Real Money Trading is bad, mkay?

Real Money Trade (RMT) in EVE has been a problem for a long time now. Those of us who have been in the Customer Support business since the beginning of EVE could tell you a lot of horror stories about the damages ISK selling and buying has resulted in to date, and still does. Almost all cases of keyloggers, phishing sites, hacking attempts, and the like, are directly attributable to real money trading.

There are also the macro miners and mission runners, complex farmers and assorted rabble of this sort that causes general nuisance and keeps the regular players from being able to enjoy EVE as they would like. Price of minerals, ore, ice, implants and so on is driven down by this kind of activity and thus ways for normal players to make ISK are effectively ruined. Finally, the RMT element will not hesitate to commit real world crimes, such as credit card fraud or theft, to keep their business running.

Purchasing ISK directly supports and encourages these illegal activities!

While we are determined to root out the evil that are the ISK sellers in EVE, we do realize that there will always be demand for ISK. For those that need more ISK than they can gather via normal game play, there is another way. We are of course talking about the Secure ETC Trading System, designed and created by CCP's finest. Now, every time we start denouncing the ISK sellers, some people call us hypocrites because we allow the ISK for ETCs but not ISK for RL money and claim this is the same thing. Nothing could be farther from the truth; the differences are enormous.

When you buy an ETC and then sell it for ISK via the Secure ETC Trading System you are directly contributing to the growth of EVE as the code will be applied to an account and someone will be using it to play. Some players do not have the means to pay for their subscriptions with credit cards or similar and the Secure ETC Trading System helps them pay and play. The economics are quite different as well since wealth is redistributed between active members of the community rather than injected into the game.

Another thing is scale. The regular player who wants a few hundred millions in his wallet will have no problem using the Secure ETC Trading System for this purpose, while at the same time helping another EVE player pay for his subscription. Supply and demand dictates that it would be very difficult for an individual to gather tens of billions of ISK with the secure system and thus game balance will not be upset. Corporations, or even Alliances, should not be able to fuel their wars and other activities like they have done in a number of cases with ISK bought for real world money.

For a list of official ETC resellers, please go here:

//secure.eve-online.com/etc.aspx

Although somewhat hampered by limited resources, we are doing our best to keep RMT in EVE at bay, such as the recent deployment of new features to curtail the real money trade spam that players were receiving. This new system includes a few new trial restrictions that should not significantly affect actual players, as well as a large number of behind the scenes features that we have added in. These so far have been very successful, and we have seen a very dramatic reduction in the amount of spam that is reaching players.

However, we need your help. If you need ISK, then please use the Secure ETC Trading System. This system is completely secure and risk free and the ISK you get this way is yours to keep, while we will mercilessly remove ISK bought for real money from ISK sellers, and we remove tens of billions of illegally purchased ISK every day. If the illegally bought ISK has been spent, then the wallets will simply be put in the negative, making any form of market activity impossible, as well as preventing any actions that require ISK to be spent such as new clones or buying ship insurance.

A permanent warning will also be placed on accounts involved. In extreme cases and for repeated offenses a permanent ban from our server will be the end result. Also note that trading ETCs outside the Secure ETC Trading System is a violation of our rules and will result in warnings for those doing it, and eventually bans should they persist.

We know that most players out there dislike the macroers, ISK spammers, complex farmers and other RMT spawn just like we do and we ask for your assistance in dealing with them. Tell your friends that buying ISK is against the EULA if the subject is raised. Tell them about the Secure ETC Trading System. Help us raise awareness about this whole issue and together we can change the world of EVE for the better!