The problem with creating a realistic economy in an MMO is that you run the risk of being vulnerable to real-world problems like embezzlement, bank failures, and financial panic. This is something CCP learned recently when a player in EVE Online stole sever billion dollars of in-game currency from one of the game's largest banks and wound up causing a run on the financial institution last month.
According to the BBC, it was revealed that a veteran player of EVE embezzled over 200 billion ISK from, Ebank, the bank he was the CEO of. The former CEO, known only as Ricdic, is actually a man in his 20s from Australia who works in the technology industry; it was revealed that he sold the ill-gotten in-game credits for roughly $5,000, which he used to put down a deposit on a house and pay some medical bills. When news of the theft got out in the EVE community, though, it caused players to make a run on the bank. Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that over 5 trillion ISK was withdrawn by account holders before the bank's board of directors shut down the institution to sort out the overall mess.
CCP has always prided itself on the fact that its economy is player-run and happens to be just as complicated as any one would find in the real world. Administrators from the company did get involved with this situation, though probably not in the way one would've expected. The company ended up banning Ricdic's account, but not because the man possibly caused a game-wide economic panic; instead, he was banned because trading in-game currency for real-world currency goes against EVE Online's terms and conditions.
Jul 7, 2009
When art imitates life
From Ars:
Something to think about: if you remove the prohibition against trading game money for real money from the analysis, Ricdic did nothing wrong. He just gamed the game.
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I've followed Eve for several years now and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. My favorite was several years back when a spy was planted in a corporation and worked their way up to second-in-command of one of the biggest corps in the game of the course of about a year. It was so articulately planned that they ended up assassinating the 'CEO' or whatever and stealing/destroying a lot of his in-game property. I think it cost him about $10,000 in real money. There was even talk of legal action at the time. Anyways, point is that it isn't the first time something like this has happened and definitely won't be the last. It's also the reason that if I were to actually play an MMO, Eve would be it just because actions like that are not only allowed, but sometimes even encouraged.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell is Eve ?
ReplyDeleteIs she Hot looking ?
MugChef, why are you following Eve ?
Does your wife know about this ?
It's evident that your wife did not write your last post for you. The sentence structure is a bit more laid back than usual.
Messiah Complex, have you gone completely mad ?