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SOMER Blink - Microlotteries that Finish in Minutes! 1 QUADRILLION ISK Won!

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Starbuck05
Abiding Ormolus
#2061 - 2013-10-14 15:03:00 UTC
If your gonna quote me andrev atleast quote what i say and not your edited version of td;lr :)

Just because i am blond does not make me stoopid !
ISD Ezwal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#2062 - 2013-10-14 18:38:39 UTC
I have removed a rule breaking post containing a bit to many ***** Blink

The rules:
7. Use of profanity is prohibited.

The use of profanity is prohibited on the EVE Online forums. This includes the partial masking of letters using numbers or alternate symbols, and any attempts at bypassing the profanity filter.

ISD Ezwal Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)
Somerset Mahm
Cognitive Distortion
#2063 - 2013-10-15 05:42:30 UTC
AssassinationsdoneWrong wrote:


This would actually be an idea. I know the "justification" would be similar to "The Bonks have to pay for themselves" and I understand the business model but seriously guys, it would be nice to see you literally go one ticket one player just once.
I understand there are promos for that but really you do make a shedload of isk not just from the Bonks and MiniBonks but from the extremely heightened levels of play around these events. Even the great 1 Q was nowhere near as philanthropic as it was painted out to be.
This isn't even coming from a space poor newb either I just think you can actually shorten the odds at minimal gain for huge events rather than letting the usual suspects shorten them for themselves to the point where there are actually no real surprises except for who of the few won what.


Hi!

The "heightened levels of play" around events like 1 Quadrillion actually bankrupt us pretty hard :P

With the Quad Bonus turned on, we lost staggering amounts of ISK. The total cost of the 1 Quadrillion celebration, for example, was approximately 680 billion ISK. Not 680 billion cost and then X profit-- 680 billion ISK net loss after everything. The Quadbonk broke almost even in and of itself-- that's because slightly under 10% of the players bought about 55% of the tickets. Without them, Blink goes broke pretty quickly. That 10% of the players did not represent 55% of the winners, either, since we only allowed one win per person. If we cap the number of tickets at some low amount, the Bonk top prize would be like a pirate battleship or something.

We also drew 40 winners from one-ticket-per-person ticket lists as runners-up in the Quadbonk, for 4 PLEX apiece. I'd say it is pretty difficult to make the argument that you can't win with just a few tickets.

Each event, not just the giant celebrations has a significant number of people who:
-- bought a ton of tickets and won nothing, or
-- bought just a couple tickets and won something, or
-- won something without spending anything at all (singing contests, shoot Andrev, promos, etc)

These just aren't as visible as the "well-known" names that you see with a higher regularity because they do play with a higher frequency.

Believe me, if we were running this to try to eke out super profit, we wouldn't run Bonks like the "125% Bonk" that is literally guaranteed to lose money, we wouldn't have 100b of minibonks that we give away literally for free every week, and we wouldn't run promos at a token apiece to allow literally thousands of people to never actually play the site except for free promos.

We do put a lot of thought into ways to create as many winners as possible and to make things as fun as possible. It's not something that we disregard.

SOMER Blink Microlotteries that finish in minutes! Running for over 2 years :)
Starbuck05
Abiding Ormolus
#2064 - 2013-10-15 09:16:10 UTC
Somerset Mahm wrote:
AssassinationsdoneWrong wrote:


This would actually be an idea. I know the "justification" would be similar to "The Bonks have to pay for themselves" and I understand the business model but seriously guys, it would be nice to see you literally go one ticket one player just once.
I understand there are promos for that but really you do make a shedload of isk not just from the Bonks and MiniBonks but from the extremely heightened levels of play around these events. Even the great 1 Q was nowhere near as philanthropic as it was painted out to be.
This isn't even coming from a space poor newb either I just think you can actually shorten the odds at minimal gain for huge events rather than letting the usual suspects shorten them for themselves to the point where there are actually no real surprises except for who of the few won what.


