by Jeff Woleslagle on Jul 08, 2009
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Yet another EVE banking scandal has rocked the Reuters wire. No stranger to the EVE controversies, we get Goonswarm spymaster The Mittani's take on EVE's player-run banking troubles and offer you several new and exclusive articles on APB, Aion, and World of Warcraft. It's all in Loading... EVE Banks Debunked.
Ten Ton Hammer's very own satirical webcomic, geeked is here with a look at the age old discussion of what game stole what from what other game... and just who the heck cares. Check out geeked: The Horse is Dead, Jim today!
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft EverQuest 2 Age of Conan EVE Online (UP 1) Aion (down 1)Biggest Movers today :
Earthrise (UP 47 to #19) Jumpgate Evolution (UP 2 to #18) Warhammer Online (UP 1) Recent MMO Releases 6/24 - Age of Conan Update 5: Gangs of Tarantia 6/25 - WAR "Land of the Dead" 6/30 - City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary 6/30 - Lord of the Rings Online Book 8 7/7 - Darkfall Player Housing Expansion 7/13 - Darkfall NA launchImportant Dates
7/17 - 7/19- Aion Beta Weekend 7/23 - 7/26 - San Diego Comic Con '09 Upcoming Releases Late July - FFXI "Moogle Kupo d'Etat" Addon (release date) 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) Early 2010 - APBThis week saw yet another "OMG some EVE Online 'banker' ran away with trillions and billions of ISK" story. Rather beating a dead horse and because I have packing to do and errands to run for my Champions Online trip tomorrow, here's a reprint from a brief interview I did with The Mittani a few months ago for an article on Gamers Behaving Badly:
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EVE has had its share of controversies, from dev intrigues to underhanded corporate takeovers to massive battles that turn on a single well-placed spy. The good news is you can read about all of that and more weekly in our Sins of a Solar Spymaster column. Any massive single shard sandbox must have it’s dustups from time to time. But nowhere are these dustups more avoidable than in EVE’s completely unsecured and unregulated banking system.
On the face of it, EVE players stockpile ISK like hotel shampoo, so why not make that ISK work for you while you’re out-of-game training for long periods? If you’ve got 30 days of training before you can fly a battleship, why buy that battleship today? Invest your money with EIB and have money left over for that Tech 2 turret you’ve always wanted. Operators are standing by!
“The usual customers of 'EVE Banks' are people who live in the protected area of EVE,” The Mittani, leader of Goonswarm and our resident Spymaster explained. “They tend to be less acquainted with how the game really works, and expect that CCP would step in to bail them out much like a GM in World of Warcraft does after a scam.”
And no help was forthcoming when the head of EIB decided to cut and run. In a painfully rambling video, Cally a.k.a. Dentara Rast owns up to his lightning-fast extortion of the alleged 790 billion ISK in deposits EIB had accumulated. If the total held up (and CCP believed it was somewhat less [source]), it equates to over $100k in real money, and that’s just using the CCP-approved channels. Selling ISK through direct sales websites, a.k.a. goldsellers, could net much more.
“Banks offer nothing to anyone in EVE.” The Mittani adds. “They offer crap returns compared to other ways one could make money in EVE... In the real world, you need a bank because cash can be robbed or lost, and is unwieldy. In EVE, you have a wallet that can only be taken from through your own gullibility.”
Nor are EVE’s banking problems completely in the past. As recently as this January, Dynasty Banking lost some 80 billion of its equity balance when a key officer decided to pull a runner. Surely the community would learn its lesson and turn its back on the concept of an EVE bank, right? Wrong. EVE’s largest player-run bank, EBank, reports that it's currently holding nearly 8.5 trillion (with a ‘t’) in deposits from some 5,800 depositors [source]. Dynasty Banking is still taking deposits as well.
But, for better or worse, the EVE banking industry continues to grow. Are player trust and bank trustworthiness on the rise too? The Mittani has a different outlook: “There's an investor born every minute.”
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As if to reinforce The Mittani's words, EBank (the largest and most "legit" of the banks mentioned in the article segment) was at the center of EVE Online's latest banking scandal, which was peanuts compared to Ebanks total holdings and other EVE thefts. The moral of the story: stop lining the pockets of these scammers. Don't invest in player run banks, and if you already have, pull your money out now. Who cares about a run on illegitimate banks?
Why do players invest in EVE banks when story after story proclaims their untrustworthiness? Is it because players don't view virtual currency as real money (it is, folks), or is it the same old profit motive? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, or feel free to email me!
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day5 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 29 in July! 794 in 2009!
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-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team