In a not so surprising turn of events, CCP has finally acted against the usage of EVE Online for gambling and other activities after years of player outrage and internal investigation. This change is laid out in the CCP Dev Blog released ahead of the upcoming transition to EVE Online: Ascension. Or the free to play change as most of you will know it.
The salient portion of the new EULA is detailed below:
This change is related to the CONDUCT part of the EULA, specifically Section B, which has been updated as follows:
B. Selling Items and Objects
You may not transfer, sell or auction, or buy or accept any offer to transfer, sell or auction (or offer to do any of the foregoing), any content appearing within the Game environment, including without limitation characters, character attributes, items, currency, and objects, other than via a permitted Character Transfer as described in section 3 above. You may not encourage or induce any other person to participate in such a prohibited transaction. You may not use, transfer or assign any game assets for games of chance operated by third parties. The buying, selling or auctioning (or any attempt at doing so) of characters, character attributes, items, currency, or objects, whether through online auctions, newsgroups, postings on message boards or any other means is prohibited by the EULA and a violation of CCP’s proprietary rights in the Game.
In short, this addition to the EVE Online EULA means that as of the launch of EVE Online: Ascension, players will be prohibited from using in game assets and currency, as well as the EVE IP, to take part in or promote gambling services or other games of chance that are operated by third parties.
With this in mind, as of this announcement we have taken action against two organizations that are currently offering third party services based around gambling and games of chance:
- The third party service IWANTISK has been shut down in game, and all ISK and assets have been confiscated after extensive and exhaustive investigation has brought forward compelling evidence of large-scale Real Money Trading. Permanent account suspensions have been issued against those involved.
- The third party service EVE Casino has been shut down in game, and all ISK and assets have been confiscated after multiple and sustained breaches of our Developer License Agreement. Permanent account suspensions have been issued against those involved.
Please note: CCP will not be issuing reimbursements based on outstanding ISK or asset balances with either of the above mentioned organizations that have been subject to account action and/or ISK and asset confiscation.
This marks a dramatic turn of events that has quite a large number of players cooking up conspiracy theories and wild ideas about how this all went down. The main Reddit thread is a goldmine of salt, wild speculation and genuine questions from players whose emotions run the gamut from overjoyed to terrified.
It’s understandable why players are glad to see gambling go. The economic influence on EVE Online was made blatantly obvious when IWantISK bankers bankrolled the war against GoonSwarm Federation-ally SpaceMonkey’s Alliance that eventually transformed into World War Bee. Check out the coverage of World War Bee.
It would also seem that many of the heads and admins of these gambling sites had little clue this change was coming. With prominent IWISK bankers 1ronbank and Lenny Kravitz2 cashing out just mere weeks ago. Perhaps most telling of all is the mean-spirited and somewhat incoherent reaction of the admin of IWantISK:
“Hello everyone! We are working hard to recover our accounts as well as your ISK. You might also want to try asking CCP for your ISK back to see how quickly they deny you because CCP Peligro does not care. CCP Peligro has proven yet again that this is a personal vendetta for him as he even tweeted vindictive posts about this (now deleted by him from his twitter). He has blamed you for RMT and has taken your ISK. We are also being falsely accused of RMT and if we cannot recover your ISK for you, we will pursue this legally as we have already found grounds. (Keep in mind somer blink was allowed to pay their clients out) On another note: Gambling sites are not banned until November. This means you can set up a gambling site until then! Contact me at [email protected] if you would like me to set up a copy of IWI for you to run for your corp or alliance in this final month we will call, EVE GAMBLES MONTH . Setting up a new site for yourself does NOT violate the EULA and does not mean RMT as you will not be paying for any ISK or assets. Simply a copy paste of my code that I will set up on a server for you. Cheers! In the end of it all, if CCP decides to keep my account banned even though I know I did nothing wrong, I will develop IWI 1.0 into a P2P website with no central bank or central hub which means CCP will not be able to ban our system and you, the players, will receive YOUR ISK from other players using a mass pay and honor system.(P2P). We will get you your ISK. If they unban my account I can develop IWI into something that is in-game competitions and tournaments of sorts. Races even. But to flat out ban with no proof (as always) is very spiteful to the EVE community. “
Threatening legal action and then encouraging people to compromise the same rules that IWISK allegedly broke may not be the smartest play. Myself, and many other EVE players, are inclined to believe CCP if they explicitly state you were engaged in RMT like this. You were part of the problem that needed to be fixed, and CCP did just that. This is from someone who defended your site and promoted it on this site of my own volition.
As you may have guessed, ISK Mogul Adventures will no longer be promoting any EVE gambling, including but not limited to; IWantISK, EVE-bet, nor any other sites. Ads and pages linking to these sites are already removed, and I will work on removing posts promoting the site in the coming days. So long gambling in EVE, you will not be missed.