You are here: Ring the alarms! Ready the plasma cannons! Keep your purses close! Eve Online, the popular MMORPG set in space has just been scammed. By one of their own top executives no less! The scandal has hit the game hard, leaving the virtual Ebank inoperable and players scrambling to get back their deposits. What will happen to Eve Online's economy? Where did the money go? Who exactly stole the goods? And can we learn a lesson from this fiasco?
Eve Online's virtual economy centers around the Ebank, which players go to for loans and deposits. The Ebank has grown substantially and organically due to the demand for larger space fleets, better equipment and more ships. Up till the robbery the Ebank had accumulated 8.9 trillion ISK from 13,000 accounts that belonged to 6,000 users.
Apparently, with the booming success of the Ebank, a top executive known as Ricdic (emphasizing "dic") decided to cash in on the success. An unknown sum was taken out of the Ebank and reportedly sold for real cash to a separate third party, a black market if you will. He's been booted from the company but I personally hope his ass gets intergalactically kicked and slapped a lawsuit very soon.
A flurry of users have already taken out 5.0 trillion ISK, leaving the Ebank about 4.9 trillion ISK left. CCP, the people that run Eve Isk say that about 890 billion ISK (%10 of the bank) was embezzled from, which in the real world is insolvency. This sum also cancels out the credit that started the bank in the first place. Meaning will there even be a bank with a disaster of this proportion after the dust settles?
From the get go Eve Isk's ebank has supported a very free laissez-faire economy. This robust free market though also made weak points that could be taken advantage of (looking at you RicDIC!). Ebank had no FDIC, no regulator that monitored the comings and goings of the bank to make sure that it stayed healthy. This fiasco certainly serves as a lesson to other MMORPG's. If you want to avoid a disaster such as this, there ARE important precautions to take and monitors to be made!
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