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EVE Online has an image problem and possibly an actual corruption problem (though I’m not entirely convinced). For those of you following the story, you can find a summary of all the relevant details here. Corruption by admin staff is nearly as old as MMOs and there’s nothing new or particularly interesting about the EVE corruption scandal unless you are an avid player of EVE.
What IS interesting is CCP’s response (detailed in the same article above). They’re setting up a player-run task force to supposedly oversee the games’ development and will go so far as to fly the players on that task force to Iceland (where they are headquartered) regularly to…..Well, to do what, I don’t know. As Raph points out, the idea of flying some people out to walk around an office and magically detect corruption is a bit silly. I don’t mean to sound overly cynical, and I’m sure CCP has the best of intentions, but it’s pretty clearly an empty PR exercise designed to make the player representatives feel important, feel included in some sort of inner circle, and thus be pre-disposed to saying nice things about CCP.
The quote that caught me and made me go “ugh” though was this one, from Hilmar Petursson, CCP’s top exec (who generally rocks). He said,
“Eve Online is not a computer game. It is an emerging nation, and we have to address it like a nation being accused of corruption.”
I don’t know whether he was really serious when he said this or if it was an off-the-cuff remark but it is a nonsensical assertion.