EVE Online Press conference notes

For those of you who haven’t been following the EVE EIB (EVE Investment Bank) scandal over the last few weeks here’s the gist of the story so far. A user named Cally founded an in-game bank and got fellow users to invest money in the bank. After a bit he folds the bank and takes everyone’s money. CCP held a virtual press conference today to discuss what went down and to clear up a few misunderstandings about what went happened. Here are my notes from the press conference:

• The actual amount taken is in doubt, CCP can't confirm the exact account and some of it might have been laundered in the game to other accounts
• EIB is completely user created and not part of the game, this kind of scandal is possible because of the freedom the game provides to it’s players
• The developers are upset that this happened as the money taken represent real hours of work and effort by its players but it is a hostile world so these things can happen
• Just another case of the virtual world being like the real one...scams happen all the time
• The size of the amount taken is what is really interesting and is probably because EVE Online is not “sharded” (i.e. everyone is on one server)
• It is sad for the developers but interesting that it was possible
• The staff does not want to put boundaries on people in the game, EVE will not interfere unless someone is abusing the game mechanic (i.e. sell the ISK offline)
• CCP has not found traces of the money yet but may be impossible if they move it out with a lot of small transactions and the money could be moved through secondary accounts
• They are keeping an eye on it to make sure the money is not sold as the potential value is around $170,000 if the person stole 800B ISK
• The EVE GM's watching him diligently right now, and if he goes and tries to sell it they will go after him
• EVE is against ISK selling
• There have been no major player defections since the scandal and they are actually seeing an increase in membership
• This isn’t the care bears online and this isn’t the first major scam for the game.
• CCP became aware when the story hit and had no idea before it hit. Some had not even hard of EIB before the scandal hit.
• No expected hit to the in-game economy given the size of the player base right now.
• The only recourse from CCP is to ban him from the game, no real legal recourse
• CCP is looking at doing something that will make ISK sellers obsolete - new approach to the issue but they won’t reveal any details right now