EVE General Discussion

…you have no argument and have to resort to genetic fallacies in your silly attempt to deflect attention away from this fact.

Nope. They've only advertised their product, which rather precludes it from being a community contribution.

I can't remember a single community contribution on their part, nor have I seen anyone ever being able to bring one up in all these threads.

I understand being against the kind of RMT Somer Blink engages in. I understand being against CCP's arbitrary enforcement of their EULA.

I don't really understand the reaction to the increased bonus. We don't know exactly what the communication was between CCP and Somer Blink. It may have gone something like this:



If Somer can actually sell 300,000 GTC's in a week (which they would have to do to make that estimated $800,000), just imagine the millions CCP will rake in. Do you really think CCP did not approve of the plan?

That was 2005. Almost a decade later you're still butt hurt? Looking at your employment history, you didn't even play yet. I think you should get over yourself for a second and think of the massive contributions both those old players have made to and for the community, same for Somer blink - Get your head out for a minute.

As for you people claiming Somer never did anything at all, how about having a look outside of General Discussion? Just one example of how he is contributing to the EVE community is this. If you'd care to spend a minute and actually look around, you'd find that Somer has done quite a bit for the community.

Gah! Forums!!

No, that's Telegram Sam contributing to the EVE community. Somer is still just a advertising their business.

No-one ever claimed that he never did anything, only that he never contributed to the community — advertising your business doesn't really count.

That's extremely narrow minded. He isn't advertising anything there.

He is contributing by stimulating and encouraging more players to write fiction, by offering a considerably larger prize than we previously had for such contests. This might motivate people who previously were not that interested to actually write something as well. You can call it what you want, but contributions and efforts like the one Somer made there, are vital to the community.

He's contributing and not advertising in the same way as Tag Heuer is running a race and not advertising when they plaster their name across every F1 course and TV transmission…

So in other words its bad thing that he is giving 100 plex's towards the prize fund then..

The bastard !!!!

Their sponsorship certainly does — that's still just taking advantage of a community event to advertise their brands. The difference is that they also provide actual community contributions through their own events and community services (none of which break the EULA by being businesses).

Gambling is a bad habit mmmmk?

This is actually one of the best posts I've read in the weeks of following this.

I'm sure that the points you raise have been mentioned many many times, but here you distill it for me.

The writing contest award - Player fortunes and awards pale against the size of the fortunes $ RMT can create.

-- Mega corps have mega ISK too.. but that's by product of their pursuit of Sovereignty for game purposes.. which is usually the fruition of years of play and bonds with other players (and bonds with leaders of corps who are made of smaller tight-nit associations of players).

-- some traders and industrialists but their motivation comes for enjoying the economy and the fact they "horde" their fortunes is often motivated by the sense that if they gave it away too freely they'd undermine the economy they enjoy. While I have a tiny fraction of the mega wealthy (some of them are mega wealthy indeed.. able to afford two titans aint squat to them) I love playing the economy in games. To me it's like Sid Meirs Civilization a little ... whats the point of Strategy game if I use the assets to undermine the game economy?

But, when the $ to isk thing meshes too closely, odd things happen. CCP makes wonderful attempts to be sure that use $ to buy ISK (via Plex) doesn't keep others from participating. Everytime something like a cruiser gets a buff it makes it so low sp players newer to the game with less abilities to earn ISK in game can still participate in a role with those with far more ISK. (I started as one of those fabled tackling and target painting a HAC war target when still in my trial period ... what fun even though I certainly got popped after helping the crowd)


In my heart, I've been sort of sympathetic to SOMER ... I've seen the arguments of folks equating it to RMT but I figured "hey, guys are making some $ while promoting more net GTC sales for CCP via the well known and well proven human gambling urges/pleasures"

-- I have had some nagging misgivings but I thought most of them were related to the tawdryness of exploiting gambling YET, your post is helping clarify some other drifting worries I couldn't quite place.

My experience in the game has led me to feel that most $ > Ples > ISK buyers really were trying to Keep UP .. too busy with RL to farm or just not enjoying that part of the game. They used their $-ISK to fit the same ships that others in their corp/alliances farmed for. There were always a few ISK pinatas with faction fit T3s and slave but they were prizes, not corp mates.

With an otherwise unintended use of $ to get ISK items because people enjoy gambling. .. you up the "norm" "in-ships" in typical type corps. That could skew the fleet compositions in ways that undermine normal ISK earning (you helped me put a finger on that)