Gamer Pays Debt by Stealing Virtual Funds

[surfer1337dude]

I have never played the game but why should it matter? You buy ingame money(a) with your real cash (b). So you loose b to get a. Now what he did was get b to earn a. I honestly dont think that he should even be in trouble (unless he actually stole something, and its considered illegal in the real world). If I was EVE I wouldnt ban him, but maybe even get some kind of fund going to help the poor guy (kid has medical issues...Thats big money)

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]andman22[/nom]Sooo... why didn't he stop playing a video game and start working to earn the money?[/citation]

Now THAT is the real question that deserves a answer.

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]surfer1337dude[/nom]I have never played the game but why should it matter? You buy ingame money(a) with your real cash (b). So you loose b to get a. Now what he did was get b to earn a. I honestly dont think that he should even be in trouble (unless he actually stole something, and its considered illegal in the real world). If I was EVE I wouldnt ban him, but maybe even get some kind of fund going to help the poor guy (kid has medical issues...Thats big money)[/citation]

There's a very good reason why it matters, it wasn't his money period. And he broke the EULA which states doing just what he did is a instant and permanent ban. He broke it, he got banned.

Then you are a idiot who wouldn't understand such things. Let go to your house and steal 7% of your stuff. Doesn't matter if it wasn't real life money, it still wasn't his.

 

[Startingline13]

So let me get this straight:

He has piling medical expenses from his child, so rather than WORK a bit more, to raise funds, he instead sits behind the computer and plays video games, then steals from the people he is playing with, and none of you find anything wrong with this??

 

[Greg_77]

[citation][nom]bogdan222[/nom]Greg_77You have no way of transforming that virtual money in real money back. So you lost your real money as soon as you went out and transformed it into virtual money. If you lose it in the game than that's that it's your choice you want to replace it with real money back in, or just try to compensate by try to play more cleverly. But I say to you again the game currency has no real life value because you can't get it back.[/citation]

Well, the guy in this article certainly converted the virtual money to real money, even if he did this against game rules. Obviously, it has real value. Even if the virtual money could not be converted to real money, it still has to be replaced with real money to enjoy the game. In the end, the game players are still going to lose real cash to regain that virtual money. Actually, I thought of a good example. Let's say you go to an arcade. You buy tokens. You play games with some token. You can not convert those tokens back to cash. Someone "takes" them. According to you, no one stole anything from you. I mean, they can't be reconverted into cash. Yet this is still considered stealing. No fun to be at an arcade without tokens, no fun to be in a virtual world with virtual money. So how is this different from stealing?

 

[HolyCrusader]

I share the opinion of MDillenbeck, Kami3k, and others. While this wasn't technically illegal, it is unethical, and were this anybody I knew IRL, it would be a person that would permanently loose my trust.

I don't condone theft of any kind - regardless if it's virtual goods or currency or if it's real-world goods. Either way, it impacts a real person and that makes it a real theft.

On a final note, there's a very good chance that the 200 billion ISK was 'confiscated' by CCP during the banning of the player. CCP's policy when banning players violating the TOS involves removing all money or goods that were traded for the Real Life cash. Too bad they have no power or authority to claim the Real-Life cash he earned from this.

 

[Neog2]

Hmmm i played EVE For about 9 months and made lots of isk.
within my 14 day trial i had amassed over 600million isk.
But here is thing you cant actually buy ISK straight out.
I mean there are ways you can technically buy ISK through
EVE. But you cant say use your credit card spend $50 and get
ISK it doesnt work like that.

Straight Cash for ISK in EVE isnt supported so he could very
well only ripped out people who salvaged which is how i made
my living in eve. I ammassed way over 200 billion thats nothing.

Now Eve does allow you to say buy a time card with cash.
(Time card allows you to play eve online for a set period of time.)
So if you buy a 60 day time card, and say split it in half.
You can sale one half of the time card on Eves Market in game and
have people buy that for like 180-300,000,000 isk

People without all there morals and crap stealing virutal money is
not the same as stealing real money. Yes its still stealing but
there are different levels of theft. In real life you have several degrees of misdemeanors, then you have several degrees of felonies.

Given the circumstances I would have just asked the guy to replace the money and not let it happen again. Make it so he had to pay
for three months of service or something.
Because I know after my first month playing the game. my other 8 months where free because i just bought time codes through the ingame market place with ISK.

 

[v12v12]

I love how NOBODY has mentioned the fact that he's a CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER?! They guy is or WAS f'ing LOADED. No “real” "CEO" that I know about makes under 200K/yr...

