EVE General Discussion

The difference is that one way you sell ISK for RM. The other way you use ISK to get RM. It may seem like a petty/trivial distinction but it woudn't be the first time the "how" matters just as much if not more than the end result.

EDIT:

To be more clear (or maybe just more verbose). Somer is earning money like many other for-profit websites. Ads and/or affiliate/referral links. That is legitimately earned RM. How they incentivize people to click those links is a separate matter (or at least I think that's a reasonable way to look at it)

You don't think incentivizing real money referral links with isk is RMT?

That would be against the EULA. Setting up affiliate links and then incentivizing someone to click on that link by sending them ISK may be a different story. Apparently, CCP seems to think it's ok. (Of course, it will be interesting to see where things stand after the dust settles.)


That's certainly more than I meant to imply, but your reasoning sounds good to me.

I think people on these forums see people using ISK in an indirect way to earn RM and declare it RMT. I've always been of the mindset that how you get from point A to point B is also important. Many of us are engaged in the process of making real money IRL. I'm sure that if I earned my RL income from an EVE site there'd be a million and one ways to make accusations of RMT since ISK is such an integral part of EVE. Again, a lot of this is just playing devils advocate. Sorry if I'm giving anyone a headache.

Giving? EA and Blizzard have a better reputation at this point in time.

I'm not sure I understand how you can argue that this isn't RMT.

It's basically: I'll give you isk if you use this link that gives me money.

Futures gambling would be posting market orders saying 'Buying PLEX from everyone for 830m/unit'. Ill advised (IMO) but perfectly legal. Or alternately a forum post saying 'Buying PLEX via private contact, 830m/unit, contract them to me, will decline the contracts when I run out of ISK'.

It's very different when you say 'Buying PLEX for 830m, but only if you spend RL money with me'.

If I put up an Ebay auction saying 'Buy this piece of toast for 200 USD, and if you have an EVE Online account, I'll buy a piece of Tritanium from you for 10 billion ISK', CCP would *rightly* permaban me, and seize the 10b from the buyer who would get a temporary ban.

Guess CCP is so desperate for cash, given the falling subs, they are willing to make deals with the devil, if it looks like it will increase the cash into CCP, regardless of the optics. If CCP thinks this will somehow increase plex sales, then I expect them to keep their mouths shut about this, for as long as they can, before the furor gets too great.

"RMT is bad, unless you are actually increasing CCP revenues at the same time."

No worries, even if CCP decides this is wrong and tells Somer to stop, I'm sure they'll give them some unique ships as a consolidation for lost revenue. I mean CCP can't let Somer go empty handed out of this, that would just be wrong.

/c

So, they're essentially doing the same thing they did last time. To clarify, here is the specific racket this time around:

1) Buy plex through somer affiliate, off which somer earns $$.
2) "give" plex in-game back to somer for additional isk over market value. You gain additional isk.

In greater detail:
A) Player starts with $$.
B) Player buys plex via somer affiliate with $$.
C) Player now has plex.
D) Player gives plex to somer in exchange for extra isk.
E) Player now has extra isk over what he would have gotten via plex sale to market. Somer now has $$.


So... somer earns $$, customers get extra isk. That is, by definition, RMT. Furthermore, this is also direct favoritism as CCP is only allowing somer blink to do this.....again.

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CCP, if your going to allow this practice, you should allow it for everyone. I, for one, look forward to purchasing from the Goon/PL/NPC_Sh*tlord RMT shoppe.

Anything less is BLATANT favoritism.

Honestly, the problem here is NOT the apparent RMT at all, but the fact that Somer provide a service only to people that have bought PLEX through them. It would not matter if the service was terrible and caused people lose ISK, there would still be complaints.

Any service in this game has an inherent cost, so any service that Blink provides to it's customers can be calculated and converted into RMT figures.

Thus the only way to solve this issue is for CCP to either stop affiliate referrers from providing any services to anyone,
or just simply stop them from discriminating their service provision based on whether the person has used their referral.

The Customer Loyalty Program is the true issue here, the RMT complaints are an irrelevant sidetrack.