EVE General Discussion

The difference is authorisation. Have you got CCP's authorisation to do that? If not, then no.

Difference is I don't have MD affiliate link for you to use but mechanism is the same. I have RL $1 you get more ISK than you would by selling PLEX on market.

I don't have to be CCP approved PLEX dealer to do it, I just need to apply to affiliate program of any of those approved dealers.

What if Somer had decided to make the buy price equal to 0.01ISK below the current lowest sell order, would you still classify that as RMT?

Yes, the only way not to make RMT is to cut out the buying back of plex out of game:

Use a somer affiliate link, get plex ingame, sell plex on ingame market, get money, transfer money to your somer account.


How it is setup now is just a cheap way to RMT the isk blink makes.

See? Witch hunt. Nothing but overreacting, sensationalising, and fist pumping. If you're going to jump to conclusions before CCP says anything on the matter, and assume "guilty" via trial by personal emotions, you're barely even worth the contempt I have for this kind of behaviour.

More generally, the problem is in the “if — and only if — you use this affiliate link (read: if you give us real money) we will give you something in-game” setup of the deal.

The actual value of the stuff given in-game is irrelevant. They could be giving away one trit and it would still be RMT since it's an exchange of out-of-game currency for in-game possessions. The only way for it not to be RMT is if the affiliate-link purchase only has out-of-game benefits. I don't know what that would be in Somer's case… high-priority server connections that responds to clicks faster or something?

If they were to under-price the payout rather than overprice it, it would still be a trade between out-of-game for in-game stuff on top of being a bad deal for the trader. The latter is just a scam, the former is pretty much the definition of RMT.

EDIT: changed my analysis following clarification on Somer's mechanics. It's not RMT, it's a scam.



'Pure' RMT would be: give me 1$ IRL and I'll give you 50 Million ISK in-game.

This scheme is: give CCP 20$ IRL and I'll give you 50 Million ISK in-game, because CCP will give 1$ IRL to me.


The difference is that CCP is the middleman in the RL cash transfer.

It's not a negligible difference, and if CCP says it's ok then it's ok.


But if CCP says it's ok, then logic would suggest:

1) anybody can do it, not just Somer

2) the PLEX buyback is completely unnecessary, anybody should be free to just give ISK, in-game assets, or both to players that buy PLEX from them


If 1) and 2) don't apply, then yes this is indeed shady.


On a side note, I think all lotteries are stupid and if everybody thought the same, Somer wouldn't even exist.

that's lovely. and i didn't say otherwise.


you attacked the motivations of the thread's participants twice and misrepresented the complaint twice before even acknowledging what you believe is a flawed premise, that blink credits can be equated to a real ingame isk value.

its not the lottery thats shady/stupid, its the connection between the lottery and CCP that is shady.

I gave the thread and its sensationalist posters the acknowledgement they deserved. I don't need to explain myself to you though. Who are you that I do?