Now if in his RL he f'd up his money, then that's HIS prob. Med bills, house payments? Bologna! How about he SELLS some of the materialistic trash he's prob amassed with his cushy job and then talk about woe-is-me? Man some of you are so gullible—his taking a paltry amount of cash is NOT the issue. The RL issue is: HOW can we trust anyone, if the supposed "leaders," the retards that set up these "ethical" systems to CONTROL the rest of US while THEY DO NOT FOLLOW THEM AT ALL???

Hence HTF this country/rest of the world is in financial turmoil; THE RICH STOLE FROM US, PUNISH US for breaking the very laws they ENFORCE on US as a populous... But WHO goes to prison for costing 100,000 people their rightfully EARNED pensions, retirement and so forth? THAT is the central issue at hand, not about some stupid TOS, game or med bills. The FEUDAL SYSTEM is still in play here. WTF do you think all the super rich families from 100, 300, 500... 5000yrs ago went?

How do you think every society has been run—by some "King," and a few of his servants? WRONG! The BANKS that lend money so we all can have a "decent," middle class life style—that is who! How many of you could actually afford all that you have w/o a single credit card? Prob 90% of us could not; that money HAS to come from somewhere, and BANKS are it>.< Banks have owners, and owners have families, and those families RUN/MANAGE/OWN the bank... so WTF do you think OWNS the nation? The people with the MOST money to lend to the serfs — GET IT? No I don’t think many of you do; these people THINK they are “BETTER” than us. And overt-greed-based, capitalism supports them all the way. That guy in a Bentley, well he earns enough to buy your life’s work, so yep guess his life is “worth” more than yours/mine etc…. RIGHT? Sure sounds like it when these people get slaps on the wrist for doing crimes WE would go to prison for. Go ahead, slap your RULING-CLASS master on the wrist for stealing from the slaves of society—the “middle-class” hahaha… sickening how we have such a low opinion of ourselves.

Thus the problem that everyone has overlooked is... WTF is a "CEO" breaking rules? Someone with that clout and stature (supposed) is robbing a game for $5K... He doesn't have friends or fam he could easy borrow a pittance (in his class) 5K from? We're talking about a CLASS of people, not just some guy. Lesson to be learned: "Ethics" and "morals" are used to CONTROL YOU, while someone else violates them to profit off YOUR disadvantage.

SOCIOPATH- a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

And that’s what MOST of these types of people, in said position are. They DO NOT CARE about you, your med bills, your expenses, your problems—they ONLY care about themselves! Hence, how could anyone allow their company to implode and rob millions of money they legally and rightfully EARNED - THEY DO NOT GIVE SH~T, that's how. Screw this “guy” and HIS problems, he bilked people of an experience by cheating and tainting the game, hence he should not only be held liable in-game, the creators should take him to CIVIL COURT, which only requires proof of intent to DEFRAUD, b/c that’s just what he did!

Sheep... pull your own damn wool from your eyes! www.INFOWARS.com read, educate yourself.

 

[Harby]

v1212, he was the ingame corporations CEO. In EVE guilds = corporations and guild masters = CEOs.

Neog2, nowadays you can actually extremely easily use your credit card for some ISKs. You just buy game time codes and instantly transform them into PLEXes which you also instantly sell in game. 1 GTC = 2 PLEXes = ~700 mill ISKs.

For those that condemn and whatnot the guy, EVE is not your average MMO out there. Stealing/griefing/harassing/scamming other players is part of the game and everything goes. It perfectly legit to use any means available (mostly social engineering is used) to scam and steal from others. The first rule of EVE community is DONT TRUST ANYONE. And thats the beauty of the game. Its economy is completely player driven and CCP never really interferes. If you're a WoW player you'll have a hard time understanding how its possible to steal massive amounts of ingame currency but thats because WoW has a very restricted and sandboxed market plus all the goodies are "soulbound" (which imo sucks) while on EVE everything can be bought and sold. (you can even buy drugs and prostitutes in the form of items)

 

[hrafnthor]

I feel that the people commenting here don't realize fully what kind of game EVE-online is.

First of; the EBank that the ISK got stolen from does not use game banking mechanics. Its just a corporation (for those more familiar with fantasy games such as WoW then you can put guild there instead) made up of a handful of players.

Second; In EVE NO ONE can buy ISK with cash. It is against the EULA. It is allowed how ever to buy PLEX's (Pilot License Extensions as the fine people at Concord call it) for real world money and sell them in game for ISK.

