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SomerBlinks non-RMT RL earnings

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RAW23
#61 - 2013-10-28 23:17:54 UTC  |  Edited by: RAW23
Quote:
RAW23 wrote:


I'll admit to being ignorant on this. Is it plausible that Somer's web-hosting costs could run to 50k dollars a year?

who gives a **** what their server costs are? they run a website to make in-game (and out of game) profit, they are purely a profit-driven business. if they can't afford to run their business, they should shutter down.


There would be a slightly different perspective on this if all the rl earnings went to maintain the eve-related website since it has always been permissible to pay isk for hosting services that are worth real money. There might, then, be an argument that this would fall into that category.

There are two types of EVE player:

those who believe there are two types of EVE player and those who do not.
Leigh Akiga
Kuhri Innovations
#62 - 2013-10-28 23:18:03 UTC
I think legitimate/Official GTC and ETC sellers/affiliates should not be allowed to play the game, its the only way this doesnt stink to high heaven.
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#63 - 2013-10-28 23:20:30 UTC
Baali Tekitsu wrote:
Andski wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
Actually some of those things happen.

Have you never been in an alliance where there is donate and affiliation links?
Did this alliance give you a Ship Replacement Program?
Was this arranged through the alliance services?
There you are...


My alliance runs donation drives to fund the servers that host our Mumble, which has proven to be capable of handling thousands of concurrent users, forums and other resources, with affiliate links supplementing those donations. These things are a massive expense, but nobody is given preferential access to ship reimbursement or literally anything else for donating to this fund.

Comparing donations to fund an alliance's web services to what is going on with Somer is more than a bit far-fetched.


Maybe not in the case of SMA huh?


Don't be a knob, I wasn't talking about any specific alliance just that a lot of alliances and corps have affiliation links and donations to support the communication servers the same as everyone. Otherwise one person is paying for everything and thats just being a leech.

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#64 - 2013-10-28 23:24:38 UTC
Frying Doom wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
Non peed off comment now:

OK, as stated previously, many services for multiple different games provide affiliation or ways of making money off their links to the game they support.

Usually the money they make from these affiliations are not public knowledge, but they are obviously substantial as these websites and services are highly professional.

Somerblink provides a great service for those who want to use it (compared to some competitors it is highly polished and addictive) and so why is it anyones business how much money they make. Its good to see people are making money from supporting the game community they service.

For example - the GF has played sims for years and has paid for and downloaded sims skins from websites. These websites make money off things other people can easily do. That download bandwidth costs money, but I'm sure they get more than they need to cover it.

Also places like Wowhead etc support their communities and make money from it.

Is this a problem? No. Should it be? No.

Rather a big difference between, I get money off advertising and If you buy from us we will give you an in game advantage and the ability to waste thousands on gambling.

If Somer made a profit from selling advertising space to Google or a bank, that would not be a problem, the problems with what they are doing now however are

1) People are using cash to gamble with, with no governmental oversight, with some people spending 10s of thousands to gamble. With no hope of winning anything back, as it all becomes CCPs property the minute they cash out.
2) Buying GTC from Somer gives you an in-game advantage over buying a GTC on its own.


Oh so now its a gambling issue, I thought it was a 3 letter issue.

Ahh so indignant moral high ground time eh? Only argument left then?
Diomedes Calypso
Aetolian Armada
#65 - 2013-10-28 23:25:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Diomedes Calypso
Leigh Akiga wrote:
I think legitimate/Official GTC and ETC sellers/affiliates should not be allowed to play the game, its the only way this doesnt stink to high heaven.


You might be right about the first about $ from game on some level

The "stinking" part would be far worse if the owners didn't play the game as that would me that the ISK they paid out must have been from players they paid $ to. At least with the current system we know the isk came directly from the in game part of their operation with the players that are getting credits from them.

Not saying that the status quo is right... just that it would be even stinkier if done by an outsider.

(. I think they need to be open to paying isk rebates on plex purchased from others (rebates qualified for by in game actions neutral to how the plex was secured)

.
RAW23
#66 - 2013-10-28 23:28:25 UTC
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.



There may be something to this if the money is being used to support the website. But is 50k a year a plausible cost for hosting Blink?

