EVE General Discussion

Not at all, I'm just not into spewing Hyperbole.

I have said on numerous occasions that these groups deserve something however the issue is not with somer.

I would have issues if CCP gave any group any free items that could have an effect in game in secrecy.

Just because it is Somer doesn't make it any worse.

They could of gave the guys at Eve Radio, Dotlan, Chribba even and I would still have the same reservations I do now.

Your issue seems to be with Somer and not what CCP did.

The FACT (capitalized, bolded and underlined so you don't miss it) is that Somer has done nothing wrong.

That is right, nothing wrong at all.

The fault all lies with CCP.

If CCP produced a blog saying that they had given Somer vouchers for the Eve Store, some mugs, keyrings, time added on their account, pictures of CCP (inset dev here) in a compromising position etc for their hard work blah blah blah then fine, no issues what so ever.

However they chose to give in game items that can be sold for billions in secrecy.

If you have a personal issues with Somer and I imagine Eve Bet as well, and Eve Poker then that is fine as well, but you seem to be getting the 2 subjects confused.

No.. I have been saying that you quite obviously have issues with Somer as an entity when in fact Somer have done nothing wrong and it is CCP at fault.

You have either worded your post incorrectly (most likely due to the frothing at mouth in a incoherent rage) or you simply refusing to read what has been posted.

Joan, as usual, your powers of deduction are tragic....

SOMER Blink is not an isk sink. The isk exists, is not taken out of the game, that the corp doesn't spend it is not a valid sink mechanic. Otherwise, everyone that has isk in their wallets are considered sinks. This just isn't the case.

Also, that you're implying CCP is somehow placating SOMER from using their massive profits to manipulate the game doesn't make sense. There is a clause in the TOS that basically states that if a groups game play adversely impacts the service CCP is providing that CCP can act upon such up to and including permanent bans.

This is a adverse action for any reason statement and is available to CCP should they make such a decision.

Unfortunately, your argument is based off the premise that CCP has nothing other than ingame mechanics to "deal" with SOMER and is in the position of being extorted. It is not and never will be.

There is the question as to why CCP chose SOMER to give all these valuable gifts. There are several possible answers:

1) SOMER provides a service to the community promoting game play. Unfortunately, it does not. It does provide a service but that service in no way promotes new players joining or their continuance in the game. You already have to be a player to utilize the service. And if the service were gone tomorrow it would not affect one's game play other than the absence of a non-essential service. On the contrary, there are many more services available to the players that are more vital to game play and have been around much much longer.

2) The relationship between SOMER and CCP is nepotistic and/or cronyistic and as such CCP employees are gifting items to CCP friends. This more likely the case. We can't know the extent of the relationships since the mechanics of toons and their creation obfuscate any such discovery of associations. I would not be surprised that SOMER is actually a CCP employee developed site, commissioned by CCP allowing the company to escape legal entanglements with gambling associations completely while reaping the benefits of empty wallets and easy access to GTC. SOMER certainly does appear to have an inordinate level of support from CCP. Afterall, there are other for profit sites out there doing the exact same thing as SOMER and yet they get the big CCP middle finger. I mean, if the relationship wasn't nepotistic then it would be logical to conclude that CCP would make every effort to promote as many community sites in the same manner as possible in order to sell more GTC. But no, they've chosen one.

3) CCP is an inept organization ran by infantile scrubs.

Now, if you're a shill or you're dense you may well believe answer #1 as that is how CCP, SOMER, CSM are portraying the relationship. Or you will believe answer #3.

But, if you're like the rest of us realizing that noone does anything out of the goodness of their little hearts, especially a corporation. And that anytime something seemly so wrong happens as is the case here while hiding behind the guise of an excuse of "for the community" while obviously the vast majority of the community contributors are left twisting in the wind, it usually means there's something else going on behind the scenes. And so, while you don't have irrefutable evidence, you will always suspect the answer is #2.

You've seen this type of manipulation before in the vast majority of those charity commercials where they show little children from impoverished countries starving and a narrator is asking you for money, you do realize that 95% of what you give goes straight into someone's pockets, 3% goes into running more commercials, 1% goes to paying for the employees. 0.5% goes into the employees' pensions that you can raid later and 0.5% goes to actually helping all those little children just so the organization can say "Yes....for the children!"

Just remember, that any time someone says "....for the children" and "....for the community" the same thing is being done and that is to make you suspend your disbelief in the hopes of a greater cause which is always BS.

This is the same thing just different circumstances.

Firstly, people always say CFC RMT without proof anyway. I don;t see you going up in arms when they do. What are you getting from Somer that make you so protective of them?

Secondly, they DO RMT, at least thorough their GTC referral, that's easily seen for yourself.

So you reckon they are just sitting on trillions of isk? They don't do that much in game, yet if you look at the amount they have run through, with them taking 20% on average, they should have racked up 241 trillion isk, enough to buy 400,000 plex, and they are simply sitting on the majority of that?

Major alliances don't earn even close to that, and still stay stable despite spending trillions on wars. Blink don't have that kind of expenditure. If you honestly think someone that would pay isk to get referrals to convert their isk to cash wouldn't see the dollar signs in anonymously shilling out funds to push into RMT, you are truly mental.

Erm, you've totally missed the point here Kobol. Which of those site pay you ISK to buy through them?
The answer is: only Somer.
Somer are giving away isk in order to receive their referral fee. They pay isk, they get RL money. THAT is what make it RMT. A referral is a referral, on it's own it's fine. But by paying in game incentives to give you an advantage over the competition, you are using your isk to secure the transaction. If that was officially announced as allowed, RMT sites would simply change their wording so you aren't buying ISK or items, you are buying another product, and the ISK/items are an incentive, and would effectively be legal.

Except there is no good reason to trust Somer's own figures, they could simply be lies without any foundation (and probably are, or at least heavily distorted in some fashion).

But also, who do you actually imagine would buy 'isk' in that sort of volume and why? I doubt any of the in game corps or alliances would do so, it's easy enough to obtain and cheap enough to just buy ETCs and sell the plexes without running any of the risks of getting busted.

Not to mention "giving out" and "paying out" are 2 very different things.

While this is true this is considering it from the point of view of a single player
If I pay in 100m, then win a lottery that costs 10m with 10 tickets after buying one ticket, I get 80m, and Somer gets 20m. Other players have still paid the other 90m.
Now I'm on 170m, while blink is on 20m. I play another lottery exactly the same, Others again pay in 90m, I get 80m, blink gets 20m.

So this would now show as
Total Played: 200m
Total paid out: 160m
Total paid in: 200m
Somer profit: 40m

Whatever gets played has to have been credited to a player at some point, so will be in the system somewhere. When Somer gives credit to players, they are simply shifting isk from their "profit" pot to the players pot.
This means (assuming 80% payout on lotteries) that Somer has made 20% of the total played minus any they've given to players. So it still means the amount of isk they had as potential profit is 20% of the total played (or 25% of the total paid out in winnings).
When you buy a GTC it's that profit pot they are paying across to you.

So it's fairly safe to say that if they paid out figures they show are really how much they have paid out (12,000T), then 300T isk is how much they would have had in potential profit. how much of that they have spent is up to them, they convert a lot to cash through GTCs, and rumour has it shill out a lot to RMT. They also sponsor events and such.
But then you also have to consider that most of these gambling sites have limits on accounts. If you don't log in for x amount of time, your whole pot is invalidated, giving them additional profit.