Third; EBank and the whole of the second market (Financial market in EVE, which is entirely run by players with no mechanics from the game to help) is not risk free. There are loads of scams and there have been people loosing billions of ISK on scams there since the dawn of the market.

Conclusion; After reading those three points above you should see that stealing in EVE is a part of the game and asking the GM's to help you get it back will make them laugh at you (seriously), selling ISK for real money is against the EULA so you would get punished for that by getting your character banned and finally saying, as MDillenbeck did, that since players paid real life money for the PLEX then sold it for in game money and then lost the ISK they should get it paid back is idiotic! The whole point with EVE is that you can back stab, steal, murder and pillage all you like without any consequences.

EVE-Online - Leave your ethics at the door!

 

[v12v12]

Noted... My point still stands in general regarding this guy's (his type) "unethical" actions. And if "anything" goes, then this article wouldn't even be posted if he didn't do anything "wrong," since there is no "wrong" according to your POV. Sounds like a contradiction in terms; aka you/most people think it's "anything goes," UNTIL YOU GET CAUGHT? Lmao... "gamers," what a waste of time/life; glad I cut all that nonsense out and found ways in RL to EARN REAL money... Damn I'm so glad I stopped "gaming!" I've got friends, adults who still talk about this drivel, while surfing couches, bumming off their parents, forgoing a social-life with friends and WOMEN < Gaming? Sad...

 

[Harby]

[citation][nom]v12v12[/nom]Noted... My point still stands in general regarding this guy's (his type) "unethical" actions. And if "anything" goes, then this article wouldn't even be posted if he didn't do anything "wrong," since there is no "wrong" according to your POV. Sounds like a contradiction in terms; aka you/most people think it's "anything goes," UNTIL YOU GET CAUGHT? Lmao... "gamers," what a waste of time/life; glad I cut all that nonsense out and found ways in RL to EARN REAL money... Damn I'm so glad I stopped "gaming!" I've got friends, adults who still talk about this drivel, while surfing couches, bumming off their parents, forgoing a social-life with friends and WOMEN < Gaming? Sad...[/citation]

Well, this is a general tech news site without deep knowledge or ties with EVE online. Theres nothing unethical here from an EVE players POV. Frankly speaking, I lurk the EVE forums quite a bit and I heard of this story first on random tech sites and not the game forums themselves. That should tell you something about how much the community cares. Scammers and griefers are something we're perfectly used to so this doesn't strike odd to anyone. But of course, this would strike odd to an outsider without a knowledge of the game.

My EVE online rules:

1. If you don't have patience don't play
2. If you cant tolerate harassing, griefing and scamming don't play
3. If you don't have a thick enough skin dont play

And like hrafnthor said, "Leave your ethics at the door!".

If you wanna get a clue about the mentality of some EVE players read this, its most excellent, even for the non-EVE related person

https/www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?t=3882

 

[ssddx]

hrafnthor +1, you hit the nail on the head.

For all of you other idiots complaining: There is nothing out of the ordinary here. As stated people get ripped off/stolen from all the time in the game. It is a player driven economy/bank after all.

It is the players choice to sell their game cards online. Again it is the players choice to place money into the game corporation/guilds hands. At this point anything goes. Although frowned upon by some, in a mmo there are always shady characters.

And the reason this got attention from toms? Most likely because toms has no news worth reading at the moment. Well, that and the fact that an article like this draws attention by getting the kids all riled up. I'll admit it was somewhat amusing; then again, it is only breaking the games eula. eula broken. banned. discussion over.

 

[v12v12]

Gotcha, thanks... reading now, but I understand it... I've been "gaming" for +20 years literally... Way back (and further) when D&D/AD&D (aka w/a group of friends, thick books, bag of multi-multi sided dice, and our imagination was your "on-line") Phantasy Star Online, Ultima, etc... WAAAAAY before all this kiddie WoW crap.

You'd get robbed as SOON as you left town, and it was funny, frightful and KICKASS FUN b/c that IS how RL actually works w/o Mr. Sheriff/the Law around. Rob or be robbed... sh!t I'd rob your ass now if I knew you had $1000 cash on you, you best believe I'd mace your ass, and leave you saying WTFFFF MAN???! haha I got bills to pay too. ;-)

 

[cimtaurus]

[citation][nom]v12v12[/nom]Noted... My point still stands in general regarding this guy's (his type) "unethical" actions. And if "anything" goes, then this article wouldn't even be posted if he didn't do anything "wrong," since there is no "wrong" according to your POV. Sounds like a contradiction in terms; aka you/most people think it's "anything goes," UNTIL YOU GET CAUGHT? Lmao... "gamers," what a waste of time/life; glad I cut all that nonsense out and found ways in RL to EARN REAL money... Damn I'm so glad I stopped "gaming!" I've got friends, adults who still talk about this drivel, while surfing couches, bumming off their parents, forgoing a social-life with friends and WOMEN < Gaming? Sad...[/citation]

Yeah, almost as sad as trolling forums and comments on articles about gaming.