There are two types of EVE player:

those who believe there are two types of EVE player and those who do not.
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#67 - 2013-10-28 23:29:47 UTC
Leigh Akiga wrote:
I think legitimate/Official GTC and ETC sellers/affiliates should not be allowed to play the game, its the only way this doesnt stink to high heaven.


This would never work, because the people who provide the service usually start it because they love the game...
Sinakz
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#68 - 2013-10-28 23:33:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Sinakz
In regards to people saying SOMER is a scam, I deposited 160mill in to see what would happen and played a few small bets like the firetails eventually got bored and just went all in with a 1 in 16 chance to win a Rorqual for a 150mill ticket, Another player then bought all the remaining tickets but I somehow won making a 1.3bill profit which I cashed out and was deposited into my wallet fairly quickly. From my experience they are 100% legit just is down to your luck.
Frying Doom
#69 - 2013-10-28 23:35:04 UTC
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Oh so now its a gambling issue, I thought it was a 3 letter issue.

Ahh so indignant moral high ground time eh? Only argument left then?

If you read more and talked less this would not be in any way shape or for a surprise. I posted on the gambling aspect days ago in the main thread.

But I guess you must have been to busy defending Somer to notice that gambling like this is a problem, as people with gambling problems will quite often spend money they cannot afford to spend.

This is also of course about RMT, why play a game and earn in game money when you can just buy it cheaper than via other means.

Any spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors are because frankly, I don't care!!
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#70 - 2013-10-28 23:35:45 UTC
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.



There may be something to this if the money is being used to support the website. But is 50k a year a plausible cost for hosting Blink?


So what you are saying, if something is popular and does well the provider should not benefit from it?

If we leave all the other stuff out of it, this is my argument regarding jealousy.

If someone provides a popular service and the donations/advertisement are more than whats required to support it does that mean they shouldn't keep that benefit?

If you do a good job and get paid and a bonus should you give that bonus back to the company because its more than you need to live on?
Frying Doom
#71 - 2013-10-28 23:39:20 UTC
Sinakz wrote:
In regards to people saying SOMER is a scam, I deposited 160mill in to see what would happen and played a few small bets like the firetails eventually got bored and just went all in with a 1 in 16 chance to win a Rorqual for a 150mill ticket, Another player then bought all the remaining tickets but I somehow won making a 1.3bill profit which I cashed out and was deposited into my wallet fairly quickly. From my experience they are 100% legit just is down to your luck.

While I don't believe their site is a scam and actually enjoy playing it.

It becomes a scam if I use real money to gamble with and then get paid out in something I do not actually own.

To simplify this

Buy GTC->Convert GTC into Plex-> Turn Plex into isk->put isk into Somers site with my bonus credit->Win->Get paid out in in-game isk and ships that are actually the property of CCP.

This would be fine except for those who we have gambling regulations for, the problem gamblers who do not have the ability to stop.

Any spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors are because frankly, I don't care!!
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#72 - 2013-10-28 23:41:11 UTC
Frying Doom wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Oh so now its a gambling issue, I thought it was a 3 letter issue.

Ahh so indignant moral high ground time eh? Only argument left then?

If you read more and talked less this would not be in any way shape or for a surprise. I posted on the gambling aspect days ago in the main thread.

But I guess you must have been to busy defending Somer to notice that gambling like this is a problem, as people with gambling problems will quite often spend money they cannot afford to spend.

This is also of course about RMT, why play a game and earn in game money when you can just buy it cheaper than via other means.


Gambling is a problem for some people, and if people can't handle it then they shouldn't play it. Same with drink, same with drugs. Don't tar the rest of us with their lack of willpower or knowledge when to quit.

I play from the UK so my laws matter :P
Movarer
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#73 - 2013-10-28 23:44:37 UTC
RAW23 wrote:
Quote:
RAW23 wrote:


I'll admit to being ignorant on this. Is it plausible that Somer's web-hosting costs could run to 50k dollars a year?

who gives a **** what their server costs are? they run a website to make in-game (and out of game) profit, they are purely a profit-driven business. if they can't afford to run their business, they should shutter down.


