Massive EVE Online Battle Cost Players Thousands of Dollars

Written by: German Lopez (@LopezIRL) | January 28, 2013 8:48 am

35 Comments

EVE Online battle was culmination of long-term political conflicts

An EVE Online battle over the weekend involved more than 2,000 players and led to an estimated $22,000 in losses. The fight in CCP‘s sandbox MMORPG was the result of months of political tensions between two of the game’s major coalitions.

For years, the two coalitions — Honey Badger Coalition (HBC) and Cluster F*** Coalition (CFC) — worked together for common goals. Their biggest accomplishment was establishing a cartel that controlled one of the game’s most vital resources. Most recently, the two coalitions worked together to take down another coalition.

But that takedown led to rising tensions between HBC and CFC, which climaxed in the EVE Online battle that took place Jan. 27.

A single person’s mistake was the catalyst for the massive EVE Online battle. The accidental Franz Ferdinand moment came about when a CFC player controlling a Titan ship unintentionally warped to a low-security moon. The exposure of a lone Titan ship set off alarms across the universe, and HBC and CFC met in battle to make the best out of the situation.

Players estimated the EVE Online battle cost CFC the in-game money equivalent of about $20,000, while HBC only lost approximately $2,000.

The full summary of the EVE Online battle and the events that led to it, with all the technical details, was posted on Reddit.

For me, EVE Online continues being a game I never intend to play, but reading about its intricate political conflicts is always interesting. This EVE Online battle in particular shows the drama and real-life costs behind the conflicts — a depth of emotional and financial investment I can’t imagine taking place in any other MMORPG.

What do you guys think? Would you throw real money at an EVE Online battle or a battle in any other MMORPG? Are there any games you like reading about despite never playing them? Make sure to comment below.

Massive EVE Online Battle Cost Players Thousands of Dollars

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http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby

Wait, forgive me for being ignorant of EVE Online, but how exactly did a little PvP cost them real money?
- http://twitter.com/vgfreak2008 Justin Munyer
  
  Probably figured with the ISK to PLEX conversion. PLEX, if you don’t know is an in game item that can be bought for real money, and is worth 30 days of game time. It can be used, or traded/sold in game.
- InvaderMig
  
  He is just doing the ISK to real money conversion so you can understand in real terms how much was lost. ISK, the in game currency actually has real world monetary value because of how the currency works in game. They didn’t actually spend all that in real money, but lost the in game equivalent of that much. If that makes sense.
http://twitter.com/KliffUndersn Klifford von Undersn

Fascinating
http://www.facebook.com/rodriguezcorreamiguel Miguel Rodriguez

Holy s***.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy-OCallaghan/100002977065964 Tommy O’Callaghan

They lost like….real money? i dont get it..
- Joey Biggs
  
  In EVE you can spend real money to buy ships and other things. SO they lost about $20,000 in the real money they spent in order to upgrade and purchase the ships they had. A lot of ppl were involved of course.
  - 7BitBrian
    
    No, In EvE you can buy Game Time with real money and transfer it into an item in the game and sell it for in game money. SO you can spend $#15 for a month of time but instead of using it sell it to another player for 400 million isk.
    
    So they worth $22000 worth of isk, not real money. Meaning they exploded about 750 billion isk worth of ships and mods and such.
http://www.facebook.com/ze.pedro.10441 Zé Pedro

“For me, EVE Online continues being a game I never intend to play”
Seriously? Do you call yourself a journalist or newsrighter?
- Deathstar2x
  
  At least he’s being honest instead of pretending to play the game.
  
  There’s also a link to the source.
http://www.facebook.com/Kristian.Delacruz Kristian Kineser Middelhede

They did NOT lose real life money, the ingame money they lost WAS EQUIVALENT TO 22’000$

Yes you can spend real life money on PLEX (Ingame item that gives 30 days of sub) and sell it ingame. you cannot buy ships and stuff for $ and CFC did not spend 20’000$ on ships which they lost, it’s just gamebreaker who brings “news” about a game they know nothing about.
http://www.facebook.com/Cammy0380 Cameron Grunow

I have never really got into EVE, but Stories like this are so interesting to me. Political Tensions, Cartels controlling resources.It sounds like EVE has things happening that other MMOS try to force on us through npc stories.
- InvaderMig
  
  Yea, Eve has been around for many years and seems to have grown into a living breathing virtual world. There is no other MMO where this happens unless you count Second Life which I don’t. I don’t play, but reading these stories really makes me respect what CCP was able to inspire. I was about ready to use the word create, but lets be honest, the community created what we see of Eve not the devs, and that’s how it should be. Bravo CCP and the crazy Eve community. You always grasp the interest and respect of everyone in the gaming community with events like this.
Vikram Gupta

OMG CFC and HBC are huge, they own vast chunks of space in eve, they get to farm this space without any hassel. They don’t have to spend IRL money to buy ships.

You lose ships all the time in Eve, this weekend i took part in a FFA where i lost 80 ships, they were all cheap frigates offcourse , but that still cost 50Mill all together.

If ppl fueled their eve activity with IRL money, ppl will go broke.
Ravenstorm

Beautifull !! Glorious !! Finally, The two big cahoonas get it on !
Can’t wait for more of this. The gloves came of for just a bit. CFC got a slap in the face.
Smart move from HBC, bringing in CFC enemies in coop to nail CFC.

Should’ve known The_Mittani wouldn’t just be drawn in like a sucker. He most probably has paid spies amongst HBC so it was less a spur of the moment decision then it was an informed one.

