July 6th 2009 09:43 pm
HERE’S ANOTHER DUDE THE RMT INDUSTRY DOESN’T NEED…
Hey kiddies, that big cheese guy from one of the major league gold sellers finally sent me his response regarding the ban on RMT (which all turned out to be a misunderstanding but nonetheless his piece is a worthy read). I’m printing it in a separate post, but let me share this one with you first:
(Link and article sent by self-described loyal WoW Gold Facts reader Cathryn Wheel. Below are excerpts from the Reuters article by JaShong King. You may view the complete writeup here )
Gamer Steals From Virtual World To Pay Real Debts
By JaShong King
TORONTO, July 2 (Reuters) - Facing real world debts, a trusted figure in a popular online game stole money from the virtual bank he ran and exchanged it for cash through the black market.
It happened in EVE Online, where more than 300,000 subscribers pay $15 a month to play. They gain wealth through hard work, manipulating the market, or killing rivals in a distant future where humans have colonized the stars in an online game similar to World of Warcraft and Second Life.
EBank, EVE’s largest player-run financial institution which has thousands of depositors, is at the center of the scandal.
"Basically this character was one of the people that had been running EBank for a while. He took a bunch of (virtual) money out of the bank, and traded it away for real money," said Ned Coker, of the Icelandic company CCP, which developed the game.
The CEO of EBank, a 27-year-old Australian tech worker who identified himself only as Richard and used the online name Ricdic, embezzled about 200 billion interstellar kredits, the game’s virtual currency.
He broke the rules of the game by exchanging the stolen virtual funds for $6,300 Australian ($5,100) with players who preferred to buy virtual money rather than earn it playing the game.
"It was a very on the spot decision," the married father of two explained in an interview.
He said a spam email for a black market website that traded online money for real cash popped up on his screen, prompting him to exchange the virtual cash for real money to cover a deposit on his house and expenses related to his son’s medical problems.
"I saw that as an avenue that could be taken, and I decided to skim off the top, you could say, to overcome real life (difficulties)."
Word of the theft spread quickly within EVE. Panicked customers started a run on the bank, worried that they would lose the money they had amassed by hunting space pirates or mining asteroids.
Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he could have stayed in the game. But exchanging the virtual cash for real dollars broke the rules and CCP banned Richard’s EBank accounts.
"It unbalances the game," Coker said.
Here’s my two cents in bullet points:
- The main problem here is "Richard" himself. He stole from friends and teammates. Sure, he had a family to save, but that’s not an excuse to steal . Richard dude, no matter how you sugarcoat it, you used your position of trust and authority to steal assets from a bank for personal gain!
- Calling the secondary market a "black market" is BS. It is NOT against the law in Australia, Europe, the US or Canada.
- Is his convenient characterization of the secondary market as "black market" an attempt to remove some of the responsibility for his actions? Oooh, some evil spammer from the black market tempted me with ready cash in exchange for virtual currency. The Devil made me do it! (Oh please….)
- It is people like Richard that are the problem, NOT HE FACT THAT VIRTUAL ASSETS HAVE REAL WORLD VALUE. The reason publisher EULA’s over-reach is to protect them from this kind of behavior. It’s easier to simply deny gamers ALL rights, rather than deal with the thorny issues that arise when criminals like Richard defraud fellow gamers.
- No thanks to stunts like the one Richard pulled, gamers like you and me who enjoy the benefits of buying (and selling) virtual game currencies for real money are finding it harder and harder to do so as a result of criminal elements in society. You know, the hooligans that steal game accounts, virtual assets and other property that is not theirs.
- Once again, the issue is NOT the fact that virtual assets have real world value. The issue is that there are crooks and thieves in society. DO NOT BLAME RMT. Blame the Richards of the world.
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2 Comments »
Lestat de Lioncourt on 07 Jul 2009 at 11:37 am #
How sad.
Kron the mad on 09 Jul 2009 at 7:57 pm #
actually when said transaction are in breach of the EULA (a legal document that players have to sign and stick to) then it does become a breach of the law and the reason for this isn’t just to protect people from opportunistic theft, it prevents a virtual hyper inflation that can be readily seen in many MMORPG’s since the introduction of RMT. It is a problem and does unbalance gameplay.