organizations, BOB, was destoryed in one day by a Corp Director turning traitor. However, I do believe we under estimate that some people are somewhat honest... as long as it is to their benefit to do so. It would appear that the Bankers in EVE Online make a good living, so why should they not remain honest? As was see in the article, the guy who stole the money thought he had to do it because of his offline debt. Perhaps he would not have even thought of doing it if his offline debt and his son's illness had not created a situation where he thought he had to act... we will never know. Anyway, there is a lot of griefing on EVE Online, I will admit. Mercenary Corps tend to make good money. But that is all part of the game... one never knows when something will go screwy... just the nature of the beast. Everything that one may have worked for in years worth of online play, can be gone in a second... POOF!!! One's only option after that is to just start over, as many have done more than once. If one wants to control their environment and have a stable atmosphere... EVE Online is not the game for them, period. Addition: In Null Space, ANYONE... including your buddy next to you in your own Corp, can destroy your ship and Pod you at anytime... with absolutely no consequences in game terms. The key is that no one really works alone in EVE Online, especially in Null Space. There are some Pirates that run Low Sec Space alone, but they are not really a major force to deal with and generally just a nuisance. So most people get along and play well with others because it is to their benefit to do so... simple.
And if he just wanted a wild weekend with blow and hookers, he would have told everyone that? I'm not saying he IS lying, but a son's medical bills sure is a heart tugging story if I wanted to remain friends with the people ingame. For all we know he was just testing the limits of gold selling. He already did two dishonest things (steal money from corp, sell gold for money), why would you automatically assume he is being honest about other things? They probably sell chunks of isk for money all the time, and just happened to get caught this time. Meh, I hope I'm wrong, but I have my doubts. I'm sure most borrowers and lenders are probably honest and not selling gold, but this sure would have soured my taste for the practice. I definately appreciate open pvp like Eve, I hope they don't intervene too much. As long as gold selling doesn't get out of control like in other games, the game will probably continue to do well. Open pvp like that fosters a huge layer of political intrigue that is pretty damn fun to play in. But once real world money becomes the motivation of huge entities in game, it kinda screws everything up lol.
Well, since CCP has allowed people to buy subscription credits and then be able to sell them in-game for ISK, it can be said that one can buy in-game currency in EVE Online. That is how that Russian was able to get all that ISK so quickly and buy so many big ships. He even brought the Server down that sold the credits, he was buying them so fast. But then, I guess if one has $100k US to spend on a game... have fun! CCP is not complaining. This did kind of set the price for ISK's offline, which was a good move by CCP. If one cannot beat them, join them, I guess. The issue is one still cannot sell ISK for real cash. That still has to be done offline and in violation of the User Agreement... which means bye-bye if one is caught... as our buddy above found out. If one is a horder and wants to have tons of crap in their inventory, EVE Online may not be the game for them. People build ships to be destroyed. I equate this to loosing all of one's gear each time one is killed in games like WoW and such. However, it does keep the economy going, as everyone has to replace what they loose each time they are blown up. If you look at it, if one gets podded (their lifeboat gets destroyed after their ship has been destroyed... which outright kills the Character and they need to be reincarnated in their saved Clone), and then one gets killed again before they are able to save another Clone (which has happened to some through their own forgetfulness), they loose all their skills down to a very basic level. That is like having a 70th Level Character that get killed and they revert back to 10th Level. That is heart breaking... and do not expect any sympathy from CCP. EVE Online is a good game in one respect... you learn to live with what happens to you regardless of whether it is your fault or not... crap happens, learn to live with it... simple.
Ahh, I didn't know they did this either. It's been over 4 years since I've played Actually, I think this is the second best defense against gold sellers (if you can't change grindtastic game mechanics). That makes me think that gold selling really doesn't go on that much, as I imagine gold sellers would have a hard time competing with the devs heheh. That's good, I hope I am wrong about everything. Damn I didn't know Eve was quite that hardcore. I like games that have meaningful deaths, but that's pretty damn hardcore hehehe. Gotta hand it to Eve in that respect. It is the last bastion of hardcore open pvp in the mmo world.
[snickers]... I heard one guy say in a forum that if he could not logon and ruin someone else's day... why logon at all? I guess EVE Online is his kind of game. Btw, he did not play EVE Online, but something else.