I wonder though, how did HBC get a coalition with CFC’s enemies on so short notice?
Was it brilliant strategic work on short notice? Or was it an ingenious trap? In which case I would care to question the Titan’s commander who jumped accidentally, if I were CFC.
- InvaderMig
  
  Well from everything that I read on reddit and various forums, Pandemic Legion (for the most part) held the front for about an hour until HBC put together reinforcements as quickly as possible. As far as the randoms, apparently all they needed to do was inform the game pop that The Goons were vulnerable and they flooded the battle like rats to cheese. Apparently no one in Eve likes the CFC, aside from those who hold membership. I was reading up stuff for hours about this and it was so awesome. Almost makes me wish this was the show Syfy was making instead of Defiance. An Eve show would rock.
- Capricamper I
  
  A quick side note, it was made clear by Mittens and Shadoo there will be NO war Between CFC and HBC both sides went home after this.
  - Ravenstorm
    
    Yeah, I went and read all the rest after my first reaction too, seems it was just a little eff up. I’m rather glad the two coalitions are so into keeping the balance. It means they’ll need to be keeping guard of their respective borders and such.
    
    Which means when Star Citizen will launch in a few years or so, it might be possible for new ppl in the genre of play to actually get something done without getting blasted into peaces every time.
    
    Well, wishfull thinking ofcourse. Imagine what would happen if all those guys from EVE came into that game. That would be crippling for every other player in that game. That’s like the Zerg or Tyrannids arriving in system and erradicating everything.
Daniel Glidewell

All right guys. Hear me out on this. The author’s only mention of spending RL money on a game is at the very end of the article, and I think it was put there as simply a take-away. I think some of you are misunderstanding his intentions. I believe he is using the $22,000 figure in order to translate meaning to the general reader who may or may not be familiar with EVE.

Seeing as how in-game currency can be exchanged for currency that may be used in RL markets, they simply used that exchange rate and the ISK value of in-game assets in order to calculate the RL value of those assets.

For example, 1,000,000 ISK doesn’t sound like a lot to people who are familiar with the game, but to a layman it sounds astronomical. This $22,000 figure is much more effective at translating meaning to an audience that may or may not be familiar with EVE’s currency.
- http://twitter.com/LopezIRL German Lopez
  
  You got it. It’s just to make the figure easier to understand for non-EVE players.
  
  It’s important to remember Gamebreaker covers a broader audience.
Hicks64

If reddit is correct the average cost per person was like $2.50 worth of currency, which I’d pay in a heart beat if I could experience this!
DoctorOverlord

I’m in the same boat of never intending to play EVE but still finding news stories like this rather entertaining. Particularly with the unique element of losses being given dollar values.
http://twitter.com/LiamRdsn Liam Richardson

I’ve played eve, it’s got a pretty awesome atmosphere/community but I sucked at the ship piloting and it really hinders your enjoyment of it if you keep losing ships all the time.
Revanhavoc

I read this article in a 1940′s radio broadcasters voice and it was awesome.

I would love to participate in a video game that has a diverse economy and player driven meta-game that keeps up my interest. I found EVE wasn’t my thing even though I love space sims like the X-series, but I still think many of CCP ideas should be implemented by other developers.
http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex

DANG, i can see my ship from here… getting shot at
great battle
Azzras

You pay money to play games all the time. Not many truly free games out there.
http://twitter.com/FishBaitism Fish Bait

Wish I`d been there for that. Sort of
If you search Youtube for ”
Pretty Lights Battle of Asakai [Higher quality]” there`s a decent clip of the scrap
http://www.facebook.com/kaj.udanga Kaj Udanga

I like the pretty lights and all but is it just me who has no idea what’s happening in the video? And, what’s the big red nova-like explosions? How come the big ship wasn’t shooting back?
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Lol, the reddit post was a great read. Seems the Titan ship accidentally jumped to this moon, instead of bridging a fleet to the moon. This left the Titan ship alone and vulnerable near a low security moon. Because this was a low security moon, the Titan ship could not use its major weapon systems. (Guess it must be a game rule.)
  
  I sure do love hearing about this game. I could never play it, but it’s fun to follow.
- Capricamper I
  
  A couple of things, the red nova like explosions are the Effect when a Capital or super-capital class ship Jumps into system they are not a weapon of any kind. This Video was near the very end of the fight with 95% of the fighting already done, all in all over 35 titan class ships were on field and over 100 Super Carriers so this Vid only shows a very small portion of the Fight (there is better ones on Youtube) The reason the big ship was not shooting back is because he was likely incapacitated and did not have the power to activate his guns.
  - http://www.facebook.com/kaj.udanga Kaj Udanga
    
    Ahhh… sitting duck. Now I get it. Thanks for the replies!
7BitBrian

All and all it was around 750 billion isk worth of damage right?

750000000000 that’s 10 zeroes bro.

God I love this game.
Capricamper I

Dont worry nobody spent real money here
Capricamper I

Game time can be bought from CCP who will then send it to your account in game Via a Item called Plex, you can than use it in Game or sell it to other players essentially giving you in-game currency for RL currency. This is NOT illegal, but there is no legal way to turn Plex into RL currency
Kevyne_Shandris

When folks translated ISK to $ the $ is in fact real money.

Unlike other MMOs where there’s gold and plat without actual RL money transactions, players can buy time cards/PLEX and sell them for ISK currency in EvE. So a player selling 10 time cards he bought for $35 a piece, that translates to $350 worth of ISK currency. $22,000 is the ISK conversion value of say a capital class ship (that costs billions of ISK to build in itself).

In EvE you can truly lose RL money. They play for high stakes, and why faction clashes are rare events (too expensive), and actual PvP is with cheaper interceptors that can be repaired/replaced/geared with income earned from dailies. Losing heavier class ships that takes 2 weeks or longer to replace ensures these types of wars are not common.

Massive EVE Online Battle Cost Players Thousands of Dollars

EVE Online battle was culmination of long-term political conflicts

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