CCP, the developer behind EVE Online, has announced a crack down on alleged corruption within the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The targets of this crackdown are three players in all, with one receiving a lifetime ban from the CSM and the game itself.
Brian W. Schoeneman, known in EVE Online as Brisc Rubal, is a real-life lobbyist for maritime law, and it’s pretty interesting, some would even say confirming of certain political biases, that such a person would be targeted in a corruption sweep in a video game. This is doubly shocking in a game live EVE, where corruption and exploitation of privileged information are seemingly par for the course. Despite this attitude, it seems that even CCP has a limit for how ruthless players can be.
Brisc Rubal campaigned to join the CSM starting in 2018, leveraging his connections within the playerbase, as well as some savvy within politics, to win a position on the council.
The CSM is a CCP-controlled organization made up of players from within the EVE community that help the developers make decisions with the input of the players. The typical position of a CSM member is one of need-to-know information, so it’s understandable why an NDA would be involved. So it’s a very serious matter that CCP alleges that a CSM member conspired with other players to manipulate the EVE economy.
Two other players named Dark Shines and Pandoralica are implicated in this scheme, and with both being high-profile members of a large alliance by the name of The Initiative, it’s certainly possible that this allegations are true. And in case you were wondering, CCP has banned both of these latter two accounts for one year, as well as confiscating some ISK and assets from the affected accounts.
“This misconduct was brought to us by the CSM themselves as an immediate threat to the integrity of the CSM as an institution. CCP’s stance on this is clear: regardless of the type of information shared, acts like this go against everything that the Council of Stellar Management stands for and will not be tolerated under any circumstances.”
The actual ban is being contested by both Brisc and the two others affected by the decision. Brisc alleges that he did nothing wrong, as do the other two players involved. Here’s a snippet of what Brisc had to say on the matter:
I received an email from a senior GM this morning informing me that I had been removed from the CSM and permanently banned from EVE Online for a breach of the CSM’s non-disclosure agreement. The email provided no information regarding the allegations, charges or evidence supporting such a ban. I am innocent of these allegations. I have not, and would not, violate the NDA I signed after being elected to the CSM. I have not provided any proprietary information furnished by CCP to me as a CSM member to anyone.