Hi!

The "heightened levels of play" around events like 1 Quadrillion actually bankrupt us pretty hard :P

With the Quad Bonus turned on, we lost staggering amounts of ISK. The total cost of the 1 Quadrillion celebration, for example, was approximately 680 billion ISK. Not 680 billion cost and then X profit-- 680 billion ISK net loss after everything. The Quadbonk broke almost even in and of itself-- that's because slightly under 10% of the players bought about 55% of the tickets. Without them, Blink goes broke pretty quickly. That 10% of the players did not represent 55% of the winners, either, since we only allowed one win per person. If we cap the number of tickets at some low amount, the Bonk top prize would be like a pirate battleship or something.

We also drew 40 winners from one-ticket-per-person ticket lists as runners-up in the Quadbonk, for 4 PLEX apiece. I'd say it is pretty difficult to make the argument that you can't win with just a few tickets.

Each event, not just the giant celebrations has a significant number of people who:
-- bought a ton of tickets and won nothing, or
-- bought just a couple tickets and won something, or
-- won something without spending anything at all (singing contests, shoot Andrev, promos, etc)

These just aren't as visible as the "well-known" names that you see with a higher regularity because they do play with a higher frequency.

Believe me, if we were running this to try to eke out super profit, we wouldn't run Bonks like the "125% Bonk" that is literally guaranteed to lose money, we wouldn't have 100b of minibonks that we give away literally for free every week, and we wouldn't run promos at a token apiece to allow literally thousands of people to never actually play the site except for free promos.

We do put a lot of thought into ways to create as many winners as possible and to make things as fun as possible. It's not something that we disregard.



Tbh , this for me has shed some more light and i understand it better , thank you .

Keep up the good work , your site is apreciated !

Just because i am blond does not make me stoopid !
AssassinationsdoneWrong
Deep Core Mining Inc.
#2065 - 2013-10-15 13:28:50 UTC
Somerset Mahm wrote:
[quote=AssassinationsdoneWrong]

Hi!

The "heightened levels of play" around events like 1 Quadrillion actually bankrupt us pretty hard :P

With the Quad Bonus turned on, we lost staggering amounts of ISK. The total cost of the 1 Quadrillion celebration, for example, was approximately 680 billion ISK. Not 680 billion cost and then X profit-- 680 billion ISK net loss after everything. The Quadbonk broke almost even in and of itself-- that's because slightly under 10% of the players bought about 55% of the tickets. Without them, Blink goes broke pretty quickly. That 10% of the players did not represent 55% of the winners, either, since we only allowed one win per person. If we cap the number of tickets at some low amount, the Bonk top prize would be like a pirate battleship or something.

We also drew 40 winners from one-ticket-per-person ticket lists as runners-up in the Quadbonk, for 4 PLEX apiece. I'd say it is pretty difficult to make the argument that you can't win with just a few tickets.

Each event, not just the giant celebrations has a significant number of people who:
-- bought a ton of tickets and won nothing, or
-- bought just a couple tickets and won something, or
-- won something without spending anything at all (singing contests, shoot Andrev, promos, etc)

These just aren't as visible as the "well-known" names that you see with a higher regularity because they do play with a higher frequency.

Believe me, if we were running this to try to eke out super profit, we wouldn't run Bonks like the "125% Bonk" that is literally guaranteed to lose money, we wouldn't have 100b of minibonks that we give away literally for free every week, and we wouldn't run promos at a token apiece to allow literally thousands of people to never actually play the site except for free promos.

We do put a lot of thought into ways to create as many winners as possible and to make things as fun as possible. It's not something that we disregard.


Good enough for me and nice to have you reply Somer with real stats. If the initial argument was enough to put down the nay-sayers (like me sometimes I have to admit, when I see the same names basically "buying" the bonks" then it was for the good.

