The EVE Online Bank Job

If there's anything cooler than calling first and adding nothing to the discussion, I don't know it.

This is like the Tea Pot Dome Scandal... except in space!

Woah. Freaky-deaky. I was just talking about Trade Wars 2002.

This might have some real world repercussions... in my brief stint playing Eve I received roughly ten billion messages offering to sell me ISK for real Obamadollars.

Now how do I transfer my ISK over to my Fable 2 character again?

Yeah, Eve Online has a long history of things like this going on. And that's why it's one of the greatest and most unique MMOs ever made.

That's the beauty of EVE, this kind of thing is practically encouraged (Doesn't hurt that everytime it does more people start playing).

Not the game for me though, far too slow paced.

What can I say? People who are into EVE online are really into EVE online. Enough to do a virtual crime in a virtual world.

Maybe Online MMO's like EVE have it right.
WOW is such a tightly controlled experience- there doesn't exist anything in the game that requires the same amount of user participation as a player run bank- but this kind of wild theft is totally BADASS. Think about how awesome it must be knowing that this player ripped off a fake corporation for billions of dollars.
Maybe leaving a world in the hands of players would allow more things like this to happen. That game would be totally lawless, but it would also be AWESOME.

Can you be sent to prison for virtual embezzling?

There are SOOOOOOOOO many of these kinds of stories from EVE;  I love to see these kinds of amazing stories happen.  I wish more MMOs had the balls EVE does.

That's like awesome. Steal some virtual cash, in a virtual world, also hilarious that virtual people are "stepping down" from the virtual bank.

One of these days, this game will become reality and our current lives will become virtual reality.

One of these days, this game will become reality and our current existence will become virtual reality.

EVE is full of this stuff. If I recall correctly there was this huge starship heist that involved one faction merging with another faction and spending pretty much a whole year accumulating money and ships just so they could betray the other faction and run off with all of said ships and money.


EVE online is awesome.

Awesome, wheres Jason Statham when you need him?

Wow imagine what they could do with real world companies . Macdonalds employee embezzles  20 billion dollars , found yachting in the Greek Isles .

That's why eve online will live forever in its own little corner of the mmo world. Awesome stories like this.

I tried it for about an hour and it's above and beyond me... or maybe time allowed... and you gain skill when not online.

I thought the ISK/virtual money was worth a certain % in real money, because you can sell it. I see a case.

Oooo! Oooo! I have another! When's the movie coming out?

Haha... awesome

I love this game

I've gotta say... Bravo to that guy! You really caught everybody with their pants down! Nice one lol!

EVE is one of those games that I occasionally return to play.  I've never played a game that people take so seriously.  It's rather complex and certainly very different than almost any other game in both good and bad ways.  I'd imagine this guy probably has some bounties on his head at this moment as well as an adoring fan base.

mkay...and what's to stop the developers from just erasing that money from existance and refunding everything to its rightful owner?

Well for you people that have never played the game.  If you converted the amount of ISK stolen to actual cash value (you can by a Game Time Card and sell it for ISK for $34.99 for around 670 million ISK atm):

3.1 million US dollars.

That's one HELL of a pull


@Shadow

Because it's part of the game.  Hell I've stolen money all of the time in the game.  I steal rigs, I steal cans, I steal ore.  I steal more than I buy?  Have I gotten one item taken away by CCP.  Nope!  Cuz it's part of the game.

$3,100,000 in game time? Holy shit dude. How awesome is that? He should open one of those ISK selling websites and sell it for cheaper than the game time actually costs.

What is this game? Wall street training?

Though during my short time in its universe proved EVE was far from my type of game, it is these very things that make me wish I could invest the time in it necessary to become this kind of asshole.

For those who don't realize this, EVE's developers love letting their players create and mold their universe into whatever it is they choose. Only occasionally, when their players start to get too smart and try to alter very basic game mechanics (like, i dunno, taking over safe areas of space typically populated by new players) does EVE's developers step in and administer punishment...but even then its with a twist. Instead of cancelling your account of what you've done to the game, they usually show up in force sporting the most badass ships available and completely destroy everything the offender has of value.

I guarantee you this game will still be kicking and screaming far longer than any other MMO on the market because of the open minded premise it offers all its gamers who can commit the amount of time needed to pull crap like this off.

