EVE Online : Making News

**Ranger10** · 01-28-14, 05:14 PM

Recently a battle occurred in EVE and even the news networks are taking notice. According to this article, and my own knowledge of the game, more than $300,000 USD was lost in pixel space ships on the 27th. That's right, a house worth of REAL MONEY was lost in this game. For those who wonder this can be, let me explain the economics in case you aren't familiar with the game.

EVE allows you to gather resources which float in space in the form of asteroids, or moons ripe with minerals. You then take these resources and make ships, modules, ammo or anything you can think of to keep the thriving star empire afloat. Sounds like a normal game right?

Well, CCP (the creators of EVE) also allow you to purchase something called "PLEX's", or Pilot License Exchange, for a fee of $15 USD. You can then sell these in-game items for a nominal fee of around 400-700 million ISK, the game's currency. Easy right? Well, when you look at the value of the ISK destroyed and convert it back to US dollars, you get the $300,000 USD the article mentions.

To my knowledge, I cannot think of a single greater loss of real money in the history of any video game.

Here are a few links to articles about the game.

Fox News:
Unpaid bill costs gamers more than $300,000 in EVE Online | Fox News

theMittani.com:
B-R5RB: The Biggest Battle in All Of EVE | TheMittani.com

Pretty interesting stuff.

**SmokenScion** · 01-28-14, 05:33 PM

Nerds.

**CivilWars** · 01-29-14, 12:35 PM

So this is pretty cool. CCP put up a monument to the war in the system where the battle occurred.

EVE Online : Making News-titanomachy-png

**Guyver** · 01-29-14, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by SmokenScion

Nerds.

This..

..I read this article last night, and this is what stuck out to me:

During Monday's encounter, more than 100 Titan vessels were destroyed. The megaships, which are akin to the Death Star from "Star Wars," are the largest ships in the game and are worth about $3,000 each in real-world money. The Titans also take months for gamers to build. That's months in real time: a lot of nights, weekends and days-off actually spent constructing the virtual warships.

$3,000? Really?

I mean, I'm all for gaming but.....jeez.

**CivilWars** · 01-30-14, 08:13 AM

Obviously the reverse engineering doesn't work perfectly because most/all of the in game currency for these expensive ships is earned by doing things in game, but yes. If you were to start playing EVE today and wanted to buy a titan it would cost you roughly that to get the in game isk. This does not count the isk you would need to pay for a character to actually fly it.

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**Ranger10** · 02-01-14, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Guyver

$3,000? Really?

I mean, I'm all for gaming but.....jeez.

The flow of money is one way (or it usually is). We quantify the time it takes to get into one of those ships to illustrate just what you have on the line when you deploy one for combat. For some people it takes years to not only learn the in game skills, but accumulate enough ISK to buy one. So when and if you lose it, its a big fucking deal.

Name another game where the stakes are that high? And those stakes are what gives the game tremendous depth. If you die in BF4, L4D2, or any other game you wait a few seconds and come back. In order to give games more tension and greater anticipation people create clans, start tournaments, or even put money on the outcome of games. But in EVE, all that is built in.

Nothing can compare to sitting in your chair, and literally shaking with the thought that all the work you put into the game can be lost within minutes. This emotional swings of this twitch game are not for everyone. I would not recommend it if you have heart issues, anxiety, insomnia or an aversion to risk. Stick with the kiddy games, EVE is not for the faint of heart.

**CivilWars** · 02-01-14, 11:32 AM

To further that point one of the common terms you hear in EVE is ISK per hour. When some of us were in LAWN alliance we would kill NPC "rats" to make ISK(the in game currency mentioned previously), and we would typically make 100-150 million per hour. Many pilots that live in wormhole space make 400-600 million per hour. These are "active" ways of making ISK, but you can also make "passive" ISK by doing manufacturing, trading, arbitrage, etc. The average titan and fittings costs roughly 100 billion ISK, once again not counting the time or ISK to train the skills to be able to use it, so even if you are averaging 500 million ISK per hour it would take 200 hours of game time just dedicated to making ISK to be able to buy and fit a Titan.

Fleet fights in EVE are by far the most intense moments I have ever had in gaming.

**Alundil** · 02-01-14, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by SmokenScion

Nerds.

Originally Posted by Guyver

This..

Something something DOD something

Tappin dat talk

**Kanati** · 02-01-14, 05:30 PM

so the real question is.. if it takes all that time for someone to get a titan... and 8 bajillion titans were destroyed in that battle... how has the population of eve suffered since then? Because if I spent 200+ hours to get my ship and it got nuked and I was left with nothing... Well... I wouldn't be playing much longer I don't think.