The Nexus 7's

What we fall short of in numbers we more than make up for in stupidity
Vustam Taron
Killboard Buffers
Dreads Amongst Drifters
#2066 - 2013-10-15 15:11:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Vustam Taron
Obviously, none of the above mentioned can possibly be attributed toward, say, an advertising budget.

Sorry, but your claims of losing money when encouraging more people to use your system really doesn't garner a whole lot of sympathy from me. After all, that is by definition an advertising budget.

Often, businesses spend money in order to make their business seem more appealing to the target audience/customer. That's the point of having a PR department and an advertising team.

So, yes. You likely do lose money on certain promotions. However, you then reap the profit off that promotion later when it isn't running as those people have now been "hooked", and at least a portion of them continue to play afterwards.

As one whose profession is based around advertising (both web and 4-color print processing), nothing you said here really seems out of the ordinary with what I have experienced in my own professional life. It more seems that you're trying to use your advertising spending to try and garner additional favor from the community by adding a PR spin.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have a bad idea here with your system. It's a great way to make a tidy little killing in ISK. I'm just more pointing out that losing ISK on a few promotions here and there doesn't make you non-profit.
Cayell
Steamhouse Enemy Engagement Division
#2067 - 2013-10-16 16:07:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Cayell
Vustam Taron wrote:
Obviously, none of the above mentioned can possibly be attributed toward, say, an advertising budget.

Sorry, but your claims of losing money when encouraging more people to use your system really doesn't garner a whole lot of sympathy from me. After all, that is by definition an advertising budget.

Often, businesses spend money in order to make their business seem more appealing to the target audience/customer. That's the point of having a PR department and an advertising team.

So, yes. You likely do lose money on certain promotions. However, you then reap the profit off that promotion later when it isn't running as those people have now been "hooked", and at least a portion of them continue to play afterwards.

As one whose profession is based around advertising (both web and 4-color print processing), nothing you said here really seems out of the ordinary with what I have experienced in my own professional life. It more seems that you're trying to use your advertising spending to try and garner additional favor from the community by adding a PR spin.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have a bad idea here with your system. It's a great way to make a tidy little killing in ISK. I'm just more pointing out that losing ISK on a few promotions here and there doesn't make you non-profit.


I don't believe Blink has ever claimed to be non-profit, and nobody's asked for sympathy.

You phrase your post as if you're disagreeing with what Somerset has said, but you're only reinforcing the point: Blink is a business, and like any business it has to keep it's product attractive to new customers. They do this through events that, as with an advertising campaign, are based around making an initial loss that theoretically leads to future profit.
Of course, if these events were rigged or heavily biased towards the richest players, the product would not be attractive and that future profit would never come. Thus, we see promos and runner-up prizes that are designed to provide every player with an equal chance of winning big.
Sophie Hunter
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#2068 - 2013-10-17 12:32:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Sophie Hunter
Cayell wrote:
Of course, if these events were rigged or heavily biased towards the richest players, the product would not be attractive and that future profit would never come. Thus, we see promos and runner-up prizes that are designed to provide every player with an equal chance of winning big.


I would might add Somer employees, alts, fake accounts, etc. It's easy to say that everyday i offer a full fitted officer Avatar with 50 plexes in the cargo if it's my alts or friends, or whoever i want, that win the raffle. But you were almost there. You had the number right next to the winning ticket. So close!! So you keep playing hoping to win the next time, or the next, or maybe the next.

Somer's business is not sell tickets or raffles, it's to explore the obsessive-compulsive disorder that we all have, some more pronounced than others. He sells hope and plays with your anxiety to win.

