28 October 2013

Debasing Yourself In Protest

Is, frankly, a bad idea. Ever since the Somer BLINK 'scandal' with the...what was it, the Golden Magnates? Everyone and their mother has gone off the fucking deep end since then. We've got all sorts of idiots making 'lottery' posts with the same basic idea: Buy GTC from person's referral link, get ISK. And don't forget the-blogger-formerly-known-as-Poetic-Stanziel quitting EVE over BLINK's 1 Quadrillion prizes, then quickly sliding off the fucking continental shelf into sheer insanity.

This isn't a healthy reaction by any means. It's just not good for anyone. How does tarring yourself with the same brush accomplish anything besides make you look like an utter dumbass? Honestly. It's like protesting against terrorism by being a terrorist. Not only is it ineffectual, but anyone who would have otherwise listened to you is now deafened to everything you've got to say.

I agree that the relationship between SomerBlink and CCP is suspiciously incestuous. I don't use Blink anymore myself - mainly because it's a waste of ISK that can be better spent on PvP with KILL or some other wormholer group, but also because, yes, the buying of GTC and getting a kickback on their site that can theoretically be turned into ISK strikes a bit too close to RMT for my comfort. I've dealt with the financial repercussions of it on an alliance level: when a director takes 2B of your SRP, blows it on Blink, then 'returns' the taken money via RMTed ISK...well, let's just say that rather sours me on it.

Not to say that I was fine with it before, because RMT by its very nature is a risk I was never and will never be willing to take. Plus, selling a billion ISK for $5 does devalue PLEX, which is (along with traditional subscriptions) CCP's primary income source - and this is precisely why all the stupid lottery threads on the forums are absolutely the wrong way to object to Blink's (supposed) RMT practices. Point is, doing this kind of shit is likely to hurt CCP's already shaky finances. And while I'm sure there's a few people out there who would not be bothered by that at all, or might even want CCP to go bankrupt, I'm reasonably certain that folks like DNSBLACK or the other grognards making those posts don't actually want EVE to die. There's much better reactions to this, such as the ingame riots a la Incarna. Or do any number of things that don't involve sticking a log into your own eye to point out the splinter in someone else's.

The long and short of it is, if you don't like RMT in any form...why the fuck are you engaging in it as a form of protest?

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