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The EVE Online Bank Job

Player embezzles billions of moonbux from player-run EVE Online bank.

It was the perfect crime. When you're assisting in the administration of a player-run bank in EVE Online, billions of ISK (the in-game currency of EVE), flow through your fingertips. Billions! And a player named Xabier decided that he had to make a go of it. So he's apparently embezzled 80 billion ISK and hit the road.

Read this bit from Massively's coverage of this event and see how many sentences it takes you before you feel like you live in Crazy Town, USA. (Sugar. Baby.)
Massively contacted Xabier today, who stated that the value of assets taken from Dynasty Banking was 86 billion ISK, adding that the total value is now 106.2 billion ISK due to how it was invested. He also stressed to Massively that he's used some of this ISK to repay his friends who invested with Dynasty Banking. We also spoke with Manalapan, the Chairman of Dynasty Banking, who placed the embezzled amount at 82.5 billion ISK. Manalapan has released a statement in hopes of quelling rumors related to the theft, which comes in the wake of two senior members of Dynasty Banking stepping down from their roles.
To me, MMO games involve right-clicking on things and swinging swords at stuff until it falls over. This sort of futuristic Trade-Wars-but-not-a-BBS-door-game stuff just makes my eyes glaze over. We fear what we don't understand. But how awesome is it that a group of players can just decide to run a bank, and then one of them can just decide he's had enough and bail on the whole thing with a bunch of the cash? I mean, since it's all in-world, it's not like there can be any actual real-world repercussions. But I bet this guy will have crazy men in spaceships following him for the rest of his EVE Online life. All this kind of makes me want to play a little EVE Online for myself... just so I can one day steal a bunch of money and blast off into the eternal night of outer space.

Read the full story on Massively for info on how this actually impacts players who invested their hard-earned ISKs in this venture.
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

82 Comments

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mathewballard

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Edited By mathewballard

That is just awesome!

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deactivated-5c5cdba6e0b96

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Haha thats awesome.

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Pibo47

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Edited By Pibo47

That is freaking awesome! That almost wants me to play EVE online! "this could be the end of the world.....of warcraft...."

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LegioXIII

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Edited By LegioXIII

Stories like this are always so fun to read. EVE Online player politics are way more interesting then real life. lol

I love EVE Online. It's the best MMO ever. Simple to play, hard to understand.

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Scooper

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Edited By Scooper

That's so cool, he's robbed it up and booked it. I'd instantly start selling the gold on Ebay or something, you'd get pretty loaded I'm guessing.

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LaszloKovacs

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Edited By LaszloKovacs

Just out of curiosity, I looked up the going price for ISK on these shady MMO gold-selling sites.

This dude made off with like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If I were him I would start making sure that his Eve username isn't in any way linked to his real name or address.

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philster99

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Edited By philster99
Soroush, I also missed the TradeWars game also, and I just found out that there's a new web browser remake online with a fairly active community at http://www.tradewarsrising.com

Check it out and you can go back to your old school days, lol ;)
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dagas

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Edited By dagas

EVE is really like the sci-fi movies where corperations have taken over. The nations in EVE don't have much power and the police doesn't do anything unless they see someone attackingg someone else (in high security space) or if you have contraband cargo. Unlike other games in EVE pretty much anything is legal, except for using exploits or buying ISK on ebay everything is possible. Life in EVE is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short as Hobbes would have put it.

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packfan104l4

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Edited By packfan104l4

@MB

Yea, whoops, lol.  I wrote that right before I passed out, so yea, maybe added a couple 0's here and there, lol.


And to all of you people that call the game boring, all there is is mining, etc, you don't understand the point of the game.  It's meant to be a niche game, otherwise it'd be a WoW clone.  Yes, you sometimes have to mine.  Yes the menu's are confusing at first.  I've been playing for 1+ years and I'm still earning new stuff every day.  The whole point is this is a SOCIAL game.  If you come in, run missions, and mine solo, it's going to be boring, hands down.  I'm in an active corp where we mission when we need our sec standing back up, then go plundering throughout the low/nullsec universe.  After the 2 week trial, you either get it or you don't.

Speaking of which, if anyone wants a 21 day trial (not the standard 14 day) pop me a private message and I'll send you a referral email for the buddy program.  An extra week is always nice and if you end up subscribing before the trial is up, the time is added to your account.  Just lemme know!

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Brackynews

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Edited By Brackynews

Intrigue.  It's not just for NPCs anymore.

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Dryker

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Edited By Dryker

I always found the auction house and trading in MMOs far more fascinating and engaging than the fighting. If Too Human had an auction house it would've been a far better game.

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Noremakk

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Edited By Noremakk

Haha, that's awesome. I hope they deal with him solely through EVE Online; crimes committed in an MMO should be dealt with in an MMO.

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End_Boss

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Edited By End_Boss

My friend and I started playing EVE because of this article. Thanks Jeff.

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ArgentR

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Edited By ArgentR
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exfate

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Edited By exfate

The great thing about EVE is that people can "roleplay" without giving up their real life persona and pretending to be an elven lord or something dumb.

That said, the time investment is just waaay to much for a lot of people. It just takes so long to get to the position where your existence in the game even matters to the same minuscule percentage that your real life existence matters.

At this point it's been going for so long that you'd be mad to start out playing alone. If you were to start playing with a group who would stick with it for literally years, it might end up being worth it. Either that, or you'd need to know people playing already. That was my experience trying it fairly late into the game anyway -- even with a fair sized group of people starting out together -- it just wasn't worth the time it seemed like it would take to get the most from it. For that reason, I eagerly await their next MMO, WoD: Online. Seems like getting in relatively early, in the first few years at least, would be the key to getting the most from a CCP style, emmergent gameplay, MMO.

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ricost

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Edited By ricost

There is a fiction book I would like to recommend that goes together fine with this robbery. It is called Halting State by Charles Stross. It's one of the best near-future sci-fi books I've read. Look up the storyline on Amazon or something - I guarantee that you'll like it if you into near-future sci-fi and MMO's.

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MordeaniisChaos

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Edited By MordeaniisChaos

I need to play this game.... o.o That is fucking incredibly cool. This article pretty much perfectly sums up how I feel about this xD

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Afroman269

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Edited By Afroman269

Maybe the kid was mad cus his parents stopped giving him an allowance so he stole a bunch of in game money. The perfect crime..

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mrhankey

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Edited By mrhankey

If i had the stomach to spend $15 a month to play EVE i would, as i enjoyed everything about it when i played the trial.

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Vision

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Edited By Vision

I remember this happening atleast once before.

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Landmine

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Edited By Landmine

Xabier is the Bernie Madoff of the EVE online world.

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citizenkane

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Edited By citizenkane

That's actually pretty awesome.

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AspiringAndy

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Edited By AspiringAndy

Holy Crap!
I just checked a ISK selling website and, 300 million ISK cost US $900.
And this dude took 80 Billion...
BILLION.

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Renahzor

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Edited By Renahzor
"Holy Crap!
I just checked a ISK selling website and, 300 million ISK cost 900.
And this dude took 80 Billion..."

No, you are all doing the math wrong, like really wrong, and getting your isk buying info from a bad source.  EVE allows you to purchase game time cards for real money, and sell them for ISK in game.  Doing this you can turn 35.00 USD into about 650M isk.  To make the math easier we'll just round it to about 50 bucks for 1B isk, or about $4,200.00 stolen.  Depends on the day and the current market for time codes, but its nowhere near the figures some have come up with.

This is one of the reasons I really like EVE.  :)
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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

barf, mmo subscriptions

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

.

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

.

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spacebug

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Edited By spacebug

For any of those thinking of taking up EVE Online. Please dear god, do not sit in the newbie corporation and run missions. EVE is not a PVE game like WoW and the vast majority of other MMOs out there, it is a PVP game and the PVE portion is there to give combat pilots a way to make money off of something that isn't piracy or mercenary contracts and is incredibly dull. Get out there and join a player corporation, there are many that take in new people and are there specifically for training new people the  game and will often supply you with your first few ships. And even the most powerful alliances in the game are in constant need of new pilots.

For those that are saying that the game is slow and requires a large time investment before you can do anything. It is true that you will not be able to be an excellent battleship pilot or capital ship pilot for close to a year, but you are useful from day 1, in specific roles. You can hold people in place so the rest of your fleet can destroy them from day one and that is a vital role in fleets that is most often fulfilled by new pilots. From there you can get in larger or more specialized ships, but all ship types are useful in fights and some of the most fun I have had in the game is getting my corp together in small frigate type ships, the kind you can fly when you start the game, and roaming around killing things with them.

There are many many many ways to play EVE online, mining, research, exploration, piracy, manufacture, trade mercenary and you can have a very good experiance doing any of the them but find the one you like the most and specialize. It will get you on an even standing with the older members of the community rather quickly because there is a cap on how well you can do secific things. You will get to a point you will be able to fly a ship as well as a pilot that has been around for 3 years, he may be able to mine better then you as well but in that fight you will be even.

So my advice for anyone looking to play the game:

1) Quit the starter corporation and find a new one.
2) Find something you like to do in the game specialize for it and enjoy it.
3)  Even is a harsh game, you will be blown up, stolen from, trapped, hunted and destroyed. Take a deep breath, get a drink, find a new ship, grab a friend and get back there and crucify him.

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

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dannyodwyer

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Edited By dannyodwyer  Staff

EVE is just amazing

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AspiringAndy

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Edited By AspiringAndy
Renahzor said:
"
"Holy Crap!
I just checked a ISK selling website and, 300 million ISK cost 900.
And this dude took 80 Billion..."

No, you are all doing the math wrong, like really wrong, and getting your isk buying info from a bad source.  EVE allows you to purchase game time cards for real money, and sell them for ISK in game.  Doing this you can turn 35.00 USD into about 650M isk.  To make the math easier we'll just round it to about 50 bucks for 1B isk, or about $4,200.00 stolen.  Depends on the day and the current market for time codes, but its nowhere near the figures some have come up with.

This is one of the reasons I really like EVE.  :)
"
o.O
I dont play it so yeah.
This is the dodgy source.
SOURCE
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45ysdfgsd g35t3t54 3t4

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I have to agree with most people here, this shit is what EVE is about. From what ive seen, no other MMO comes close in terms of what EVE achieves.