[Jester's Trek] COTW: Scamming and the EULA
COTW: Scamming and the EULA
I've received the following statement or question five times now during my CSM run, and I thought it would be useful to make public what is becoming my standard answer to the question.
Here's the statement netted down to its basic form:
Scamming should be against the EULA. Don't you think so, Jester?
Here's what is becoming my standard response:
You are directly attacking one of the bedrock principles that EVE rests on. EVE is a sandbox controlled by player actions with the barest minimum action against players taken by CCP. It is quite literally laissez-faire capitalism taken to the farthest extreme. In a very real way, that principle is what a lot of EVE players play EVE for: it is not Star Trek, where humanity is a many times nicer version of itself. Instead, it is a world built without warning labels or consumer protection bureaus where you have to watch out for yourself. Stealing from people is a valid tactic within the game. Hell, CCP wrote a whole trailer video about it promoting this style of game-play.
In EVE, wherever possible, in-game problems are solved by the players, not the devs.
If scamming bothers you that much, why not start a searchable database of scammers that EVE players can reference, add to, and comment on? Then as it becomes a popular service, add in-game or RL advertising and make a few ISK/dollars for yourself? That is the sort of player-driven solution that compliments how EVE is built. This is how an EVE player solves an in-game problem, not another set of rules that CCP has to enforce.
It's a pretty harsh answer, but "harsh" is what EVE is about. Sorry I can't give you an answer you like better...
Might lose me a few votes, but that's what I believe on this topic. Here's the trailer that I reference in the response:
Thank you to everyone who has sent me this question!(1)
(1) In before a few dozen people redirect this post to say the opposite of what it says. "Jester says ganking isn't PvP! Jester says scamming should be against the EULA! It's right there in his blog posts!" ;-)
Source: COTW: Scamming and the EULA