 

[v12v12]

Okay read the whole forum post... if any of this quackery about RL spending big bucks, cutting people's power, outing folks, recording convos is indeed TRUE—Well sh!t then hats off to any of you loons that can hang with this game. I wouldn't play, but it sure was an interesting read. Hope ya don't have GFs/Wives... you won't for long! Sounds too addictive to me, which perfectly complements and mirrors my previous “serf” RANT.

If a VIDEO-GAME is that much (alleged) FUN, just IMAGINE in RL? It's logical to draw the SAME conclusions about someone's fantasies about OL play Vs RL. Just think about if you were descendant from some long line of powerful folks 100-500yrs ago or what have you. You have all the money you could ever need. So WTF do you do with your RL? Buy a plane, yacht, Ferrari - 10 mansions etc... CHUMP CHANGE to these RL folks... so instead you become a high powered CEO/Hedge fund manager blah blah and you start playing with REAL people's lives like a video game!

Those fat rich, white mofo's in RL are literally playing espionage games; murdering, robbing, stealing from US; ruining other nation’s economies and political-functioning! The "nobodies," in RL (us); WE borrow money from THEM to "live," while they are funding our lives. Lol a RL video games() IS going on right now as I type. Taxes, rent, tolls... ALL a game to the rich and they are collecting, while we're distracted (gaming, TV, drugs, WOMEN, bars, etc....)... Just think about that for a second. We ARE in someone else's RL "game," hence most of these types of people, even described on the forum board you posted, are in fact SOCIOPATHS, who have found a perfect and LEGAL outlet for their desires, within the constrains of this game. The Devs/CCP know it and that's wtf they don't punish what most sheep consider to be "immoral/unethical" behavior etc... b/c this game and games like it, actually mirror reality! People do NOT give a fsck about you, me, anyone else if they are hungry, starving, or a power-hungry nut case… Rant END (for now...)

PS- Thanks for the insight, I would have never known about this game prob/thought up a good rant. ;-)

 

[captaincharisma]

wow if someone actually sued this guy. man i would love ro know what would be going through the judges mind when he reads this case. "so he is suing this guy because he stole money he made ina video game?"

 

[chunkymonster]

The guy was CEO of a fake bank. He embezzeled fake money. Maybe he should be virtually flogged and fake water boarded. HAHAHAHAHA!

This is so far from a real world crime. It's truly a sad state of affairs when folks become outraged over something like this. Very sad. Heck, even my 3yr old son realizes the difference between pretend and the real world.

Seems like a lot of EVE players need to unplug and find some RL people to connect with.

 

[Harby]

[citation][nom]chunkymonster[/nom]The guy was CEO of a fake bank. He embezzeled fake money. Maybe he should be virtually flogged and fake water boarded. HAHAHAHAHA!This is so far from a real world crime. It's truly a sad state of affairs when folks become outraged over something like this. Very sad. Heck, even my 3yr old son realizes the difference between pretend and the real world. Seems like a lot of EVE players need to unplug and find some RL people to connect with.[/citation]

You're actually incorrect. The bank is far from fake. Its 100% legit. The bank at the time had about 2-2.5 trillions ISKs in NAV. Only around 700 bills were liquid. Ricdic stole around 200 bills from those 700 liquid ones. So the bank itself didn't exactly collapse. Sure, many players quickly withdrew their deposits but many others supported the bank by depositing more.

And please, save the speeches about unplugging and re-plugging. The vast majority of EVE players are far from l33t kidd0s (those play WoW) and I personally know shitloads of players with kids and families. Since you're clearly uninformed on the game, its model allows you to remain 100% competitive even if you only play a handful of hours a week. Thus its one of the best games for people that want to casually play an MMO without actually having to play for 8 hours/day in order to stay competitive and achieve something.

 

[Guest]

v12v12 you actually thought he was the CEO of that company?
I just had to point and laugh at you. Obviously 5G is pocket change
for CEO's with real jobs. In-Game CEO's (Or Guild Masters in a video game) make 0$ an hour. So now you're flaming everyone who games because you failed to interpret an article.

/golfclap