Grevlon Goblin, well known as one of the richer players in EVE Online, has recently published a blog post detailing his self-funded campaign to attack and damage the CFC. It paints an interesting picture about the potential effect of massive piles of wealth on even the most powerful entities.
Looking at the numbers, it would seem that ISK spent effectively can have a quantifiable effect more than six times the amount invested. This does of course hinge entirely on the entities one hires to attack their target. It would seem that GG chose fairly well with Marmite, MoA, and Darwin’s Lemmings.
I don’t honestly think that the effect of these efforts are sustainable. Even the wealthiest players can’t control the tactics of their target. The CFC or any other target could easily adapt to mitigate the damage from these types of campaigns. There is also the opportunity cost of these efforts. The time spent managing a large scale campaign from the “buyer” side is time where potential ISK income is lost.
This combined with the nature of EVE markets means that competition will no doubt notice and exploit the distraction and chaos that this kind of operation will entail. And I suppose it would be just as easy for the person carrying out the operations to not only pay to attack their target, but then with some careful planning, they turn around and sell supplies to their target.
Whether something like that is feasible depends largely on how the target procures it’s war material, and if these things can be supplied. Hooray conjecture!
From my perspective, the idea that the wealthy elite of EVE would be tempted by this idea is somewhat flawed. Sure, the creation of content for their targets and mercs is good. But it must be said that many of these players seem to be more interested in the acquisition of wealth or the political maneuvers.
To me, this means that they would generally not be interested in the long term goals of destruction, especially of a potential client with whom they could easily expand their wealth.
The ultimate takeaway from this is that whoever actually undertakes this “quest” to upset power via wealth will have a hard time of it, and probably waste their time.
