Smart player nearly collapsed EVE Online economy



    CCP's executive director said how one player last year nearly brought down the entire economy of EVE Online's space-based multi-player strategy for its own benefit .

    The story happened after the update of Inferno . Among other things, this update added new “loyalty points” to the game, which were awarded to players in proportion to the cost of destroyed enemy ships. For these loyalty points you can buy special items. It was assumed that the game would become more aggressive and interesting.

    One of the players did a very strange, at first glance, thing. He found on the market an almost useless item worth only 1 ISK (this is the virtual currency of EVE Online). The player bought absolutely all the items on the market. After that, he put one of the items up for auction at a price of 1 billion ISK - and he bought it from himself.

    As a result of this fraud, the average market value of an absolutely useless item has grown millions of times, and the player himself has become the owner of fabulous wealth. Of course, wealth was purely virtual, because the owner could never sell all useless items at such a price. Nevertheless, the system calculated the value of the property based on the average market price.

    Then the player filled the holds of cheap cargo ships with goods, the cost of which allegedly amounted to billions of ISKs - and put them up for destruction. Other players received countless loyalty points that could be exchanged for something really valuable, and a smart player probably earned quite a few real dollars for his services.

    The player’s machinations reached such proportions that they began to affect the gaming economy. It was clearly visible that the market was being manipulated, but no one understood the reasons for this. The development company has set the task of full-time economists to figure out what is happening. In the end, they still managed to figure out a swindler and close the loophole.

    This is not the first time that fraudsters manage to crank up their dark affairs in the game EVE Online. Old-timers still remember the scam with a fictitious bank in 2006.

    CCP's CEO says that players often come up with interesting schemes for enrichment, although the developers themselves are unaware of what is happening. If the new scheme threatens to destabilize the game, then the loophole is closed. “Scammers” are usually left with the earned fortune as a kind of reward for the found bug and for quick wits.

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