I disagree, and quite strongly.

Whilst I've not played EVE, I have respect for CCP and how they've shaped EVE. They have created a world that's true, not one that's nice. Almost every MMO is basically handed to you on a silver platter: You die, nothing is lost. You never find yourself below no currency (i.e. no actual debt) and so forth.

EVE is brutal, just like real business. Companies can rise and fall overnight, and that's how EVE appears to work. If people are 'stupid' enough to fall for your scam, well, it's their problem. CCP rarely get involved because it's easy to cheat the system, and they could be taking ISK that belongs to someone else. In business (and often life) you can't just stomp your feet and your money is back. You have to make conscious, educated decisions - It's what EVE is about.Bullies and Thieves do get to do well in EVE, but that's no different to real life. You go into EVE knowing full well that everything can be lost, and if it happens, then you've little right to complain.

Kudos to the guy who pulled it off. He never exploited or cheated, he simply played the system for what it is.

Yet another shining example of why EVE is more interesting than every other MMO out there. Instead of fighting Scripted Boss Battle #362, players have the ability to make themselves the villains if they so choose. And you don't even have to play the game to reap the rewards of EVE's freedom and flexibility, as you can read about the latest story from the safety of your own basement. The player-created history of EVE is a million times more compelling than the developer-created lore in other games.

Also, attempting to make moral judgments on other players based on the game only reveals your own shallowness and lack of insight. Do you also heap large amounts of hate and condemnation on the person who killed you in Modern Warfare 2. "It's just a game..." So obviously simple, and yet somehow you dismiss it because it doesn't suit your narrow idea of how a game should be played. Just as people aren't murderers because they blew you up with a rocket launcher in Counter Strike, people aren't evil because they scammed you in EVE. Next time, play smarter. I know I will...

It's not so bad as that. No one forced anyone to invest with curzon, and anyone who looked intently could have seen there was no substance to the offer. It's just that you simply cannot trust anyone you don't know well, and even then keep an eye on your corp permissions.

EVE is odd in that the players can be helpful to a point, but in the next breath do gameplay actions that can ruin you, or become incredibly callous.

I agree with jslim419. Any society that lasts any amount of time at all in the real world has laws, and one of the first laws created has to do with theft. Eve may be the "wild west" of space, but even the old west had laws and enforcement when you came into town.

As for the "it's only a game" argument, that money didn't magically appear in player bank accounts. It was earned -- often through a lot of very tedious repetition. When you steal from someone in-game like this, you are effectively stealing their time.

Games are supposed to be fun. That's why we play. But when one person's fun comes from the destruction of multiple other people's fun, that is a bad thing for any game that doesn't want to spend its lifetime in niche status. Sooner or later the wolves have driven off all the sheep, and all that's left is other wolves.

It's a sandbox game. The authority is for the player's to handle. If you want authority, you need to be the enforcer. Since players are not there to enforce, scams run wild.

Look up the youtube video of that bratty kid whose mom deleted his WOW account LOL.

I can relate to the loss of ISK (I've had many expensive ships go down in flames), but that's the joy of EVE. It all flows into the same stream. Like in the real world, wealth isn't finite, those that lost it can create more.

i could not agree more.
However, I have played EVE and enjoyed it quite a lot.

I just cannot get this: Why do they always have to portray the possibilities and "freedom" of EVE by showcasing scams, jackassery and exploit of game mechanics and all that?

I will give you the TL;DR and quite common description of what this guy did, what happens all the time in EVE:
Bored player robbed the corp hangar before he quit or changed corp.


EVE is a good game, it has its strengths and weaknesses. But what truly is amazing is the ability of CCP, the press and the fanbase to make such a fuss about the most idiotic bullshit that happens in EVE and say "and this is what makes EVE great".

While your theories about morality as it pertains to internet pixels are very interesting, eve just doesn't work like that.

Whether between players or alliances, eve is about competition. The goal is to get ahead, and the only way to do that is at the expense of those you pass on the way.

Tell me: If a scammer who steals billions of isk is morally bankrupt, what about an alliance leader (pick one at random) who starts a war and seizes or destroys enemy assets worth hundreds of billions? Will you assert that he has the ethics of a genocidal dictator?

Conflict on all scales is the soul of eve. Between Curzon and this alliance leader, we have two people playing the game in a legitimate manner. Both take and/or destroy other people's assets, both are better off for it, the same as any other player.

You might say that the difference is betrayal of trust, but again: Eve doesn't work like that. You may notice that no eve players are here crying about their losses or accusing Curzon of being a horrible, horrible person. Is it more likely that we are all sociopaths, or that we are normal people who simply understand that by playing eve we opt in to a vicious, hypercompetitive system?

In eve, the stakes are astronomical and always represent a massive investment of labor. To cope with the fact that sooner or later everybody loses, the eve community has cultivated to a fine art the ability to not take itself too seriously. I recommend following their example when discussing game events, rather than passing moral judgments.