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Bank heist at Eve Online

// July 4th, 2009 // p2p

- | Games:- ” ‘Virtual’ money isn’t really virtual,” p2pnet posted in Tuesday, going on, “A lot of people make a lot of real cash out of it. “And that’s why the news China has decided pretend money can no longer be exchanged for real goods and services is significant.” Now, “An Australian video gamer has stolen thousands of dollars from a bank inside an online game and converted them into real-world money,” says the CBC , going on: “The bank heist happened in Eve Online, where players mine in-game resources to build colonies and space ships in a futuristic space-themed online world. The game has hundreds of thousands of players who pay for access to the world. An in-game economy, complete with its own currency known as interstellar kredits, has emerged to enable trading transactions within the game. Numerous banks have even sprung up.” Not only but also, piracy and racketeering are all part of the game. And where there are banks, there are bank robbers, as John Herbert Dillinger (June 22 1903 – July 22, 1934) would probably testify, if he wasn’t dead. “Using the online name of ‘Ricdic’, the married father of two built a reputation as one of EVE’s few trusted players - a rare commodity in a game where repeatedly blowing up a violator’s spaceship was the only way to enforce some contracts,” says news.com.au . “More than 300,000 EVE subscribers pay $US15 ($19) a month to play and gain wealth by hard work, manipulating the market, or killing rivals in a distant future where humans have colonised the stars,” it says. Reuters has Richard, aka Ricdic, saying,  “It was a very on the spot decision” — that a, “spam email for a black market website that traded online money for real cash popped up on his screen, prompting him to exchange the virtual cash for real money to cover a deposit on his house and expenses related to his son’s medical problems”. “I saw that as an avenue that could be taken, and I decided to skim off the top, you could say, to overcome real life (difficulties),” he says in the story, which goes on: “Word of the theft spread quickly within EVE. Panicked customers started a run on the bank, worried that they would lose the money they had amassed by hunting space pirates or mining asteroids. “Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he could have stayed in the game. But exchanging the virtual cash for real dollars broke the rules and CCP banned Richard’s EBank accounts.” - . More p2pnet - China bans virtual cash, June 30, 2009 CBC - Gamer robs virtual bank to get real-world cash, July 3, 2009 news.com.au -  EVE banker that stole kredits a real Ricdic, July 3, 2009 Reuters - Gamer steals from virtual world to pay real debts, July 2, 2009 - - | | rss feed: http://-/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://-/index-wml.php -? -