The great victimless heist

I still follow two blogs that write about EVE and they both wrote about the 1+ trillion ISK heist, where “The Judge”, a leadership figure in the alliance CO2 have emptied wallets and sold structures to enemies, locking out the members.

First, let’s marvel in the shamelessness of Goons and the lack of self-awareness of Syncaine:

(Syncaine source first comment, Goon source) This was made spicier by the fact that CCP clearly helped the thief by banning his opponent gigx for real life threats (we’re still waiting on the ban of The Mittani for “if you want this guy kill himself”).

But the post isn’t about CCP being CCP, Goons being Goons and Syncaine being a fool. It’s about the existential question: “is it a heist at all”. I mean, who are the victims here? The obvious answer is “CO2”, but is it a person? No, it’s an entity that was about to be disbanded anyway by the own words of the “thief”.

Sure the line members lost the 15% asset safety that they have to pay to get their stuff moved to lowsec – unless they can make a better deal with someone who can access the station or maybe able to perform the unspeakable feat of moving an alt into Karmafleet. But this loss is next to nothing for any player.

They also lost their ratting field, but any alliance that takes their corps or them as individual members have ratting field. If you were in CO2 for the space, you’ll be somewhere else doing the same in no time. The loss is a few days of inconvenience.

Finally they lost their ability to play the CO2 way, having to adapt to a new culture. Except there isn’t any to lose or adapt to. Most EVE alliances, ran by monetizers are the same: rat alone or with your alts, pay tax, fleets are optional. You can change alliance in no time and without any emotional work. Hell, if some player was offline and his corp joins TEST which has access to the station, he can return and keep doing what he was doing without noticing anything.

To lose something, you must have something. These alliances have nothing. No goals, no identity, not even social connection. Just anoms to rat in solitude. Nothing to care about.

This wasn’t a heist, it was just rebranding/house cleaning. EVE isn’t interesting to play, even if you can look over the fact of blatant CCP interference – again. The players agree:

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Political PS: Hillary Rodham Clinton believes that the lesson from the book 1984 is to trust your leaders, the press and the experts: