Some high quality posting from Gevlon going on right now related to his favorite tinfoil hat: everything is corrupt!
It starting with his theory that the only reason anyone works in the gaming industry is because they are corrupt and getting paid on the side via RMT. Both are poorly worded posts, because Gevlon keeps using game dev and programmer interchangeably, when programmers are only a small sub-set of game devs, and programmers usually aren’t involved in shaping the actual direction of a game. But lets give him a break on that and focus only on programmers, since his entire post falls completely apart if we talk about artists, audio people, or any of the other dozens of possible roles on a larger game.
So why would a programmer work in gaming for less money and worse conditions (lets just assume that is also always true, and studios like Riot or Blizzard don’t offer very competitive pay) compared to another industry like say writing bank software? I think anyone with job options already knows the answer here, but lets just get them on the table anyway. For starters, for most people work is a combination of interest in the subject, personal capability, and the lifestyle afforded by the career. Each person will have a different weight on each factor (teacher vs cube monkey vs janitor) , but only truly special people like Gevlon place 100% value on pay vs enjoyment. Or does he? Allow me to share with you two recent quotes from Gevlon related to making money:
At this point I’m unsure if I’ll be capable of making more in-game money in an hour than I could make by one hour of real life working and buying APEX. During EVE, BDO and my short time in Albion, this was achieved after learning the game.”
“Sure, in some economy focused games like EVE a good businessman can make more in-game money than by spending the same time in an average wage (Western) job and buying PLEX. But someone who has the brains to do it is probably not working in an average wage job and even my peak EVE income (about 150B/month = $27K/year) is low compared to a high-paying job
So, according to Gevlon himself he could make more money grinding the MMOs above then he could working his job that pays less than 27k. So is Gevlon a hypocrite in that he doesn’t do what he rants about all the time (money>all), an idiot for not selling his in-game wealth via RMT and instead showing up for his normal job for less pay, or just lying in the above about his in-game income and/or real income?
Or is the truth that, like everyone else, Gevlon doesn’t do what would pay him more because he doesn’t have the stomach to RMT, or doesn’t want to accept the uncertainty and risk that comes with that line of ‘work’ vs just showing up for his normal, acceptable, lower-paying but safer job? Or wait, is Gevlon also corrupt in his real job, and is accepting bribes and stealing lab equipment on the side? Yes, it must be that!
I’ll just also mention here that all of his ranting and raving about corruption only works for multiplayer games where RMT is not just possible, but popular-enough to generate significant income to lead to corruption, which itself is a small subset of all game dev work, but as always, fully breaking down a Gevlon argument isn’t needed, as just pulling on a single thread is enough to collapse the whole thing.
At the end of the day Gevlon writes what he writes because he needs someone other than himself to blame for his failures, in part because he thinks his readers place value in his success/failure (which itself is rather funny if you think about it). He didn’t fail in EVE because he wasn’t smart enough to make enough ISK to be more than a semi-popular meme, he failed because CCP is corrupt! He didn’t fail to reach his goal of the top 10% in LoL despite playing at a rate of the top .01% because he is a slow learner, he failed because Riot is corrupt! He wasn’t ‘successful’ in WoW because when he played, the game was already dumbed down enough for his ability and handing out welfare epics, he was ‘successful’ because Blizzard is too big to be corrupt! Albion Online devs didn’t ignore him because is has a mile-long track record of insanity and horrible, horrible ideas, they ignored him because they are corrupt! Guess what is he is going to say about his next game when he also ends up failing if he doesn’t find something WoW-easy?
Hardcore Casual 
Noizy Gamer, who has more than a little credibility, states that the Eve RMT industry used to be between 2.0 and 2.5 million U.S., and that was BEFORE skill injectors and 260 M ticks.
Yet you keep stating that the null sec sector, that has income that is orders of magnitude higher than every other part of the game, is not heavily involved in it, and that the leaders of the cartels are blameless.
You are less believable than the puppet tyrant running the states.
For the thousandth time, you want to explain how you think the RMT works, who is involved? Or you going to just toss out the above garbage again?
Edit: Also want to quote where in this post I say RMT isn’t happening in EVE?
Seriously though, what does that response have to do with anything in this post? Is Dinsdale botting his angry responses now based on the keyword RMT?
Since I seem to have a little credibility on the subject, let me say something about Gevlon’s claim of developers being bought out by ISK sellers. No seller has the cash required to pay someone in CCP off. The margins are too small to do something like that in EVE.
I guess I should add something to the size of the industry. The figure you quoted is sales, not profits. I’m not sure what the profits are, especially since so much of the ISK that eventually is purchased by players goes through the hands of two ISK sellers.
Shhh you. I want Dins to explain how an RMT empire works in EVE to everyone, so we don’t need your little details about margins, what numbers really mean, or how CCP profits most when they sell ISK directly vs 3rd part. Just let Dins explain it all to is, it’s going to be really great.
OK, I will take the bait.
Let’s play a little thought experiemnt.
Let’s pretend there is a gaming group (let’s called them Brutes) out there whose presence spans multiple games, some of which easily can be used for RMT purposes.
Let’s further pretend Brutes are notorious for gaming any system they can, and will do so with ruthless efficiency. We can assume that the leaders of Brutes are utterly amoral.
Let’s also pretend that Brute’s leader has already been caught proving what a monster he is by trying to get his acolytes bully someone into suicide. Let’s also pretend that the leader of this group was caught red-handed RMT’ing though a crowdsourcing escapade.
Let’s also pretend that it was well documented Brutes inserting their lead spy into the role of lead security at one of these gaming companies (let’s call that company CCR.)
We can assume that any company that allowed the leader’s social behaviour, his RMT’ing activities on the crowd-sourcing site, plus allowing a spy from such a notorious group into their company, well, is utterly incompetent. or actually complicit in Brutes’ activities.
Now, let’s also assume that Brutes’ leadership is, while proven amoral, is also quite intelligent and very good at monetizing their own player base.
So now let’s pretend that this group, given their control in and out of some game, decides to up the level of monetization. It would be a natural extension to begin RMT’ing, at the largest level possible, especially given the incompetence and/or complicity of a particular gaming company, like CCR.
So away goes that gaming group, doing what they want with impunity. It would also lead that this group might also go as far as to set up their own web site for RMT’ing purposes. That way, virtually all the in-game currency they sell is pure profit, as they are paying nothing for the product they are selling.
They would then cajole/force CCR to dramatically increase the in-game currency opportunities for that group, at the expense of all other gamestyles in that game. By doing so, not only do they devalue the in-game currency operations for all the other groups, increasing the demand for a product that they have so much more supply of.
The last thing we can pretend is that the CCR is well aware of what Brutes is doing, but CCR decided to strike a deal with the devil. Brutes is in direct competition with CCR, since CCR also sells in-game currency to its player base. But CCR has more of a problem with is credit card fraud and player’s accounts being hacked associated with RMT operations. So Brutes, knowing this, has a sit-down with CCR. much like that out of the movie Clear and Present Danger. Brutes promises to run a “clean” site, free of fraud, and even provide intel on other RMT groups operating within the game, as long as CCR looks the other way. CCR, realizing that RMT is inevitable, decides, given their long history of co-operation with Brutes, this is the best option available. Perhaps, Brutes even sweetened the deal by offering a percentage of the profits to CCR, or directly to certain key employees of CCR.
Now, the natural conclusion of such a thought experiment is that the company CCR has a huge, huge vested interest to never, ever allow this information to become public, due to the PR disaster it would be. So they protect Brutes at every turn, especially when Brutes money-making operations were threatened, by say, another RMT’er who ran an in-game casino. CCR was given the natural outlet of shutting down that threat to Brutes by tossing that other entity from the game, which partially appeased Brutes. To keep Brutes quiet and fully happy, CCR then gave Brutes a massive increase in currency creation opportunity by creating new game mechanics and NPC’s, plus hugely upgraded weapon platforms, which were available solely to Brutes and their kin in one sector of space.
That is how an RMT operation would be run by an extremely intelligent, efficient, and utterly amoral group.
Very cute, even if most of the facts are dead wrong (labeling a second, unsuccessful Kickstarter book about EVE as RMT is dumb even by your standards Dins, be better than idiotic Gevlon please). Also are you pretending Goons are the only Alliance to have a former member currently work at CCP? Or that CCP hiring a player has only ever happened in EVE? Or do such minor facts muddle your grant Grrr Goons fantasyland too much to acknowledge?
Plus you still haven’t touched how the RMT would actually work. You mention the leader is involved, but who else? Since so much of the Goons finances are public or semi-public, it can’t just be one person profiting without many, many others seeing the ISK disappearing. Plus since in your mind this is done via an in-house website (which site is that?), how many people do you think it takes to create and run such a site? How many others do you think are involved, what’s their cut, and why have exactly zero of them gotten upset and spilled the beans, something that has happened in just about every other facet of EVE over the course of its history, from T20 to disbanding BoB and the Casino War itself?
Also, if what you say is true and CCP not only knows about Goons RMT (yet oddly they didn’t know about IWI RMT until, again according to you, Goons tipped them off? Or how much of Russian null is allegedly bot space for RMT selling that CCP also allows/supports?), but supports Goons, why go through all the trouble of buffing Goon ratting and ISK generation and whatever else you think they do directly to help Goons and instead just secretly create ISK for Goons to sell on their RMT site directly? That would be much cleaner, impact the whole game far less, and produce more product to profit from, no?
Well, I have to agree fully with the word “pretend.” Otherwise the whole thing lacks substance and is refuted by actual real world facts. But I didn’t think Dins was really interested in RMT in any case. He just hates Goons and, by extension, CCP for not banning all Goons for not playing the game the way Dins thinks it should be played.
“Now, let’s also assume that Brutes’ leadership is, while proven amoral, is also quite intelligent and very good at monetizing their own player base”
This statement kinda stands out to me. How do Broots monetize their player base? In what ways does that differ from other Corps/Alliances? Do you consider maximizing efficiency within existing game mechanics to be ‘monetizing’?
Apparently Gevlon has never heard of Doom or Dark Souls before, therefore they are “obscure”. Funny stuff!
Listen its not Gevlon’s fault, it’s the crappy marketing. Also he heard that failing Doom 3 sold very, very badly. Sad!
Hey, $27k USD in Hungary probably goes further than $100k in California.
And there is nothing wrong, in principle, with a desire for ethically-clean games, or for drawing attention to the structural potential for corruption in various opaque F2P schemes. The problem Gevlon is running into is not that he’s mad and wrong but that people are perfectly willing to accept a certain amount of corruption in any system as long as it affects them fractionally and they can go about their day-to-day business in the ordinary way.
At the end of the day, games sell illusions and feelings. If rigging and corruption exist, but remain subtle and behind the curtain, everyone’s happy.
100k goes further in the world than 27k. I mean, money goes further in some small 3rd world country than Hungary, is that a good thing?
As for corruption in games, there is a mile-long gap between understanding that some level of RMT exists in any game where it makes sense, and believing that all game devs are corrupt and being paid off. The first everyone understands and accepts that in any environment, some people are going to act unlawful. It’s another, and utterly idiotic thing to blame one’s failures on rigging and corruption rather than a personal lack of ability.