There would be a slightly different perspective on this if all the rl earnings went to maintain the eve-related website since it has always been permissible to pay isk for hosting services that are worth real money. There might, then, be an argument that this would fall into that category.



Well, not really, If I were to host a "content site" that was entirely funded by selling my own ISK that would still not make it OK even though I create content, or would it?

WHO KNOWS.
Karak Terrel
Foundation for CODE and THE NEW ORDER
#74 - 2013-10-28 23:44:55 UTC
Sinakz wrote:
In regards to people saying SOMER is a scam, I deposited 160mill in to see what would happen and played a few small bets like the firetails eventually got bored and just went all in with a 1 in 16 chance to win a Rorqual for a 150mill ticket, Another player then bought all the remaining tickets but I somehow won making a 1.3bill profit which I cashed out and was deposited into my wallet fairly quickly. From my experience they are 100% legit just is down to your luck.

I once send all my ISK to Erotica 1 and got twice the amount back. Just for all of you who say Erotica 1's ISK double service is a scam. From my experience she is 100% legit, just it's down to your luck.
RAW23
#75 - 2013-10-28 23:54:32 UTC
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.



There may be something to this if the money is being used to support the website. But is 50k a year a plausible cost for hosting Blink?


So what you are saying, if something is popular and does well the provider should not benefit from it?

If we leave all the other stuff out of it, this is my argument regarding jealousy.

If someone provides a popular service and the donations/advertisement are more than whats required to support it does that mean they shouldn't keep that benefit?

If you do a good job and get paid and a bonus should you give that bonus back to the company because its more than you need to live on?


No. I'm saying that your arguments about the comparisons to donations for covering hosting costs fall apart completely if the person involved is making a profit above and beyond the costs of running the service. Please try to keep your own arguments straight. You cannot compound completely different arguments as you seem to want to do. An argument about jealousy is one thing and an argument about covering the costs of a service is something completely different.

CCP explicitly allows isk payments for services with a real life cost. If the isk for money trade does just go to support the website then that would be one thing, as it could arguably fall under that rule. That is something completely different to swapping isk for cash to run a website and to provide personal profit. You see, the personal profit thing is something completely different to the running a service for eve players thing.

There are two types of EVE player:

those who believe there are two types of EVE player and those who do not.
RAW23
#76 - 2013-10-28 23:57:51 UTC
Movarer wrote:
RAW23 wrote:
Quote:
RAW23 wrote:


I'll admit to being ignorant on this. Is it plausible that Somer's web-hosting costs could run to 50k dollars a year?

who gives a **** what their server costs are? they run a website to make in-game (and out of game) profit, they are purely a profit-driven business. if they can't afford to run their business, they should shutter down.


There would be a slightly different perspective on this if all the rl earnings went to maintain the eve-related website since it has always been permissible to pay isk for hosting services that are worth real money. There might, then, be an argument that this would fall into that category.



Well, not really, If I were to host a "content site" that was entirely funded by selling my own ISK that would still not make it OK even though I create content, or would it?

WHO KNOWS.


It is ok to pay isk for rl services if they are game related, even though it would be forbidden if the services were not game related. If all of Somer's earnings do go entirely on running the website then that would seem to be similar in principle to what CCP has allowed in the past, even if slightly different in practice.

There are two types of EVE player:

those who believe there are two types of EVE player and those who do not.
Dalmont Delantee
Gecko Corp
#77 - 2013-10-29 00:01:59 UTC
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.



There may be something to this if the money is being used to support the website. But is 50k a year a plausible cost for hosting Blink?


So what you are saying, if something is popular and does well the provider should not benefit from it?

If we leave all the other stuff out of it, this is my argument regarding jealousy.

If someone provides a popular service and the donations/advertisement are more than whats required to support it does that mean they shouldn't keep that benefit?

If you do a good job and get paid and a bonus should you give that bonus back to the company because its more than you need to live on?


No. I'm saying that your arguments about the comparisons to donations for covering hosting costs fall apart completely if the person involved is making a profit above and beyond the costs of running the service. Please try to keep your own arguments straight. You cannot compound completely different arguments as you seem to want to do. An argument about jealousy is one thing and an argument about covering the costs of a service is something completely different.