It's up to you to have the strenght to stop and see what's really going on.
alan dos
Elite Entertainment
#2069 - 2013-10-17 19:41:38 UTC
need help look like i have 2 accounts and u locked them out?
Veliaht
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#2070 - 2013-10-18 04:04:14 UTC
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=287241&find=unread

Does this mean that CCP will take action soon and isk vacuuming 3rd party gambling sites might humbly start to mine, manifacture, trade, pve, pvp for isk soon like the most of us?
Nanatoa
#2071 - 2013-10-18 15:54:33 UTC
Nanatoa wrote:
Nanatoa wrote:
Dear Somer Blink, earlier today I deposited 16 billion isk to play Blinks to get a shot a Gold Magnate - a truly unique ship with actual Legendary status - but now I have been informed that the prize has been withdrawn from the competition. I feel the new prizes, which have no history attached to them at all, are not an adequate replacement of the Gold Magnate. Can I get a refund on the 16 billion isk? I'll of course return all the accidental winnings I had while playing the Blinks for the competition points.


Last week I contacted Somerset Mahm ingame about this, I received a non-reply ("[If you win] I will arrange for you to talk to CCP Navigator directly" - which is not what I asked for at all). So far Somerset Mahm has not responded to my reply to her message. Is this the trustworthy and reliable service CCP Navigator praised?


I'm very patient, but can I get an indication of when I will be receiving a reaction to this problem? I see Somer posting here, but I still have no reply here or by evemail.

"Stay the course, we have done this many times before." - (CCP) Hilmar, June 2011
Replacement 234
Tremor Recorded
#2072 - 2013-10-20 02:46:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Replacement 234
I'm getting emails about the puppies.

My wife and I decided to keep the other half of the entire litter, so it was a good thing there were only two. So we now have William and Merry. One of the first things I learned weeks ago was wet spots on the carpet are not a challenge for CSI. Little Merry Sunshine would leave a near perfect circle and William the wiggler would start slow with little range then reach max range before, well... petering out, so he left rectangles

They will be 14 weeks old on Tuesday, 22 October. Merry has become trustworthy in the house and has a full run and if we can time ourselves well enough with Will, we will keep this accident free streak going. He sneaks over to the outside door in the mudroom, sits in the dirty boot tray and concentrates really hard, but we aren't on the same wave length. Sometimes he will rattle the cow bell, but more than likely, His sister finds one of us and squeals on him. If we dont get there in time he has cluttered one of the hot water trays trays where I kick off my dirty boots, before cleanig them in the utility sink.

Keeping, raising and training both puppies from the litter to be service dogs (one for me and one for another Vet whose current Labrador is aging and he is worried about how to replace him) will keep me twice as busy as I had originally planned. Merry has passsed her AKC "Good Citizen" test where she has to sit stay for something like a minute while I go out of sight, not react to an aggressive dog, stay close to me while other people are crowding around and the basics of come, stay, stop, drop it and some other things. We are stil working on stay with Will and he should be ready the next time the test is offered..

They are both calm around weapons fire and somehow, really respect the advice I gave them about not going forward of the firing line without me. They also only needed one experiment to learn what I meant when I pushed them away from ejected brass and said "HOT"

I spend about 2 or so hours working individually with them everyday and we have several free for alls. They have fans at Home Depot and Lowes. They will both ride standing on a flatbed cart like the they are Ahab looking for the White Whale.

Breaking ground on the endless pool next Monday, once it is in place, then the sunroom will get built around it. It is no longer going to be the "Endless Wait".

Gotta get spme pics up somewhere...

Stay dry...
Frying Doom
#2073 - 2013-10-20 07:42:17 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Replacement 234 wrote:
Somer,
You have always been straight forward and honest with me. I hope these accusations turn out as baseless as they always have and CCP's interpretations are in your favor. They may have to polish up on some wording but our lives are always full of changes. I have written to CCP and offered my Paypal records, they already have the records showing I accepted every prize I chose to and the records of all of my deposits and withdrawals from my wallet and because no other 'toon can deposit to my Blink account and I can only take out ISK as a buyout from a prize I won, CCP has all the records of our transactions. Any other documents CCP requests of me will be provided, my complete winnings list, GTC emails, tax records, bank statements, etc... Please notice I said, " to CCP" so the rest of you nosy Tinfoil Hats can send me your records and I'll double them.

