Man Steals EVE Online Cash to Pay Real Debts

[Lord Thodin]

Ive never played EVE online, but if a game is this indepth and he actually managed to sell fake nothingness for money the man deserves a medal not a ban from the game.

 

[Arehexes]

I have a hard time condemning him, if for no other reason than this. Wouldn't we have done the same?

Well, no.
I'd have done it just for shits and giggles.

But I can appreciate his reasons and I don't condemn his choice.

Also that's just plain awesome.

I would have done it just to laugh and give them all the finger XD. If he can't make money to support his family maybe he should stop paying for EVE(i don't remember is it P2P like before?)

 

[Azhrarn-101]

holy shit, he just made 5,000 bucks for playing a video game! Makes me want to start a giant, trusted bank in an mmo then betray the trust of all my friends and investors...

If it had been me, I would have cleaned the bank out then canceled my account so they couldn't even ban me as punishment.

Actually that would have been impossible. The 200 billion Ricdic made off with was probably the maximum his bank-character could get access too. E-Bank isn't stupid, they had security systems in place for just this sort of eventuality. No single banker has access to more than a fraction of the banks total assets at any given time. Most of it is actually invested too. (since you do get intrest on your ISK at EBank)

As for the reported run on the bank, EBank never lost solvency, they could have paid back every single player with an account without issues. It was just the banks own assets that were hurt by this scam.

I have an EBank account myself, there's not that much money in it, but that's mostly because I don't have that much. =) (there's around 70 million in the bank, and around 680 million in my Wallet)

EBank is still running, and I doubt they'll go under. There are plenty of scammers and such out there in EVE, just means you need to watch what you invest in and use your brain, and never put more at risk than you can afford to lose. And that goes for everything in EVE.
Scamming, embezzeling, blackmail, it's technically all legal providing it does not involve real world currency. Since RMT is illegal.

It's not fun to lose stuff, but you knew the risks and were willing to take them.

 

[psijac]

I cannot condemn this man. He committed one of the a crime that has very little real impact on its victims? First off they are playing a game So no one is going to be unable to feed their kids because of these events. The game caters to a Machiavellian society where it is socially acceptable and almost expected for individuals to commit crimes for the sake of power. In WoW if you ninjaed something you would be blacklisted. The only crime here that was committed was against the Eula which the developer banned him for.

 

[Baron Khaine]

Wow. Now I really wanna play it. It is not boring and static like most MMOs.
As for the guy, he spent it on a house for his family and his sons medical bills. Good on him. Though I would have robbed the freaking bank blind. Seriously, I would have taken every last cent/ISK I could.

He took as much as he could get, all the money not tied up is on numerous seperate account's.

 

[Baron Khaine]

That's more leniency than I assumed you would show. Personally I think thieves should firstly have to give back all stolen goods then face whatever other punishment is proscribed - if they're recalcitrant a good stern talking to or some community service may be in order. If they are habitual thieves (he said he would do it again if given the chance) more may be needed to discourage the theft.

I need to reiterate: if Richard had kept the $ in-game I'd be defending him- he was just playing the game. He didn't; he got real life involved and thus should be held to the different standards than the game's.

Completely agree with you on your last point Terminal, if he'd kept it in-game, he'd be fine, but he didn't.

I think that CCP should prosecute him RL if they can, I don't know if they can use breaching a EULA that way, his reason may have been just, but his methods were not and he deserves punishment. More than being banned that is.

 

[Jadak]

Sucks to be him I guess.

What sucks about profiting thousands of dollars?

 

[Azhrarn-101]

I think that CCP should prosecute him RL if they can, I don't know if they can use breaching a EULA that way, his reason may have been just, but his methods were not and he deserves punishment. More than being banned that is.

They couldn't, even if they wanted too.
Banning him was the most they were allowed to do given the breach of the EULA.
No EULA will hold up in court, and while RMT transactions are outlawed in the EULA, they are not in the real world.
What he did was a simple business transaction.
He had a commodity an entity wanted, and was payed for delivering said commodity.
That this transaction was illegal in the game world involved is of no concequence here.
He was banned for that part of the action, and that's the only thing CCP could have done.

 

[Asehujiko]

Guy scams somebody, ebays the loot, gets banned. Happens freaking all the time in pretty much every mmo but because it's eve it's suddenly news worthy?

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Yeah it goes down to the ends justify the means - its like torturing to get info to save yer country but with more sympathetic means than torture.

If all other avenues were closed to get my kid medical expenses I may steal to do it but I doubt I couldn't do a fundraiser or get the money by not stealing if I put some effort into it. Making the house payment was just greed on top of need. He obviously had a computer and other assets he could have used before resorting to theft. If he had used ALL the $ for his kid it would be slightly better to cuz then it would just be one sympathetic end instead of a semiselfish end and a nonselfish one.

And if I had to steal to save a family member or fiend I sure as hell would try and do soem charity work or something to make up for it instead of just saying yeah I'd do it again though I feel bad.

I think in the end the man should have to do a crapton of community service. He thinks the ends justifies the means so forcing him to help society would be fine because the overall gain is more than the temporary loss of his freedom (at least by his reasoning applied to him outside of his crime.)

I think that CCP should prosecute him RL if they can, I don't know if they can use breaching a EULA that way, his reason may have been just, but his methods were not and he deserves punishment. More than being banned that is.

They couldn't, even if they wanted too.
Banning him was the most they were allowed to do given the breach of the EULA.
No EULA will hold up in court, and while RMT transactions are outlawed in the EULA, they are not in the real world.
What he did was a simple business transaction.
He had a commodity an entity wanted, and was payed for delivering said commodity.
That this transaction was illegal in the game world involved is of no concequence here.
He was banned for that part of the action, and that's the only thing CCP could have done.

Yeah but the transaction could have been illegal if he didn't report it properly and pay full taxes on his theft. I don't know where Australian law stands on civil suits but if it were in America that sounds like a possible civil suit to me. People can be sued for legal actions if they were found to be malicious and damaging.

Well taxes are a different matter obviously, but criminally he did nothing wrong.
Technically he could be in for some tax-evasion then. Unless he payed taxes on the transaction already, which is certainly possible as the RMT-person was representing a legal entity.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

Is breaching the Eula a civil or criminal matter? Well I hope Australia has civil laws that will allow them to sue the thief.

I doubt it's either, a EULA is just part of the license to use a digital product and carries no legal weight on its own. A EULA breach as such is not something you could go to court for.

(well, not entirely true. Blizzard did get a civil case going against that person who designed and sold a bot for WoW, and won too.)

But I think CCP doesn't have that option here. The real world transaction was most likely completely legal, the in-game component wasn't, but the EULA is not a legal document.

 

[pliusmannn]

yah, eve is the most realistic mmog by now