EVE General Discussion

If you actually look at the document that was authorised, what Somer was doing and what Somer said they were doing were two very different things.

Should CCP have asked for definitive clarification of the details? Sure.
Did CCP explicitly authorise what was happening? Hell no.

Again with official posts regarding SOMERblink. How many times is CCP going to have a PR **** storm before they realize allowing SOMERblink to exist is not in the best interest of EVE Online, the playerbase, and CCP.

I think it's time CCP officially bans Somer, his lotteries, and any of his attempts at anything even remotely related to RMT.

If Somer wants to claim he needs money to maintain his "service," then let him earn it some other way than by converting his in-game earnings into the money necessary to operate his "service." His devoted customers, and all of this free advertising could make him plenty enough to support the upkeep of his server fees. The problem is that he's greedy, and he's attempting to turn his 'community service' into a private for profit business.

If he's claiming his income from these GTC partnerships, and that income far exceeds the overhead costs of running his service, then he has unofficially converted all of his related EVE Online accounts into accounts for the purpose of business and real world profit generation, which is officially against the EULA.

Any and all accounts related should be immediately temporarily banned, his "service" temporarily banned, and there should be an investigation into the amount of isk he has paid out to assist in his real world money generation, there should be an investigation into whether or not there are any businesses held by the actual person who owns the Somerset Mahm accounts, and whether or not those businesses are generating income from EVE Online activities.

I don't mind his lottery website, I've played it a few times and it's actually one of the best designed sites there is. But lets not hide behind the guise of a community service website. If he's generating real world income above operating costs of the service by way of advertising or even GTC partnerships, he's shaming himself, he's deceiving the community, and he's a poison to the game itself.

I have a horrible feeling that there will be a, 'clarification of the rules going forward' and that no punishment will be meted out.

I hope I am wrong.

RMT = perma ban.

That is how it works, right?

You may not take it seriously, but as soon as RL money is involved, the taxman does. And he takes a dim view of loopholes used to run an unregulated (read, untaxed) operation.

Would that be that Somer came up with a great idea to increase his income via referrals to Markee Dragon by using an isk base incentive and actually got CCP to agree with it.

Again I find no fault with Somer. The fault lies 100% with CCP for accepting his idea.

You may hate Somer, many people here do and still think he has done wrong when he hasn't as he has not deviated from the agreement with CCP.

The plain fact of the matter is that CCP should of said no but they didn't.

Also am I to believe at no pont did anybody from legal speak to any dev for advice regarding this, I would find that very hard to believe.

Yes I believe Somers scheme is wrong but if CCP did not give it the okay then we would not be here now talking about it

Please bear in mind that the CSM are bound by NDA on this. Until CCP releases information, we're not free to speak about it.

Which means all they can do is tell each other how awesome they are.

Great isn't it ☺

CCP, I have a part time job in real-life. I am not rich, living in 70m² flat with my wife who is actually unemployed.

However, I managed to be trillionaire in your genious game called EvE. Do I have your permission to flip some of my iskies to rl cash to buy a car or some cool stuff like Somer did?

He is a weasel. Remember, when CCP gave him a bunch of iScorps, he advised the recepients to lay low and slowly sell them off using alts, etc, basically to manipulate the price by people thinking there was less supply. Also, as someone previously pointed out, this could be used to generate even more RMT profit in the future as well as helping corner the Plex market, as basically Somer is just paying for the Plex what they will cost in a month or two, and then he can go ahead and put them back up on market and resell them for what he paid or more and thus make back the isk bonuses he gives out. It's like generating free isk on top of the IRL cash kickback he gets. Then he goes and says this is some kind of 'community service'... lol.

I also love the part where he says something about 'some people sometimes use some of the isk from the Plex they buy to gamble'.... some!? You're preying on degenerate gambling addicts and you know it, don't give me this **** and bull about what people do with 'some' of their isk.

Try sticking around in their in-game channel and just idling for a while. The things said in the comfort of their echo chamber often show that he more or less views eve's playerbase as a bunch of dumb cattle and that the only thing he actually cares about regarding the community is how much money he can extract from them.

The wording on blink last time and this time around is hilarious, he makes it sound like the affiliate money is only to help pay for server costs, implying that he actually uses his own money maintaining the site and that the ETC sales only help out a bit. However, how I remember it someone calculated he had made over 100K USD off this as of the last scandal in 2013, and that was a very conservative figure. I also recall mention of business locations, data centers, etc., being purchased - someone on the forums here had done research into the real-life Somer, including looking at public records, and while I cannot verify the veracity of those claims, they were pretty damning if indeed true.

I view Somer as a con man, a parasite, and a crook. He operates a shady for-profit business which relies on gambling addictions to make him IRL money, and then he has the gall to try and make himself look like some sort of pillar of the community. Gambling addictions literally destroy lives yet this man claims to be doing the community a service. Any stuff he's done like funding events, etc., is done from a business standpoint, not because he actually cares about people. Case in point, I remember very well during the Plex for Good campaign he was kicking/banning people for discussing it in the Somer channel and for trying to help fundraise. He acted arrogantly, accusing them all of being scammers and just came across as a massive ****. He actively suppressed people trying to help. Then, at the 11th hour he comes out with this very loud and public donation of Plex... dude didn't really give a **** about people, he was just concerned with getting the glory for himself and trying to look like a good dude after the massive backlash to Somergate 2013.

Remember how after CCP deemed their previous *redacted* to be illegal, Somer basically spit in their face by cashing out at 1bil a pop for days after everyone else stopped? And now that he gets caught doing shady **** again, what is his response? A snarky and passive aggressive post on Blink which takes a shot at CCP. Way to treat with contempt those who show you favoritism...

Yeah, all the regulations with fake funny-money that cannot be exhcanged for $$$. There is no laws that ban betting with imagine, no-value space pixels. If your country has those, then you are in more serious trouble than you think.