In an effort to be as transparent as possible, I have copied my Blink Statistics Page below with some explanation of what the entry means to those who can't find the Blink Rules page.

Keeping, raising and training both puppies from the litter to be service dogs (one for me and one for another Vet whose current Labrador is aging and he is worried about how to replace him) will keep me twice as busy as I had originally planned.

Take care of yourself and thank you and your staff for putting up with me.
MS.

I am curious how any of that shows the code behind the choosing of winners or
Somer returning 16 Billion that was transferred to them for a lottery that never happened or

*Snip* Please refrain from discussing RMT. ISD Ezwal

Any spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors are because frankly, I don't care!!
Timberlake
Valhala Before Vanish
#2074 - 2013-10-20 10:50:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Timberlake
Promo win ?

check this :

http://cogdev.net/blink/?act=profile&id=966433189

This guy "just" win 870 promo blink on 290 day (1st award 17/01/2013)

So this guy just win 3 promo / day ?
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#2075 - 2013-10-21 12:54:30 UTC
Somerset Mahm wrote:
Hi!

The "heightened levels of play" around events like 1 Quadrillion actually bankrupt us pretty hard :P

With the Quad Bonus turned on, we lost staggering amounts of ISK. The total cost of the 1 Quadrillion celebration, for example, was approximately 680 billion ISK. Not 680 billion cost and then X profit-- 680 billion ISK net loss after everything. The Quadbonk broke almost even in and of itself-- that's because slightly under 10% of the players bought about 55% of the tickets. Without them, Blink goes broke pretty quickly. That 10% of the players did not represent 55% of the winners, either, since we only allowed one win per person. If we cap the number of tickets at some low amount, the Bonk top prize would be like a pirate battleship or something.

We also drew 40 winners from one-ticket-per-person ticket lists as runners-up in the Quadbonk, for 4 PLEX apiece. I'd say it is pretty difficult to make the argument that you can't win with just a few tickets.

Each event, not just the giant celebrations has a significant number of people who:
-- bought a ton of tickets and won nothing, or
-- bought just a couple tickets and won something, or
-- won something without spending anything at all (singing contests, shoot Andrev, promos, etc)

These just aren't as visible as the "well-known" names that you see with a higher regularity because they do play with a higher frequency.

Believe me, if we were running this to try to eke out super profit, we wouldn't run Bonks like the "125% Bonk" that is literally guaranteed to lose money, we wouldn't have 100b of minibonks that we give away literally for free every week, and we wouldn't run promos at a token apiece to allow literally thousands of people to never actually play the site except for free promos.

We do put a lot of thought into ways to create as many winners as possible and to make things as fun as possible. It's not something that we disregard.


Ooh poor POOR SOMMER you'll make me cry. SURELY you spend a lot of money so that, instead of winning a lot, you win.. well... still a lot. Lotteries are indeed legal but ethically this is an abuse of both the most important strength and weakness of human beings : hope. So when you're taking money away from people by capitilizing on their illusions (of winning), you're not turned into a saint by giving a fraction of that amount back.

RAPHSPID expressed this well (in a far-from-perfect french, but nevermind) : You are making insanely high amounts of profits, so stop trying to buy yourself a conscience.

Signature Tanking Best Tanking

[Ex-F] CEO - Eve-guides.fr

Ultimate Citadel Guide - 2016 EVE Career Chart
Mars OG
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#2076 - 2013-10-21 13:13:42 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
just caught up on reading about your ongoing scandal.

hey somer, why doesn't your 'trustworthy' self reply to the guy who you took 16bil from under false circumstances? surely you're rich enough that you could return his isk without even noticing it in your wallet, if only to be a nice person and build a good reputation?

you seem to use alts and shills to win promos and bonks, post on the forums, and generally try to make others look bad so that you can conceal your questionable activities and you engage in insider trading of dev spawned items because you're honest?

i've seen some pretty suspect stuff happen on your site. i saw a guy win 2 capital ship promos literally back to back using the same number. saw the most amazing win streaks by some of your shill accounts. i wasn't surprised when the winners of your latest bonks ended up being the same usual suspects.

i've seen the way your staff openly mock and abuse people who don't agree with them. i've seen the disdain you guys have for the common eve player, laughing about the swag you guys got while everyone else was rightfully outraged.

*Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal
ISD Ezwal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#2077 - 2013-10-21 20:54:30 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
I have removed some rule breaking posts and those quoting them. As always I let some edge cases stay.
Please people, keep it on topic and above all civil!

The rules:
4. Personal attacks are prohibited.

Commonly known as flaming, personal attacks are posts that are designed to personally berate or insult another forum user. Posts of this nature are not beneficial to the community spirit that CCP promote and as such they will not be tolerated.

11. Discussion of forum moderation is prohibited.

The discussion of EVE Online forum moderation actions generally leads to flaming, trolling and baiting of our ISD CCL moderators. As such, this type of discussion is strictly prohibited under the forum rules. If you have questions regarding the actions of a moderator, please file a petition under the Community & Forums Category.

21. Posting regarding RMT (Real Money Trading) is prohibited.

Posts discussing, linking to, or advertising RMT, including but not limited to the sale of in game items, assets, currency, characters or game accounts for real life money are strictly prohibited.

31. Rumor mongering is prohibited.

Rumor threads and posts which are based off no actual solid information and are designed to either troll or annoy other users will be locked and removed. These kinds of threads and posts are detrimental to the wellbeing and spirit of the EVE Online Community, and can create undue panic among forum users, as well as adding to the workload of our moderators.

ISD Ezwal Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)
45thtiger 0109
Pan-Intergalatic Business Community
#2078 - 2013-10-22 01:03:00 UTC
Andrev Nox wrote:
CCP Explorer wrote:
What?!?!?


If it makes you feel better, it's proving to be a very popular prize...though I make no promises to what the winner might use the corpse for. Shocked



Like this Quote Andrev very funny I lolled Poor CCP Explorer LolP

**You Have to take the good with the bad and the bad with the good.

Welcome to EvE OnLiNe**
Jori McKie
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#2079 - 2013-10-22 09:06:34 UTC
Well i guess SOMER will have a hard time soon. CCP will have no other choice to stop the
-> buy GTC via SOMER and get bonus credits for blink

nosygamer
http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2013/10/raffles-and-rmt.html

DNSBlack
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=287241&find=unread

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." - Abrazzar
JusFooling Around
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#2080 - 2013-10-23 01:35:01 UTC
Jori McKie wrote:
Well i guess SOMER will have a hard time soon. CCP will have no other choice to stop the
-> buy GTC via SOMER and get bonus credits for blink


Kind of makes one wonder how CCP might write a rule preventing Blink from providing an incentive for players to click-thru their site to buy GTC from Authorized Resellers who are authorized to compensate affiliates, like Blink who advertise for the Authorized Reseller on their site?

I wonder if they will say Blink can't do it, but hundreds of other sites owned by individuals, corps, alliances and for profit businesses can?

I think someone would have to be a fool or a liar to say they don't know of a corp or alliance that wants to reward their members by giving or selling them a PLEX for a percentage below the market price or just has a fixed priced well below the market place, or maybe even has a deal where the members just mail a $10 bill to the right member and a no isk personal contract for a PLEX shows up, or to cut down on the paper trail, it is probably just moved into that persons item hangar by a corp member with those rights.

Doesn't seem to be a difference with a distinction.

My main's corp ruled out a PLEX click-thru back when PLEX were first invented for just that reason. What corp is going to face real world expenses and tell their members to go buy PLEX off the market? Small ones maybe. But if you are a corp with just 500 members and have a little tax to make up the difference, you might find that 500 $10 bills a month might create a slush fund.