All too real... Man.

Shame that's not the worst thing thats happened in EVE.

http://computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=180867&site=pcg

on another note: the guy had the style to leave the company quoting Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy,  apparently his bio now states “Thanks for all the fish”.

Eve online would be awesome if it weren't so mind numbingly boring. But if your into it's really lazy ass pace it's great for this kind of stuff.

I tried to get into EVE but I found the whole setup of the menus and everything extremely confusing.

EveZZzzzZZzzzzZZzzz...

Wake me up when Ultima Online comes back and does space faster than Eve does.

He could be the CEO of a real company! He's apparently really good as what they do best; embezzeling!

That is crazy in a cool sorta way.

That's crazy business, literally.

I wanted to try out EVE cause there really is a lack of future/space rpgs out there but it doesn't look like the type to start off with this late in the game.

Oh, crap, Jeff. You mentioned Trade Wars 2002. Then there was P.L.A.N.E.T.S.... then L.O.R.D.... man, I miss those days.

"Well for you people that have never played the game.  If you converted the amount of ISK stolen to actual cash value (you can by a Game Time Card and sell it for ISK for $34.99 for around 670 million ISK atm):

3.1 million US dollars.

In EVE you can  higher players to kill the dude who stole your cash.  Happens all the time in this game  there was another large job done before i played the game free for like 4 months found it more fun to watch the crazyness of people backstabbing mostly since i was to weak to do anything cool like get money for killing people.

The other jobs story is Slightly more entertaing since it invloles revenge undercover spys  with secret codewords ,and people left floating in space before being murdered on request of the "client", and people stealing rare large battleships  besides money stealing.

more heist/assasin/murder stories here.


I
http://eve.klaki.net/heist/


http://eve.klaki.net/heist/page-1.jpg


http://eve.klaki.net/heist/page-2.jpg



http://eve.klaki.net/heist/page-3.jpg


http://eve.klaki.net/heist/page-4.jpg

Argh! Damn you, Cubical. I was just about to post the link to that story myself. I absolutely adore it, and everytime I see it it makes me want to get into EVE.

aaahhh, love the 'butterfly' touch there Jeff;) CXT baby!

Whilst its a crappy thing to do it speaks volumes for the free player run narrative in Eve-Online. I play in a mmo with similar freedom though its a lot more fast paced and massive. Beyond Protocol is a Scifi MMORTS and you can find info elsewhere so I wont bore you, but the game has been live near 3 months and blood feuds over folk stealing all th emoney from the guild bank have already happened and are very much affecting the overall narrative. The devs are active and encourage folks to stretch the boundaries, and have tried to supply us with enough tools to pretty much design/customise everything - so many ideas have sprung up the devs never even considered but love and endorsed such actions.
I am finding that with this freedom comes some very good role play - so much so id declare scripted  and dev made narrative games like WoW to be 3d platform games not mmorpg's. Player defined narrative games like Eve and Beyond Protocol are awesome and truly blend hard core and casual gamers well.

There are no real world repercussions?  Maybe if people didn't already buy and sell ISK in side accounts in exchange for real money, or spend a monthly fee in order to accrue this fake cash, only to have it stolen.  That seems fairly real to me, even if the solution is something like "stop playing EVE"

What struck me as surreal is you don't tend to get open interviews with real-life crooks about how much money they stole before they've been acquitted or sentenced to prison, and even then they're often cagey about it.  This dude actually said he had MORE than was believed, and he made a point to say he'd payed back some investors, as though that excused it! 

I find the whole thing amusing, but games like this, despite their saying they're player run sims, tend to push what we consider to be crime to the extreme simply because there's little in the way of enforcement of the law, there.  Punishment isn't always a deterrent, but it sure as hell would be for many of these people.

This is so goddamn awesome.

this little story sold me! im downloading the 14 day free trail and giving the game a shot!

When they say virtual "world" they mean it.

One of the reasons why Eve is pretty amazing and scary at the same time.

So when does the crazy kid who spent weeks-on-end hunched over a terminal in some South Korean internet coffee hut show up on the doorstep of this player with a machete and a slippery grip on reality?

must be nice to see all that real world stuff happen in Eve. i tried the trial and ended up mining all day. shortly after i said "booooooooring" out loud i uninstalled it.