In-Game Events and Gatherings

But Somer doesn't have any advertisment on their site. So the only money they are getting is from the GTC . Which can't be that much. Markee Dragon is getting his share and CCP is getting the big one. 2$ per GTC sold over Somer seems like a reasonable value . Would be several houndred dollars per month for Somer.

Of course, being an awesome community service helps

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I wonder if Somer is getting more or less costumers by these threads

that's 'several houndred dollars per month for Somer' too much. if they can do it, let everyone else. if not, put a stop to it. either way, the playing field needs to be level. and if bans are going around, it looks like Somer would be the most deserving of them all.

free Shai or surrender Somer. there is no grey area.

just for fun, consider the scenario where OP is an alt of CCP and this is a ruse to get players on board with a change in character sales, where they broker characters themselves. how easy you would be played, and predictable in your temper. if you were offered a 75% cash-out that was fast & easy, would you take it? giving players a cash-out would be a refund, and buying a character would be a subscription package.

Or maybe just shutdown the whole GTC racket......

CCP gave people a method of making money out of game. I suspect it was just to keep them creating ingame content but not have to worry about paying for server costs....

Well now that's turned into a way to make real money, and now a way to sell real items

And yes Somer Blink does provide "content". That does not mean that they should be "exempted" or "overlooked" regarding the rules because they play nice.

I give to the community, but I also make a mint by doing it. Yes its against the rules but without me, you'll upset the community.

Its not a catch 22..

Its business. What would normally get someone banned, there stuff confiscated and such, large entities like SOMER can merely say "oh sorry", and there let off the hook.

A single person with no influence does the same thing.. instant ban.

There is no equality, even in the slightest.

Now to be honest, there should not be (and there is not). There are the haves and have nots, and the haves are the ones who give to the system in ways people like, and by doing that, are allowed to "bend" or even "break" the rules.

It sucks, it will continue to happen because there are those people who will take a risk and try something new. The pushback from the community is not that someone just made some money.


The pushback is that someone Just Bought something with real life cash, in a game where everybody started at 0. The field was equal with no outside influence. If you made money, its because you earned it, built it from scratch, or got it from others, without resorting to the real life influence of cash that you may or maynot have.

In this game (as with most), the person IRL, regardless of there status, could become a strong, wealthy, influential person, and it did not matter if they had the cash IRL or not. Now that creation of a person is being subverted by in-world cash.


A person logs into the game, spends $5,000 and gains a bunch of accounts/characters/equipment etc, we all say that ain't fair.

Honestly I could care less about the person making the money, because if so be it, I'll go shoot them because whenever I disrupt what they do, its there pocket I'm disrupting, and hell it makes me feel better to hurt someone in a game, which actually hurt them financially because they believed they could use this to make a buck.

Its the people who have no clue (or have a clue), go out and BUY this stuff with IRL cash. Frak your capabilities in the game, here's some cash, give me a character to fly this thing. If I lose it, here's more cash give me another.

THAT I don't like. The image of equality and hard work just got destroyed because some person had an extra $20,000 laying around the house and decided to buy there way into the "end game".

Its a bit backwards to say I don't care about the sellers, but the injustice comes from the people who decide to influence the game by using there money to "make it work", rather than work for it ingame to make it work.

Sellers are scum, buyers are scum, shoot them all.

My rant is over.

Don't melt down and do what other game companies are doing now "buying characters, selling equipment".

And don't bend back and forth on the rulesets, or make these glaring exceptions for the "elite people", and turn what should be a fictional exploration and escape into just Real Life Version 2.0, with the same inequalities present that people play this game just to get away from.

nobody said ads were wrong or forbidden. if they run the site, they can do what they want pay for it. Gogela's reasoning worked quite well at explaining why Somer might not need or want ads even though they work for others.


we're not the ones to say how much Somer is making with any kind of advertising or affiliate program, and we don't decide how much they 'need'. typically though, human behavior will gravitate towards greed. the possibility that they may making tons of money from cookies and such has nothing to do with if they need the GTC sales or not.

they put the GTC affiliate link there to make RL money off each sale, plain and simple. that's what affiliate programs do. they added the 200mil blink credit to make their affiliate link more attractive than the other guys, because everyone seems to be selling at the same price in cash, so what difference is there aside from the blink bonus if you want to be competitive?

they are in effect giving players isk to get the cut of profit made from the GTC through the affilate program. they are making tons of isk hand over fist from people depositing isk and losing, so they already have a huge surplus of isk to work with, so why not use that isk to draw in the sales that make RL cash? after all, there's only so much you can do with isk in the game, after a certain point it becomes meaningless.


exactly. somer is played using isk, just the same as you play pvp by using isk for your ship/fittings or putting up buy/sell orders/contracts for market warfare... but many people buy GTC in order to finance that play, as GTC can be converted in isk quite easily. naturally, they will buy from the source that gives them the most bang for their buck.

if you went to las vegas to gamble and discovered that 1 casino was allowed to give you 200 extra chips for every 1200 you purchased, would you not play at that casino?



pretty much. and if Somer doesn't need to stop doing this, that means everyone else should be allowed to do it as well.

Same here. It is RMT pure and simple. The GTC its self is perfectly legit advertising.

Either everyone should be allowed to RMT (Bad idea) or NO ONE should. Hiding it behind a laundering operation still makes it RMT.

Listen to this man. Coming from New Jersey he knows all about things that are toxic and disgusting.

Something else pointing to the "Somer Caught Red Handed" idea is the LACK of Andrev Nox.

Anything pertaining to Blink of a negative nature in the past has always been attacked by him usually with massive stats, vitriolic statements, Somer bans handed left right and centre and where is he now?

Where are you Andrev? We all know you are the main face of Blink really and are never backwards in coming forwards usually?
Stunned into silence or just "We got made! There's nothing to say."?

Why would I know that and why would I follow his agenda?
And if he's on what is essentially a business trip anyway, then you can be damn sure he's up to speed on what may or may not affect that business image in a one-to-many setting.