CCP explicitly allows isk payments for services with a real life cost. If the isk for money trade does just go to support the website then that would be one thing, as it could arguably fall under that rule. That is something completely different to swapping isk for cash to run a website and to provide personal profit. You see, the personal profit thing is something completely different to the running a service for eve players thing.


OK I think I understand your argument now.

Your argument is that people shouldn't make money from providing a service in relation to a game?

Why?
Money Makin Mitch
Paid in Full
#78 - 2013-10-29 00:13:15 UTC
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:
RAW23 wrote:
Dalmont Delantee wrote:

Even back in my wow days we had similar for the guilds I was in, it was never seedy or anything. It was to help pay the bills for the service.

Even the web radio station had this...

The problem is the scale of operation Somer is making and the incentives, thats why people are up in arms and not seeing the big picture.



There may be something to this if the money is being used to support the website. But is 50k a year a plausible cost for hosting Blink?


So what you are saying, if something is popular and does well the provider should not benefit from it?

If we leave all the other stuff out of it, this is my argument regarding jealousy.

If someone provides a popular service and the donations/advertisement are more than whats required to support it does that mean they shouldn't keep that benefit?

If you do a good job and get paid and a bonus should you give that bonus back to the company because its more than you need to live on?


No. I'm saying that your arguments about the comparisons to donations for covering hosting costs fall apart completely if the person involved is making a profit above and beyond the costs of running the service. Please try to keep your own arguments straight. You cannot compound completely different arguments as you seem to want to do. An argument about jealousy is one thing and an argument about covering the costs of a service is something completely different.

CCP explicitly allows isk payments for services with a real life cost. If the isk for money trade does just go to support the website then that would be one thing, as it could arguably fall under that rule. That is something completely different to swapping isk for cash to run a website and to provide personal profit. You see, the personal profit thing is something completely different to the running a service for eve players thing.


OK I think I understand your argument now.

Your argument is that people shouldn't make money from providing a service in relation to a game?

Why?

they should be able to make that profit, provided everybody else is also able to.

or, they should not be able to make that profit, providing nobody can either.

1 rulebook for all players.
Sinakz
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#79 - 2013-10-29 00:14:24 UTC
Karak Terrel wrote:
Sinakz wrote:
In regards to people saying SOMER is a scam, I deposited 160mill in to see what would happen and played a few small bets like the firetails eventually got bored and just went all in with a 1 in 16 chance to win a Rorqual for a 150mill ticket, Another player then bought all the remaining tickets but I somehow won making a 1.3bill profit which I cashed out and was deposited into my wallet fairly quickly. From my experience they are 100% legit just is down to your luck.

I once send all my ISK to Erotica 1 and got twice the amount back. Just for all of you who say Erotica 1's ISK double service is a scam. From my experience she is 100% legit, just it's down to your luck.


Ok well as I'm extremely new to EVE I am unaware of who Erotica 1 is - But I assume she/he is a scammer (if not ignore this post) and you are attempting to make a clever sarcastic post on how I have got no proof. So I will post a screenshot I guess?

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/271/azcr.jpg
RAW23
#80 - 2013-10-29 00:16:19 UTC
Dalmont Delantee wrote:


OK I think I understand your argument now.

Your argument is that people shouldn't make money from providing a service in relation to a game?

Why?


Roll

No, but you're getting close. I have no problem with people making money from such services. I even have no problem with people selling isk for cash if it is permitted. I also have no problem with people paying isk for rl services that cost real money so long as they are related to the game. What I have a problem with is some people selling isk for cash when others are not permitted to do so. It violates my sense of fair play, you see. If CCP does come out and say that what Somer is doing is ok, I won't be at all fussed about the principle of making a rl profit from isk as I will be able to make a couple of hundred bucks a day myself doing the same referral for cash incentives thing. Great! HOWEVER, the fact that CCP have repeatedly objected to such practices in public because they claim to object to the principle of isk for real money annoys me a great deal. Especially if they have knowingly allowed someone to violate their own publicly declared principles while not making clear to everyone else that this is permitted.

That clear enough for you? If you are still having comprehension problems I'm not sure what else I can suggest other than practicing critical analysis a little more before you bring your 'skills' out in public.

There are two types of EVE player:

those who believe there are two types of EVE player and those who do not.